"Thoughts and Prayers"

[dbjork6317]

I don't want to hear from the Left about any sort of gun laws until they talk openly about Chicago, every Monday, in a National presser. It happens every weekend, where the gun laws are the toughest in the the country.

Our 2nd Amendment, is already infringed upon. We have to pay taxes for guns and ammo, and have back ground checks. I say give everyone a gun, and tell them, "play stupid games, win stuipd prizes".

Same for set belts, helmets, being fat and lazy...

More laws will never work for stupid people, and criminals...

Spoiler: 51 people shot over Memorial Day

51 people shot over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, the most violent in five years

About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district where there were two mass shootings. At least 23 people were shot on the South Side and four downtown.

chicago.suntimes.com

51 people shot over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, the most violent in five years​

About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district where there were two mass shootings. At least 23 people were shot on the South Side and four downtown.​

By Sun-Times Wire

Updated May 31, 2022, 11:04am EDT

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Family members watch as Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death early Sunday during a party on the Englewood neighborhood block on the South Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times



Chicago experienced its most violent Memorial Day weekend in five years — 9 killed, 42 wounded — despite stepped up police patrols and a focus on neighborhood programs that city officials hoped would provide peaceful alternatives.


About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district, the 11th, where there were two mass shootings on Sunday. On the South Side, at least 23 people were shot. And downtown, where there has been a spike in shootings all year, four people were hit by gunfire.
The weekend was the most violent since 2017, when seven people were killed and 45 people were wounded, according to Chicago police data. The year before, 69 people had been shot over the long holiday weekend.


This past weekend’s toll is sharply higher than last year, when three people were killed and 34 others were wounded.


Police work the scene where five people were shot near an elementary school May 29, 2022 on the West Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
The Chicago Police Department had canceled days off over the weekend, but Police Superintendent David Brown was vague last Friday about the numbers of additional police officers assigned to work.

He would only say the safety plan included foot, bike and roving patrols; traffic safety, DUI saturation and carjacking task force missions; and gang and gun and organized retail theft investigations.
At the same news conference, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said weekend programs in 15 high-crime neighborhoods — including music-and-game-filled “kickbacks” with DJs — would be held later into the night to fill gaps pinpointed in conversations with young people in those neighborhoods.
On Saturday, faith leaders led a march for peace down Michigan Avenue. “There will be no silence till we end the violence,” a group of about 50 people chanted as they marched down the Mag Mile to Millennium Park.


A woman watches as Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death during a party.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Many of the weekend shootings occurred in neighborhoods long troubled by gun violence.

• In Lawndale, five people were wounded after gunmen opened fire on a crowd marking the anniversary of another teen’s killing. A 16-year-old girl was among the wounded in the shooting early Sunday morning in the 800 block of South Karlov Avenue. Shell casings and at least 97 evidence markers could be seen in the street outside Daniel Webster Elementary School.
• Later Sunday, a man was killed and four others wounded, including a gunman, during a domestic incident in Humboldt Park. The shooting led to a standoff with a police SWAT team. A gunman, 23, was arrested over an hour later and treated for a gunshot wound, police said.

Other fatal shootings from the weekend between 5 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Tuesday:

• Three men were wounded, one fatally, in a shooting Monday in Burnside on the South Side. They were near a sidewalk about 7:45 p.m. in the 1300 block of East 93rd Street when someone opened fire, police said. One man, 25, was shot in the chest and died at Trinity Hospital. Another man, 26, was also shot in the chest and taken to the same hospital in critical condition. The third man, 27, was shot in his body and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center. His condition was not released.

Chicago police and SWAT officers investigate in the 4400 block of West Walton Street where an alleged gunman barricaded himself in a building after one man was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting Sunday night in West Humboldt Park on the West Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

• A man was fatally shot Monday in Gresham on the South Side. About 5 p.m., the 26-year-old was in the 8600 block of South Aberdeen Street when he was shot multiple times, police said. He was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and pronounced dead.
• Also Monday, a man was killed in a shooting in Englewood on the South Side. He was inside a residence about 2:50 p.m. in the 6900 block of South Green Street when someone opened fire, striking him in the face and abdomen, police said. The 31-year-old died at the scene.
• Jeremy Benson, 33, was shot and killed Sunday morning while driving in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, authorities said. He was shot while driving in the 4400 block of West Madison Street and crashed into a median, police said. He died at Mount Sinai Hospital.
• A man was killed early Sunday in Englewood when gunfire erupted during a birthday party. The shooting sent hundreds of people running in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street. A 24-year-old was shot and pronounced dead at the scene. Police placed a white cloth over the man, who was lying on a sidewalk near evidence markers. “They won’t even let me see his body,” the man’s mother said. “They could at least let me hold his hand.”

Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death early Sunday during a party on the Englewood neighborhood block on the South Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

• Hours earlier, two men killed each other during a shootout in Englewood, police said. The shootout happened at 5 p.m. Saturday in the 5500 block of South Bishop Street, police said. Both men were pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center. One of the men was identified as Derrick Washington, 29. The other man was 38.
• Saturday afternoon, a man was killed in Chicago Lawn on the Southwest Side. He was shot in his head around 1:30 p.m. in the 2400 block of West 63rd Street, police said. He died at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Police released no other details.

At least 32 people were shot last weekend in Chicago.

Spoiler: Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year.

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Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year. Violence Is Trending Down From Pandemic Peak, But ‘Is Still Way Too High,’ Expert Says​

There were fewer shootings last month compared to previous Mays, but "if we continue to tolerate the level of gun violence that we tolerate, we are going to continue to see residents leave the city," a violence expert said.

Mack Liederman
8:54 AM CDT on Jun 2, 2022

Rifle casings from a shooting.Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

• Credibility:

CHICAGO — Reported shootings and murders were down in Chicago for a third straight month in May, according to police data, but violence has failed to fall back to pre-pandemic numbers.
There were 254 reported shootings in May this year, compared to 321 shootings in 2021 and 338 shootings in 2020, according to police data. In 2019, before the pandemic started, there were 198 shootings during the same time period.
In the first five months of the year, there were 971 shootings, compared to 1,151 for the same time period in 2021 and 961 in 2020, according to police numbers. In 2019, there were 736 shootings in that same period.
There have been 239 murders to date this year, compared with 259 during the same time frame in 2021 and 242 in 2020. In 2019, there were 197 murders in that same period.
Despite the recent downward trend, the city is coming off one of its most violent Memorial Day weekends in several years, and it’s still too soon to know what the summer will hold for Chicago.
“The real test is as the weather gets warmer consistently, whether we’re able to see a continued downward trend,” said violence expert Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Ander said Chicago’s shootings are “still way too high by any rational standard.”
“If we continue to tolerate the level of gun violence that we tolerate, we are going to continue to see residents leave the city,” she said.
While the month-to-month decline in shootings is not a definitive statistic, it still could be a “hopeful” sign that greater public and private investments in community prevention and violence intervention programs are working, Ander said.
RELATED: West Side Neighborhood Sees 58% Drop In Shootings Thanks To Violence Prevention Programs, Outreach Workers Say
There have been broad increases in state, federal and local funding for community-driven anti-violence strategies, including Gov. JB Pritzker’s $50 million commitment this year to support violence intervention. Shootings overall and on the West Side in particular have decreased because of outreach connecting at-risk people to resources that address root causes of violence, behavioral health services, and conflict-resolution throughout neighborhoods, organizers said.
Community groups are building relationships with neighbors most likely to commit or be victims of violence, “to stop the cycle of violence that creates retaliatory responses,” Ander said. More robust data collection is helping street outreach workers and police position themselves in areas with the most pervasive violence, Ander said.
But “we can’t lose sight of how far we still need to go,” Ander said.
“The last two years have been extraordinarily high when it comes to the rates of gun violence in our city,” Ander said. “There’s a wider safety gap than there’s ever been in our city, between the most safe neighborhoods and the least safe.”
Ander said the pandemic and civil unrest exacerbated gun violence in neighborhoods that were already faced with a lack of resources. Shutting down schools, social and mental health programs, and a “crisis in the legitimacy of government and policing” all converged to “pull out people’s safety net,” leading to lingering higher rates of violence, Ander said.
“Gun violence has a large reverberating effect,” Ander said. “It really needs to be a first order priority.”
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods.

Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year. Violence Is Trending Down From Pandemic Peak, But 'Is Still Way Too High,' Expert Says

CHICAGO — Reported shootings and murders were down in Chicago for a third straight month in May, according to police data, but violence has failed to

blockclubchicago.org

You make a really great point about Chicago. Thank you for calling out the issue that the majority of gun violence in Chicago is committed with guns purchased outside of Illinois, as this points to the need for more federal regulation of guns. Clearly having strict gun laws in your state can only mean so much when neighboring state gun laws are extremely lax.

I concur with you that we need more federal regulation of guns to keep them from crossing over state lines!

 

[firegiver]

I don't want to hear from the Left about any sort of gun laws until they talk openly about Chicago, every Monday, in a National presser. It happens every weekend, where the gun laws are the toughest in the the country.

Our 2nd Amendment, is already infringed upon. We have to pay taxes for guns and ammo, and have back ground checks. I say give everyone a gun, and tell them, "play stupid games, win stuipd prizes".

Same for set belts, helmets, being fat and lazy...

More laws will never work for stupid people, and criminals...

Spoiler: 51 people shot over Memorial Day

51 people shot over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, the most violent in five years

About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district where there were two mass shootings. At least 23 people were shot on the South Side and four downtown.

chicago.suntimes.com

51 people shot over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, the most violent in five years​

About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district where there were two mass shootings. At least 23 people were shot on the South Side and four downtown.​

By Sun-Times Wire

Updated May 31, 2022, 11:04am EDT

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• Facebook
• Email
• SHARE

Family members watch as Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death early Sunday during a party on the Englewood neighborhood block on the South Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times



Chicago experienced its most violent Memorial Day weekend in five years — 9 killed, 42 wounded — despite stepped up police patrols and a focus on neighborhood programs that city officials hoped would provide peaceful alternatives.


About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district, the 11th, where there were two mass shootings on Sunday. On the South Side, at least 23 people were shot. And downtown, where there has been a spike in shootings all year, four people were hit by gunfire.
The weekend was the most violent since 2017, when seven people were killed and 45 people were wounded, according to Chicago police data. The year before, 69 people had been shot over the long holiday weekend.


This past weekend’s toll is sharply higher than last year, when three people were killed and 34 others were wounded.


Police work the scene where five people were shot near an elementary school May 29, 2022 on the West Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
The Chicago Police Department had canceled days off over the weekend, but Police Superintendent David Brown was vague last Friday about the numbers of additional police officers assigned to work.

He would only say the safety plan included foot, bike and roving patrols; traffic safety, DUI saturation and carjacking task force missions; and gang and gun and organized retail theft investigations.
At the same news conference, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said weekend programs in 15 high-crime neighborhoods — including music-and-game-filled “kickbacks” with DJs — would be held later into the night to fill gaps pinpointed in conversations with young people in those neighborhoods.
On Saturday, faith leaders led a march for peace down Michigan Avenue. “There will be no silence till we end the violence,” a group of about 50 people chanted as they marched down the Mag Mile to Millennium Park.


A woman watches as Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death during a party.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Many of the weekend shootings occurred in neighborhoods long troubled by gun violence.

• In Lawndale, five people were wounded after gunmen opened fire on a crowd marking the anniversary of another teen’s killing. A 16-year-old girl was among the wounded in the shooting early Sunday morning in the 800 block of South Karlov Avenue. Shell casings and at least 97 evidence markers could be seen in the street outside Daniel Webster Elementary School.
• Later Sunday, a man was killed and four others wounded, including a gunman, during a domestic incident in Humboldt Park. The shooting led to a standoff with a police SWAT team. A gunman, 23, was arrested over an hour later and treated for a gunshot wound, police said.

Other fatal shootings from the weekend between 5 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Tuesday:

• Three men were wounded, one fatally, in a shooting Monday in Burnside on the South Side. They were near a sidewalk about 7:45 p.m. in the 1300 block of East 93rd Street when someone opened fire, police said. One man, 25, was shot in the chest and died at Trinity Hospital. Another man, 26, was also shot in the chest and taken to the same hospital in critical condition. The third man, 27, was shot in his body and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center. His condition was not released.

Chicago police and SWAT officers investigate in the 4400 block of West Walton Street where an alleged gunman barricaded himself in a building after one man was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting Sunday night in West Humboldt Park on the West Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

• A man was fatally shot Monday in Gresham on the South Side. About 5 p.m., the 26-year-old was in the 8600 block of South Aberdeen Street when he was shot multiple times, police said. He was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and pronounced dead.
• Also Monday, a man was killed in a shooting in Englewood on the South Side. He was inside a residence about 2:50 p.m. in the 6900 block of South Green Street when someone opened fire, striking him in the face and abdomen, police said. The 31-year-old died at the scene.
• Jeremy Benson, 33, was shot and killed Sunday morning while driving in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, authorities said. He was shot while driving in the 4400 block of West Madison Street and crashed into a median, police said. He died at Mount Sinai Hospital.
• A man was killed early Sunday in Englewood when gunfire erupted during a birthday party. The shooting sent hundreds of people running in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street. A 24-year-old was shot and pronounced dead at the scene. Police placed a white cloth over the man, who was lying on a sidewalk near evidence markers. “They won’t even let me see his body,” the man’s mother said. “They could at least let me hold his hand.”

Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death early Sunday during a party on the Englewood neighborhood block on the South Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

• Hours earlier, two men killed each other during a shootout in Englewood, police said. The shootout happened at 5 p.m. Saturday in the 5500 block of South Bishop Street, police said. Both men were pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center. One of the men was identified as Derrick Washington, 29. The other man was 38.
• Saturday afternoon, a man was killed in Chicago Lawn on the Southwest Side. He was shot in his head around 1:30 p.m. in the 2400 block of West 63rd Street, police said. He died at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Police released no other details.

At least 32 people were shot last weekend in Chicago.

Spoiler: Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year.

Skip to contents
Block Club Chicago
Become a member
Learn more

1. Neighborhoods
2. Latest Stories
3. COVID-19
4. Send News Tips
5. Newsletter
6. Shop
7. Subscribe
8. Donate

Citywide

Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year. Violence Is Trending Down From Pandemic Peak, But ‘Is Still Way Too High,’ Expert Says​

There were fewer shootings last month compared to previous Mays, but "if we continue to tolerate the level of gun violence that we tolerate, we are going to continue to see residents leave the city," a violence expert said.

Mack Liederman
8:54 AM CDT on Jun 2, 2022

Rifle casings from a shooting.Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

• Credibility:

CHICAGO — Reported shootings and murders were down in Chicago for a third straight month in May, according to police data, but violence has failed to fall back to pre-pandemic numbers.
There were 254 reported shootings in May this year, compared to 321 shootings in 2021 and 338 shootings in 2020, according to police data. In 2019, before the pandemic started, there were 198 shootings during the same time period.
In the first five months of the year, there were 971 shootings, compared to 1,151 for the same time period in 2021 and 961 in 2020, according to police numbers. In 2019, there were 736 shootings in that same period.
There have been 239 murders to date this year, compared with 259 during the same time frame in 2021 and 242 in 2020. In 2019, there were 197 murders in that same period.
Despite the recent downward trend, the city is coming off one of its most violent Memorial Day weekends in several years, and it’s still too soon to know what the summer will hold for Chicago.
“The real test is as the weather gets warmer consistently, whether we’re able to see a continued downward trend,” said violence expert Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Ander said Chicago’s shootings are “still way too high by any rational standard.”
“If we continue to tolerate the level of gun violence that we tolerate, we are going to continue to see residents leave the city,” she said.
While the month-to-month decline in shootings is not a definitive statistic, it still could be a “hopeful” sign that greater public and private investments in community prevention and violence intervention programs are working, Ander said.
RELATED: West Side Neighborhood Sees 58% Drop In Shootings Thanks To Violence Prevention Programs, Outreach Workers Say
There have been broad increases in state, federal and local funding for community-driven anti-violence strategies, including Gov. JB Pritzker’s $50 million commitment this year to support violence intervention. Shootings overall and on the West Side in particular have decreased because of outreach connecting at-risk people to resources that address root causes of violence, behavioral health services, and conflict-resolution throughout neighborhoods, organizers said.
Community groups are building relationships with neighbors most likely to commit or be victims of violence, “to stop the cycle of violence that creates retaliatory responses,” Ander said. More robust data collection is helping street outreach workers and police position themselves in areas with the most pervasive violence, Ander said.
But “we can’t lose sight of how far we still need to go,” Ander said.
“The last two years have been extraordinarily high when it comes to the rates of gun violence in our city,” Ander said. “There’s a wider safety gap than there’s ever been in our city, between the most safe neighborhoods and the least safe.”
Ander said the pandemic and civil unrest exacerbated gun violence in neighborhoods that were already faced with a lack of resources. Shutting down schools, social and mental health programs, and a “crisis in the legitimacy of government and policing” all converged to “pull out people’s safety net,” leading to lingering higher rates of violence, Ander said.
“Gun violence has a large reverberating effect,” Ander said. “It really needs to be a first order priority.”
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods.

Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year. Violence Is Trending Down From Pandemic Peak, But 'Is Still Way Too High,' Expert Says

CHICAGO — Reported shootings and murders were down in Chicago for a third straight month in May, according to police data, but violence has failed to

blockclubchicago.org

Heres my answer to this dog shit: Repeal the ****ing war on drugs. Get ****ed or learn and read and also **** you for being ignorant.

 

[dpic73]

I don't want to hear from the Left about any sort of gun laws until they talk openly about Chicago, every Monday, in a National presser. It happens every weekend, where the gun laws are the toughest in the the country.

Our 2nd Amendment, is already infringed upon. We have to pay taxes for guns and ammo, and have back ground checks. I say give everyone a gun, and tell them, "play stupid games, win stuipd prizes".

Same for set belts, helmets, being fat and lazy...

More laws will never work for stupid people, and criminals...

Dadgum, you nailed it! We shouldn't be trying to save lives anywhere until all lives are saved everywhere!

 

[dpic73]

Saw this and thought of you…

View embedded media

Disgusting. Have you seen this guy wickedly troll Wayne LaPierre at the NRA Convention?

 

[firegiver]

Disgusting. Have you seen this guy wickedly troll Wayne LaPierre at the NRA Convention?

View embedded media

amazing... satire is the only weapon that these bootlickers can't destory

 

[dpic73]

amazing... satire is the only weapon that these bootlickers can't destory

It was hilarious that it went right over the heads of that audience as they clapped for the speech 😅

 

[tigerworx]

Very well reasoned post, @nytigerfan . You've laid out your argument and used data to make your point. Let's take your points and extrapolate them a bit. If guns were THE problem as you stated, we'd see a long history of this regardless of era or cultural elements because guns would never stop killing people. This post is for @dpic73 @CoffeeIsForClosers and @iceheart08 too.

Let’s make a dangerous assumption and go with the argument that Wikipedia has this information right. Here’s a list of “school shootings” even though they aren’t all shootings that happened from the 1840’s through 2000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(before_2000)

Notice how most of the incidents are 1 person and based on a conflict. There are very few incidents involving mass casualties. The worst one involved a hostage situation and a bomb going off. During these times, it was ok for people to bring guns to school and keep them in their cars, etc. yet we just weren’t seeing what we see now.

So that seems to poke a hole in our belief that guns are THE problem.

Looking at the murder rate going back to the 1950’s, we saw a very low murder rate around 4.4 per 100,000 people in the US. Then from 1967 – 1980 it went up dramatically to a peak of 10.2 per 100,000 in 1980. Yet we didn’t see mass shootings in school increase. There are all kinds of factors that could be considered here. The types of drugs people used, migration to cities, the Vietnam War, economic woes, lead levels in cities (yes, this is a thing if you read up on it) and myriad other issues. Mass shootings do not seem to follow the rate of crime in the United States. They are independent of that. So what do mass shootings follow in terms of statistics we can analyze? Answer: Depression and suicide rates. i.e. mental health

Suicide rates also began their clime to where they are today. They have steadily increased and are now almost double what they were in 1980. The rate of teen depression has more than doubled since 1990. Suicide rates among teens are dramatically higher now as well. They have increased faster than the overall rate of suicide. So analyzing this we can say factually that as mental health has declined in the United States we have seen increases in suicide, mass shootings

That’s part one of this… Part two deals with guns

There are over 300 million guns in the United States today. So let’s go off the argument you want to regulate guns because they are THE problem. How would you want to go about that? We’ve heard the following suggestions: Background checks, regulation of gun show sales, waiting periods, large magazine bans, semi-automatic bans (what people ignorantly call assault weapons even though they aren’t) and perhaps I am missing a few.

Waiting periods seem like a good idea. We have 6 states with waiting periods to purchase firearms. I would imagine those states see far less shootings as a result of giving cooler heads time to prevail. Here are the states:

• California – 10 days
• District of Columbia – 10 days
• Florida – 3 days or the time it takes to complete required background checks, whichever occurs later
• Hawaii – 14 days
• Illinois – 72 hours
• Rhode Island – 7 days

Also, here’s a list of the states with the strictest gun laws. They receive an A or A- in terms of their laws and the strictness of them:

State	Gun Law Ranking	2019 Strictness Grade	Gun Death Rate
California	1	A	7.45
New Jersey	2	A	4.75
Connecticut	3	A-	4.91
New York	4	A-	4.03
Hawaii	5	A-	4.03
Maryland	6	A-	11.61
Massachusetts	7	A-	3.46
Illinois	8	A-	10.78

Here’s a list of the stats with the most mass shootings in 2020:

• California (257)
• Illinois (209)
• Florida (147)
• Texas (129)
• New York (96)
• Pennsylvania (92)
• Georgia (89)
• Louisiana (87)
• Tennessee (84)
• Ohio (80)

So basically, waiting periods, magazine restrictions, background checks, etc. that are all in place in these states accomplish very little based on the data. They still lead the way in gun violence despite their best efforts.

So again I ask, what laws do you want to put in place that will change our situation based on the view that guns are THE problem?

In the latest shootings, the shooters obtained their weapons legally. They passed background checks and followed the laws. Then they used their weapons to do something that was pure evil. In both cases there were warning signs that if given attention, may have been able to prevent these events. Maybe it would be a good idea to start paying more attention to mental health and addressing the warning signs (which are very consistent) that a person is considering doing something horrible?

Back to your guns argument and believing they are THE problem. The only way we can stop this is to take everyone’s weapons. We’ll have to confiscate all of them. We’ll have to seal our border. We’ll have to inspect every household and confiscate weapons from everyone. We’ll have to go into gang havens and ask them to return all their guns. That’s the only way to solve THE problem of guns in the United States. On that gang matter, consider this:

-More than 2,000 illegal weapons come over our southern border every day. Many of those weapons find their way into the hands of gangs. Getting statistics on gangs is hard but here’s the best available data I could find.

-13% of all murders are associated with gangs

-In Los Angeles, over 15 crimes per day are committed by gang members.

-Tracking of gang activity has demonstrated the lead recruiting tool used by gangs now is social media and their numbers are growing exponentially

-Gangs comprise over 48% of all violent crime in the US.

-Best available data shows over 49% of human trafficking victims had some connection to gangs

-It is believed there are almost 2 million members of gangs in the United States.

-The cities with the highest rates of gang violence also have the highest rates of violent crime and major crime.

If unused, a gun will never hurt anyone. It’s the person that wields it who is the problem. Only ever statistic available demonstrates this. This is a people problem, not a gun problem. Yet we want to take the guns and not deal with people. How insane is that? You guys have all pointed out a lot of things in this thread. You’ve talked about a lot of policy ideas and even one person admitted they wouldn’t stop the shootings but he wanted more laws. It all comes down to one question.

What are you proposing that will stop future mass shootings? If you can’t answer that definitively, then what’s your point really other than a desire to gain power over people and control what they have access to because you don’t like them politically?

Thank you for your research.
Seriously.

While you're at it, maybe look at 'family cancer' = lack of Husban & Wife in a home.
You might expect me to talk about Biblical mores.

I think just taking the destruction of the American family unit is enough for a good starting point.
Of course, when you combine that with the time young people spend on their phones injecting pointless stuff, maybe even trash, into their brains...... But, just like NIL, not stopping the internet.

Effective answers are hard to come by.
Divisive politics instead of unified family based ideals prevail.

Again, thank you for your comment.

 

[nytigerfan]

I don't want to hear from the Left about any sort of gun laws until they talk openly about Chicago, every Monday, in a National presser. It happens every weekend, where the gun laws are the toughest in the the country.

Our 2nd Amendment, is already infringed upon. We have to pay taxes for guns and ammo, and have back ground checks. I say give everyone a gun, and tell them, "play stupid games, win stuipd prizes".

Same for set belts, helmets, being fat and lazy...

More laws will never work for stupid people, and criminals...

Spoiler: 51 people shot over Memorial Day

51 people shot over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, the most violent in five years

About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district where there were two mass shootings. At least 23 people were shot on the South Side and four downtown.

chicago.suntimes.com

51 people shot over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, the most violent in five years​

About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district where there were two mass shootings. At least 23 people were shot on the South Side and four downtown.​

By Sun-Times Wire

Updated May 31, 2022, 11:04am EDT

• Twitter
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Family members watch as Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death early Sunday during a party on the Englewood neighborhood block on the South Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times



Chicago experienced its most violent Memorial Day weekend in five years — 9 killed, 42 wounded — despite stepped up police patrols and a focus on neighborhood programs that city officials hoped would provide peaceful alternatives.


About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district, the 11th, where there were two mass shootings on Sunday. On the South Side, at least 23 people were shot. And downtown, where there has been a spike in shootings all year, four people were hit by gunfire.
The weekend was the most violent since 2017, when seven people were killed and 45 people were wounded, according to Chicago police data. The year before, 69 people had been shot over the long holiday weekend.


This past weekend’s toll is sharply higher than last year, when three people were killed and 34 others were wounded.


Police work the scene where five people were shot near an elementary school May 29, 2022 on the West Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
The Chicago Police Department had canceled days off over the weekend, but Police Superintendent David Brown was vague last Friday about the numbers of additional police officers assigned to work.

He would only say the safety plan included foot, bike and roving patrols; traffic safety, DUI saturation and carjacking task force missions; and gang and gun and organized retail theft investigations.
At the same news conference, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said weekend programs in 15 high-crime neighborhoods — including music-and-game-filled “kickbacks” with DJs — would be held later into the night to fill gaps pinpointed in conversations with young people in those neighborhoods.
On Saturday, faith leaders led a march for peace down Michigan Avenue. “There will be no silence till we end the violence,” a group of about 50 people chanted as they marched down the Mag Mile to Millennium Park.


A woman watches as Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death during a party.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Many of the weekend shootings occurred in neighborhoods long troubled by gun violence.

• In Lawndale, five people were wounded after gunmen opened fire on a crowd marking the anniversary of another teen’s killing. A 16-year-old girl was among the wounded in the shooting early Sunday morning in the 800 block of South Karlov Avenue. Shell casings and at least 97 evidence markers could be seen in the street outside Daniel Webster Elementary School.
• Later Sunday, a man was killed and four others wounded, including a gunman, during a domestic incident in Humboldt Park. The shooting led to a standoff with a police SWAT team. A gunman, 23, was arrested over an hour later and treated for a gunshot wound, police said.

Other fatal shootings from the weekend between 5 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Tuesday:

• Three men were wounded, one fatally, in a shooting Monday in Burnside on the South Side. They were near a sidewalk about 7:45 p.m. in the 1300 block of East 93rd Street when someone opened fire, police said. One man, 25, was shot in the chest and died at Trinity Hospital. Another man, 26, was also shot in the chest and taken to the same hospital in critical condition. The third man, 27, was shot in his body and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center. His condition was not released.

Chicago police and SWAT officers investigate in the 4400 block of West Walton Street where an alleged gunman barricaded himself in a building after one man was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting Sunday night in West Humboldt Park on the West Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

• A man was fatally shot Monday in Gresham on the South Side. About 5 p.m., the 26-year-old was in the 8600 block of South Aberdeen Street when he was shot multiple times, police said. He was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and pronounced dead.
• Also Monday, a man was killed in a shooting in Englewood on the South Side. He was inside a residence about 2:50 p.m. in the 6900 block of South Green Street when someone opened fire, striking him in the face and abdomen, police said. The 31-year-old died at the scene.
• Jeremy Benson, 33, was shot and killed Sunday morning while driving in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, authorities said. He was shot while driving in the 4400 block of West Madison Street and crashed into a median, police said. He died at Mount Sinai Hospital.
• A man was killed early Sunday in Englewood when gunfire erupted during a birthday party. The shooting sent hundreds of people running in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street. A 24-year-old was shot and pronounced dead at the scene. Police placed a white cloth over the man, who was lying on a sidewalk near evidence markers. “They won’t even let me see his body,” the man’s mother said. “They could at least let me hold his hand.”

Chicago police investigate in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street, where a man was shot to death early Sunday during a party on the Englewood neighborhood block on the South Side.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

• Hours earlier, two men killed each other during a shootout in Englewood, police said. The shootout happened at 5 p.m. Saturday in the 5500 block of South Bishop Street, police said. Both men were pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center. One of the men was identified as Derrick Washington, 29. The other man was 38.
• Saturday afternoon, a man was killed in Chicago Lawn on the Southwest Side. He was shot in his head around 1:30 p.m. in the 2400 block of West 63rd Street, police said. He died at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Police released no other details.

At least 32 people were shot last weekend in Chicago.

Spoiler: Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year.

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Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year. Violence Is Trending Down From Pandemic Peak, But ‘Is Still Way Too High,’ Expert Says​

There were fewer shootings last month compared to previous Mays, but "if we continue to tolerate the level of gun violence that we tolerate, we are going to continue to see residents leave the city," a violence expert said.

Mack Liederman
8:54 AM CDT on Jun 2, 2022

Rifle casings from a shooting.Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

• Credibility:

CHICAGO — Reported shootings and murders were down in Chicago for a third straight month in May, according to police data, but violence has failed to fall back to pre-pandemic numbers.
There were 254 reported shootings in May this year, compared to 321 shootings in 2021 and 338 shootings in 2020, according to police data. In 2019, before the pandemic started, there were 198 shootings during the same time period.
In the first five months of the year, there were 971 shootings, compared to 1,151 for the same time period in 2021 and 961 in 2020, according to police numbers. In 2019, there were 736 shootings in that same period.
There have been 239 murders to date this year, compared with 259 during the same time frame in 2021 and 242 in 2020. In 2019, there were 197 murders in that same period.
Despite the recent downward trend, the city is coming off one of its most violent Memorial Day weekends in several years, and it’s still too soon to know what the summer will hold for Chicago.
“The real test is as the weather gets warmer consistently, whether we’re able to see a continued downward trend,” said violence expert Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Ander said Chicago’s shootings are “still way too high by any rational standard.”
“If we continue to tolerate the level of gun violence that we tolerate, we are going to continue to see residents leave the city,” she said.
While the month-to-month decline in shootings is not a definitive statistic, it still could be a “hopeful” sign that greater public and private investments in community prevention and violence intervention programs are working, Ander said.
RELATED: West Side Neighborhood Sees 58% Drop In Shootings Thanks To Violence Prevention Programs, Outreach Workers Say
There have been broad increases in state, federal and local funding for community-driven anti-violence strategies, including Gov. JB Pritzker’s $50 million commitment this year to support violence intervention. Shootings overall and on the West Side in particular have decreased because of outreach connecting at-risk people to resources that address root causes of violence, behavioral health services, and conflict-resolution throughout neighborhoods, organizers said.
Community groups are building relationships with neighbors most likely to commit or be victims of violence, “to stop the cycle of violence that creates retaliatory responses,” Ander said. More robust data collection is helping street outreach workers and police position themselves in areas with the most pervasive violence, Ander said.
But “we can’t lose sight of how far we still need to go,” Ander said.
“The last two years have been extraordinarily high when it comes to the rates of gun violence in our city,” Ander said. “There’s a wider safety gap than there’s ever been in our city, between the most safe neighborhoods and the least safe.”
Ander said the pandemic and civil unrest exacerbated gun violence in neighborhoods that were already faced with a lack of resources. Shutting down schools, social and mental health programs, and a “crisis in the legitimacy of government and policing” all converged to “pull out people’s safety net,” leading to lingering higher rates of violence, Ander said.
“Gun violence has a large reverberating effect,” Ander said. “It really needs to be a first order priority.”
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods.

Chicago Had 971 Shootings In First 5 Months Of The Year. Violence Is Trending Down From Pandemic Peak, But 'Is Still Way Too High,' Expert Says

CHICAGO — Reported shootings and murders were down in Chicago for a third straight month in May, according to police data, but violence has failed to

blockclubchicago.org

And I dont want to hear from anyone on the right about Chicago until you hold a weekly press conference to talk openly, in a presser, every Monday, about gun homicide in
Jackson, MS
Gary, IN
St. Louis
New Orleans
Memphis

You see, those are the top five cities in the US for gun homicide rates. Yea, that's right. When you look at gun homicides per 100,000 people, Chicago is not even in the top 20.

Your narrative is BULLSHIT. Find a new one.

Spoiler

City Dashboard: Murder and Gun Homicide | Everytown Research & Policy

Murder increased by 1 percent in 2021, across 168 cities with populations 100,000+ that have reported to the FBI so far. In 2020, murders and gun homicides increased in the US …

everytownresearch.org

 

[dbjork6317]

Bumping for another mass shooting, this one at a bar in Chattanooga. 14 shot.

 

[97ClemsonMac]

And I dont want to hear from anyone on the right about Chicago until you hold a weekly press conference to talk openly, in a presser, every Monday, about gun homicide in
Jackson, MS
Gary, IN
St. Louis
New Orleans
Memphis

You see, those are the top five cities in the US for gun homicide rates. Yea, that's right. When you look at gun homicides per 100,000 people, Chicago is not even in the top 20.

Your narrative is BULLSHIT. Find a new one.

Spoiler

City Dashboard: Murder and Gun Homicide | Everytown Research & Policy

Murder increased by 1 percent in 2021, across 168 cities with populations 100,000+ that have reported to the FBI so far. In 2020, murders and gun homicides increased in the US …

everytownresearch.org

You do realize the mayor for each of those cities you just listed, every single one of them is Democratic?

 

[nytigerfan]

You do realize the mayor for each of those cities you just listed, every single one of them is Democratic?

The person I was responding to was making a point about gun violence in Chicago despite Illinois being a blue state with stricter gun control.

If you are going to throw your hat in the ring here, at least try to keep up. So far, your contributions to the debate have been misinformed, ignorant, and juvenile.

 

[tigerrecon]

You make a really great point about Chicago. Thank you for calling out the issue that the majority of gun violence in Chicago is committed with guns purchased outside of Illinois, as this points to the need for more federal regulation of guns. Clearly having strict gun laws in your state can only mean so much when neighboring state gun laws are extremely lax.

I concur with you that we need more federal regulation of guns to keep them from crossing over state lines!

I know you are using sarcasm to to and further your point. My point, as you so eloquently stated, is that criminals will always find their way to getting guns and committing violence.

Heres my answer to this dog shit: Repeal the ****ing war on drugs. Get ****ed or learn and read and also **** you for being ignorant.

Please explain this further. What are you saying?

Dadgum, you nailed it! We shouldn't be trying to save lives anywhere until all lives are saved everywhere!

Can't save all lives, all the time; good luck trying. Everyone who is born dies. The history of the world is violent. There will always be 1% ruling 99%. America is the closest government that's tried to make it of the people and for the people, and it still isn't perfect.

And I dont want to hear from anyone on the right about Chicago until you hold a weekly press conference to talk openly, in a presser, every Monday, about gun homicide in
Jackson, MS
Gary, IN
St. Louis
New Orleans
Memphis

You see, those are the top five cities in the US for gun homicide rates. Yea, that's right. When you look at gun homicides per 100,000 people, Chicago is not even in the top 20.

Your narrative is BULLSHIT. Find a new one.

Spoiler

City Dashboard: Murder and Gun Homicide | Everytown Research & Policy

Murder increased by 1 percent in 2021, across 168 cities with populations 100,000+ that have reported to the FBI so far. In 2020, murders and gun homicides increased in the US …

everytownresearch.org

Chicago has the some of the strictest gun laws in the country, that's my narrative, and it's true.

And it's one of the top cities in gun violence that's lead by the dems, and has been for some time. And they have no answers for violence, poverty, education and drugs. But they claim to lead the way on those issues...


And more gun violence in Chi Town:

Chicago cop shot in broad daylight; third law enforcement officer in one week​

Spoiler: Chicago cop shot in broad daylight; third law enforcement officer in one week

Fox News
5:22 PM
Chicago

Published June 5, 2022 4:30pm EDT

Chicago cop shot in broad daylight; third law enforcement officer in one week​

The Chicago Police Department said the officer's condition is unknown​

A Chicago police officer was shot on Sunday afternoon and is currently being treated at a local hospital.
Chicago Police Department spokesperson Tom Ahern told FOX 32 that the officer was shot at around 2 p.m. on the city's South Side at the intersection of West 69th Street and South Wood Street.
The officer's condition is unknown, according to a tweet from Ahern.

 

[97ClemsonMac]

The person I was responding to was making a point about gun violence in Chicago despite Illinois being a blue state with stricter gun control.

If you are going to throw your hat in the ring here, at least try to keep up. So far, your contributions to the debate have been misinformed, ignorant, and juvenile.

I have only contributed one post to the thread and it was about a 10 year old getting arrested for posting that he was going to shoot his schoolmates as a joke. I don’t agree with what this guy says about giving everyone a gun, I think that would have a high probability of exacerbating the situation.

I think the way I interpreted what you were saying as trying to make it a blue versus red argument; however, I see now you are just noting that there are cities where the issue is worse than Chicago and not making it into a red or blue issue, Which I agree with.

 

[dbjork6317]

I know you are using sarcasm to to and further your point. My point, as you so eloquently stated, is that criminals will always find their way to getting guns and committing violence.

Ah yes, the ole “people will always break the law therefore we should just not have any laws” argument

 

[AugTig]

I have only contributed one post to the thread and it was about a 10 year old getting arrested for posting that he was going to shoot his schoolmates as a joke. I don’t agree with what this guy says about giving everyone a gun, I think that would have a high probability of exacerbating the situation.

I think the way I interpreted what you were saying as trying to make it a blue versus red argument; however, I see now you are just noting that there are cities where the issue is worse than Chicago and not making it into a red or blue issue, Which I agree with.

Don't second guess yourself. Your initial interpretation was correct.

 

[97ClemsonMac]

Don't second guess yourself. Your initial interpretation was correct.

Lol I’m new here and perhaps one of the youngest on this forum, class of 2018 and 2020. Still feeling out the site and trying to be respectful is all

 

[AugTig]

Lol I’m new here and perhaps one of the youngest on this forum, class of 2018 and 2020. Still feeling out the site and trying to be respectful is all

Stand your ground. Young ideas and thoughts are welcome here. Don’t let the left wing bullies dominate the narrative. Glad you are here!!

 

[moradatiger70]

Stand your ground. Young ideas and thoughts are welcome here. Don’t let the left wing bullies dominate the narrative. Glad you are here!!

Bullies?

What about machete's?
https://cwbchicago.com/2022/06/mach...s-in-avondale-and-irving-park-police-say.html

 

[dpic73]

Ah yes, the ole “people will always break the law therefore we should just not have any laws” argument

And honestly, couldn't his argument be used for ANY laws?

 

[TigerGrowls]

Law enforcement got it right this time down in TX.

Police Shoot and Kill Gunman at Texas Summer Camp Who Fired into Locked Classroom with Kids Inside | The Gateway Pundit | by Kristinn Taylor

Police in Duncanville, Texas responded rapidly to 911 calls of an armed man and shots fired at the Duncanville Fieldhouse summer camp Monday morning, shooting and killing the man in an exchange of gunfire in the gymnasium.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

 

[dbjork6317]

Just bumping this thread after yet another mass shooting in America this morning.

 

[Cocks are Number 1]

Just bumping this thread after yet another mass shooting in America this morning.

A lot of sick people out there, I agree.

 

[anon_5e8aassgcbjz1]

A lot of sick people out there, I agree.

We must have gotten more than our fair share. Can’t possibly be anything else

 

[dbjork6317]

A lot of sick people out there, I agree.

And it’s a shame they all have such tremendously easy access to guns.

 

[dpic73]

 

[dbjork6317]

 

[Willence]

View embedded media

Assuming this is correct, why wouldn't it make sense to try and solve the problems rather than letting them go on without guns? Are dead people any less dead if they were stabbed with a knife or beaten with a hammer?

And let's just pretend again that guns are the problem. How do you propose we confiscate the guns? How do we control things? When you consider the mind numbing incompetency at the government level and that nearly every single tragedy we see occurring comes with the revelation that government failed and law enforcement failed when it came to identifying the problem. Why is it that every problem's solution is an elite class deciding to subvert our freedom so we can be controlled to behave as they see fit?

I know we disagree but I still haven't seen one real good explanation as to why we don't look at the problems that our society has which lead to all this violence and start working to resolve the brokenness that always precedes these events. That's a far less complex problem to solve.

 

[anon_5e8aassgcbjz1]

Assuming this is correct, why wouldn't it make sense to try and solve the problems rather than letting them go on without guns? Are dead people any less dead if they were stabbed with a knife or beaten with a hammer?

And let's just pretend again that guns are the problem. How do you propose we confiscate the guns? How do we control things? When you consider the mind numbing incompetency at the government level and that nearly every single tragedy we see occurring comes with the revelation that government failed and law enforcement failed when it came to identifying the problem. Why is it that every problem's solution is an elite class deciding to subvert our freedom so we can be controlled to behave as they see fit?

I know we disagree but I still haven't seen one real good explanation as to why we don't look at the problems that our society has which lead to all this violence and start working to resolve the brokenness that always precedes these events. That's a far less complex problem to solve.

Lost me when you compared a gun to a knife or hammer.

Tens of thousands of lives lost each year to guns, suicide or murder. Spend more money on mental health and change some police protocol? Sure, that’d help.

How about we quit glorifying the Wild West and hiding behind this empty notion that restricting guns at the national level would be too difficult. It’s difficult because one party opposes it categorically and it wouldn’t survive their judges. Nothing more and nothing less.

Nothing can be done says the only country where this shit occurs to the degree it does. Gee, I wonder why

 

[dbjork6317]

Assuming this is correct, why wouldn't it make sense to try and solve the problems rather than letting them go on without guns? Are dead people any less dead if they were stabbed with a knife or beaten with a hammer?

And let's just pretend again that guns are the problem. How do you propose we confiscate the guns? How do we control things? When you consider the mind numbing incompetency at the government level and that nearly every single tragedy we see occurring comes with the revelation that government failed and law enforcement failed when it came to identifying the problem. Why is it that every problem's solution is an elite class deciding to subvert our freedom so we can be controlled to behave as they see fit?

I know we disagree but I still haven't seen one real good explanation as to why we don't look at the problems that our society has which lead to all this violence and start working to resolve the brokenness that always precedes these events. That's a far less complex problem to solve.

I mean, yeah. Let’s address all of those things. No one is saying that we, as a country, shouldn’t be addressing all of those problems.

But I don’t really understand how you can believe that resolving “brokenness” in people is less complex than gun laws. That doesn’t make any sense unless you view humans and human nature as pretty non-complex.

I don’t really think any serious person has suggested there should be a confiscation of guns. I think it’s about restricting access, making it more difficult for “broken” people to obtain guns, and then regulating guns themselves to make it more difficult for those who do manage to obtain guns to use them to create mass carnage.

On guns, I wrote this in another thread in June and I still believe it:

“There clearly isn’t a perfect solution, but I’d probably start with federal single payer healthcare that allows all Americans to have easy access to mental healthcare. This would solve a lot of other issues not related to gun violence as well. At a state and local level we should increase mental health access in schools, perhaps with a full time mental health professional on staff for some schools or districts.

Let’s treat guns like cars. In order to own a gun you must pass certain safety courses and obtain a license, you then must register you guns annually and you must own insurance on them to cover any accident. Then lets regulate the guns themselves. Let’s focus especially on hand guns and put a strict limit on the amount of rounds a gun can hold and limit the number of guns that are produced and sold so that, gradually, the volume of guns in the country decreases. There’s probably other things we could regulate on guns that I don’t even know about, I think the goal should be to make it really, really hard for an individual person to shoot a high number of people in a short period of time.

Nothing’s perfect, nothing is going to be a quick or easy fix, nothing’s going to be fool proof. But just because we can’t “stop” tragedies doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t try to significantly reduce them, if we truly believe that life is valuable and should be protected in any meaningful way.”

Many of the problems we have in the US are systemic in nature and require a long term solution, gun violence included.

As for those other problems that you say are much simpler to fix, it’s odd that the same people who push back on gun regulation also push back on regulations that might help the other issues. They’re the same people who exacerbate homophobia and racism through rhetoric and legislation. They’re the same people who flat out lie about crime statistics and election results to stoke division and distrust. They’re the same people who shout that we should just let a person without health insurance die and then wonder why we have a mental health crisis.

The slogan is right, people kill people. Maybe it’s just the do nothing “thoughts and prayers” crowd that’s more concerned with passing fascistic regulations on teachers that are doing the killing.

 

[anon_5e8aassgcbjz1]

I mean, yeah. Let’s address all of those things. No one is saying that we, as a country, shouldn’t be addressing all of those problems.

But I don’t really understand how you can believe that resolving “brokenness” in people is less complex than gun laws. That doesn’t make any sense unless you view humans and human nature as pretty non-complex.

I don’t really think any serious person has suggested there should be a confiscation of guns. I think it’s about restricting access, making it more difficult for “broken” people to obtain guns, and then regulating guns themselves to make it more difficult for those who do manage to obtain guns to use them to create mass carnage.

On guns, I wrote this in another thread in June and I still believe it:

“There clearly isn’t a perfect solution, but I’d probably start with federal single payer healthcare that allows all Americans to have easy access to mental healthcare. This would solve a lot of other issues not related to gun violence as well. At a state and local level we should increase mental health access in schools, perhaps with a full time mental health professional on staff for some schools or districts.

Let’s treat guns like cars. In order to own a gun you must pass certain safety courses and obtain a license, you then must register you guns annually and you must own insurance on them to cover any accident. Then lets regulate the guns themselves. Let’s focus especially on hand guns and put a strict limit on the amount of rounds a gun can hold and limit the number of guns that are produced and sold so that, gradually, the volume of guns in the country decreases. There’s probably other things we could regulate on guns that I don’t even know about, I think the goal should be to make it really, really hard for an individual person to shoot a high number of people in a short period of time.

Nothing’s perfect, nothing is going to be a quick or easy fix, nothing’s going to be fool proof. But just because we can’t “stop” tragedies doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t try to significantly reduce them, if we truly believe that life is valuable and should be protected in any meaningful way.”

Many of the problems we have in the US are systemic in nature and require a long term solution, gun violence included.

As for those other problems that you say are much simpler to fix, it’s odd that the same people who push back on gun regulation also push back on regulations that might help the other issues. They’re the same people who exacerbate homophobia and racism through rhetoric and legislation. They’re the same people who flat out lie about crime statistics and election results to stoke division and distrust. They’re the same people who shout that we should just let a person without health insurance die and then wonder why we have a mental health crisis.

The slogan is right, people kill people. Maybe it’s just the do nothing “thoughts and prayers” crowd that’s more concerned with passing fascistic regulations on teachers that are doing the killing.

Small corollary, people with guns kill people easily

 

[Willence]

Lost me when you compared a gun to a knife or hammer.

Tens of thousands of lives lost each year to guns, suicide or murder. Spend more money on mental health and change some police protocol? Sure, that’d help.

How about we quit glorifying the Wild West and hiding behind this empty notion that restricting guns at the national level would be too difficult. It’s difficult because one party opposes it categorically and it wouldn’t survive their judges. Nothing more and nothing less.

Nothing can be done says the only country where this shit occurs to the degree it does. Gee, I wonder why

I know you're not interested in understanding this matter but reducing this to "glorifying the Wild West" is to a much greater degree hiding behind and empty notion that restricting guns would be a solution to this matter. I do not even own a gun. My opposition to gun restrictions has nothing to do with my desire to be a cowboy or play soldier on the weekend. It has everything to do with a government (and a group of people) that seek to limit my freedom in an unconstitutional way because they haven't tried to solve a problem via other means.

I don't want to spend more money on mental health. I don't want to increase police protocol. The laws to deal with this the best we can at that level are already in place. We don't need more money and we don't need more laws. That being said, in the area of mental health, there is probably more needed but that should come at the state level and via a means of dealing with a great many overarching problems in our society.

We are, constitutionally, the freest society on Earth. With freedom comes a lot of ugly things. When we destroy the moral principles undergirding that free society, it gets infinitely worse. You seem to post regularly about your disdain for traditional values and moral principles. Perhaps you should consider that the absence of those is a significant factor in what you're seeing around you. People who compare the United States to other countries really fail to understand our role in the world. We aren't going to be like other countries no matter how much you seem to want that. What nation do you wish to model ourselves after? Who has violent crime under wraps that you think we should seek tp be like?

 

[iceheart08]

I mean, yeah. Let’s address all of those things. No one is saying that we, as a country, shouldn’t be addressing all of those problems.

But I don’t really understand how you can believe that resolving “brokenness” in people is less complex than gun laws. That doesn’t make any sense unless you view humans and human nature as pretty non-complex.

I don’t really think any serious person has suggested there should be a confiscation of guns. I think it’s about restricting access, making it more difficult for “broken” people to obtain guns, and then regulating guns themselves to make it more difficult for those who do manage to obtain guns to use them to create mass carnage.

On guns, I wrote this in another thread in June and I still believe it:

“There clearly isn’t a perfect solution, but I’d probably start with federal single payer healthcare that allows all Americans to have easy access to mental healthcare. This would solve a lot of other issues not related to gun violence as well. At a state and local level we should increase mental health access in schools, perhaps with a full time mental health professional on staff for some schools or districts.

Let’s treat guns like cars. In order to own a gun you must pass certain safety courses and obtain a license, you then must register you guns annually and you must own insurance on them to cover any accident. Then lets regulate the guns themselves. Let’s focus especially on hand guns and put a strict limit on the amount of rounds a gun can hold and limit the number of guns that are produced and sold so that, gradually, the volume of guns in the country decreases. There’s probably other things we could regulate on guns that I don’t even know about, I think the goal should be to make it really, really hard for an individual person to shoot a high number of people in a short period of time.

Nothing’s perfect, nothing is going to be a quick or easy fix, nothing’s going to be fool proof. But just because we can’t “stop” tragedies doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t try to significantly reduce them, if we truly believe that life is valuable and should be protected in any meaningful way.”

Many of the problems we have in the US are systemic in nature and require a long term solution, gun violence included.

As for those other problems that you say are much simpler to fix, it’s odd that the same people who push back on gun regulation also push back on regulations that might help the other issues. They’re the same people who exacerbate homophobia and racism through rhetoric and legislation. They’re the same people who flat out lie about crime statistics and election results to stoke division and distrust. They’re the same people who shout that we should just let a person without health insurance die and then wonder why we have a mental health crisis.

The slogan is right, people kill people. Maybe it’s just the do nothing “thoughts and prayers” crowd that’s more concerned with passing fascistic regulations on teachers that are doing the killing.

This is very well said.

I'll be a little more direct though.

It's pretty ****ing nuts to suggest it's easier to solve everyone's mental health problems than enact policies that significantly limit access to weapons.

Just a wild implication from @Willence that can't possibly have a real justification behind it. Because it's a crazy proposition.

 

[dbjork6317]

My opposition to gun restrictions has nothing to do with my desire to be a cowboy or play soldier on the weekend. It has everything to do with a government (and a group of people) that seek to limit my freedom in an unconstitutional way because they haven't tried to solve a problem via other means.

I don't want to spend more money on mental health.

 

[Willence]

This is very well said.

I'll be a little more direct though.

It's pretty ****ing nuts to suggest it's easier to solve everyone's mental health problems than enact policies that significantly limit access to weapons.

Just a wild implication from @Willence that can't possibly have a real justification behind it. Because it's a crazy proposition.

Limiting access to weapons isn't going to solve anything. I really can't believe that you guys think that would actually help. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that it would. All the societies that you talk about which you think are so perfect have confiscated weapons and people are not allowed to own them. Or in some ownership is incredibly restricted in such ways that weapons for personal protection are not permitted. There are 300 and something million guns in circulation in the United States right now. Even if you completely cut off supply to weapons right now and said no more can be made we would still have an easily accessible flow of guns in our society.

That's why I say it's a less complicated problem because it deals with individual issues and issues of morality or the lack of principles that undergird morality. People that are sick enough to want to kill as many people as possible will find other ways to do it if we remove the guns. Just look at Israel this week. Evil exists and as long as we continue to ignore that reality in favor of trying to control everyone's behavior we'll never make any progress.

@iceheart08 how did your red flag laws in Colorado help with the shooting at the nightclub? We can't just make more rules and solve this problem. It's a heart and mind problem not a gun problem.

 

[dbjork6317]

Limiting access to weapons isn't going to solve anything. I really can't believe that you guys think that would actually help. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that it would. All the societies that you talk about which you think are so perfect have confiscated weapons and people are not allowed to own them. Or in some ownership is incredibly restricted in such ways that weapons for personal protection are not permitted. There are 300 and something million guns in circulation in the United States right now. Even if you completely cut off supply to weapons right now and said no more can be made we would still have an easily accessible flow of guns in our society.

That's why I say it's a less complicated problem because it deals with individual issues and issues of morality or the lack of principles that undergird morality. People that are sick enough to want to kill as many people as possible will find other ways to do it if we remove the guns. Just look at Israel this week. Evil exists and as long as we continue to ignore that reality in favor of trying to control everyone's behavior we'll never make any progress.

@iceheart08 how did your red flag laws in Colorado help with the shooting at the nightclub? We can't just make more rules and solve this problem. It's a heart and mind problem not a gun problem.

When I was 5 I loved cookies. My mom would buy my favorite kind and leave them on the counter. One day I ate all of the cookies in a single afternoon. My mom believed I should still be able to have cookies, but obviously eating them all in one day was bad for me.

So she put the cookies in a cupboard that only she could reach. Now I couldn’t reach the cookies and, therefore, I was no longer able to do the unhealthy thing of eating them all in one afternoon. The cookies were still in the house, lots of them! I just couldn’t get to them very easily.

And that is how limiting access to an item can reduce negative outcomes involving that item.

 

[iceheart08]

Limiting access to weapons isn't going to solve anything. I really can't believe that you guys think that would actually help. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that it would. All the societies that you talk about which you think are so perfect have confiscated weapons and people are not allowed to own them. Or in some ownership is incredibly restricted in such ways that weapons for personal protection are not permitted. There are 300 and something million guns in circulation in the United States right now. Even if you completely cut off supply to weapons right now and said no more can be made we would still have an easily accessible flow of guns in our society.

That's why I say it's a less complicated problem because it deals with individual issues and issues of morality or the lack of principles that undergird morality. People that are sick enough to want to kill as many people as possible will find other ways to do it if we remove the guns. Just look at Israel this week. Evil exists and as long as we continue to ignore that reality in favor of trying to control everyone's behavior we'll never make any progress.

@iceheart08 how did your red flag laws in Colorado help with the shooting at the nightclub? We can't just make more rules and solve this problem. It's a heart and mind problem not a gun problem.

the el paso county sheriff refuses to enforce the red flag law.

but it has to start somewhere and sometime. we cant just keep saying there are too many guns, its too late. its not too late. it might take 50 years, but we have to start making guns far less accessible for EVERYONE. eventually they will dry up.

its far more difficult to kill 20 people with a knife than it is with an ar15. thats indisputable. we have to make these things more difficult. we also have to address mental health, yes.

 

[Willence]

the el paso county sheriff refuses to enforce the red flag law.

but it has to start somewhere and sometime. we cant just keep saying there are too many guns, its too late. its not too late. it might take 50 years, but we have to start making guns far less accessible for EVERYONE. eventually they will dry up.

its far more difficult to kill 20 people with a knife than it is with an ar15. thats indisputable. we have to make these things more difficult. we also have to address mental health, yes.

I wish I could agree with you but I just can't. Our leaders these days on both sides are far too authoritarian, far too stupid and far too corrupt. And the left in general is too much that way. We have far too many examples in recent years.

 

[dpic73]

I wish I could agree with you but I just can't. Our leaders these days on both sides are far too authoritarian, far too stupid and far too corrupt. And the left in general is too much that way. We have far too many examples in recent years.

Yes, oddly it's always the party that actually tries to do something about guns that causes the problems. SMH
If there was no left this country would be Germany 1938.

And let's just pretend again that guns are the problem. How do you propose we confiscate the guns?

I don't have time to respond to all your monologues but I've proposed several things in this very thread and I will also point out that Clinton's assault weapons ban did have an impact. It's debatable how big, but it did make a difference. Isn't that we want? To somehow, some way do SOMETHING that makes a difference? Singing kumbaya ain't gonna do it Willy...

"Stanford University researchers have published a new analysis supporting a pillar of the modern gun control movement: a prospective ban on military-style rifles commonly known as "assault" weapons.

The research from Stanford Law professor John Donohue and student Theodora Boulouta found that from 1994 to 2004, the Clinton-era federal assault weapons ban was associated with a marked decrease in mass shootings and victims of those shootings.

According to a preliminary draft of the study, set to be published in the journal Law and Contemporary Problems, in the decade preceding the assault weapons ban, there were 33 percent additional mass shootings and 65 percent more associated fatalities.

In the decades following the ban, the results were exceedingly stark. Ten years after the ban expired in 2004, the number of mass shootings more than tripled and the number of fatalities spiked more than fourfold."

Clinton-Era Assault Weapons Ban Did Work, New Research Shows

Ten years after the ban expired in 2004, the number of mass shootings more than tripled and the number of fatalities spiked more than fourfold.

www.newsweek.com

 

[Willence]

If there was no left this country with be Germany 1938.

I'm sure this narrative suits you to justify the extraordinary control of everything that people like you seem to want but all available evidence demonstrates how detached from reality this viewpoint is. I really hope you'll wake up to the truth at some point.

Who wants to control every aspect of our economy?

Who wants the government to be the sole provider of almost all benefits including health care?

Who wants to force people to take shots or vaccinations that they may or may not want which may or may not work and are poorly tested?

Who wants to force kids to take tests to prove they don't have a disease before returning to school?

Who wants to control the flow of information and dictate through government agencies what misinformation and disinformation are?

Who wants to control what can be said on social media and other free speech platforms?

Who wants to decide what terms and words are acceptable in society?

Who wants to disarm the public in an effort to gain greater control over them and stop dangerous behavior?

Who overtly wants to disregard the Constitution and the laws of our country in every way that is convenient to them?

Look at how abortent Fox News is and their promotion of right wing ideas. Then consider almost the entire remainder of the media apparatus does the same in reverse. How's that working out for us as a country to have such partisan media? Who started that process?

Who regularly seeks to undermine the religious freedom of the citizens of this country?

Which party comes up with these positively Orwellian names for legislation and an attempt to mislead the public as to what exactly is really in the legislation?

I could go on and on but ultimately you need to realize that what you are so afraid of is exactly what the left in this country has become.

There is no greater power for the usurpation of freedom than the political left in the United States today. I'm sorry you feel the way you do but it doesn't mean that what you're saying is reality. It doesn't exist anywhere but in the minds of people like you and for that I pity you. Especially when you consider the most free states in this country are the ones that tend to lean harder to the modern Republican party absent of Trump which is very much like the Democrats used to be back in the JFK era.

 

[Willence]

I mean really...