Disunited: Are Our States Moving In Separate Directions

[Mr. Coffee]

It's especially bullshit when you consider that I could do the same or more damage with the knives in my kitchen.

[aerius]

No kidding, I used to follow self-defence, crime, and weapons stats very closely in the past. The #1 weapon used in stabbings? Kitchen knives. #2? Screwdrivers. Then scissors, letter openers, icepicks, shivs, a bunch of other stuff and "combat knives" were way down near the bottom of the list.

Oh yeah, good luck banning combat knives seeing that anyone reasonably skilled with a grinder and belt sander can make one in an afternoon.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Do you have any idea when the last time a crime was committed in the U.S. with a legally bought machine gun or SMG? I'm pretty sure it was during Prohibition, Sea Skimmer or someone probably has better information on it than I do.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the last crime committed in the US with an NFA weapon was a failure to notify of a change of address.

According to a former Director of the ATF (I can't remember which) testifying before Congress, only ten of the >250k Title III weapons on the market have ever been involved in a crime since 1934. Most of those are failures to notify, the only two crimes to resolve in a death were in (Brunswick Hills, OH) 1992 when Dr Shou Chao Ho murdered another rival doctor with his MAC-11 and before that in (Dayton, OH) 1988 when Officer Roger Waller took an M11 from his department's armory to kill a police informant.

I should also note that a little over half of those ~250k weapons belong to police departments.

[Tiriol]

Yes, yes, heard that before. Finland - does this ring any bell? Or this? And these are only the most famous cases.

Since you quote those two incidents as "only" the most famous cases, you'd better start producing some more cases similar to them and some statistics about gun misuse in Finland. And you know what? The gun regulation laws have already been tightened after those school shootings.

Evidence, please.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Do you have any idea when the last time a crime was committed in the U.S. with a legally bought machine gun or SMG? I'm pretty sure it was during Prohibition, Sea Skimmer or someone probably has better information on it than I do.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the last crime committed in the US with an NFA weapon was a failure to notify of a change of address.

According to a former Director of the ATF (I can't remember which) testifying before Congress, only ten of the >250k Title III weapons on the market have ever been involved in a crime since 1934. Most of those are failures to notify, the only two crimes to resolve in a death were in (Brunswick Hills, OH) 1992 when Dr Shou Chao Ho murdered another rival doctor with his MAC-11 and before that in (Dayton, OH) 1988 when Officer Roger Waller took an M11 from his department's armory to kill a police informant.

I should also note that a little over half of those ~250k weapons belong to police departments.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Sorry, internet hicup. Anyway, failure to notify is something that didn't even occur to me. I think my point stands, though, even if I got the details wrong, two deaths since 1934 is pretty damn rare. I thing one of Irbis' problems is he got to ComradeClaus' "play with machineguns," statement and didn't read the "with prober license," part.

Except, he didn't have big car, so it was all he could transfer. Even if he did one, compare the effect of his bomb to his gun shooting, heck, compare London bombings - they killed far less people than gun in his hand, despite multiple well prepared terrorists doing it. Compare that to Bombay shooting, or to Bieslan - massive casualties, despite less resources used than in any of above bomb attacks. Nope, guns in determined hands easily kill more people than even big bombs, seeing how little 'benefit' doubling the mass of the bomb gives in blast radius increase

.

Breivik's bomb wasn't the main event, it was a distraction to attract the police while he went on his shooting spree. He could have done a lot more damage with a bomb than he did, thankfully.

The Oklahoma City bombing was done with a moving van full of the same kind of fertilizer-based explosive that Breivik used. It killed 168 people, on the level of the Mumbai attack. Except it only took an instant to happen and McVeigh was well away when the bomb went off. Had things gone a little differently, he may well have excaped. Can you not rent a moving van in Norway? It would be a little more conspicuous, true, but target selection can make up for that.

[Serafina]

It is possible that Breviks bomb did less damage than intended because it was apparently ignited right above a cellar. Thus a lot of the explosion escaped below ground, doing no immediately apparent damage.
That's still speculation though. There is certainly no reason for him to design the bomb to do as little damage as possible, so it's fair to assume that it did not work out as he intended.

[Simon_Jester]

Except, he didn't have big car, so it was all he could transfer. Even if he did one, compare the effect of his bomb to his gun shooting, heck, compare London bombings - they killed far less people than gun in his hand, despite multiple well prepared terrorists doing it. Compare that to Bombay shooting, or to Bieslan - massive casualties, despite less resources used than in any of above bomb attacks. Nope, guns in determined hands easily kill more people than even big bombs, seeing how little 'benefit' doubling the mass of the bomb gives in blast radius increase.

It took ten men to stage the Bombay shootings. They had bombs and automatic rifles, and killed 160 people. Meanwhile, on 9/11 twenty men armed only with knives and cans of mace managed to kill three thousand people. Are we to conclude that knives are ten times more dangerous than machine guns?

Of course not.

The effectiveness of a terrorist attack depends heavily on who the targets are, and what tactics the terrorist adopts. A well-planned bombing and a well-planned shooting can both kill huge numbers of people. A poorly-planned attempt at either can turn into a horrible, bloody farce for the would-be terrorist.