the point was to tax them.......semantics is what causes no action to be taken......money talks....discussion gets nothing done other than allowing people to vent....no solution

In the near future, there may be more developments in non-lethal weapons. The police may be able to send in some remote control type of robot armed with some type of non-lethal weapons. it looked like that was needed in Uvalde, where the Police were not decisive enough about the situation. A remote control door and wall demolishing robot would have also been useful. Even making a hole in the wall big enough to send in a few tear gas grenades would have helped.

Either that, or they can encourage people who shouldn't have guns, to get lots of them, and throw billions at lobbyists to ensure that this happens.

Then, everyone in the states can just kill each other off, and "our enemies" don't have to get their hands bloodied. They just come in and loot the place.

So when it happens to your kids/grandkids/nieces or nephews or "any kid you might possibly give a crap about" while they're in school one day...

You'll just shrug it off. Afterall, boys will be boys, but dangit they have the right to their gun!

None of it matters. It's a strawman, a red herring, a logical fallacy.

The "problem" has nothing to do with definitions of anything at all. The "problem" is that people who shouldn't have firearms, have them anyway, and are using them to do what firearms are built to do: kill. They're killing people, with devices that are intended to kill, that is their primary function, the thing they were created to do. And they're killing people with a device that they shouldn't be allowed to have.

Any device that's *primary* function is to kill, should require that you have proven capable and qualified, in every way, shape, and form, to accept the responsibility of having such a device. And that means background checks and licensing with actual tests for competency using the device.

The "problem" in this specific thread, is that it exists to deflect from the actual problem.

Not counting car bombs or pressure cooker bombs........ a blunt instrument like a hammer would not be a weapon of choice for a mass murderer - it would be more likely a spur of the moment of passion type of weapon of choice. Because bystanders would be more likely to quickly intervene against some killer swinging a hammer than a killer holding a firearm. The most effective firearm of choice would be a semi-auto rifle or one with a bump stop device attached.

.....Why is a semi-automatic rifle a more effective weapon of choice as opposed to handguns? The rifle gives a killer a greater separation distance from the crowd that he targeted. Thus giving the opportunity to gain the best position so as NOT to be easily counterattacked by Police or civilians. The shooter in the suburb of Chicago that dressed as a woman was at the top of a building and had a low wall in front of himself for protection. The Las Vegas shooter killed 60 people from the window of an elevated hotel building. He used rifles and a bump stop accessory.
.....Five or so people in a crowd could be killed by a demented person running through a crowd using a handgun or handguns, but it would be more likely that someone in the crowd could stop them than someone using a rifle from distance and a better position. A more simple way to look at the rifle vs pistol question - is that Army snipers use rifles, not pistols. A greater % of all murders may be perpetrated by pistols than rifles, but the AR-15 type rifle and the AK-47 are the weapons of choice for the DOMESTIC terrorist rifle. These rifles are the firearms that are causing the MOST FEAR AND APPREHENSION among children returning to school soon and what most comes to an adult's mind when they are inside a church or at a large public event. Basically, the TERROR component for those RIFLES is greater than for PISTOLS. The smartest course for America to do is to discontinue the sales of semi-auto rifles, remove those found by police during crimes, and do buybacks in a way similar to that done by Australia and many other countries that have reduced their mass murder events to near ZERO !

Yes, 300,000 sounds more reasonable and there could be a reporting range depending on definitions.

In the Las Vegas shooting 60 people were killed. It was done basically with a rifle - the preferred weapon of choice by killers PLANNING to kill large numbers of unrelated people. That PRODUCES terror and has people running and panicking when they hear a car backfire and they are in a crowd. The large mass murder PLANNED events of DOMESTIC terrorists are what has people looking over their shoulders at sports events, concerts, and churches.

Pistols are more likely to be involved in UNPLANNED murders of fewer people than rifles.
........I am NOT suggesting confiscation. What I am suggesting is that at the present day DRAMATIC increased rate of mass murders, eventually, society will be forced to say, "no mas" and strike a BALANCE between the insatiable greed of the gun manufacturers and the rights of Americans to NOT be gunned down in public !

That is an older quote from an older time that was applicable when DOMESTIC terror was much less of a problem. And actually, most Police complain about the fact that they are OUTGUNNED by the bad guys. So today Mr. Cooper might agree that because of manufacturers' greed and too many guns on the street in 18-year-old hands that the bad guys have flipped the script on the good guys.

That is exactly why Australia and many other counties made laws against all semi-automatic rifles and did buybacks. Then their mass murder events dropped to nearly zero

Crime and criminal activity and mass murder and DOMESTIC terrorism also cost society in America lots of MONEY.

Australia and other counties NOT led around by the nose by the NRA solved that very problem by making certain classes of firearms illegal. If DOMESTIC terrorism continues to increase as it has in the last 2 years the American people's need for less bloodshed will override the greed of the NRA.

There are several sources one can look at.
The federal government states 77.2% Public Mass Shootings: Database Amasses Details of a Half Century of U.S. Mass Shootings with Firearms, Generating Psychosocial Histories | National Institute of Justice


EveryTown is a gun control organization. They state 81% are with handguns.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds

I do my best to be very realistic with my calculations and choose the lower number.

If that were true then no bad guys would be in prison and we would not need prisons.

Did we not have an earlier post that correctly stated that the mentally ill are more likely to be abused than to do the abuse?