While I do agree that the issue is more complex than just gun ownership, the US has the highest per-capita rate of gun ownership in the world to a staggering degree:
Serbia and Yemen both suffer a lot of gun violence. Switzerland has less, though it’s got a high level of gun control laws, registration, required training, and regulations in place to keep society safe (similar to Finland, Sweden, and Norway).
Yes, because the thought process of a demonstrably mentally deranged person is an accurate barometer for the average gun owner…
How is that a “loose” gun law? California has some of the stricter laws in the nation. He had to pass the Federal NICS check and IIRC CA has a 10 day waiting period. I don’t know if there is a separate state background check or not. But what would that have mattered? He was 22, legal age, not a felon, no domestic abuse issues on his record. On paper he looks fine. Barring the ability to read minds, what additional road block do you think would have stopped this? The answer is: none.
I did, and the word that popped to mind when thinking about the USA is “underreporting.” For example, a guy kills someone in an armed robbery, and that crime is not listed as homicide but as armed robbery, and other such gerrymandering of the facts in the USA.
Shame is different than honor. Shame is one of the things that causes you to think twice. Honor: not so much. Shame is consequences; honor is results. Huge difference.
The entire nation has incredible loose gun laws. Even the strictest laws in the strictest city in the strictest county in the strictest state are shockingly loose. Look to the laws in Canada to see moderate laws.
The FBI stats are thorough. If a death from an armed robbery isn’t listed as a homicide (which I am unsure how often that happens, as people are often charged with homicide) it will definitely still be in the stats. I’ve never heard the stats for gun deaths criticized for being “under reported”. The stats for gun use in crime prevention is grossly under reported and there isn’t like a stat that the FBI tracks in that respect. Often times there aren’t even police reports filed, and when they are there is no over seeing body that catalogs them.
Which of Canada’s laws would have prevented this?
I’m surprised that he didn’t use any clubs… there was a lot of conjecture in a previous thread about knives and clubs.
PS: Dude’s dad should’ve taught him how to focus a camera. I’m here watching his retribution video thinking “check out the fine details on that steering wheel”
Do you think he’d have been buying a Glock 34 in Canada? I don’t.
If he had then his guns would have been registered so when the police investigated the reports of his videos reporting suicidal and violent ideation they’d have known he was hoarding guns.
The gun and ammunition hoarding would have been noted and dealt with.
Canada’s gun laws are designed for the greater good of society and they work far better than our own which cater to the private infantile vengeance fantasies over social order and the greater good.
Yes, to some degree. I’ve personally seen those very same sentiments expressed by others about guns, though never knives.
Most gun fans nowadays do seem to need re-education…
Just read this story this morning and it perfectly echoes my thoughts:
I was the NRA
He sounds like a decade or two older than me, but his father is me…
As I grew older I began to notice a different breed of hunter; men who showed up with multiple shotguns as if they were golf clubs needed for specific shots. While most of us wore jeans, t-shirts and hunting vests, these newcomers dressed like they were going on safari, wearing bush hats, shooting jackets (in the 100 degree heat), and cargo pants with more pockets than there existed implements to fill them. You would see them walking the fields; shotgun draped over one arm, can of beer in the other hand. We learned to stay away from them. For these men hunting was a manhood thing, a way to get in touch with their alpha male, a way to prove they weren’t soft city dwellers and what better way to do that than to get together with some buddies and shoot some guns at whatever moved....
He never took us hunting again and we never asked to go.
Every time that I see “enthusiasts” on the news, etc, they are rarely practicing any form safe firearm handling that I can recognize – hence most receive the label “nut” from me.
Mister44: Thank you so much for saying it before I had to. Armed robbery resulting in death is reported by the FBI as “homicide”. The only time it wouldn’t be is if a store owner (or other victim) shot at the suspect and hit either the suspect (reasonable) or a bystander (which is manslaughter or accidental death). If anyone’s wondering, my stats were from the UNODC’s (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) 2012 study. I didn’t even bother to mention the actual rates per 100,000 for Africa which range from 5.9 to 30.5, and that highest rate wasn’t in the area with the highest kills. That was South America with a rate of 20.0 and 79,039 murders in 2012. We fall well below those numbers.
awjt: I’m not sure you actually understand what gerrymandering even is. Ready? To gerrymander is a term meaning “to manipulate boundaries of electoral districts so as to effect the make up of the population inside those districts thus providing a political advantage”.
It doesn’t refer to just generally “cooking the books” or reassigning classifications in any day-to-day activity. It’s a specific political term, with a specific meaning. I may sound pedantic, but you thought you should school me (badly) on honor vs. shame. You should think twice before using terms you don’t understand. You also shouldn’t just grandly assume that the information available is incorrect because it disagrees (wildly) with your world view. You simply may not be right.
[quote=“nemomeno, post:165, topic:32359, full:true”]
Do you think he’d have been buying a Glock 34 in Canada? I don’t.
The gun and ammunition hoarding would have been noted and dealt with.[/quote]
It doesn’t appear the Glock 34 is illegal in Canada. In fact it’s a longer barrel than most pistols for competition shooting, vs a more compact model that would have a smaller than allowed barrel. I’ll double check with a friend in Toronto.
The article I said he had a pistol. What else did he have? Though I have to laugh at people who exclaim “zomg, he had like 20 guns.” How does that make anyone more dangerous? You can only use one at a time effectively. How much ammo is considered “hoarding” and how much did he have?
This doesn’t seem like one of those cases whatsoever. They don’t have to dig for dirt here, they’re standing on a mountain of it.
From the second to last page of his 114pp ramblings:
The dude was fucked up. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if you’re a loon who plans on doing this shit before offing yourself, just do us all a favour and shoot yourself first.
Yes, I think you’re right, it looks like the Glock 34 is legal (with a 10 round magazine).
Based on the description, it sounds like he had high capacity magazines that would be illegal in Canada and which contributed to the damage. I’d have to know more than I do to really say for certain. I’m a supporter of limiting magazine sizes, larger capacity magazines are far too convenient to mass murderers, and used far too often for that purpose for them to be justifiable.
The cops were investigating this guy but didn’t know he was hoarding guns and ammo since there’s no real gun registration DB. If his guns were registered they’d have stepped in. His crazy written ramblings talk about how the cops almost stopped him when they investigated but he managed to hide his guns.
For him to get a handgun he’d have had to go through the process which involves background checks that include much deeper mental health background checks as well as references that based on the biographical details we know, he’d never have been able to get. Based on what we know, it’s clear he’d have been denied the guns.
So there are a few ways the Canadian laws are far more responsible and would have prevented this. They could have prevented it without preventing responsible citizens from owning a Glock 34.
I went and skimmed your article.
I cannot believe that a liberal news source published a piece on disillusionment with the NRA or gun culture.
Indeed, you do. I said, “gerrymandering of the facts.” But you have plucked that one word out of its context in order to attempt, feebly, to school me back.
Ability to recontextualize is better taken as a sign of an agile mind than as someone else’s wrongness on the Internet.
Again, Boing Boing bbs has become a yawn. Everyone wants a pissing match. Enjoy pissing all over yourselves, kids.
Doesn’t negate the validity of his piece.
OK…
Enough of this.
Here’s some info from the L.A. Times:
The guns used by the shooter were legally purchased AND registered. He had, “two Sig Sauer p226 model handguns and a Glock 34” bought through federally-licensed dealers, and “Bill Brown of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department” acknowledged that the registration was on file.
Not only that: “Authorities also recovered 34 loaded 10-round magazines for the Sig Sauers and seven 10-round magazines for the Glock[.]” He didn’t have extended magazines.
What he bought, he bought legally on different occasions, and could have had the same even in Canada. Also, he was interviewed by police who he managed to fake out - people with the type of psych troubles he had are really, really good at that.
“He was courteous and polite, appeared timid and shy” during the welfare check, Brown said, and Rodger expressed that he was “having difficulty with his social life and probably would not be returning to school the next year.” That wasn’t the first time he’d been interviewed by the police.
This really is not really a “lax gun control” issue (and do I support gun control). This is an issue of someone’s mental state not being recognized by officials fast enough to stop a tragedy, and an example of just how complex it can be to identify certain types of pathology.
edit, adding link: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sla-me-ln-guns-recovered-at-shooting-20140524-story.html
