The first item on the list to Protect our Children and our Communities by Reducing Gun Violence is the last to discuss.
1. Closing background check loopholes to keep guns out of dangerous hands.
That is pretty specific to what's commonly called the gun show loophole -- which indeed does not apply only to gun shows. This revolves around the requirement for federally licensed firearms dealers to conduct background checks on gun buyers. Specifically in practice, the NICS or acceptable alternative. There are a number of exceptions, in that other, stricter, federal, state or local laws may apply in any given situation. But the law (mainly The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act) doesn't cover personal sales. Be those through a newspaper ad, at a hobbyist gathering, or otherwise, between friends, acquaintances or strangers. In that sense, it's not a loophole at all.
For the background check system, over a 15 year period, it blocked 1.8% of attempted firearms purchases, although some small number of the denials were appealed and reversed. Few blocks were prosecuted for the attempt. The majority of these denials were for felons, a large amount of the rest were for fugitives from justice. There are likely some statistics somewhere that break down the number of attempts by known felons or career criminals and so on, maybe. If so, nobody's coughing them up as evidence of something or another.
However, that 1994-2009 blocked purchase statistic of 1.8% does not include anything other than sales involving background checks. Some sources claim that 40% of all sales do not involve a background check. If true, which is up for debate, essentially means that only 60% of gun purchases are from a dealer, with 1.8% of those 60% blocked. The rest? Nobody's coughing that up either. Just guessing about it.
We could ask if criminals (and others precluded from purchasing a firearm at a federally licensed dealer) typically buy their weapons from neighbors and family and newspaper ads and hobbyist gatherings, or if they steal them, or get them on the black market, or just use something else. We can ask if they buy guns some other legal way instead of going to the store, because they know they can't buy them at a store. Or we could ask if that same 1.8% blocked-attempt number would (if it existed) also be 1.8% for this alleged 40% of non-dealer purchases. We could even ask if the system could handle 100% tracking even if it could be required and managed.
Instead, we're first going to take issue with a claim in the press release. The point they make there is "the background check system is the most efficient and effective way to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals". Is it? We should know the answer to that if we want to know if such a thing will indeed make things safer by reducing violence.
Or we could think about the people this would apply to, think of it as they might. If you were a dangerous individual, and you wanted a gun, and there was an instant and reliable and universal 100% check in place. If you knew about it and knew you would fail it, what would you do? Probably not try it out. So this gun, would you buy one illegally, would you settle on a blade, would you give up and just be undangerous? Who's to tell. We might as well be considering what percentage of violence is non-gun (or even non-weapon; aka steel chair, fists, pillow, tire iron) to begin with. Or we might as well be imagining what the numbers would be like if all firearms on the planet all magically disintegrated five minutes from now.
Because nobody can show what sort of impact, if any, there would be from closing these so-called loopholes. Loophole; the word giving the idea that something wrong and bad is going on, that somebody is bypassing something, getting around it, getting away with it. No. It's simply that the current laws cover some things and other things just simply aren't covered by it. There isn't any loophole, there's a law that covers federally licensed sales of guns, and then there are other things that aren't federally licensed sales of guns.
Now, aside from this rose-colored glasses and misty-eyed idea that stopping some 2% of potential gun purchasers that go to stores and fill out forms is worth the time and money and effort put into it. Beside assuming that even precluding all future purchases of any kind entirely would do anything to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals. Beyond the claim that total background checks on all gun purchases and transfers would result in safer children and communities by reducing gun violence.
The bottom line is that in many ways, maybe all of them, item one here is a non-answer and an un-solution. It's linguistically devoid of meaning, and it's illogical and incorrect. Meaningless, superfluous.
So with that settled, we may ask, what's a gun show?
As a stand-in for all non-dealer purchases, let's say a gun show is the only way to do so. Obviously it's not the only way, but let's say for the sake of argument and for ease of discussion. Pretend that there's a single choice between 'a dealer with a check' and 'a gun show with no check'. We'll also ignore those at gun shows with licenses that are required to and do a background check and those at gun shows not with licenses that aren't required to do a background check and make one anyway.
It appears that those upset with gun shows don't really understand them. One might bet that they've never even been to one, and know nothing about them. Why not look into that.
Just like any group, especially those who feel strongly about their hobby, they like gathering together for a number of reasons. So while nobody much goes deer hunting or target shooting or engages in self-defense with stamps, photographs, earrings, artwork, kitchen items, marital aids, comic books, ornaments, fishing boats or travel trailers, just like those sorts of groups, gun users and collectors and enthusiasts gather.
While some may have the idea that simply walking into a gun show turns a person into a buddy of everyone there, one might want to think of the stereotype of a gun owner. What would that be. Plenty of things, maybe even all at once in the mind of "an outsider". They'd be individualistic, cautious of the government, a hick, a redneck, current or ex-military or police, hunters, gun-nuts, paranoid conspiracy-theorist. Maybe the idea is just conservative church-going small-town rural type.
For some reason, that sort of stereotype is all thrown out the window at some point. Why would anyone believe that anyone at one of these gun shows selling guns, background check requirement or not, background check made or not, is just going to stop caring about who might have the gun being sold? Of course the vast majority of them care.
People selling guns at a gun show, licensed or not, aren't just capriciously and recklessly selling guns to children, shifty-eyed gang members, nervous out-of-place people, babbling lunatics, and stoners high on goofballs. The people at gun shows selling things (be they guns or not) don't want guns in the hands of mass murderers or the insane or minors or the untrained either. True, such personal judgments are not a background check, but maybe it's sometimes better. You don't like the person, whyever that is, you don't sell to them, no requirement to explain why.
So some doped-up gang-banger isn't going to walk in to a gun show and feel welcome and comfortable in the first place, and for good reason. Nobody's going to sell to them, if they don't call the police first. Look, you're a criminal or displaying bizarre behavior and you're going to walk into a building full of armed citizens that are certainly not going to like you?
No matter which way we take all of that, the background check or not, how gun shows are probably one of the worst places a creepy withdrawn shy oddball would go to purchase weapons. The truth of it is that these recent lunatics didn't purchase their weapons at gun shows. I'm sure some crazy people and criminals have done so at some times. That's a guess from the numbers and likelihoods of such from those numbers. But which recent stories predominately feature such information?? Surely such details would warrant major attention from anyone who is "anti-gun".
Apparently not supported by the facts. To use the Sandy Hook massacre as illustration again, he killed his mother and took hers. To use the Aurora theater slaughter, he bought them at a number of gun stores, passing the background checks. Even though it's not in the US, and so has very very limited applicability, the Oslo terror attack. It's pretty certain the nutbag didn't get his weapons at a gun show. Although there was a report he tried to buy some in Prague but failed miserably.... The reports go that he got both his Glock and Ruger legally in Norway and he was registered for them there. Gun shows don't apply to any of these at all.
So then, why is closing this non-existent loophole, that doesn't apply to much if anything, the first thing on our list? Even if we could prove it matters a lot, which we can't, it doesn't apply to what's been going on anyway.
One last thing to think about though, not directly related to this first item. At ranges, gun shows, military bases, police stations; anywhere there are weapons, accidents happen. Yet recently there have been a spate of stories about incidents of people being shot at gun shows. Well, of course that happens, it's just not usually focused on any more than deep sea fishermen sometimes drowning is. So why would accidental shootings around weapons be big surprising news? Yet one thing about these stories contradicts another idea. When there's an accidental discharge of a weapon where many armed people are, nobody present just starts willy-nilly blasting everyone in sight, causing mass carnage out of fear or blood-lust. What else is all out of proportion?
In closing then.
How does one solve a social problem of violence, with guns or not with guns? The issue is violence, not how it is carried out, isn't it? If we ask the question of the highly-publicized mass murders, we might start with asking how many others not in these big stories are the victims of gun violence. What are the total numbers, what is the biggest problem to solve, who's doing it, why, when, where and how. These berserk killing rampages are far less common (but no less tragic) than the hundreds and thousands of separate and also tragic incidents of gun violence that plague the world in general and the US in particular. The entirety adds up to much larger numbers of deaths and injuries than any one incident, no matter how horrible.
What are the steps we can take as a nation and as a society that actually preclude another Sandy Hook or Columbine or Aurora or Oslo or Oklahoma City, and so on. Would these ideas to fix things also apply to precluding the many hundreds and thousands of incidents that not used for political and policy purposes. Incidents that happen not just once in a while, but every day, week, month, year, decade and century, that include guns and don't. And like these large scale tragedies tend to hide the bigger larger scale tragedy, these aberrant uses of weapons are but a small part of the safe, legal, ordinary ownership. What is the point of focusing in on the out of the ordinary and not trying to fix the common?
Not to sound heartless, because our heart goes out to everyone impacted by any sort of violence, be it a school shooting, byproduct of gang violence, robbery gone wrong, serial killer victim, case of uxoricide or mariticide. By gun, knife, fist, or otherwise. Our heart goes out, regardless of the weapon that might be used.
Yet like the press release itself states: "We won't be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try." This seems to ignore the quite real and valid concepts of scarcity of resources and diminishing returns. It seems to ignore the reality of what is and instead focus on what is wanted. The real world for the imaginary possibility under circumstances that do not exist to operate under.
The real common-sense of all this is is that if you can't stop every violent act, you should be focusing on using the bulk of your resources to stop the bulk of the violent acts. You shouldn't be wasting your time and money on increasing background checks or widening the gun-free zone around a school or prohibiting new sales of something based upon its looks.
If we have a deep obligation to try to prevent such events, and we do, shouldn't we be focusing on solutions that have the best chance of preventing them? Not wasting time on things that have a small chance or little impact?
What we are doing here is fulfilling our end of this deep obligation, trying to explain why. If we want fix all this suffering "too much at the hands of dangerous people who use guns to commit horrific acts of violence" then we should be considering ideas that apply to the problem of people who commit horrific acts of violence.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Executive Branch Ideas for safer children and communities
These four items are not new ideas, and how a reader might consider them now depends on how the ideas are parsed, which in part depends upon preconceived notions of the topics and what the EBI mean literally and figuratively.
The first two we'll deal with (items 4 and 3) are good ideas, overall, certainly.
4. Increasing access to mental health services.
This is pretty specific, in a way, but in a lot of other ways is unrelated to the either of the ostensible goals. (A. Protecting children in particular and communities in general. B. Reducing gun violence.)
That is, simply increasing access to something, even mental health services, doesn't in and of itself help unstable people and doesn't in and of itself hinder the unstable from performing violent actions with firearms or otherwise. A sociopathic predator with more access to services isn't "a solution" to a particular problem. That is, "being able to more easily visit a mental health professional" doesn't in any way equal "fewer strangulations, rapes and decapitations"
But yes, certainly. Having such services more available, and then having them used in proactive helpful manner towards and by those who need such services, that should help to make people safer in general. So this area is a good one to work at, even if it does nothing specific or direct to locate and treat those who may commit unexpected violent actions. But doing something specific and direct is the solution part. Either way, access to mental health services is a very good thing to increase, even though it doesn't actually touch upon either of the things this press release purports to deal with.
3. Making schools safer
Less specific (more vague) but yes still a good idea. Generically, who wouldn't want safer schools? The question though is how does one actually make schools safer. After all, they are already legally gun-free and drug-free zones. Harsh quick penalties are used against those who even bring in such things. Yet clearly, there are those who totally ignore both of those; thus the laws in and of themselves don't physically stop anyone. Like everything, the laws (the legal system) can only react after the fact to those breaking them.
Any modern horrible slaughter that has taken place at a school has been perpetrated by the purposeful actions of violent people. Some would say by evil depraved homicidal maniacs. Either way, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect they would suddenly begin to follow any new laws. They didn't follow the old ones. Blatantly ignoring laws proclaiming it a federal felony to be armed within some distance of a facility is quite an indicator, yet that's the simple part. These people also broke stricter laws against torture, terrorism and murder.
How do you make schools safer from the actions of criminals and the unbalanced? If we operate under the assumption that laws can do nothing more than they already have, what things beyond them can be implemented and be expected to work.
Both 4 and 3 together lead to other questions. Now that we've got the ideas of more mental health and safer schools, in this context we'd have to ask, how are those implemented, what do they do well, by "reducing gun violence" and how does that lead back to protecting children and communities. We've gotten rather circular there though, and it's really another subject (the specific steps) so let's move on.
The second item is not so helpful.
2. { }
This is problematic because it's comprised of three things, two of which are both the same thing and drastically different, and the third of which makes a silent but unwarranted comment on the first two, and is both related and unrelated. So we'll have to break them down.
Banning military-style assault weapons
Since the point of the overall topic is not really protecting people but protecting people by reducing gun violence ( "we want to reduce gun violence" which "makes everyone safer") the question to ask here is in that same context, how to reduce gun violence. It's a fairly simple question too, since "assault weapons" are a particular subset of rifles mainly.
Does banning semi-automatic rifles with a certain look and set of features reduce gun violence?
Arguing over how to prove or disprove that there's a direct exact specific cause and effect relationship from one to the other is a whole other in-depth unclear, and effectively unanswered, subject.
Yet like the president refers to the Sandy Hook tragedy directly as example, so shall we. There is no argument at all that in this case Lanza used one of his murdered mother's rifles which meets the definition of "assault weapon" to murder more people.
There are a number of points here though. He could have done the exact same thing with one of her other "non-assault weapon" rifles or pistols. We've also got that there's some large questions if such a ban could be passed on the federal level, much less followed at a regional level where states and localities have either laws either already restricting such things or guaranteeing the ability to own such things.
Regardless, even under such a ban, her weapons would likely have been grandfathered, and he could still have used the exact same one. Or if not, he had alternatives that wouldn't have been banned, some which were more deadly per round . Lanza shot many of his victims a number of times. We already know at the most rapid firing rate, once every seven seconds. This is not any faster than any long arm made in the last few hundred years can accomplish. We are not trying to lessen the horror of what Lanza did, or trying to trivialize how deadly firearms are, but "banning assault weapons" has nothing to do with this, be it any particular .223 rifle or otherwise. (For those who imagine an assault weapon is a fully automatic machine gun sort of firearm, they are not, and Lanza's most used weapon for carrying out his carnage wasn't either.)
Banning high-capacity magazines
This is essentially repeating the first call to ban, even more so considering one of the requirements for an "assault weapon" is a detachable magazine. Clearly ammunition feeders are very non dangerous in and of themselves, but with a weapon that has a high rate of fire, or with weapons that are slow to reload, magazine size and more frequent reloading might put a killer in a vulnerable position for the length of time during reload.
In the case of Lanza, he switched out magazines mostly every 15 rounds, far short of the 30 rounds in what he had. He fired an average within the speeds of feeding in rounds one at a time. True, there are circumstances where a killer who only had one weapon would have been vulnerable if they were forced to reload every say 5 rounds. However, one imagines Lanza had a reason for also carrying two pistols with him, even with the size magazine he had. These killers may be crazy, but they're also likely aware of how to make sure they aren't vulnerable. No matter how many rounds their magazines hold or how many rounds a weapon with no magazine has. One way, they carry more weapons, including bladed ones.
Still in this case perhaps even that point isn't in consideration anyway, since all his victims were unarmed adults and children incapable of fighting back physically.
Most of the same issues with the first ban idea fit here for this ban, including that such existing magazines would be grandfathered, and so even with a total nation-wide ban, Lanza still would have had them, regardless if he needed them or not.
Taking other common-sense steps to reduce gun violence
This last part of item 2 takes it as established already, takes it for granted, that the first two ideas are common-sense, which they clearly are not. They're ideas with unknown effectiveness and unknown results, and as we have seen, would not have made a difference in this particular case, under any number of multiple ways of considering it. The same thing also applies to many other of the recent mass murders, on school grounds or otherwise.
Taken together, item 2 is a three-part idea that is so vague as to be meaningless, perhaps even counter-productive. The first two parts don't answer the question of how wanting to ban assault weapons with or without high-capacity magazines are common-sense; that is, how doing such is both achievable and gives the intended results. The last third part is devoid of anything solid that details what these nebulous steps (common-sense or otherwise) to reduce gun violence are.
The real question then is what are some steps to take that would reduce gun violence? What would be the most helpful in answering that question is to detail actions that are known to stop criminals (those using guns criminally) from being violent. How exactly do we accomplish the goal we say we are going for?
We'll look at the first item, and give the conclusion, next post.
The first two we'll deal with (items 4 and 3) are good ideas, overall, certainly.
4. Increasing access to mental health services.
This is pretty specific, in a way, but in a lot of other ways is unrelated to the either of the ostensible goals. (A. Protecting children in particular and communities in general. B. Reducing gun violence.)
That is, simply increasing access to something, even mental health services, doesn't in and of itself help unstable people and doesn't in and of itself hinder the unstable from performing violent actions with firearms or otherwise. A sociopathic predator with more access to services isn't "a solution" to a particular problem. That is, "being able to more easily visit a mental health professional" doesn't in any way equal "fewer strangulations, rapes and decapitations"
But yes, certainly. Having such services more available, and then having them used in proactive helpful manner towards and by those who need such services, that should help to make people safer in general. So this area is a good one to work at, even if it does nothing specific or direct to locate and treat those who may commit unexpected violent actions. But doing something specific and direct is the solution part. Either way, access to mental health services is a very good thing to increase, even though it doesn't actually touch upon either of the things this press release purports to deal with.
3. Making schools safer
Less specific (more vague) but yes still a good idea. Generically, who wouldn't want safer schools? The question though is how does one actually make schools safer. After all, they are already legally gun-free and drug-free zones. Harsh quick penalties are used against those who even bring in such things. Yet clearly, there are those who totally ignore both of those; thus the laws in and of themselves don't physically stop anyone. Like everything, the laws (the legal system) can only react after the fact to those breaking them.
Any modern horrible slaughter that has taken place at a school has been perpetrated by the purposeful actions of violent people. Some would say by evil depraved homicidal maniacs. Either way, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect they would suddenly begin to follow any new laws. They didn't follow the old ones. Blatantly ignoring laws proclaiming it a federal felony to be armed within some distance of a facility is quite an indicator, yet that's the simple part. These people also broke stricter laws against torture, terrorism and murder.
How do you make schools safer from the actions of criminals and the unbalanced? If we operate under the assumption that laws can do nothing more than they already have, what things beyond them can be implemented and be expected to work.
Both 4 and 3 together lead to other questions. Now that we've got the ideas of more mental health and safer schools, in this context we'd have to ask, how are those implemented, what do they do well, by "reducing gun violence" and how does that lead back to protecting children and communities. We've gotten rather circular there though, and it's really another subject (the specific steps) so let's move on.
The second item is not so helpful.
2. { }
This is problematic because it's comprised of three things, two of which are both the same thing and drastically different, and the third of which makes a silent but unwarranted comment on the first two, and is both related and unrelated. So we'll have to break them down.
Banning military-style assault weapons
Since the point of the overall topic is not really protecting people but protecting people by reducing gun violence ( "we want to reduce gun violence" which "makes everyone safer") the question to ask here is in that same context, how to reduce gun violence. It's a fairly simple question too, since "assault weapons" are a particular subset of rifles mainly.
Does banning semi-automatic rifles with a certain look and set of features reduce gun violence?
Arguing over how to prove or disprove that there's a direct exact specific cause and effect relationship from one to the other is a whole other in-depth unclear, and effectively unanswered, subject.
Yet like the president refers to the Sandy Hook tragedy directly as example, so shall we. There is no argument at all that in this case Lanza used one of his murdered mother's rifles which meets the definition of "assault weapon" to murder more people.
There are a number of points here though. He could have done the exact same thing with one of her other "non-assault weapon" rifles or pistols. We've also got that there's some large questions if such a ban could be passed on the federal level, much less followed at a regional level where states and localities have either laws either already restricting such things or guaranteeing the ability to own such things.
Regardless, even under such a ban, her weapons would likely have been grandfathered, and he could still have used the exact same one. Or if not, he had alternatives that wouldn't have been banned, some which were more deadly per round . Lanza shot many of his victims a number of times. We already know at the most rapid firing rate, once every seven seconds. This is not any faster than any long arm made in the last few hundred years can accomplish. We are not trying to lessen the horror of what Lanza did, or trying to trivialize how deadly firearms are, but "banning assault weapons" has nothing to do with this, be it any particular .223 rifle or otherwise. (For those who imagine an assault weapon is a fully automatic machine gun sort of firearm, they are not, and Lanza's most used weapon for carrying out his carnage wasn't either.)
Banning high-capacity magazines
This is essentially repeating the first call to ban, even more so considering one of the requirements for an "assault weapon" is a detachable magazine. Clearly ammunition feeders are very non dangerous in and of themselves, but with a weapon that has a high rate of fire, or with weapons that are slow to reload, magazine size and more frequent reloading might put a killer in a vulnerable position for the length of time during reload.
In the case of Lanza, he switched out magazines mostly every 15 rounds, far short of the 30 rounds in what he had. He fired an average within the speeds of feeding in rounds one at a time. True, there are circumstances where a killer who only had one weapon would have been vulnerable if they were forced to reload every say 5 rounds. However, one imagines Lanza had a reason for also carrying two pistols with him, even with the size magazine he had. These killers may be crazy, but they're also likely aware of how to make sure they aren't vulnerable. No matter how many rounds their magazines hold or how many rounds a weapon with no magazine has. One way, they carry more weapons, including bladed ones.
Still in this case perhaps even that point isn't in consideration anyway, since all his victims were unarmed adults and children incapable of fighting back physically.
Most of the same issues with the first ban idea fit here for this ban, including that such existing magazines would be grandfathered, and so even with a total nation-wide ban, Lanza still would have had them, regardless if he needed them or not.
Taking other common-sense steps to reduce gun violence
This last part of item 2 takes it as established already, takes it for granted, that the first two ideas are common-sense, which they clearly are not. They're ideas with unknown effectiveness and unknown results, and as we have seen, would not have made a difference in this particular case, under any number of multiple ways of considering it. The same thing also applies to many other of the recent mass murders, on school grounds or otherwise.
Taken together, item 2 is a three-part idea that is so vague as to be meaningless, perhaps even counter-productive. The first two parts don't answer the question of how wanting to ban assault weapons with or without high-capacity magazines are common-sense; that is, how doing such is both achievable and gives the intended results. The last third part is devoid of anything solid that details what these nebulous steps (common-sense or otherwise) to reduce gun violence are.
The real question then is what are some steps to take that would reduce gun violence? What would be the most helpful in answering that question is to detail actions that are known to stop criminals (those using guns criminally) from being violent. How exactly do we accomplish the goal we say we are going for?
We'll look at the first item, and give the conclusion, next post.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
The President's Plan to Protect our Children and our Communities by Reducing Gun Violence
A release on January 16th 2013 from The White House Office of the Press Secretary. The PDF is here.
This lists four things the plan includes, what we might call Executive Branch Ideas (EBI). A memo from the CEO, so to speak. So we are going to eventually look at these four mentioned EBI in reverse order, from the viewpoint of the title -- that is, reducing gun violence in order to protect communities and children. First though, let's think of the title of the press release and some other issues revolving around that subject.
Communities and children; that would be everyone, right? Well, no, not really, because what they seem to mean here is "doing something about guns" because of what some people (criminals, murderers, wackos) have done in high profile deadly tragedies. Most recently and particularly, what was perpetrated in Newtown, Connecticut (about 60 miles NNE of New York City).
To put a perspective on the EBI, in the context of taking "meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this". This being the actions of Adam Lanza the morning of Dec 14 2012. We'll look at that first.
Adam Lanza was 20. He did not have a criminal record. (Allegedly he had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, but the details are unclear.) However either way, the weapons used belonged to his mother, who had purchased them legally.
First, Lanza murdered his mother by shooting her at close range with one of her own weapons. He took four of her weapons with him. A rifle (.223 Bushmaster XM15-E2S), 2 pistols (10mm Glock 20, 9mm SIG P226) and a shotgun (Izhmash Saiga-12). Lanza wasn't old enough to legally have the pistols, but he had just shot his mother in the head four times at home and was on his way to a school to commit more murder.
Leaving the shotgun in the car, Lanza proceeded to commit violent heartless cruel mass murder that morning between 9:35 and ~9:49. He slaughtered 20 children and 7 adults, firing some "50 to 100" rounds (an average of about 4 to 8 rounds a minute, 1 round every 7-15 seconds) from mostly the rifle, often reloading it after firing 15 of the 30 rounds in a magazine. He met no armed resistance. When he saw that a police officer had entered the school and seen him, Lanza committed suicide with a pistol.
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
That was not the most deadly school-located mass murder ever; that dishonor belongs to Andrew Kehoe, in Michigan, in 1927. Kehoe killed his wife by smashing her in the head. He then "fire-bombed" his farm, and while that was happening, his timed explosives, dynamite and pyrotol, blew up the north wing of Bath Consolidated School. (The timed explosives he planted in the south wing of the school failed to detonate however.) As rescuers were working at the school, Kohoe drove up in his truck and called over the school superintendent. During a struggle between the two over a rifle (bolt action .30 caliber Winchester Model 54 ) the weapon fired into the explosive- and shrapnel-filled truck, which explosion killed both of them, another two men, and a boy, as well as mortally wounding another man, and wounding a number of others.
Horrible and deadly. The official tally from the explosions was 44 dead and 58 injured.
This was in a time before gangsters et al lead to the 1934 NFA. In the late 1920s, anyone that wanted to and had the money could just buy a machine gun for a couple hundred bucks, by mail or down at the hardware store, or might have brought one back from World War I.
The Bath School Disaster
This lists four things the plan includes, what we might call Executive Branch Ideas (EBI). A memo from the CEO, so to speak. So we are going to eventually look at these four mentioned EBI in reverse order, from the viewpoint of the title -- that is, reducing gun violence in order to protect communities and children. First though, let's think of the title of the press release and some other issues revolving around that subject.
Communities and children; that would be everyone, right? Well, no, not really, because what they seem to mean here is "doing something about guns" because of what some people (criminals, murderers, wackos) have done in high profile deadly tragedies. Most recently and particularly, what was perpetrated in Newtown, Connecticut (about 60 miles NNE of New York City).
To put a perspective on the EBI, in the context of taking "meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this". This being the actions of Adam Lanza the morning of Dec 14 2012. We'll look at that first.
Adam Lanza was 20. He did not have a criminal record. (Allegedly he had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, but the details are unclear.) However either way, the weapons used belonged to his mother, who had purchased them legally.
First, Lanza murdered his mother by shooting her at close range with one of her own weapons. He took four of her weapons with him. A rifle (.223 Bushmaster XM15-E2S), 2 pistols (10mm Glock 20, 9mm SIG P226) and a shotgun (Izhmash Saiga-12). Lanza wasn't old enough to legally have the pistols, but he had just shot his mother in the head four times at home and was on his way to a school to commit more murder.
Leaving the shotgun in the car, Lanza proceeded to commit violent heartless cruel mass murder that morning between 9:35 and ~9:49. He slaughtered 20 children and 7 adults, firing some "50 to 100" rounds (an average of about 4 to 8 rounds a minute, 1 round every 7-15 seconds) from mostly the rifle, often reloading it after firing 15 of the 30 rounds in a magazine. He met no armed resistance. When he saw that a police officer had entered the school and seen him, Lanza committed suicide with a pistol.
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
That was not the most deadly school-located mass murder ever; that dishonor belongs to Andrew Kehoe, in Michigan, in 1927. Kehoe killed his wife by smashing her in the head. He then "fire-bombed" his farm, and while that was happening, his timed explosives, dynamite and pyrotol, blew up the north wing of Bath Consolidated School. (The timed explosives he planted in the south wing of the school failed to detonate however.) As rescuers were working at the school, Kohoe drove up in his truck and called over the school superintendent. During a struggle between the two over a rifle (bolt action .30 caliber Winchester Model 54 ) the weapon fired into the explosive- and shrapnel-filled truck, which explosion killed both of them, another two men, and a boy, as well as mortally wounding another man, and wounding a number of others.
Horrible and deadly. The official tally from the explosions was 44 dead and 58 injured.
This was in a time before gangsters et al lead to the 1934 NFA. In the late 1920s, anyone that wanted to and had the money could just buy a machine gun for a couple hundred bucks, by mail or down at the hardware store, or might have brought one back from World War I.
The Bath School Disaster
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Guest Post -- Rocksmith Rant
Editor: I hand over the virtual reigns to somebody who sent me this. As always, it is unedited by yours truly.
-----------------------------
Yeah, hi. Here's this for you if you want it. Whatever.
The Ubisoft-published game Rocksmith is an excellent teaching tool, for those that want to take the work, in bridging the gap between colored button music games and playing. It's a lot of hard work though, and few of the skills from the games (such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero) actually transfer. Mostly timing-related and some dexterity things, but little else of actual use. Sorry everyone who wasted all that time (mostly) in learning how to get 100% on every song on Guitar Hero III on eXpert Guitar.
Like the essentially failed specialty Squier guitar + MIDI adapter for Rock Band 3 (RB3), Rocksmith purports to help people learn how to play, and in practice it works surprisingly well. The layout of the on-screen 6 x 24 fretboard seems a much easier way to perceive notes versus the way its done in RB3, although the selection of songs is much broader in RB3. (However, the "precursor" to Rocksmith was Guitar Rising which seems to have had a much more entertaining set list overall, for the most part.) Zooming in and out on the fretboard is sometimes confusing though, but nothing that can't be dealt with.
Overall, when Rocksmith says any guitar (which they mean any amplified guitar with 1/4" output) they mean it, so a fifty dollar beater guitar or a prized multi-thousand dollar works. Unlike the few choices available for RB3, which is the only other game for a console (PS3 or 360 or Wii) that is a choice. The selections for a PC music-game-wise are a wider bunch of selections, but that's an entire other rant. (Although one should be aware in some way that in the non-console world, there are alternatives and competitors.)
In addition, with the newest version of Rocksmith or with the add-on, for bass on a real bass guitar, it's the only choice. All that exists in RB3 is an emulation mode for the guitars, which frankly is a sub-standard waste of time for most anything. It's almost as unlike playing a bass guitar as a violin is unlike a piano.
This isn't about how good Rocksmith is though, which it is, or an attempt to compare it to RB3, they're really different things. (For those wishing to read more about the game itself, we suggest here at Wikipedia.)
No, this is mostly a rant about what sucks about Rocksmith.
These comments are XBOX 360 centric, but we imagine most everything applies to some extent for the PS3 and PC. (There is no Wii version; even the PS3 and 360 struggle with some aspects.)
When you start out with the game, the corporate involvement of Gibson is apparent. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we should begin easy in our whining.
Some of the first screens are annoying, such as having to actually press start (no green A button) something even Rock Band stopped doing. They also demand nothing be in between the guitar (bass guitar) and the console, but the problem is the Real Tone cable has a straight plug, problematic when playing sitting down on any guitar that has a bottom side plug. We solved that problem with an "L cable" and a passive tuner as a connector (thru) in between the instrument and the Real Tone Cable and the console. In use, having that setup or going directly made zero difference at any time. So what they probably mean is don't process the signal with effects equipment and such, because you'll add to the delay, or some such, and also such processing is not necessary anyway.
This is one of the first of the issues with what they mean and what they say. The fact that this program went through a number of designers and companies is very apparent.
On a side note, if you are buying this game used, the Real Tone cable runs about $25 or $30 on its own. The game with guitar and bass guitar included, and the cable, now sells for $38. Yes, sorry everyone who spent some $40 for game and cable and then $30 for the bass DLC, yes that includes us. Which of course that sucks too. As it does also for those that spent $80 on it, and even more so for those who spent $80 and then another $30. The point being, if you need a cable, you might as well just buy the game because it's the same cable for all platforms. Which is another thing that sucks, you can't use any other cable like the $10 USB to 1/4" digital to analog cables, just this one. Not surprising, but you know.
One thing that sucks is that at times the game complains that the signal from the guitar is too loud. Well, you have to set the instrument to max level and the other sounds lower in the game and turn the output of the instrument all the way up to hear it well, and it's no fun playing and not hearing yourself. (Although the game recognizes the notes anyway most of the time even if you turn it down and you can't hear it, to a certain point.)
The arcade games are okay, but start "too easy" and quickly become "too difficult" and you have to restart at the start each time. Rather sucks, although can be useful to practice in some ways, but of limited use when you can't control it.
Often while playing, a blurb comes up suggesting tone is active and to try playing. That means the guitar is being amped. The problem is that most of the time, it's only on for a short time, so playing is frustrating when it stops, and it's also mostly at a time when the player is doing something else and wouldn't want to play. So it takes a while to ignore it, which also having to learn to ignore it, well, sucks.
Tuning. Fucking tuning. God Damn fucking tuning. Every single song except perversely enough, the only time it matters, during a performance. Practicing? Tune! Doing a technique? Playing an arcade game? Entering Riff Repeater? TUNE TUNE TUNE. We can see the need to have an in-tune guitar when the game is recognizing notes, but it gets tiring to the extreme. It's more than annoying, especially when one of the quirks decides your Drop-D E string isn't, or when it can't figure out what's going on with your A string. Hey, how about letting us tune it manually or in game when things start going wonky, not every single time. Especially since it can and does happen during playing, and you've made no allowance for that. Guitars aren't that delicate, jfc.
The menus for picking things. What retarded chimp programmed this crap mess of a garbage heap. If you want to go from one section (arbitrarily chopped into bits that are too big or too small it seems) of the song to another, you have to back all the way out and repick the same song -- made especially annoying by the song selection method.
You see, you don't end up back on the same song, and you can't sort the songs. You get the first song in the list (which is a pretty annoying song) every single time, and all you can do is move through the songs in the order they're in where it accelerates (in some freakish stupid way) by letter of the first word in the song title. No sorting by band, or genre, or album, or picking. At the least, if we're practicing Sunshine take us back to it!!
And events. When practicing for events, it lists the songs and additions that it wants you to do. You have to go back to the hidden choice of the event to pick something different to practice for a song, unless you've qualified. Then it's not there, so you have to go to the main menu and go through the songs (starting at the beginning of course) and practice it out of the event.
Which Master Events. Yes, max out all phrases (get 100% in some way, in practice or Riff Repeater, etc) and get over 100,000 points you can do the Master Event. This means you can't see anything for the notes, in a game where you are conditioned to match the sounds and timing with the playing. It's jarring. Which of course, you also have to qualify for the Master Event by practicing it with seeing nothing either. Give us some fucking sheet music or tabs you douchebags, or at least tell us we should go find sheet music or tabs to practice with. There's nothing there in game to help at all learning to play the song blind; such information would be great.
What makes that worse is that you have to qualify with a score to play it in the Master Event, and that score is essentially (if you've played the song in an event a few times) impossible to get by playing it normally, even getting 100% on everything on it. Such as the song by the Pixies on bass. And there's a score requirement to pass the Master Event at those qualifying scores. The heavy suckage about that? Yes, they don't fucking bother to tell you about the score requirements, or that the "we can't see the notes like you've been training us to rely upon" mode gives much higher scores than the "we can see the notes you've linked in our minds to playing". The reliance on colors and shapes is a common crutch that is a failing of all such methods of learning, but at least we'd expect they'd tell us in-game beforehand!!!
Now here's one that they can totally suck my cock for. You fucking lazy fucks, I want to punch in your ugly mother rapping homosapien faces. Regardless if you're playing guitar or bass guitar, during tuning (ugh, fucking tuning) there's a messages up top. What ever do they say? WELL I'LL TELL YOU. They insist that you check if you are on a bass guitar or a regular guitar. What? WHAT? Okay, that is just so fucking lazy programming, are you sure you want to quit you'll lose all unsaved progress, love on my dick three times baby, once for tomorrow, and twice more yesterday, you lazy fucks.
Do they think I just switched out the six-string higher-octave guitar that has B and e (IN OCTAVES A BASS GUITAR CAN'T EVER USUALLY PLAY AT ALL ANYWAY) for a bass? Or the other direction, that I suddenly took a four-string bass guitar (that typically plays an E that an electric guitar can't....) and plugged it in instead?
HEY YOU FUCKING GENIUSES (not) WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
See, they recognize the notes by digitizing the actual sounds, where it's so easy to tell the difference between playing an A1 and a B3 (or whatever) that even a retarded chimp could program that.... Okay, actually, I guess they couldn't, since they didn't.
What else. Um I guess the detection for hammer-on/pull-off , slide, sustain and such (when you're trying to max a phrase in practice etc) could use a little work, it can get frustrating. Sometimes that sucks.
The DLC, it's fine, but rather pricey at $3 each song. Some songs are worth that, others aren't. There's also the thing that you may like the song, but it's way too difficult for you. They have these value packs, but some halfish the songs in each are pretty sucky, making you debate if even if it was free it would be worth the space on the hard drive and having to scroll through it in the menus you're scrolling through so often. So the song packs aren't really any bargain at all.
Ah, right, DLC. So one time they have Pantera, all rocking out and what have you. Which I'm sure they edit the lyrics to the point it's not worth bothering with (a common problem with all these wussies pussies publishing music games cowards). But then they follow it up with DLC of Nickelback or whatever crap bands, Fallout Boy, totally overriding the cool with lame. Still, don't get it if you don't like it, and there's probably a whole bunch of people that would love to have a vagina start growing between their legs that's their own, right? Never leave the house.
And..... That's pretty much it. I'm all ranted out. If you want to use this feel free.
-----------------------------
Yeah, hi. Here's this for you if you want it. Whatever.
The Ubisoft-published game Rocksmith is an excellent teaching tool, for those that want to take the work, in bridging the gap between colored button music games and playing. It's a lot of hard work though, and few of the skills from the games (such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero) actually transfer. Mostly timing-related and some dexterity things, but little else of actual use. Sorry everyone who wasted all that time (mostly) in learning how to get 100% on every song on Guitar Hero III on eXpert Guitar.
Like the essentially failed specialty Squier guitar + MIDI adapter for Rock Band 3 (RB3), Rocksmith purports to help people learn how to play, and in practice it works surprisingly well. The layout of the on-screen 6 x 24 fretboard seems a much easier way to perceive notes versus the way its done in RB3, although the selection of songs is much broader in RB3. (However, the "precursor" to Rocksmith was Guitar Rising which seems to have had a much more entertaining set list overall, for the most part.) Zooming in and out on the fretboard is sometimes confusing though, but nothing that can't be dealt with.
Overall, when Rocksmith says any guitar (which they mean any amplified guitar with 1/4" output) they mean it, so a fifty dollar beater guitar or a prized multi-thousand dollar works. Unlike the few choices available for RB3, which is the only other game for a console (PS3 or 360 or Wii) that is a choice. The selections for a PC music-game-wise are a wider bunch of selections, but that's an entire other rant. (Although one should be aware in some way that in the non-console world, there are alternatives and competitors.)
In addition, with the newest version of Rocksmith or with the add-on, for bass on a real bass guitar, it's the only choice. All that exists in RB3 is an emulation mode for the guitars, which frankly is a sub-standard waste of time for most anything. It's almost as unlike playing a bass guitar as a violin is unlike a piano.
This isn't about how good Rocksmith is though, which it is, or an attempt to compare it to RB3, they're really different things. (For those wishing to read more about the game itself, we suggest here at Wikipedia.)
No, this is mostly a rant about what sucks about Rocksmith.
These comments are XBOX 360 centric, but we imagine most everything applies to some extent for the PS3 and PC. (There is no Wii version; even the PS3 and 360 struggle with some aspects.)
When you start out with the game, the corporate involvement of Gibson is apparent. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we should begin easy in our whining.
Some of the first screens are annoying, such as having to actually press start (no green A button) something even Rock Band stopped doing. They also demand nothing be in between the guitar (bass guitar) and the console, but the problem is the Real Tone cable has a straight plug, problematic when playing sitting down on any guitar that has a bottom side plug. We solved that problem with an "L cable" and a passive tuner as a connector (thru) in between the instrument and the Real Tone Cable and the console. In use, having that setup or going directly made zero difference at any time. So what they probably mean is don't process the signal with effects equipment and such, because you'll add to the delay, or some such, and also such processing is not necessary anyway.
This is one of the first of the issues with what they mean and what they say. The fact that this program went through a number of designers and companies is very apparent.
On a side note, if you are buying this game used, the Real Tone cable runs about $25 or $30 on its own. The game with guitar and bass guitar included, and the cable, now sells for $38. Yes, sorry everyone who spent some $40 for game and cable and then $30 for the bass DLC, yes that includes us. Which of course that sucks too. As it does also for those that spent $80 on it, and even more so for those who spent $80 and then another $30. The point being, if you need a cable, you might as well just buy the game because it's the same cable for all platforms. Which is another thing that sucks, you can't use any other cable like the $10 USB to 1/4" digital to analog cables, just this one. Not surprising, but you know.
One thing that sucks is that at times the game complains that the signal from the guitar is too loud. Well, you have to set the instrument to max level and the other sounds lower in the game and turn the output of the instrument all the way up to hear it well, and it's no fun playing and not hearing yourself. (Although the game recognizes the notes anyway most of the time even if you turn it down and you can't hear it, to a certain point.)
The arcade games are okay, but start "too easy" and quickly become "too difficult" and you have to restart at the start each time. Rather sucks, although can be useful to practice in some ways, but of limited use when you can't control it.
Often while playing, a blurb comes up suggesting tone is active and to try playing. That means the guitar is being amped. The problem is that most of the time, it's only on for a short time, so playing is frustrating when it stops, and it's also mostly at a time when the player is doing something else and wouldn't want to play. So it takes a while to ignore it, which also having to learn to ignore it, well, sucks.
Tuning. Fucking tuning. God Damn fucking tuning. Every single song except perversely enough, the only time it matters, during a performance. Practicing? Tune! Doing a technique? Playing an arcade game? Entering Riff Repeater? TUNE TUNE TUNE. We can see the need to have an in-tune guitar when the game is recognizing notes, but it gets tiring to the extreme. It's more than annoying, especially when one of the quirks decides your Drop-D E string isn't, or when it can't figure out what's going on with your A string. Hey, how about letting us tune it manually or in game when things start going wonky, not every single time. Especially since it can and does happen during playing, and you've made no allowance for that. Guitars aren't that delicate, jfc.
The menus for picking things. What retarded chimp programmed this crap mess of a garbage heap. If you want to go from one section (arbitrarily chopped into bits that are too big or too small it seems) of the song to another, you have to back all the way out and repick the same song -- made especially annoying by the song selection method.
You see, you don't end up back on the same song, and you can't sort the songs. You get the first song in the list (which is a pretty annoying song) every single time, and all you can do is move through the songs in the order they're in where it accelerates (in some freakish stupid way) by letter of the first word in the song title. No sorting by band, or genre, or album, or picking. At the least, if we're practicing Sunshine take us back to it!!
And events. When practicing for events, it lists the songs and additions that it wants you to do. You have to go back to the hidden choice of the event to pick something different to practice for a song, unless you've qualified. Then it's not there, so you have to go to the main menu and go through the songs (starting at the beginning of course) and practice it out of the event.
Which Master Events. Yes, max out all phrases (get 100% in some way, in practice or Riff Repeater, etc) and get over 100,000 points you can do the Master Event. This means you can't see anything for the notes, in a game where you are conditioned to match the sounds and timing with the playing. It's jarring. Which of course, you also have to qualify for the Master Event by practicing it with seeing nothing either. Give us some fucking sheet music or tabs you douchebags, or at least tell us we should go find sheet music or tabs to practice with. There's nothing there in game to help at all learning to play the song blind; such information would be great.
What makes that worse is that you have to qualify with a score to play it in the Master Event, and that score is essentially (if you've played the song in an event a few times) impossible to get by playing it normally, even getting 100% on everything on it. Such as the song by the Pixies on bass. And there's a score requirement to pass the Master Event at those qualifying scores. The heavy suckage about that? Yes, they don't fucking bother to tell you about the score requirements, or that the "we can't see the notes like you've been training us to rely upon" mode gives much higher scores than the "we can see the notes you've linked in our minds to playing". The reliance on colors and shapes is a common crutch that is a failing of all such methods of learning, but at least we'd expect they'd tell us in-game beforehand!!!
Now here's one that they can totally suck my cock for. You fucking lazy fucks, I want to punch in your ugly mother rapping homosapien faces. Regardless if you're playing guitar or bass guitar, during tuning (ugh, fucking tuning) there's a messages up top. What ever do they say? WELL I'LL TELL YOU. They insist that you check if you are on a bass guitar or a regular guitar. What? WHAT? Okay, that is just so fucking lazy programming, are you sure you want to quit you'll lose all unsaved progress, love on my dick three times baby, once for tomorrow, and twice more yesterday, you lazy fucks.
Do they think I just switched out the six-string higher-octave guitar that has B and e (IN OCTAVES A BASS GUITAR CAN'T EVER USUALLY PLAY AT ALL ANYWAY) for a bass? Or the other direction, that I suddenly took a four-string bass guitar (that typically plays an E that an electric guitar can't....) and plugged it in instead?
HEY YOU FUCKING GENIUSES (not) WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
See, they recognize the notes by digitizing the actual sounds, where it's so easy to tell the difference between playing an A1 and a B3 (or whatever) that even a retarded chimp could program that.... Okay, actually, I guess they couldn't, since they didn't.
What else. Um I guess the detection for hammer-on/pull-off , slide, sustain and such (when you're trying to max a phrase in practice etc) could use a little work, it can get frustrating. Sometimes that sucks.
The DLC, it's fine, but rather pricey at $3 each song. Some songs are worth that, others aren't. There's also the thing that you may like the song, but it's way too difficult for you. They have these value packs, but some halfish the songs in each are pretty sucky, making you debate if even if it was free it would be worth the space on the hard drive and having to scroll through it in the menus you're scrolling through so often. So the song packs aren't really any bargain at all.
Ah, right, DLC. So one time they have Pantera, all rocking out and what have you. Which I'm sure they edit the lyrics to the point it's not worth bothering with (a common problem with all these wussies pussies publishing music games cowards). But then they follow it up with DLC of Nickelback or whatever crap bands, Fallout Boy, totally overriding the cool with lame. Still, don't get it if you don't like it, and there's probably a whole bunch of people that would love to have a vagina start growing between their legs that's their own, right? Never leave the house.
And..... That's pretty much it. I'm all ranted out. If you want to use this feel free.
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