Promotional image from callofduty.com
It's been nearly two months since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., and in that time, there's been quite a bit of debate about gun violence. Some of it, however, has led segments of the population to draw curious conclusions.
Last week, for example, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told MSNBC, "I think video games is [sic] a bigger problem than guns, because video games affect people." It was an odd thing for anyone, least of all a sitting senator, to say on national television.
But the sentiment, however strange, appears to reflect the opinions of Alexander's party.
As Republican leaders insist that the debate over gun violence in America should also address the role of violent entertainment, the latest findings from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling released Thursday showed that the vast majority of GOP voters nationwide believe video games are a bigger threat than guns.
Given the choice between the two, 67 percent of Republican voters said violent video games represent a bigger threat to safety than guns. Fourteen percent said guns are the bigger safety threat.
I'll gladly concede that societal violence is an extremely complex, multi-faceted problem, and there are cultural factors to consider.
But to think virtual guns pose a more serious threat to the public than actual guns -- by a lopsided margin -- is to overlook the available evidence.
To reiterate what we discussed last week, even if we put aside the irony of the underlying point -- blaming simulated, pixelated guns is fine; blaming actual guns is not -- these arguments aren't new. Plenty of officials have been arguing for years that violent games desensitizes young people to violence and contributes to a larger corrosive effect on the culture.
There's just very little evidence to support the claims. Hunches and cultural criticisms notwithstanding, social science research does not bolster the contention that gaming and gun violence are connected. (Adam Lanza was reportedly obsessed with "Dance Dance Revolution" -- which is a game, as the name suggests, about moving feet, not shooting weapons.)
For that matter, the United States is not the only country with young people who play a lot of video games, but it is the only country with high rates of gun violence.
Gaming is a huge cultural phenomenon in countries like South Korea, England, Japan, and Canada -- and they're all playing many of the same games Americans enjoy -- and yet, none of these countries comes close to the U.S. when it comes to deadly shootings.
And why not? Sociologists can speak to the differences in more detail, but I suspect it has something to do with access to firearms. It may seem tautological, but let's state it for the record anyway: societies with fewer guns have less gun violence, whether they're playing "Halo" or not.
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Well, I don't know- I suspect that a lot of the Titans of Wall Street spent a lot of their pre-teen years playing "Monopoly."
Well, that's an interesting joke...not funny, but interesting. Monopoly is not designed to cheat others, nor to kill others. Neither does it involve graphic images of such. I think the above article is an example of this Ohio University professor of communication and psychology conclusion:
And yahtzee is a game that is violent and can lead to death also:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/yahtzee_death_tamara_lee_mason_cobb_brothers_minnesotahers_killed_mom_because_th.html
So I call bullsh*t on robtroll.
And people DO cheat at Monopoly and that game is violent and can lead to death as well:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/woman-stabbed-boyfriend-over-alleged-monopoly-cheating/
In Monopoly, one player lucks into massive financial victory early on and spends the rest of the game slowly grinding everyone else into dust, accusing them of being poor losers when they complain. It's basically Capitalism.
So if playing violent video games causes violence, everyone who plays and win at Monopoly should all be millionaires.
The question remains, if other nations have the same violent video games, (and they do), then why aren't they slaughtering thousands of their own citizens every year like we are here in America? Could it be that they don't have even a tiny fraction of the number of guns that we have here?" Or is it just that Americans glorify violence, something that was going on long before video games?
Cheat? Kill? NO, the object of the game is to wipeout/bankrupt/destroy every other player in the game. Like Texas hold'em, there can be only one winner. What a great way to prepare supple young minds for a future as Masters of the Universe.
The military video games, on the other hand, prepare the same supple young minds for a disposable career in the volunteer army, with the promise of three hots and a cot and skills that are useless in the civilian world. And perhaps a bonus: Some PTSD.
@RobDon - The key word from your quote is "believe." Real scientists observe and assess evidence; they don't "believe." Faith is for church; not for the laboratory. So, your misleading comments won't gain much traction here.
Nice try, though.
There have been multiple scientific studies on the effects of violence in TV and movies and all of these studies have concluded there is no evidence of any causal effect or even a correlation between make believe violence and real violence. We can extrapolate from those studies that violence in video games have no effect on whether people commit violence. Belief in causation does not make it scientific fact, yet people persist in the belief despite all evidence to the contrary. We tried sanitizing TV and films during the 70's and there was no effect on the amount of violence. Do we really need to try another prohibition law to prove once again that there is no truth to the belief?
The moral-social questions are a mirage. Rational analysis of the underpinnings of the violence has influence only for those whose decisions are correlated with such analysis. So why bother with the inquiry. This is about raw power and raw economics.
Walmart is the largest arms supplier in the US, but they have a company policy against music with curse words. Will they ban sale of first per shooter games? Are you out of your mind? This is not about a few rap CD's that most people don't buy in stores anyway. A single FPS game can achieve a billion in revenue within months of release.
You think that Walmart is going to cut itself out of that action over some theoretical moral-social argument?
You are damn right the won't. Because that is not what they think economies are for.
And don't forget Risk - I have watched friends get violent with each other over the roll of the die. It's hard to lose territory on a game board - but to patch up bruised egos over the same, even tougher.
Math doesn't lie, and based on the math...easier access to guns = more gun violence.
Look at this through the lens of lobbying money. The pro gun guys think they can get leverage on the progressives by telling the software developers who make huge donations to progressives that gun control threatens their billion dollar business. They don't really care about the truth behind the ideas. The value of an idea is whether it tends to tilt a political decision in your favor. So, the NRA pretends to care about the science.
The interesting thing is that the gun lobby may have a second reason because the stastics show that their market is shrinking. While it is true more guns are being sold, they are being sold to fewer people. That is, perhaps the gun lobby views the FPS game providers as competitors. Why buy a real gun you can only rarely go out and shoot with your friends when you can fire much more cooler and illegal weapons in the virtual world you can play anytime they can sneak away from the family for a half hour? Perhaps the FPS guys are selling a Nicoret product that is part of a process of weaning our violent culture from its real world self destructive impulses.
At minimum, if given a choice between a nut obsessing with violent tendencies, I vastly prefer he work out his issues in a virtual world rather than the real world. Navy Seal Chris Kyle believed in helping guys work through them in the real world. He was a gun expert not an expert on the science of mental pathologies. He was murdered by a gun nut he was trying to help, and it's a tragedy.
Such a stupid national ongoing tragedy of working out our madness in the real world.
@Miguel
Sorry to disappoint, but science has faith in it as well. The faith that our observations are correct, the faith in the postulates we create are correct, and also that are basic assumptions are correct. Einstein could not believe in quantum mechanics, because of of his faith that the universe was not made at random, or as he would have stated, "God does not play dice with the universe." He died with this idea, even when all of science accepted that he was wrong. He is a video to prove my point.
http://extra-credits.net/episodes/god-does-not-play-dice/
People need to realize that a picture of a gun, the image of a gun, or a pixilated version of a gun dose not do the same thing as a real life gun
@JohnMesserly
I think the NRA is pointing at game manufacturers and yelling "squirrel."
What's really scary is that people aren't even looking at the bigger picture. Sure, games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 teach our kids to kill with guns. But everyone's ignoring that a whole new generation are being trained to be fascist dictators and to commit genocide, ban books, rig elections, and denounce capitalism in Tropico 4! Where's the outrage!?
See, you could never effectively dual wield real guns like that, so clearly virtual ones are much more dangerous. And have you ever seen a BFG-9000 in the real world? Didn't think so.
But if you did, I'd have a constitootshunal rat to own a dozen of them. You never know when devil worshipping scientists are going to open up a portal to hell and release a flood of zombies and demonic entities. Or fiat money causes the collapse of civilization followed by ravening hordes of brown people from the inner city. Whichever.
You'll probably want a shotgun for the zombies anyway.
Any zombie hunter worth his/her salt knows that a baseball bat does a lot better job on zombies than a shotgun. It's much better (and cheaper) to knock their heads clean off. Their heads aren't really attached that well.
Come at me, bro. I got my IDDQD on!
You can look to 2010 for the answers on virtually anything. The last midterm proved to wingnuts that they can say anything they want and get rewarded with victory in certain geographical areas. Lamar Alexander does not have to be bothered with uncomfortable facts when he can simply tow the idiot line like in this case. There is no incentive for these people to tell the truth...
overlooking evidence? The GOP? Say it ain't so! So many of that party have their heads so far up their sphincters that they can't see reality at all.
Tell ya what, Republicans: You shoot me with an imaginary gun in a video game, and I'll shoot you with a real gun, and we'll see which one hurts more.
Video games, really? Why not blame old spaghetti westerns or the Terminator? Face it America has glorified guns & violence! Turn on the television and if you're not seeing stupid vulgar "reality shows" there's always a violent movie on - WE are all desensitized! The rabid right politicians are funded by the NRA, so they're never going to accept that sensible gun regulations need to be in place and they're going to blame gun violence on everything else in the hope of changing the conversation. But, I'm thinking that just maybe this time will be different, this time just maybe enough rational empathetic people were horrified by the innocence of the angels that were killed in Newtown to want to make a change to our laws.
We may be de-senatized to a certain degree...just to maintain some sort of sanity while absorbing all of the madness surrounding us...the only urge I get after a good game is a shower and a doobie....there are folks who may have to act on their insanity but that is not what a gamer usually does...or thinks about...this is just more winger propaganda...
Republican voters, Senators, research, evidence?! Ha ha, good one, Steve. This is turning more and more into a snark blog. Tbogg would be proud.
Are violent video games a more serious problem than real guns in the hands of criminals and the mentally ill? No, of course not.
But at the same time think about the impact turning killing into a video game is having on our security apparatus. Nothing is more video game like than blowing somebody up with a drone. One of my real fears is both policy makers and the public will forget that the images of drone strikes and smart bombs attacks are not video games. Real people are killed. We can't allow video games to desensitize us to the horror that is war.
*Yawn* New scapegoats, please. They're obviously just looking to buy time since the public isn't rolling over and hitting the snooze button this time.
Violent entertainment is a staple of American society and has been even before the advent of radio and TV. Public hangings use to be a family event, with people coming from miles around to witness the death of another human being.
Nothing has changed other than the format in which we receive the portrayal of violence, and the amount of ways we can receive it.
The availability and ease of obtaining weapons designed to kill large amounts of people in a short time is the cause of these mass killings. Violent video games in particular are played all around the world, in countries where people have firearms, and they do not have the epidemic of gun violence and mass slaughter and murder we have in our society.
No, the blame rest on the individual who commits the crime. Looking at things that made someone capable of committing such a hideous crime is logical. Removing the weapon of choice from his hands does not make him any less capable of committing the crime. (By "capable" I mean with out conscious or concerns for others.)
Something(s) in his life has desensitised him to the value of life, hurting others without thought, etc...what would you suggest, having a gun in the house did that?
You have a strange definition of "capable." Exactly how many people do you think the Newtown shooter (or the Aurora shooter, or the Tucson shooter) would have killed with a stick before being stopped? How is that not less "capable"?
Just recently, an incident eerily similar to Newtown happened in China...a mentally disturbed man went into an elementary school and attacked the children. The difference....the guy only had a knife, and he was stopped without the tremendous loss of life we had in Newtown. You cannot stop every nut who wants to kill and maim, but there is no reason to aid and abet their killing spree by giving them weapons that are designed solely to kill large numbers of people in a very short period of time.
Uffdaguy, there have been several of those incidents in China, the first KILLED 8 students. (I know Wiki is not the most credible source but I've used it because it is all inclusive of the events, including stabbing "28 students," killing with a knife "seven children and two adults," etc.)
I fully understand that rapid firing guns increases the likelihood of multiple victums and I'm not against some of the regulations, but it bears more fruit to look at the CAUSE of the killings and not mostly focusing on the MEANS.
Redshift, I don't think someone bent on killing would use a stick. But, if "assault" weapons are banned, they will use a handgun or a shotgun (and in the case of the China incidents, or a knife), and achieve the same results.
Why must it be either/or? Can we not focus on the cause AND the means?
Robdon, of course the individual who committed the crime is guilty, no one is arguing that point.
Having weapons so easily attainable, and so powerful that many, many people can be killed in a matter of seconds or minutes is the problem.
Reducing sharply the ease with which crazies and criminals can get weapons of mass slaughter will reduce the potential violence and victim count substantially, and that's worth doing.
Secretly, I agree. Both. Where is the push for reform of Hollywood and the gaming industry that produce "entertainment" that glorifies and rewards gratuitous violence? And if you claim "free speech" then you must also respect understand those seeking to protect their second amendment rights as well.
Well we are in agreement. I have a soon to be 8 year old daughter, and I become very angry sometimes at some of the content she's exposed to, just in commercials, or advertisements for shows when browsing on demand.
The hyper violence and hyper sexuality needs to be addressed, but not in a knee jerk reaction way. We need the best minds working together.
Freedom of speech and freedom of expression doesn't shoot someone dead. Your angry neighbor who believes the government is coming to get them does. I can choose not to listen to you or not to watch you, I can't choose not to be shot by you.
There is absolutely NO, I repeat, NO reason for any private citizen to own an assault weapon, just as there is no reason for a private citizen to own a machine gun, RPG launcher, howitzer, tank, anti-aircraft weapon or nuclear weapon. Not being allowed to own those beasties does not infringe on a citizen's Second Amendment rights, and apparently that is okey dokey with the NRA, as I haven't heard a squeak from them on those weapons.
The universal rule with modern Republicans, whether on guns, the economy, the budget, or anything, is "We deny the most rational response because it conflicts with our ideology. What's something else we can claim is the answer?"
Denying reality bites you in the ass eventually, but it can take a long time.
It was quite a while ago (maybe 15 years ago? And I want to say it was maybe in Philadelphia?), and the story never made national news, but it taught me all I needed to know about how elected officials fail to understand basic logic whenever guns are involved. Essentially, there was an incident outside a school, or perhaps just near a school where a kid pulled out a squirt gun, and pulled the trigger, but instead of hitting his friend, he hit someone else by mistake, who then pulled out a real gun and pulled the trigger, killing the person with the squirt gun.
Again, it was a long time ago, so my memory is fuzzy if these were high school kids or young adults or what, but the policy response? Banning squirt guns. No, really. The real, lethal gun that can actually kill a person? Fine. But the toy? Banned. Needless to say, I'm not hopeful anything will ever happen, though that's not to say we shouldn't try.
So change the 2nd amendment to allow only 'virtual' weapons - and let them play games with real ones !
I've said this before on the MaddowBlog site, but here it is again. It's the gun culture. There's a prevailing attitude in America that guns are "cool." Packing heat is considered a sign of the utmost self-sufficiency in a culture that worships self-sufficiency. Grab a copy of the 2004 movie It's the Rage, starring Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels and Robert Forster. Entertaining and illuminating.
You hit the nail on the head.
How many people say they would use guns as a solution to a problem? You <insert almost any slight> and I'll shoot you.
Until the culture says that it's is unacceptable to shoot people, I don't think this will ever end. And even then there will be always people shooting other people.
Deflect attempts at regulating the 2nd Amendment by demanding more regulations on the 1st amendment. Good solution.
How is this argument actually a wise one for gun owners? The danger isn't real guns. The danger is showing children what real guns can actually do in realistic scenarios. Even though these realistic scenarios are our top reasons for having real guns in the first place.
It's really silly that the Grammy awards are more worried about a show of skin than our political leaders are about the distribution of firearms. Clearly we are messed up when a boob is more dangerous than a gun? or is our government filled with dangerous boobs that scare the Grammy's?
Okay, a real gun is more dangerous than a virtual gun. Wow, that's a great point. I could never have reached that conclusion on my own. But neither one is dangerous if it is laying on the table.
What is dangerous, is a real gun in the hands of an unstable person. Maybe an unstable person who site around playing first-person shooter games all day? We are never going to get rid of all the guns. Period. Even if we ban them all, there will still be guns. We have banned heroin and cocaine, and it's all gone, right?
As long as there will be guns, there will be unstable people who use them to commit atrocities. On the outside that these people couldn't get a gun, they would just not hurt anyone, right? Fail again...
In my wife's village in the Philippines, one man cut off another man's head with a machete last night. It's all the hot topic there now. It happens more often than you might think there. Drinking and machetes just don't mix well. What can they do. I know, ban machetes. Gee, it is going to be very hard to harvest the coconut crop now.
Consider this:
We could save a lot of kid's lives by banning swimming pools. And if an outright ban is too much, we could just limit the depth. After all, no one really needs a 6 foot deep swimming pool in their back yard. And, if it would save just one child's life, don't we woe to them?
Yes, much better to throw up our hands and do nothing in the wake of tragedy.
Looks like Alva changed his name to Libtard...
I'm with you in that banning guns won't change much except push the trade of them underground. But SERIOUSLY, video game guns are more dangerous than REAL guns? It's ridiculous. Anytime someone runs into a school with the intention of killing KIDS you have to do something.
The real elephant in the room is the demographic that is committing these mass shootings. 65 of the last 68 have all been of the same demographic, I'd say start there as to why these types of acts happen.
I just followed a great link someone provided in the comments:
http://www.virtualshackles.com/381/comments.
One of the graphs shown illustrates that in countries with less guns there is not a rise in murders committed with other weapons. The reason is guns are an easy hands off method of instant gratification, and the wimpy scared guy who would stand behind a bushmaster wouldn't have the b@11s to cut off someone's head.
Amber, interesting.
Sam Harris pointed out that on a per capita basis, the US does have far more firearm homicides than other comparable countries. But the US also has less assaults and rapes than those countries.
Homicide:
U.S. 4.8
UK (includes Northern Ireland) 1.2
Australia 1.0
Sweden 1.0
Rape:
U.S. 27.3
UK (England and Wales) 28.8
Australia 88.4
Sweden 63.5
Assault
U.S. 250.9
U.K. (England and Wales) 664.4
Australia 766
Sweden 936.6
Scotland 1449.7
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/faq-on-violence
Sorry but this article is wrong about gaming in other nations, many articles are lately.
For one the Japanese and Koreans don't really play the same games we do. First Person Shooters are an American creation, and they aren't really popular in Asian nations at all. Just as Japanese dating (and even rape games) aren't popular in the US at all (many don't even come here). Furthermore even in genres we both play (like RPGs) there is a huge difference. Western RPGs like Fallout or Mass Effect tend to be far more hyper realistic and violent than Japanese or Korean RPGs which have more cartoonish backgrounds, fantastical story lines, and a very different presentation (see say Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest). Or take fighting games. Japanese fighting games are again, largely cartoonish, Americans cranked out Mortal Kombat which (much like first person shooters) is not at all popular in Asia.
So let's get this out of the way right now, Americans are completely different from Asians when it comes to gaming.
Now if you want to compare our tastes to other western nations that's a different story. Our tastes are similar. But it's worth noting that other nations have stronger censorship of gaming than Americans here. Many games that are sold freely here have stronger age limits, censored violence, or get banned in other western nations (Germany and Australia are good examples). So again, we aren't the same here.
Now none of this is really to blame video games, I play a lot of them. But simply saying that the Japanese play them to and have no problems is utterly ignorant of gaming in general. They have societal problems which do show up in their dating and rape simulation games as well, but they don't really play first person shooters like we do. This might be a case of art imitating life or life imitating art. But let's not pretend that gaming in Japan is the same as gaming in the US.
Hideki Kamiya's Devil May Cry series
Tomonobu Itagaki's Ninja Gaiden series (modern version)
Hideo Kojima;s Metal Gear series (and Snatcher/Policenauts)
Platinum Games Madworld and Bayonetta
These may not be first person shooters, but they are quite violent shooting games that are wildly popular in the US, Japan and almost every major market. You could make an argument that US/EU is more fond of online multiplayer shooters more than in Japan. But "completely different" is too broad a brush for painting.
Let me also add to the original point, these games are wildly popular because they are generally really well made and fun, not specifically because they are killing simulators. Just like violent movies can be enjoyable and very well made, or tv crime dramas, or books, or anything media/art. Some of the things I've watched on Fox News invite far more disturbing tendencies in otherwise sane Americans.
Except DMC and Bayonetta are not the sort of hyper realistic "murder simulators" everyone is all up in arms about. Those are the FPS games and to a lesser extent GTA. And those specific games began in American, are largely done by American and other Western studios and aren't popular in Asia... they are also (again) censored in various other western nations.
This isn't to blame the games. But it is to point out that American media, or at least our tastes in media, are vastly more violent when it comes to wanton killing of humans that other first world nations. It also hedges back to the fact that many Europeans are shocked at the sort of violence we splatter all over the TV and can't figure out why we get all up in arms over showing a breast.
America is truly exceptional when it comes to just about every form of violence. Which (at least to me) tends to point that the problem is something much deeper than guns and Battlefield 3.
Also true: getting drunk and playing driving video games is more dangerous that actual drunk driving.
You can look it up.
I'm pretty sure the movies used to de-sensitize kids to violence, then music, then the internet, now its gaming. Its just the fashionable industry of choice for the Republicans to blame this time around. The new Die Hard movie is out and no doubt Bruce will be killing way more bad guys that he did in the original (ho ho ho) but as Holllywood is not the industry of choice for the GOP to blame for child brainwash9ong then I guess thats OK.
Perhaps next time there is a mass shooting they will blame the toy companies. I don't know any little boy that didn't have a toy gun growing up playing cops and robbers or cowboys and indians.
Assault weapons are made for 1 purpose only and the clue is in the name. Even if movies, music, toys and computer games DID brainwash people into commiting violent attrocities, without the ability to gets their hands on automatic weapons the crazed individual could never cuase the carnage and loss of life as witnessed in Newtown.
The GOP does not act of behalf of the peoples constitutional rights or the will of the people, the act for the NRA and will therefore never admit thats GUNS are the problem for Americas gun violence. Shameful.
Yes, guns are part of the problem with gun violence. But violence is the real killer.
I don't know who coined the name "assault rifle", but I am pretty sure it was not the NRA. It's a name, get over it. My motorcycle is considered a "cruiser", but I seldom go on cruises. I mostly just ride it to work and back. Because it was designed to cruise, does that mean that I can't do anything else useful with it?
Just because you can't swim, why can't I have a swimming pool in my back yard?
The issue is that the difference between an assault rifle and a semi automatic hunting rifle is almost entirely cosmetic. In fact the .223 cartridge in the AR-15 isn't even all that strong of a cartridge. The military itself has often complained about the lack of lethality of their version which fires a (slightly better) 5.56.
The popularity of the AR-15 platform and the military preference for it is largely for logistical reasons. It's cheap, easy to produce, and highly modifiable. Though it's not in any way as lethal as say a battle rifle which fires a higher caliber and stronger cartridge or say a sniper rifle, which is functionally the same as a hunting rifle for game the size of a deer and up.
For whatever reasons (I blame profit) some time ago everything became "tactical", even tools, knives, clothing, gear, whatever. All tactical tends to mean is that it comes in black, looks frightening, and enables the makers to pump and dump a lot of it into the market at a huge markup to make a quick buck. Hell you can spend more on upgrades and modifications for the AR-15 than the actual gun costs, it's a cash cow. Even though for actually killing something it's vastly inferior to something that fires say 308 winchester.
The devil is in the details here. And that's what the NRA doesn't really want to talk about, the AR platform is just way too profitable for the gun makers.
SinDC: The 223 is a super-deadly round as far as human beings are concerned. Comparing it to other, stronger rounds is completely useless, as those other rounds are not designed to kill humans. It's extra deadly because it's designed to cause less recoil. You are trying to deceive people with your dishonesty and strawman hogwash. Eventually we are going to ban your AR15 despite all the lies people like you tell, maybe not this round, but eventually...
Lebowski, virtually every round ever made was designed by various militaries to kill humans. The popular 30.06 used for hunting nowadays, was adopted in 1906 by the US Army as their main rifle round. The reason for going to the smaller .223 was that a soldier could carry about twice as many rounds as the same weight of 30.06 rounds. When you're on foot on patrol weight is a major factor. Recoil has nothing to do with it, a modern Barret .50 calibre sniper rifle has less recoil than my old bolt action hunting rifle. I've shot both, so I am familiar.
The problem is that all bullets are lethal, and to be exact I'm not against banning the AR-15. I personally don't care all that much one way or the other. As I'm no longer in the military I have no need to keep current with one. You won't get any resistance from me there.
However that doesn't mean that it's not idiotic and that many of the arguments against it aren't fanstastical nonsense that boil down to "it's black and scary and people I don't like enjoy them", which is really what is going on.
Most gun violence is done with hand guns containing .22lr, and most deaths are due to slow response in treating them. But of course we aren't trying to do anything about that. And the only reason they are used is because they are cheap (both the guns and ammo) along with being really easy to conceal.
And there is also the old joke about how limiting the amount of rounds you can put it a magazine just means use higher caliber rounds since you can't fit as many in!
Also I don't own an AR-15 and I never have. I was however in the military. So you aren't banning anything I have or would ever buy. But that wont' stop me from calling stupid stupid.
SinDC: Thank you for your service. I will continue to take exception with the notion you are pushing that the AR15 is not significantly different than most rifles, and that the 223 round in not really strong. I am not supporting the AWB because they are "black and scary", I am on board because those rifles make mass killings more deadly as far as numbers. I don't doubt that there is a percentage of people on both sides of this issue that do indeed take "looks" into account here, but most of us look at the piles of dead bodies and are convinced.
Sprint: How many mass shootings have involved 50cal sniper rifles? None as far as I know. How many have used AR's with 223? Freaking dozens!
@Lebowsky
There reason there are more crimes involving AR-15s that other rifles is because the AR-15 is fairly common. The reason for this is that it's a "fun" gun for hobby shooters. The reason it's so fun is the vast amount of modifications and tinkering that can be done with it.
Let's get real for a second though. Loading up an AR-15 with a flash light, red eye laser, scope, pistol grip and bi-pod is not making it "more lethal" when it comes to shooting unarmed children. Frankly you're just making a mess out of it. What that does do though is allow a weapons maker to make a ton of extra cash as you've now probably spent more than the gun costs on it's own. This is why people want to own them and this is why the gun lobby wants to sell them.
As for the .223 let's get real for a second. First off, all bullets can be lethal, but let's talk about why there are different calibers. .22lr/.223/.225 are all "varmint" rounds. Which is to say they are really lethal towards things like a cyote (and that's what they are used to kill). They are hilariously bad at hunting deer and other creatures not only because of the rounds lack of stopping power but also because they will bounce of branches and other items. Which is why for shooting things larger than farmings you start getting into .30-06 or .308 (and higher) which is a completely different ball game. It's the same reason that the .22lr pistols used in most crimes (again because they are so common) are never carried around as bear defense... odds are you'd have on really angry bear, and that's where high caliber revolvers start to shine.
It's also worth noting that the military rifles don't fire the .223 cartridge, but the 5.56. And while you can fire .223 from the military version, firing the 5.56 from the civilian version is a sure way to break your AR-15 and pose a danger too yourself.
Now, my perspective as someone who went from the service to working for the DOD as a civilian for many years is vastly different from someone who didn't spend 8 years of their life around guns on a daily basis. But I also grew up in the DC area which had a staggering amount of gun violence for years and was the murder capital of the US. Most gun crime remains done with cheap, and easy to purchase, hand guns. And even then if you lived or died was largely determined by how fast you got to treatment.
I'd say the best steps to take would be a national gun registry, require proper training and a background check to purchase a firearm, closing the gun show loophole, and mandated gun safes. The military won't just turn you lose with a gun. There is extensive training, the weapons are secured, and they generally take guns as serious business. I'd also say we need to look into restrictions in gun advertising as we did with smoking. Because right now guns are mostly sold that if you don't get the tactical version (which of course makes the gun lobby the most money) you're less of a man and a patriot, which is perverse.
To that extent I'm OK with the banning of the AR-15, even though it's impact on gun violence would be pretty minimal. Because it's a step towards taking on the culture and the mindset that contributes the larger issue of violence in America.
There was once a point in this conversation where people would readily admit that a shotgun is a lot better for home defense, and revolvers were better in a paniced situation and that the other types of weapons were of minimal use outside of unit tactics in a situation that requires them. But that somehow got lost in the wind once people realized there was a lot of cash to be made in selling people foregrips, red eyes, and other modifcations.
SinDC: I agree with all your suggestions. I have a Glock21, which I keep in a safe, unloaded. I also agree that an AWB won't be earthshattering as far as murders and deaths are concerned. I feel a ten round magazine limit like we have here in California will eventually save lives in mass shootings, so I support that as well.
Lebowski, I wasn't referring to any killings with .50s. I was referring to your comment about the recoil of the .223, and your claim that the only reason the Army went with it (well, the nearly identical 5.56) was simply because of lower recoil. All bullets are lethal within their designed range. The smaller .223 rounds in an AR15 (M16/5.56 for military use) means you can carry more of them per pound you are carrying. Hump around in the boonies of Afghanistan and you want quantity! For civilian use though I see no reason to have any assault rifle, and wouldn't have a problem with a ban. As SinDC points out, maybe this would be a good first step to reduce gun violence in our society, but I'm not holding my breath on that. If I had to choose between two of the three current proposals though, I would choose background checks for all gun transfers/purchases and a ten round limit over the AWB. All three would be ideal!
Lebowsky
Safes are key and I'd say offering a tax credit while mandating them would be fair, they can cost a lot of money.
I don't think extended magazines are that big of an issue. For one they are hilariously prone to jamming and increase the rate of malfunctions, which is why the cops and military avoid them. Though I could get behind restrictions on them, namely limiting them to firing ranges. Again my views might be skewed but I have no problems reloading in a minimal amount of time, or didn't when I had to keep current with a side arm.
Personally (while I wouldn't completely agree with it) I can see limiting civilian side arms magazines somewhat. Though I'd say that should be waved for current/former military/law enforcement. I have a Beretta 92fs. I'm not overly attached to it and I only purchased it because we used the M9 (same exact thing basically) in the military and I wanted my own to keep current with. It's in a safe though and I don't even own any ammunition for it. It hasn't been used in years either. If someone asked that I give up the current 15 round mag for a 10 round one I really wouldn't have an issue with it. But for the sake of those who need them for work, I think they should be able to use the magazines they need for it.
I really don't know any gun owners who'd object to that sort of thing in general. Then again most gun owners I know are vets who just happened to get the side arm they were used to so they could use private ranges on their own time, a few of them have long arms for deer hunting. They certainly aren't the type who think they are going to have to take on the Marines to defend our liberty in some crack pot fantasy.
there are over 500,000 people playing call of duty online every day,....if 1 or 2 of those people commit mass murder....and 498,000 DONT,....then i think its fair to say video games are NOT the problem!,....these narrow minded idiots saying otherwise, have no idea what they are talking about...they dont play video games,...they just look at them and come to stupid conclusions so they can use video games as a scapegoat for all the gun crime and murders in america,....when MILLIONS own real guns....then its stupid to blame the virtual guns for real violence,...
When are people going to get it through their thick heads that this isn't about guns? It's about control through fear. How many times are people going to buy the nutcase lone wolf conspiracy where there is absolutely no real evidence brought forth, the official story contradicts itself in far too many ways and history gets ignored for the sake of doing something now, now now! How'd that prohibition on alcohol work out for you? That war on drugs? Yeah there's a glowing success. If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns! Did you hear that? It's the sound of your freedoms being sucked out of you, slowly. When is the last time these losers did anything to protect your constitutional rights?
The most violent movie I've ever seen was Passion of the Christ.
Criticizing video games and its effect on kids always riles me up. As a child, I got sick and bedridden for months--couldn't walk to save my life. The only thing that kept me sane was video games, and now, as far as I'm concerned, I have no compulsion to commit any violent act (unless provoked by a Teapublican, maybe, and I'd have to be literally holding an ax when it happens--or a bat. A hammer, even. Teapublicans seem to be terrified of those).
It's okay if people want to blame video games for the uptick in gun violence. Something has always been blamed: The first murder ever written about was blamed on Jealously - then later it went from the lack of virtues to mothers, fathers and then the enviroment. The next generation will probably blame halo-decks and VR stimulation. And the next generation may blame Space Warp or some such. It's easy to break it down to One Thing - if we get rid of that, all will be well. It's everything though - and until we as humans acknowledge that we, as humans, contribute to the "bad" by not dealing with the whole of what and who we are, dysfunction will continue to reign. I would say, that on a whole, we are doing well at giving our best - otherwise we would be in a constant state dysfunctional chaos. Those who think the rugged, "I-did- it-all-myself" should have a grand ole time in such an enviroment. Hmm... I wonder if these violent video games are the reason repubs are getting such a mindset?