America can prevent shootings like Jacksonville. But it must come to terms with its gun problem.
Have you noticed that the Voxen’s default prescription is always more gun control? Go figure . . .
We don’t yet know why this particular shooter carried out a horrific act of gun violence. But we do know why this keeps happening in America.
Guns. America has the laxest gun laws of any wealthy country in the world, and it also has by far the highest number of privately owned firearms. The easy access to guns makes it easy for anyone to escalate just about any encounter into deadly violence. This means not just more mass shootings, but gun violence in general, which the US has a lot more of than its developed peers.
The US can do something about this. But to understand that, it’s crucial to grasp five key points about America’s gun problem, from how unique it is to why it might take more far-reaching solutions than anyone is proposing in mainstream politics.
Guns are destroying community in America
And yet we’ve managed to make it for 242 years so far with far weaker gun laws than we have now for much of that time . . .
There is no place where people gather in America that is safe from gun violence. In fact, large gatherings are becoming dangerous targets for the angry and unhinged. As that ugly realization slowly settles in, and gun advocates stand their ground in refusing any new regulations on the ability to possess and use weapons of death, there will only be one option for people concerned about their own safety and the safety of their loved ones: retreat from the public square.
This isn’t a totally new phenomenon. We’ve been collectively growing more alienated for years now. Nearly two decades ago, Robert Putnam made the case in his book Bowling Alone that Americans were abandoning community activities in favor of individual activities. In the years since, online culture has exacerbated that trend: People who live in the same town, or even the same neighborhood, can spend years interacting over Twitter or Facebook without ever bothering to have an actual face-to-face meeting.
Amazingly, the participants in the Madden NFL 19 tournament had managed to fuse their online lives and their real lives, and had gathered to compete and enjoy each other’s company. It should have been a grand, joyful time. But then, a gun was added to the mix, and the event became a death trap.
The Gunman In The Deadly Video Game Tournament Shooting Had Legally Purchased Two Guns Recently
What, no claims of Tea Party or NRA membership? . . .
David Katz, the 24-year-old man who shot and killed two people and injured 11 others during a video game tournament in Florida, recently purchased two guns legally from Maryland, authorities said Monday.
Katz carried two handguns, a .45-caliber and a 9 mm, and extra ammunition to the GLHF Game Bar at the back of a pizza restaurant in the Jacksonville Landing mall Sunday where he opened fire on gamers competing in the two-day Madden NFL 19tournament.
Katz walked past patrons in other areas of the restaurant and “focused his attention on the gamers,” Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said. He used only one of the guns in the shooting, Williams said, but “clearly targeted” gamers who were in attendance.
Thieves replace Paraguay police rifles with toy replicas
Fake FN FALs flummox Paraguayan flatfoots . . .
Thieves in Paraguay have stolen 42 powerful rifles from the police armoury.
During an inspection, officers found that the FN FAL battle rifles had been replaced with wooden and plastic replicas.
The inspection had been ordered after the rifles started appearing a year ago on the black market, where they can fetch up to $10,000 (£7,785).
If the Left Treated Immigrants the Way They Do Guns …
Here’s a little thought experiment . . .
Any horrific shooting that makes national news brings a predictable cacophony of calls from progressives for gun control. But what if the Left applied that logic to immigration?
We’d be hearing a lot more demands for “immigrant control” and “common-sense immigration restrictions.”
Instead, liberals tend to emphasize what they claim to be the relative rarity of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, even as they treat much more unusual events — like police killings of unarmed black people — as a national crisis.
Here is a look at how the immigration debate might play out if the Left thought of it in the same terms as guns.
David Katz shooting prompts MSNBC analyst to claim ‘automatic’ weapons a problem in U.S.
The mainstream media continues to distinguish itself . . .
MSNBC viewers over the weekend were told multiple times by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey that mass shootings in America were committed with “automatic” weapons.
At least nine people were wounded and two others killed at a Jacksonville, Florida, video game tournament this weekend before 24-year-old gunman David Katz took his own life. The man used a handgun, but MSNBC’s coverage included a segment that falsely framed “automatic” weapons as a national problem for law enforcement agencies.
Yeah and Greg Guttfeld on The Five stated “he got it from his dad-he should be punished”. Lost a fan…why oh why didn’t the vaunted NICS catch the psychotic boy’s depression and meds? He bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain Lanza boy😦😩😡
That’s “racist.”
This is an obvious profile and predictable outcome. People keep acting like you can’t stop these things, they say you just have to carry a gun everywhere all the time. Can’t stop crazy, right? That is a futile solution in the minds of the Left.
The kid’s parents divorced when he was around 12; right when a boy needs a father figure the most. They took him in for mental health problems and counseling because they didn’t know how to parent. They put him on drugs instead of fixing his “environment,” which is why he looks like a crack/meth head. His mother allowed him to become neurotic and recluse. His fantastic mother would call the police to father him. He only had video games keeping him going.
Far as I can tell, he had two bad parents that didn’t mind drugging up their problem child they created. We should already know by now what path people like this are on. These type of parents still allow their broken kid to get guns. Usually the mother doesn’t want to do what is necessary because she feels bad doing that to her poor baby. The father tends to be a punk that runs from his duty.
There’s an awful lot of assuming going on here. Maybe, just maybe the father was shut out by a mother and a left wing Family Court system that sees the father as nothing more than a source of child support. All to frequently the mother does everything she can to cut dad out of the picture and the courts are only too happy to support her efforts. Been there, done that. Spent a lot of money for evaluations to get my kid some help and was told by the school system and the courts it wasn’t my call. Mom, despite my efforts couldn’t be bothered. Many years later, he’s now a train wreck.
Even “conservative” (R)-aligned courts see all family issues as “dad bad, mommy good” because certain aspects of swampy feminazism have infested the popular mindset since before no-fault divorce was even a thing. Sure, there are a lot of deadbeat dads, but there’s also a lot of abusive skank mommies who don’t spend a penny of their child support on improving their kids’ lives, and a lot of them remarry or shack up with some guy who has plenty of money and still extort child support out of their ex who is not allowed to see his kid.
Depends on the state…
I went through that system myself. Been there, done that. A lot of my friends went through the same thing.
Most of the time the father isn’t doing what he should before and after the divorce. Then he likes to blame and bad mouth the mother for everything. The mother likes to hold a grudge against the father, which rots the family further. The boys tend to become violent, lash out, do drugs and hang out with the wrong people. The girls look for some boy to be her daddy, she becomes very promiscuous, gets into abusive relationships and gets pregnant with some loser’s kid in her teen years.
I learned this very early in life. I had to figure out early why I was constantly attracting a lot of messed up people. I figured out what they all had in common, which was a deadbeat father and a single mother. I attracted a lot of these people because I was a nice person, that was willing to listen to people and try to help them. I couldn’t get into relationships in high school because I didn’t fully understand the situation and what I should be looking for. I decided it was better to be single than to create further damage to already damaged people. Once I changed schools those kids got worse… I couldn’t be their dad.
I understand some fathers have a hard time trying to raise their kids from afar. I know how the Leftist government can be when it comes to deciding who the kids should be with. I know how much money the government asks the father to pay. I know how little you see your kids during the school year. I know how frustrating it can be when you have to pick up your kids at the scheduled time and have to be around your former wife. That’s why Asian people make sure to marry for family and to stay together for family.
It’s hard for the father to get custody. By default the mother is given custody. The government does this so the family fails and they have to step in. Problem kids are gold to the government. Big bad statists need society to be filled with problems for them to fix.
Exactly, force the biological father out of the picture. We’re only good for child support. A generation of children raised w/o father figures.
Shame on the system!
Still don’t understand why anyone in the media is bothering talking about this. Under the Obama definition this is just workplace violence.
Because they can use it against the rest of America.
The Fort Hood jihadi rampage, on the other hand, might have tainted Saint Barack’s “amazingly scandal-free” legacy if the truth were known, and the lapdog media couldn’t let that happen.
The Baltimore Sun is the place to read about Katz’ sordid mental health history. Every few hours more keeps coming out. We will ultimately find out that just like in Florida and Connecticut, and frankly at Virginia Tech as well, the individual was so crazy that he should have been permanently institutionalized. But the institutions have largely been closed down, courtesy of both Dems and Reps alike, just for different reasons. We will also find that just like in FL, his mental illness history including a “commitment” as a minor was suppressed, not available for the background check he needed in order to purchase a handgun from a store in MD. (Background check including fingerprints and agreement to take a “handgun safety” course are required for a purchase permit in MD.) Also note his shrink thought he would go violent on the mother, just like in CT. My point is – these guys are all the same person. A clearly identifiable pattern long before they get their hands on weapons. I don’t expect the politicians to do anything about the mental health laws or bring back institutions for people like these. Much better to grab guns from the law-abiding while turning the local police into a paramilitary service.
More evidence that the severly mentally ill should not be allowed to own or access weapons
Unsurprisingly, the Left says mental health has nothing to do with this. It’s the guns fault, not the broken families and prescription drugs.
I think it’s very clear what type of people do these things, why and how they get there.
Also, it seems very bias that white America only freaks out when it’s white people doing violence and being killed. Is that racist or white supremacists or something else? Why don’t they care about those poor black kids getting shot down every weekend?
Because there is very little sympathy for gang on gang violence, which is mostly what black on black crime is. This sentiment is understandable because only ridiculous leftists get caught up in emotional hysterics over criminals being criminals.
That said, while I have no love lost for gang members whose chickens come home to roost contempt alone ignores the root problem. It’s the same problem that’s already been discussed in these posts, for too many American black boys the gang becomes the surrogate father. Keep more families together black, white, Asian, and Hispanic, and gang numbers and associated problems with them will shrink drastically over time.
And most would agree on that…but not just “mentally ill”…because that would include all with OCD…ADHD…paranoia (all dems/libs when it comes to guns)…phobias of ALL kinds..etc etc etc
*incompetent, corrupt, oppressive, self-righteous paramilitary service
Much better, at least, if the agenda is Statism, the complete rule of everything and everybody by “the state”.
If the agenda is maintaining a civilization, doing whatever it takes to lock up the crazies would be the way to go. Even if it does mean rebuilding new insane asylums all over the place. And admitting we were wrong to close them in the first place. That’s what really stops backtracking, nobody ever wants to do the whole thing over again just cause they screwed it up so bad the first time.
But it would be cheap by comparison to the alternative; the society decays and perishes. I don’t know what enough asylums would cost, but it would not be 100% of all that exists in said society…
Mental institutions were essentially shut down by SCOTUS. Just sayin’.
“He used only one of the guns in the shooting”
So then how did a resident of Maryland, which has a mag capacity limit of 10, fire at least 12 shots?
They said he brought more ammo with him to go along with his two guns. Seems rather planned. Obviously, the media is going to pretend it was solely because he lost at a video game. They will ignore the mental issues, the broken family, the drugs, the modern American culture, etc. It’s due to him having a gun, without that gun he would have just broken his controller and rage quit the game instead of life.
I thought I might have heard him reload on the stream clip of the shooting, have to check with headphones on to see if that was the case.
premeditated murder by the criminally insane…Or there was some criminal behaviour issue or event that went on behind the scenes regarding the targeted players. Who knows, drug money 💰, booze money, betting, personal grudges, boyfriend/girlfriend issue–or reverse…I certainly DON’T accept blame for someone else’s actions in another state…Just like the Corporate Fake News Media hiddinv behind the 1st Amendment claiming to report the news…When it is NOT!
So Vox says progressives are retreating from the public square because guns make them feel unsafe? GOOD. GTFO, STFU, and don’t let the door hit you on your way into your special safe space, wherever that is.
As for me, I’ll be out in the public square — armed, capable, unsafe, and unafraid — and the more progressive-left fascists that leave it, the better the rest of us will be able to restore this nation’s culture without the progbot cancer corroding everything around us.
Bought mags in Floriduh I guess…no one asks for ID I assume. “No one noticed the crazy weirdo because they were glued to their screens”. And zero situational awareness…
Which blows up the narrative he suddenly decided to do this because he lost.
not.
what if he used a magazine that didn’t come with the original purchase? what if he had won the tournament and subsequently hadn’t lost control of his wall crawling? why do you keep pursuing this dead end when it is so obviously the complete and total fault of the nra?
Yeah, I loved the assertion that the *ONLY* recourse was to retire from the public square. I kinda thought a much more rational solution would be to get armed and trained, then go about your business.
There has to be a major change in the war of words first of all! Republicans, Conservatives and like minded writers MUST STOP USING THE TERM “GUN VIOLENCE” with regard to firearm related crimes. Doing so plays into the continuous stream of invented words used by the left to instill fear into the public. Individuals commit the crimes! The gun is but a method or tool used to do so. Guns HAVE NO INHERENT TENDENCIES TO VIOLENCE BY THEMSELVES! People do! Hundreds of thousands of people are killed or injured every year by knives, hammers, cars, bats, and other items. YET, NEVER are those items referred to as knife, hammer, car, and bat violence. We must refocus this issue ON THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE as individual civil violence! Then forcibly correct the opposition on terminology and place the crime on the INDIVIDUAL’S behavior and actions. Force the discussion to remain solely on the perpetrator and not on the weapon of choice!
yes Repubs shut them down because of the cost, Dems shut them down because it “impinged on their rights as people”, forget the fact that they are insane and have no compunction against doing harm to others. Repubs forgot the cost to society of allowing these nut cases to walk free.
There are other aspects to this problem as well. for example the ever increasing toxic load on peoples bodies by various toxins used regularly in food, medicine and others which are causing the exponential growth of the mental health problems in our society.
An example of this is fluoride which is a known carcinogen and also neurotoxin. It also has a strong affinity to aluminum which is also a neurotoxin. These are just a couple of the factors of which there are many that prior to about 1900 had very minimal pervasiveness in society in our food, medicine and water supply
And the average life expectancy in the US then was under 50. Sounds sooo wonderfui.
yes it may have been however most of that was good healthy life. i would rather Quality Of Life then Length Of Life. Many now in those latter years (still if they get there in many cases) are dependent on drugs to maintain any QOL and many of those drugs cause other problems. A large part of the reduction in LOL was also to do with other risk factors such as workplace dangers and childhood deaths from illness which also weeded out those of weaker constitutions…. eg those needing lifelong care
Wasn’t children deaths the main variable that brought down that statistic? I kind of remember hearing that…
yes childhood death was a large factor, however if you look at the timeline with the reduction in the “killer” childhood diseases it ties in completely with sanitation improvements not better drugs. the sanitation improvements were coming in before the drugs and the decline in those diseases follows that closely. In current 3rd world countries there are quite large vaccination programs however people are still dying in large numbers of those diseases. the sanitation however is not there.
There is also evidence that many of these drugs also weaken the natural immune system forcing the need for more drugs to prop that up
The indigenous people of North America had a much higher life expectancy than they do now. I think a lot of that has to do with the U.S. food quality and chemicals. My grandparents did not live very long. I never met my grandfathers and my grandmothers died when I was very young. Even my uncles died very early.
If by chemicals, you mean ethanol and assorted recreational pharmaceutical, then, yes, reservation populations are being devastated by substance abuse problems. Sedentary lifestyle, poverty, unemployment, and government handouts aren’t helping either.
Back then the tribe cared for their elders, too.
Not so much now…
Nothing to do with anything, but what better place to drop a blast from the past than the TTAG Daily Digest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehYoIKTsiV0
Another blast from the past. For no reason…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzv6EhE7Cbo
Damn, I miss Robin Williams. A true “Beautiful Mind”…
check out jonathan winters “after the beep.”
In light of the recent info, I will repost this comment:
Clinton/Liberman’s BS about video games causing violence has never been supported by scientific studies, and in-fact all such studies say it’s false.
Violent video games, TV and movies desensitize people.
In Asia, they don’t allow little kids to watch, listen, or play, the things American kids do. Americans would say Asia is way too oppressive with their entertainment restrictions. For instance, Korea bans pornography and blocks their citizens access to porn web sites.
I don’t say video games cause violence. Video games is what people use to escape their life for as long as possible. Without the internet and video games a lot of kids will have to deal with their situation. Now that there is easy and fast internet access, kids have interactions with people in the same situations, which can be a negative or a positive.
I have observed first hand this situation.
Video games are fun and helpful, but they are also used as a crutch. Again, I am not talking about or blaming video games, I am talking about the environment/society/family/culture.
If you put up a gun-free zone…then you should have some obligation to enforce it…
maybe start suing the venues…until they put in actual checks/security…or they take down the signs
Even a ban on guns would never work.
We tried with alcohol and drugs and both were/are complete failures.
Criminals find ways to get what they want…legally or not.
And even dems/libs would not put up with all the searches that would be necessary to make the USA truly gun free.
Other developed countries have strict laws for illegal gun use.
No probation or catch and release like in Chicago.
Many don’t have 4th and 5th amendment rights either. Some may not have a bail system for some crimes, either.
10/20/life for gun crimes would be great. If the system really worked the way it should. And even then it would not be perfect.
We have life in prison and death for murder…yet they still happen. Go figure.
You will always be your only guaranteed defense. Maybe others will punish those who harm you, but they cannot prevent it, only you can. And trusting a law written in a book somewhere to protect you is purely moronic.
“Among nations assessed by the Paris-based club of market economies, only Brazil, Estonia, Mexico and Russia had higher murder rates.”
BUT, Vox seems to have overlooked them in preparing their chart of how the US compares to “industrialized countries” to compare homicide rates in 2012.
https://www.rawstory.com/2013/09/u-s-murder-rate-higher-than-nearly-all-other-developed-countries-fbi-data/
German Lopez has essentially written the same gun control article for Vox several times over the past few years. It’s pretty much lazy copypasta Voxsplaining from him at this point, so he’s clearly not addressing critiques of his work or reasoning. Don’t waste your energy on him.
This young man had some mental issues. That’s established. He was hospitalized as a teenager for mental health issues. That’s established.
But we on the pro-Second Amendment side are too quick to say “people with mental health issues shouldn’t own guns”. Really? That’s the approach we want to take?
I am OK with banning people who’ve been adjudicated mentally incompetent from owning firearms. Clinically insane? Sure. Mentally retarded? Sure. But do we want anyone who takes SSRIs or has been diagnosed with depression to be barred? Do we want psychiatrists and psychologists to become informants to the government?
Do you think the last point becoming fact will encourage or deter people re getting counseling?
There is no solution.
I quite agree. only those deemed a threat to others should be denied. if simply a suicide risk… no as if they are at risk of suicide but not of harming others directly then removing guns wont stop them committing suicide as they will simply choose another means. If they are a risk to others however they should not be free to roam in society but rather in a asylum where they are not at liberty to harm others
Who are you going to have doing this “deeming”? Face it, no one is qualified to deny anybody anything, much less a specified, constitutionally protected right. No one should be denied, if you fear for your safety, then arm yourself.
I would say if they have been pulled up for several serious attacks (but non firearms related) on others due to mental health rather than “deemed” per say. At that point it would be lock them up in an institution till they are no longer a threat to the public and they no longer need medication to make them safe to be in public. Firearms related attacks due to mental health issues go straight into the loony bin again as stated above. Completely agree i would not want someone just deciding because they did not like someones views on something to ban them from anything. If it is based on actual behavior that puts others at serious risk then i could live with that
“…Guns. America has the laxest gun laws of any wealthy country in the world, and it also has by far the highest number of privately owned firearms. The easy access to guns makes it easy for anyone to escalate just about any encounter into deadly violence. ”
So we have the laxest laws? Interesting that you had to qualify that with ‘wealthy country,’ makes it seem like you are cherry-picking data points to promote an agenda or something.
The data points you failed to understand, which is embarrassing for you really since you listed them right there in your story, is that with all that easy access to guns we as a nation still only kill each other in numbers that are a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of one percent. Sure it sucks if you are the one killed but to light your hair on fire and run around in circles because of something that is so incredibly rare make you look like a real and genuine doofus.
Typical of most international comparsions, the emphasis is predominently on differences in GUN deaths, rather than overall violence/suicides. Amazingly, where guns are readily available, more violent thugs and suicidal people use guns.
A couple of weeks ago there was a shooting in Chicago that had about the same number of dead and wounded but it was barely reported. Why? Because it a bad weekend in the ghetto and the victims were black. When a bunch of whites get shot the media goes on and on. That’s what real racism looks like.
Good grief. If you wish to see the crap really hit the turbine, take that number of dead blacks in Chicago, except killed by white men, and the city will burn to the ground. There is no uproar about Chicago not because the dead are black, but because the *SHOOTERS* are black!!!
“Fake FN FALs flummox Paraguayan flatfoots . . .”
The number of times I had to read this for it to make sense shows me that it is too early for me to be at work….
“America has the laxest gun laws of any wealthy country in the world, and it also has by far the highest number of privately owned firearms.”
Wealthy. See that word? That’s a code word qualifier. The antis use it as an expedient to exclude stats from countries far more dangerous than the U.S., but which happen to be 3rd world, dark skinned countries. Wealthy means racist, in this context.
The antis exclude those countries because their implicit assumption is that they’re just savages, anyway. Murderous violence is par for the course with them.
Problem is, the antis are also hypocrites. They will exclude the dark skinned countries from comparison when they want to slam American gun owners. However, they won’t exclude American dark skinned people when assessing our own level of gun violence.
You see, the big difference between bloody Chicago and tranquil Montpelier is that the latter consists almost exclusively of old white people. If you exclude the gun violence committed by blacks in this country, you’ll find the resulting gun violence rates are comparable to or well below those of Europe or the rest of the world, despite our abundance of privately owned firearms.
America doesn’t have a gun problem. It has a shooter problem. Those shooters are predominantly minorities. If you want to call that a race issue, that’s fine. If you want to call it a sub-cultural issue, that’s fine, too. What it is not, is a gun issue.
unfortunately for the left you hit the nail on the head. sadly the “minorities” (who if you look at worldwide numbers are actually the majority) are the most racist of all (with the exception of some leftists who wish they were black etc)
You forgot “progressive mentality”. Nearly 100% of mass shooters have been leftists. Despite the media’s narrative, conservative gun owners aren’t involved in mass shootings and are, as a group, law abiding and peaceable.
sympathy for victims, otherwise tell someone who cares. don’t give a s**t about background, a derivative of the “twinkie” defense for offenders who survived…the video game possessed me, the bait truck made me steal, the dope made me smoke/inject, the gun made me shoot, in my culture it’s ok to…
Vox Article (when bemoaning the lack of new gun control) “Part of the holdup is the Second Amendment.”
Well, that pretty much says it all as to how progs think.
Yep, gosh darn it, those inconvenient individual rights and freedoms, always getting in the way of progress.
The only places safe from human violence are areas where there are no humans. Gun control, knife control or even truck control won’t change human nature. It is insanity to prefer one form of violence over others and to ignore the very obvious failure of gun control to reduce violence anywhere. It is insanity to look at the proliferation of guns in the USA and the steady REDUCTION in violent crime then say that guns CAUSE crime.
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