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Arizona Rep Giffords shot, at least 5 killed


Evan Burton

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Additionally Craig's article cherry picks the data choosing best and worst cases (respectively) for uncontrolled and controlled jurisdictions. Washington DC is urban, poor and mostly African-American, for reasons beyond the scope of this thread Blacks are a disproportionately among the victims and perpetrators of homicides.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_03.html

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_02.html

Even so the it seems to fudge numbers:

"According to Tucson Police Department records, by December 2010, the city – which is located 60 miles north of the Mexican border – experienced 51 murders by the use of guns.

Washington police records, meanwhile, recorded 131 homicides in 2010, nearly three times the Tucson rate."

Note that it compared total murders in DC to gun murders in Tucson and did not account for the population difference. Nationally 2/3 of murders involve guns so lets assume about 87 people were killed with guns in DC whose population is 10% larger. 87 - 10% = 79, thus while DC is still proportionally ahead of Tucson this probably due to the demographic differences noted above.

I'll get to the rest of your claims as time permits later in the week but lets start with this little fantasy of yours.

A quick check of the facts ( what you failed to do) shows that the author was correct, as of Dec 7th 2010 there were 51 homicides in TOTAL in Tucson. Why he wrote GUN murders is unknown.

My error was taking your source's word for it, the facts I didn't check were his. But you are correct according to his source there were 51 total murders as of Dec. 7. Extrapolating from Dec. 7 Tucson would have 54 - 5 deaths by years end, probably more because crime rates go UP during the holidays so factoring out DC's lager population the numbers would be 55 (or more) to 118 (2.1X). But that is for cities with major demographic differences. according to Wikipedia, Tucson is 4.4% black DC is 55.6% black (12.6x), Tucson has 2500 residents per sq. mile, DC 9800 (3.9X)

So your analysis is incorrect, The authors point stands. A city with a very similar size ( populations of both duly noted his article) shows a VAST diffference in murders. DC had a massive restriction on guns, Tucson did not. Based on this comparison it is NOT safer in a city with strict gun controls compared to one with limited gun controls. The OPPOSITE instead is true.

And we have not even gotten to the city that went 25 years without a murder, and REQUIRES that each head of household have and maintain a gun....

As you know individual cases don't provide for meaningful comparisons, George Burns smoked lots cigars, drank a lot of whiskey and until he retired normally stayed up till the wee hours, he lived to be 100, I'm sure you could find someone with healthier habits who died when they were 20. According to some social scientists there is correlation between guns and crime rates.

EDITED TO FIX MATHEMATICAL ERROR

Edited by Len Colby
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Good points Len. Neither the car nor the explosives examples hold, what with explosives being illegal and therefore harder to get than a legal gun.

NRA boosters have to keep trotting out the old discredited adage that 'guns don't kill people people kill people'--even as crowds are mowed down by the supposedly benign guns in seconds.

Pot is illegal for example and people EVERYWHERE buy it everyday. A LAW does not stop people who want something bad enough from obtaining it. Your logic stinks.

Finally please show stats for handguns, or any guns 'mowing down crowds" without a human being pulling the trigger.

Once again your tortured logic fails you. Guns don't kill people. PEOPLE kill people. A HUM MUST MAKE THE CHOICES. Pleease try again next time.

But the easy availability of guns makes killing people much easier or do you think it is a coincide that 1) 2/3 of US murders involve guns? 2) despite there being roughly equal number of cars and guns far more (100:1, 20:1) mass killings involve guns than cars.

"Once again your tortured logic fails you...Pleease try again next time."

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Okay,

Another answer to one of my questions is the Army rejected JLL because he failed a drug test.

So they did test him, probably in a number of ways.

But what did his parents do for a living? Are they professionals? Who employs them?

As we learned with Hinkley, this is an important question.

Probably irrelevant but asked and answered, please pay attention

And who are his doctors?

BK

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The NY Times has this

"His father, Randy, once more of a presence in their mostly working-class neighborhood in northwest Tucson as he went off to work as a carpet-layer and pool-deck installer, became a silent and often sullen presence."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12loughner.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&hp

As previously noted another report said he was a "stay at home dad" so my guess is that he was 'semi-employed' i.e. did some deck and carpet work but mostly stayed at home.

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Craig does raise a good point about being made illegal and availability. In my understanding, guns are pervasive in US society. If laws were change, there would still be a large pool of black market weapons available for purchase. Additionally a number of people might refuse to relinquish their weapons, and that refusal might be the only thing that makes them a 'criminal'.

The circumstances are different here in Australia; a black market weapon would be far harder to obtain. It would not be impossible but it would take knowledge of underworld contacts.

Despite the difficulties and questionable efficacy associated with the initial tightening of gun laws in the US, I believe it can be argued that society would begin to change, that new generations would grow up without the belief that it is their right to own an automatic weapon, etc. Generational change to a society with far less weapons.

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Okay,

Another answer to one of my questions is the Army rejected JLL because he failed a drug test.

So they did test him, probably in a number of ways.

But what did his parents do for a living? Are they professionals? Who employs them?

As we learned with Hinkley, this is an important question.

Probably irrelevant but asked and answered, please pay attention

And who are his doctors?

BK

So,

What then are the answers to my irrelevant questions -

Who were his parents, who did they work for, and who were his doctors?

Thanks to anyone who can answer these questions,

BK

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Okay,

Another answer to one of my questions is the Army rejected JLL because he failed a drug test.

So they did test him, probably in a number of ways.

But what did his parents do for a living? Are they professionals? Who employs them?

As we learned with Hinkley, this is an important question.

Probably irrelevant but asked and answered, please pay attention

And who are his doctors?

BK

So,

What then are the answers to my irrelevant questions -

I only mean to say the question about his parents' jobs was "probably irrelevant"

Who were his parents, who did they work for,

Do you want me to draw you a map? See post 67 on the previous page and post 79 above.

and who were his doctors?

If you mean his shrinks, I don't think he had any.

Thanks to anyone who can answer these questions,

You're welcome

BK

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Okay,

Another answer to one of my questions is the Army rejected JLL because he failed a drug test.

Bill,

Has that been confirmed or is it a guess by someone?

According to the source I saw he was rejected because admitted that he smoked pot on the application, which is weird because he had to go to Phoenix about 2 hours away by car.

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Craig does raise a good point about being made illegal and availability. In my understanding, guns are pervasive in US society. If laws were change, there would still be a large pool of black market weapons available for purchase. Additionally a number of people might refuse to relinquish their weapons, and that refusal might be the only thing that makes them a 'criminal'.

The circumstances are different here in Australia; a black market weapon would be far harder to obtain. It would not be impossible but it would take knowledge of underworld contacts.

Despite the difficulties and questionable efficacy associated with the initial tightening of gun laws in the US, I believe it can be argued that society would begin to change, that new generations would grow up without the belief that it is their right to own an automatic weapon, etc. Generational change to a society with far less weapons.

Evan see one of my previous posts, state gun control in ineffective because criminals buy guns in cities/states with lax regulations and transport them to ones with stricter ones. A strict national standard would make it more difficult for new guns and especially high capacity ones from getting on the streets.

Restrictions on high capacity magazines would also bring there # down.

"Additionally a number of people might refuse to relinquish their weapons, and that refusal might be the only thing that makes them a 'criminal'."

In Brazil they enacted very strict gun control and many people turned in their guns voluntarily or for 'rewards' far below the black market price.

Additionally in some scenarios guns or certain types would not be banned but the owner obliged to register them and/or take training courses tests etc.

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Giffords was “targeted” by three groups, conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and truthers. The first two however only targeted her for defeat at the polls and accused her of nothing more serious than being wrongheaded politically and there is no evidence Loughner was influenced by either group.

Local truthers on the other hand accused her of being a “war criminal” and being involved in the cover up of 9/11 (see video below) and he attempted assassin was a local truther.

The Loughner they met when he was a freshman at Mountain View High School may have been socially awkward, but he was generally happy and fun to be around. The crew smoked marijuana everyday, and when they weren't going to concerts or watching movies they talked about the meaning of life and dabbled in conspiracy theories.

Mistrust of government was his defining conviction, the friends said. He believed the government was behind 9/11, and worried that governments were maneuvering to create a unified monetary system ("a New World Order currency" one friend said) so that social elites and bureaucrats could control the rest of the world.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_gunman_11

According to one of his high school friends said, “I think this Zeitgeits documentary had a profound impact on Jared Loughner's mindset”. The conspiracy theories concerning 9/11 and the Federal Reserve were major focuses of the film.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jared-laughners-friend-tells-gma-he-did-not-watch-tv-he-disliked-the-news/

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,124,0

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2011/01/loughner-radically-changed.html

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I've thought long an hard about this and concluded it's true.

Gun's DON'T kill people.

Ammo kills people.

"According to news reports, the carnage at Giffords' event only ended when the shooter stopped to reload. But because he was using an extended capacity magazine, that only occurred after he had gotten off over 30 rounds. There had been a halt in the manufacture and sales of high capacity magazines under the Clinton-era Assault Weapons Ban. But, as Media Matters' Ari Rabin-Havt noted, “The NRA put its muscle behind making sure the assault weapons ban expired, even though its renewal was supported by President Bush.”

While the assault weapons ban restricted the capacity of magazines to 10 rounds, Loughner was able to fire 31 rounds from his Glock 19, killing six people and injuring 13 others. The NRA owns nine bullets that struck innocent people (and 21 bullets altogether) that would have been outlawed if the ban was still in place."

http://www.alternet.org/news/149502/arizona_has_turned_into_a_gun_lover's_paradise_--_and_that's_why_it_ranks_among_the_highest_in_gun_deaths/?page=2

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Again, the response to this tragedy is as predictable as it is disturbing. Loughner was a strident atheist. He was also an avowed homosexual, who hoped one day to become a woman. Finally, he had an occult alter in his back yard, complete with a human skull. So, did perhaps those beliefs cause him to open fire on a crowd of people?

Loughner mentioned various conspiracies, the fed, Alex Jones, etc. in some of his endless, often incomprehensible diatribes. In no way, shape or form can he be connected to Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, or "the right" in general. Yet the estabishment persists in painting him this way. Why? To ban guns? To ban "hatred," or at least their definition of that? To cut down on the "ugly political rhetoric" they keep bemoaning?

The mainstream media and politicians from both parties are exploiting this tragedy, and especically the little girl who lost her life in it, for their own partisan purposes. The message we are getting constantly from all these sources is: the "hate" and "ugly discourse" must stop, or be curtailed. While very few of our elected representatives have ever had any affection for our Bill of Rights, in this case they are using human tragedy to try and cut back on our dwindling civil liberties, much as they did after the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11.

Loughner should be studied intently, but I suspect he will be summarily convicted and executed, much like McVeigh was. Whatever happens, we cannot continue to permit our odious leaders to use every horrific public tragedy to enact leglislation that diminishes our freedom.

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Okay, have now started independently looking at news reports and internet postings about this tragedy. I'm starting to have a lot of questions about this....

There is the 911 recording, on which the person describes the shooter as running "north" from the scene. Seems hard to make a mistake like that- as it's been widely reported that Jared Loughner was tackled at the scene of the crime by 2-3 people. Then there is that disquieting photo of a bald Loughner, including no eyebrows (shades of David Ferrie). If you've seen the artist's renderings of Loughner in court, you know that he is depicted with a full head of short hair. I think it's been established that the monstrous bald photo was taken BEFORE Loughner's appearance in court.

So...he was bald and then grew a full head of hair the next day in court?

Lots of strange aspects to this story.

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