How gun buffs took over Wikipedia’s AR-15 page

[Kumioko]

The Verge and a couple of other online sites had some interesting reading about how a pro gun group took over editing the AR-15 page in Wikipedia.

Here is a https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/6/17086 ... s-shooting to the article. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page for the AR-15 style rifle (T-H-L).

[Poetlister]

The article calls Wikipedia "the web’s leading source of neutral information". Very often it isn't, as of course this article shows.

[AndyTheGrump]

Yup. Any coverage of firearms-related topics in Wikipedia is heavily policed by the U.S. pro-gun lobby. They clearly coordinate their efforts externally, and use every trick in the book to ensure content suits their agenda. The failure of the 2014 ArbCom Gun Control case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... un_control) to prevent this sort of transparent article-rigging from recurring is as clear a demonstration as any that it is incapable of dealing with underlying issues (or is unwilling to tackle them), and instead takes the easy way out, by focusing solely on the most overt 'behaviour', and handing out blocks and bans that achieve nothing of any long-term consequence.

[tarantino]

The Verge and a couple of other online sites had some interesting reading about how a pro gun group took over editing the AR-15 page in Wikipedia.

Here is a https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/6/17086 ... s-shooting to the article. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page for the AR-15 style rifle (T-H-L).

Lightbreather has been raising the same points on her blog for months. I wouldn't be surprised if The Verge story originated from her.

[MjolnirPants]

I actually mostly* disagree with the position of that author. The WP page for a weapon should be about the weapon, not about assholes who used it, nor assholes who blame it for what the first group of assholes did. People who go to the article Colt AR-15 (T-H-L) to learn more about Gun politics in the United States (T-H-L) or Gun violence in the United States (T-H-L) are, quite simply in the wrong article.
*I'm not saying there shouldn't be a "controversies" section, but it should be short and have a "main article" link. WP exists to inform the reader, after all.

And that's a good thing from a pro-gun control standpoint: Do you want a reader's understanding of mass killings to be limited to those in which a particular gun was used? Hell no. You want them to be directed to an article that covers all such incidents. And it's not entirely clear what the scope of coverage would be, in any case. What about a mass killing that used an LWRC Six8? Should that be included in the AR-15 because it looks a hell of a lot like one? It was based on the M4 carbine, which in turn was based on the CAR-15, which itself was based on the M16A2 which was a military variant of the AR-15. Is that a close enough relationship? What about the fact that it fires a different caliber ammunition?

Any reasonable discussion is going to conclude that a massacre committed by someone using a Six8 shou'dn't be included, either due to the differences or due to the lack of consensus the long list of difference would engender. But a reader wanting to know about assault rifle use in mass killings would want to read about that hypothetical one, right next to Sandy Hook.

The problem with examining WP from a activist POV is that you're examining WP from an activist POV. Whether that activism is gun control (which I generally support, despite being a prolific shooter and gun owner myself), alt-right nationalism (they can suck my nuts) or good-old-fashioned environmentalism, WP is a resource in which to find facts, not a primer to convince fence-sitters that your position is the right one, even if your position really is the right one.

[No Ledge]

That article fairly accurately portrays the situation as it was before the most recent mass shooting. The situation has changed after the Parkland shooting (T-H-L), which strikes me as the "Me Too" incident for the AR-15.

Since that shooting, modern sporting rifle (T-H-L) has moved to AR-15 style rifle (T-H-L).

Type "AR-15" into the search box, and the first suggestion in the drop-down is AR-15 style rifle (T-H-L).

The community has decided to retarget AR-15 (T-H-L) from Colt AR-15 (T-H-L) to AR-15 style rifle (T-H-L).

The local consensus at WikiProject Firearms has been overridden by a broader-based community consensus.

[Kumioko]

Which is kinda funny since AR stands for ArmaLite Rifle...not Colt. But at least they didn't change it to Assault rifle.

[No Ledge]

Colt owns the AR-15 trademark. To be fair, some element of opposition may have come from Colt trying to protect their brand. Some are crying "genericide" (trademark erosion).

Take a neutral point-of-view and have some sympathy for their plight. Colt isn't directly responsible for how their products have been used and they can't control how the news media reports about shootings where the weapon was an "AR-15" without always bothering to report the specific make and model.

[MjolnirPants]

Take a neutral point-of-view and have some sympathy for their plight. Colt isn't directly responsible for how their products have been used and they can't control how the news media reports about shootings where the weapon was an "AR-15" without always bothering to report the specific make and model.

If they can't have my money (I prefer other brands and don't own anything from Colt), then they sure as hell aren't getting my sympathy. That's reserved for people. Specifically people who deserve it. While Colt may not be directly responsible for any given shooting, they're sure as hell partially to blame for the gun culture in the US, and that almost certainly plays a big role, considering that we have a worse gun violence problem than any other comparable nation. Especially after what the US gun manufacturers did to the NRA.

Only reason I've ever been willing to buy an American made weapon is because they're better made in the platforms I actually know how to use.

[No Ledge]

Lightbreather has been raising the same points on her blog for months. I wouldn't be surprised if The Verge story originated from her.

Indeed. She tweeted about the "Wikipedia pro-gun shell game with AR-15 pages" on February 27.

Her August 20, 2016 blog Wikipedia pro-gun shell game with AR-15 pages.

I stumbled into this back in November when this clumsy refactoring of the articles triggered navigational red-flags that I patrol for. Since then I've worked on under-the-radar cleanup. I created the AR-15 style rifle redirect on January 12, and now the article's been moved over that.

Lightbreather should be pleased that the tide is turning on Wikipedia... though it's a shame that it took yet another major shooting incident to trigger the shift.

Wasn't she a member here? What happened?

[tarantino]

Wasn't she a member here? What happened?

Her post on her "departure" from WO is here. We did help her track down Scalhotrod (T-C-L) and get him banned by the foundation, though, so we've got that going for us.

[Earthy Astringent]

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/160 ... eA2Cg.jpeg

ROFL.

[MjolnirPants]

Wasn't she a member here? What happened?

Her post on her "departure" from WO is here. We did help her track down Scalhotrod (T-C-L) and get him banned by the foundation, though, so we've got that going for us.

Why did Scalhotrod end up banned?

[Midsize Jake]

Why did Scalhotrod end up banned?

The incident we've generally cited as the ban-rationale was one in which he found a photo of someone he believed to be Ms. Lightbreather, photoshopped the face from that photo onto a porn image of some kind, and posted it somewhere under an account that was either clearly his or could be convincingly traced back to him.

That doesn't mean there weren't other similar and/or related incidents that we don't know about (or else know much less about). As I recall, Ms. Lightbreather said she was subjected to "ongoing" harassment from him (often of a sexual nature), so the WMF might know of other incidents, any one of which might have been more or less serious than that one (in case that wasn't enough for them).

[DHeyward]

Rather odd story. Twenty five years ago the focus was on "AK-47" style rifles. I tried pointing this out as a lot of the identification of an "AR-15" is in the context of legislation to regulate it. Editors that had no agendas related to gun politics are generally unfamiliar with the history, nomenclature and features. I pointed one particularly ignorant person to this New York Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... tings.html). I mistakenly believed they were interested in being informative rather than demagoguery. That level of hostility to a New York Times article is pretty rare.

There is of course politics behind naming things. The agenda of gun-control advocates is that if it's named, it's easier to convince people that "there ought to be a law against X" especially if X can be tied to nefarious things. Gun-rights advocates want to make sure that features aren't getting confused with products.

Two of the recent naming issues are "AR-15" and "bump-stock." The problem with wikipedia and these topics is that editors become pawns in the politics. People that write the articles on these topics should be able to describe them. Certainly the use of the term AR-15 is beyond the specific "Colt AR-15" and it's significant enough to warrant separate coverage. Whether the generic description lives at "Modern sporting rifle" or "AR-15 style rifles" is a different discussion than whether the generic description exists. Fighting over article naming is political. There is no NPOV choice between those names.

There's no conspiracy to "take over" anything. As far as I can tell there are a group of technically informed editors that have created and updated articles on all sorts of AR related variants and history. This similar to articles on computer processors. There's a generic "x86 architecture" as well as an article on each product by AMD, Intel and others as well as articles on different architectures such as ARM.. Now when a virus is released that affects only Intel i7 16nm products running Windows, how much pushback would there be to adding a mention to 1) non x86 CPUs manufactured by Intel, 2) non-Intel CPUS running Windows, 3) OSs that aren't microsoft but run on the Intel CPU? And considering the virus has its own article and it's mentioned on the specific CPU page? Would they really call opposition to astroturfing part of an Intel conspiracy? Would the editors that are part of a community that create and maintain articles on all CPU architectures, products and companies be accused of "taking over" the CPU articles because they didn't think the ARM v7 core should mention the virus?

The role of wikipedia should be to expand knowledge and understanding. Explaining what makes an AR-15 pattern rifle similar and different from an AK-47 (the rifle behind the 1994 "assault weapons ban") or a Sig Sauer MCX (the Orlando Pulse nightclub firearm) should be something WP embraces, not something that is plowed under for anyones agenda. The AR-15 style rifle is the most popular hunting, target and self-defense rifle product in the U.S. It's very rare for firearms to be so popular that thousands of other manufacturers make compatible non-OEM components. It's unheard of that a firearm is so popular that it's cost effective to sell the unmachined blocks of aluminum directly to consumers with jigs that can turn it into a firearm with hand tools.

[Earthy Astringent]

The article calls Wikipedia "the web’s leading source of neutral information". Very often it isn't, as of course this article shows.

What is it that you find biased? The only thing I see is that it uses the term “sporting rifle” in a couple of places. That is an industry developed term, and while it certainly belongs being mentioned in the article as such, it is debatable whether it should be used in voce. The article is supposed to be about the weapon platform. It contains a section about mass shootings, and probably should contain a link to one or more topic forks, but as a stand alone article it tells the salient points about the tool.

And herein lies the problem for some; It isn’t extolling the evil about the weapon, the NRA, etc. which was Lightbreather’s raison d’etre on Wikipedia. I’ve little doubt that she shopped this Wikipedia “conspiracy” to anyone and everyone for some time. With the MSD tragedy she finally hooked a fish. And I say this as someone who is in favor of deleting the 2nd amendment and replying to those who quote Charlton Heston’s “from my cold dead hands” with a hearty “challenge accepted”.

[Bezdomni]

I see that the Snoog has another press citation to nail to their userpage. (Maybe that'll make up for the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society accidentally misattributing his words to Politico on page 15 of their recent report on (what else?) the 2016 elections.)

WP:Firearms is also active on the page for the National Rifle Association, mobilizing against a number of critical edits in recent months. In December, a user called “Snooganssnoogans” proposed a new section on racial criticisms of the NRA, focusing on the organization’s silence in the wake of the Philando Castile shooting and subsequent outcry from Black Lives Matter leaders.

An article at the Root, written by an accredited wypipologist, which doesn't seem to share his POV.

[DHeyward]

I see that the Snoog has another press citation to nail to their userpage. (Maybe that'll make up for the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society accidentally misattributing his words to Politico on page 15 of their recent report on (what else?) the 2016 elections.)

WP:Firearms is also active on the page for the National Rifle Association, mobilizing against a number of critical edits in recent months. In December, a user called “Snooganssnoogans” proposed a new section on racial criticisms of the NRA, focusing on the organization’s silence in the wake of the Philando Castile shooting and subsequent outcry from Black Lives Matter leaders.

An article at the Root, written by an accredited wypipologist, which doesn't seem to share his POV.

It was NRA members upset with the NRA, not BLM. The Washington Post covered it. And here.

[Bezdomni]

I see the RfC is more thorough than suggested in the article.

Also, the Root article I cited does suggest filing the article under "The NRA is a terrorist organization", so I suppose the author's disagreement with Snoogans cannot be as profound as all that...

[Poetlister]

The article calls Wikipedia "the web’s leading source of neutral information". Very often it isn't, as of course this article shows.

What is it that you find biased?

The whole news item is about how the Wikipedia article was biased by the NRA. Does anyone think that Wikipedia in general is "the web’s leading source of neutral information"?

[Anroth]

The article calls Wikipedia "the web’s leading source of neutral information". Very often it isn't, as of course this article shows.

What is it that you find biased?

The whole news item is about how the Wikipedia article was biased by the NRA. Does anyone think that Wikipedia in general is "the web’s leading source of neutral information"?

Certainly in the top 5.

Almost all (including the most reputable) news websites having staggering bias. All the social media sites exhibit bias - and we know from ex-employees their monitoring teams are biased in their moderation.

While 'neutral information' is probably the wrong wording in that article. Much of the info on WP is not 'neutral' but it is presented (for the most part) in a neutral manner.

If I had to name some websites that were more neutral, I would probably end up with purely fact-checking sites like snopes.....

[DHeyward]

The article calls Wikipedia "the web’s leading source of neutral information". Very often it isn't, as of course this article shows.

What is it that you find biased?

The whole news item is about how the Wikipedia article was biased by the NRA. Does anyone think that Wikipedia in general is "the web’s leading source of neutral information"?

Certainly in the top 5.

Almost all (including the most reputable) news websites having staggering bias. All the social media sites exhibit bias - and we know from ex-employees their monitoring teams are biased in their moderation.

While 'neutral information' is probably the wrong wording in that article. Much of the info on WP is not 'neutral' but it is presented (for the most part) in a neutral manner.

If I had to name some websites that were more neutral, I would probably end up with purely fact-checking sites like snopes.....

Back to article, even the name choices weren't neutral. The choice between "modern sporting rifle" and "AR-15 style rifle" were not between a non-neutral and a neutral choice. There is nothing in that article that defines what an AR-15 style rifle is. It's most salient point is that it has been used by mass shooters which is only a recent phenomenom in its 60 year history. That seems to be the only tangibly defined characteristic according to the article. Could anyone identify a rifle as an AR-15 style from the article "AR-15 style rifle?"

[Earthy Astringent]

From my limited knowledge, and watching a few videos it’s the receiver that makes it an AR15. The receivers are identical in shape, holes, nubbins (I made that up), etc. Parts that fit on one AR15 receive, such as barrel, trigger, etc should fit on another AR15 make. The term AR-15 is not quite a generic trademark, but it is a generic term for the receiver and the parts that go on it.

[DHeyward]

From my limited knowledge, and watching a few videos it’s the receiver that makes it an AR15. The receivers are identical in shape, holes, nubbins (I made that up), etc. Parts that fit on one AR15 receive, such as barrel, trigger, etc should fit on another AR15 make. The term AR-15 is not quite a generic trademark, but it is a generic term for the receiver and the parts that go on it.

Fair enough - that's the firearms groups definition in a nutshell. Is it in the article? The pulse nightclub shooter did not use a rifle with an AR-15 receiver so is that also incorrect designation? It's a slippery slope of misinformation.

[Kumioko]

Just to clarify any misunderstandings, "assault weapon" is just a scary term being used to confuse people. There is no such thing as an "assault weapon", that wouldn't be a very good marketing term. It's a term, defined by politicians, to instill fear and create anxiety. Any weapon can be an assault weapon but assaulting something is the action done by a human using the weapon whether it's done by a rifle, rock or pencil. That action doesn't make it an "assault weapon"...and the parts of them are not interchangeable necessarily...although some are.

As with anything, manufacturers make parts so they will fit multiple models and styles whenever possible, in this case rifles, to maximize their profits. Much like the modularity of a Toyota corolla or Mitsubishi Lancer, some rifles like the AR-15 style are designed to work with a lot of different attachments including different sights, stocks, magazines, ammunition, muzzle attachments like suppressors and even the internal workings like the trigger and the parts in the combustion chambers. That modularity and the accuracy make the AR-15 popular.

There are approximately 5 million AR-15 style weapons according to CNBC here: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/13/owned-b ... sacre.html (not counting all the other weapons) in the US currently and only a tiny fraction have ever been used in a mass killing.

[AndyTheGrump]

Just to clarify any misunderstandings, "assault weapon" is just a scary term being used to confuse people. There is no such thing as an "assault weapon", that wouldn't be a very good marketing term. It's a term, defined by politicians, to instill fear and create anxiety.
...

From the Gun Digest Buyer's Guide To Assault Weapons Krause Publications, 2008. Or is this an attempt to "instill fear and create anxiety"?

[Kumioko]

I understand the reference and maybe it's true but there is debate about where it originated. Some think the NRA did it, some think the gun manufacturers did it, etc. They can't really even agree on "when" it started. There are references as early as WWII where Adolph Hitler referred to it as a "Sturmgewehr" (which translates to "storm rifle" or "assault rifle") and that's on the Wikipedia page for assault rifle BTW and it's easy to infer assault weapon from assault rifle.

So although the reference you quote above may be correct, there is also evidence to the contrary.

But I think we can agree that an assault is an action done by people, sometimes with a weapon correct? The weapon itself is just a tool and isn't itself assaulting anyone, that action is being done by the person wielding it.

[Anroth]

From the Gun Digest Buyer's Guide To Assault Weapons Krause Publications, 2008. Or is this an attempt to "instill fear and create anxiety"?

As a non-gun owner from a country that doesnt like its children being murdered on a regular basis, I was always amused by the 'consumer' guns that had bayonet fixtures. Just... no.

[Poetlister]

It horrifies people here that Walmart is tightening up its gun sale policy. What business is it of a supermarket to sell guns, it is asked. The US mentality is so alien.

[AndyTheGrump]

I understand the reference and maybe it's true but there is debate about where it originated. Some think the NRA did it, some think the gun manufacturers did it, etc. They can't really even agree on "when" it started. There are references as early as WWII where Adolph Hitler referred to it as a "Sturmgewehr" (which translates to "storm rifle" or "assault rifle") and that's on the Wikipedia page for assault rifle BTW and it's easy to infer assault weapon from assault rifle.

So although the reference you quote above may be correct, there is also evidence to the contrary.

But I think we can agree that an assault is an action done by people, sometimes with a weapon correct? The weapon itself is just a tool and isn't itself assaulting anyone, that action is being done by the person wielding it.

So, you make a supposed statement of fact ('"assault weapon" is just a scary term being used to confuse people'). I provide evidence to the contrary, demonstrating conclusively that the term has long been in use by U.S. firearms publications, and you respond that 'maybe it's true'? There is no 'maybe' about it. It is a verifiable fact, and your attempt to claim otherwise has conclusively been disproved.

You are right though. Guns don't kill people. Gun owners do. With weapons expressly designed for killing. Which is presumably what Hitler thought they were for...

[Earthy Astringent]

From my limited knowledge, and watching a few videos it’s the receiver that makes it an AR15. The receivers are identical in shape, holes, nubbins (I made that up), etc. Parts that fit on one AR15 receive, such as barrel, trigger, etc should fit on another AR15 make. The term AR-15 is not quite a generic trademark, but it is a generic term for the receiver and the parts that go on it.

Fair enough - that's the firearms groups definition in a nutshell. Is it in the article? The pulse nightclub shooter did not use a rifle with an AR-15 receiver so is that also incorrect designation? It's a slippery slope of misinformation.

The Wikipedia article on the shooting doesn’t mention AR15, but it does other weapons

[Earthy Astringent]

Just to clarify any misunderstandings, "assault weapon" is just a scary term being used to confuse people. There is no such thing as an "assault weapon", that wouldn't be a very good marketing term. It's a term, defined by politicians, to instill fear and create anxiety.
...

From the Gun Digest Buyer's Guide To Assault Weapons Krause Publications, 2008. Or is this an attempt to "instill fear and create anxiety"?

The term has been around for a long time. Regardless of whether it’s “accurate” to call some weapons assault rifles, it’s use is in the vernacular and is used by reliable sources.

[DHeyward]

Just to clarify any misunderstandings, "assault weapon" is just a scary term being used to confuse people. There is no such thing as an "assault weapon", that wouldn't be a very good marketing term. It's a term, defined by politicians, to instill fear and create anxiety.
...

From the Gun Digest Buyer's Guide To Assault Weapons Krause Publications, 2008. Or is this an attempt to "instill fear and create anxiety"?

The term has been around for a long time. Regardless of whether it’s “accurate” to call some weapons assault rifles, it’s use is in the vernacular and is used by reliable sources.

It has become as meaningless as "Weapon of Mass Destruction." It has a very specific meaning in treaties as to mean nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Nations generally agree that such weapons have horrific consequences. However, trading on that fear, politicians have now defined in criminal law a "weapon of mass destruction" to include conventional arms. A 500 lb dumb iron bomb is a conventional explosive used regularly on ISIS but would be a WMD if even a fraction were used by ISIS in the U.S. (see Boston Bomber). In that sense, WMD is blurred. There were even calls to name an AR-15 a WMD.

The problem with common definition is that it no longer is defined by function but by features often unrelated to the category of rifles. "Assault weapons" are by definition a medium to light cartridge (which is what an AR-15 typically is) but "reliable sources" often state the 5.56mm NATO as "high power." Those are mutually exclusive descriptions. Like the AK-47 (which is a larger round than the typical AR-15), the light recoil makes it suitable for even children to fire.

[AndyTheGrump]

Nit-picking over the exact terminology used to describe devices expressly designed for killing (which I think nobody disputes was what the much-disputed 'right to bear arms' clause in the U.S. constitution was referring to, regardless of all the other questions concerning its intent) is rather beside the point. People are killing people with these things at an alarming rate. Including large numbers of school children. Maybe child sacrifice is acceptable in order to 'uphold the constitution', but if so, I think people should at least be honest about it...

[DHeyward]

Fair enough - that's the firearms groups definition in a nutshell. Is it in the article? The pulse nightclub shooter did not use a rifle with an AR-15 receiver so is that also incorrect designation? It's a slippery slope of misinformation.

The Wikipedia article on the shooting doesn’t mention AR15, but it does other weapons

Because the WP:Firearms group keeps it out using the definition it agrees with you on. You are aware though, that those advocating more gun control have tried, and do try, to include it as an AR-15? Even within the last month. If you agree it doesn't belong, then you are one of the "gun buffs took over Wikipedia’s AR-15 page."

[DHeyward]

Nit-picking over the exact terminology used to describe devices expressly designed for killing (which I think nobody disputes was what the much-disputed 'right to bear arms' clause in the U.S. constitution was referring to, regardless of all the other questions concerning its intent) is rather beside the point. People are killing people with these things at an alarming rate. Including large numbers of school children. Maybe child sacrifice is acceptable in order to 'uphold the constitution', but if so, I think people should at least be honest about it...

Knives are used more than all the shotguns and rifles combined to commit murder. Gun crime has been going down steadily over the last 30 years (actually, if Australia could ban more guns, the U.S. gun crime rate should show another steep decline, no?). These shootings are anomalies. It's like blaming autism or video games. There are millions of autistic kids and millions of video games and millions of AR-15s. If people are killing other people, address the people that are doing the killing. The rise in AR crime is generally less than it's popularity as a consumer product. It's also cheap to buy and cheap to shoot. If the concern is really with gun violence, anything not fundamentally addressing handguns is a fools errand. Chicago calls the killing of 17 kids a "3 day weekend." This outrage over these attention seeking killers that are extremely rare shows a profound lack of understanding of crime and crimes against children.

[Kumioko]

The debate really boils down to 2 things. Do you believe that a weapon kills or does the person wielding it. As was said above, knives kill, cars kill, the 911 hijackers used airplanes, timothy McVeigh used a Ryder truck full of fertilizer and the boston bomber used pressure cookers. Yet, the only devices people are talking about banning are guns. Why is that Andy? If it was really about saving lives, people would be more interested in the why do these people kill than in how. What the US needs is better help for mental illness, more competent law enforcement and less dramatization of these acts.

[AndyTheGrump]

...These shootings are anomalies.

I'm sure the friends and families of the victims find that consoling.

If the concern is really with gun violence, anything not fundamentally addressing handguns is a fools errand.

Agreed.

This outrage over these attention seeking killers that are extremely rare shows a profound lack of understanding of crime and crimes against children.

If I want your advice on what I should find outrageous, I'll ask for it.

[AndyTheGrump]

The debate really boils down to 2 things. Do you believe that a weapon kills or does the person wielding it...

Both. Any more logical fallacies, or are you done?

[Kumioko]

The debate really boils down to 2 things. Do you believe that a weapon kills or does the person wielding it...

Both. Any more logical fallacies, or are you done?

Hold the killer accountable, not the tool!

[DHeyward]

This outrage over these attention seeking killers that are extremely rare shows a profound lack of understanding of crime and crimes against children.

If I want your advice on what I should find outrageous, I'll ask for it.

I wasn't offering advice, I was pointing out a profound lack of understanding. You don't have to ask for that, it's free.

[Volunteer Marek]

Nit-picking over the exact terminology used to describe devices expressly designed for killing (which I think nobody disputes was what the much-disputed 'right to bear arms' clause in the U.S. constitution was referring to, regardless of all the other questions concerning its intent) is rather beside the point. People are killing people with these things at an alarming rate. Including large numbers of school children. Maybe child sacrifice is acceptable in order to 'uphold the constitution', but if so, I think people should at least be honest about it...

Knives are used more than all the shotguns and rifles combined to commit murder. Gun crime has been going down steadily over the last 30 years (actually, if Australia could ban more guns, the U.S. gun crime rate should show another steep decline, no?). These shootings are anomalies. It's like blaming autism or video games. There are millions of autistic kids and millions of video games and millions of AR-15s. If people are killing other people, address the people that are doing the killing. The rise in AR crime is generally less than it's popularity as a consumer product. It's also cheap to buy and cheap to shoot. If the concern is really with gun violence, anything not fundamentally addressing handguns is a fools errand. Chicago calls the killing of 17 kids a "3 day weekend." This outrage over these attention seeking killers that are extremely rare shows a profound lack of understanding of crime and crimes against children.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/four- ... -any-kind/ Been reading Breitbart again DHeyward?

[Midsize Jake]

Been reading Breitbart again DHeyward?

Does he read anything else?

The RWNJ media consistently ignores the "random" and "mass" aspects of random mass murder where firearms are concerned, as if those two aspects are somehow irrelevant. I assume they have to, or else they won't get paid, but they consistently ignore both the vast difference in the degree of pure physical damage an assault rifle can do to a human body as opposed to a mere handgun, and they consistently ignore the fact that these incidents tend to occur in schools, churches, nightclubs, and movie theaters, in that order - they rarely (if ever) occur in grocery stores, police departments, city halls, political rallies, or even shopping malls. (Hollywood movies would lead you to believe the opposite is true, I might add.) So... why is that? It's an interesting question that nobody ever seems to ask. Instead, what we get is obfuscation and nit-picking over things like what the word "assault" means in this context. Any idiot knows exactly what is being referred to, so naturally their response is to tell you you're the idiot for having the temerity to think you know. It's yet another fine example of gaslighting the population for money.

[DHeyward]

Nit-picking over the exact terminology used to describe devices expressly designed for killing (which I think nobody disputes was what the much-disputed 'right to bear arms' clause in the U.S. constitution was referring to, regardless of all the other questions concerning its intent) is rather beside the point. People are killing people with these things at an alarming rate. Including large numbers of school children. Maybe child sacrifice is acceptable in order to 'uphold the constitution', but if so, I think people should at least be honest about it...

Knives are used more than all the shotguns and rifles combined to commit murder. Gun crime has been going down steadily over the last 30 years (actually, if Australia could ban more guns, the U.S. gun crime rate should show another steep decline, no?). These shootings are anomalies. It's like blaming autism or video games. There are millions of autistic kids and millions of video games and millions of AR-15s. If people are killing other people, address the people that are doing the killing. The rise in AR crime is generally less than it's popularity as a consumer product. It's also cheap to buy and cheap to shoot. If the concern is really with gun violence, anything not fundamentally addressing handguns is a fools errand. Chicago calls the killing of 17 kids a "3 day weekend." This outrage over these attention seeking killers that are extremely rare shows a profound lack of understanding of crime and crimes against children.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/four- ... -any-kind/ Been reading Breitbart again DHeyward?

No, FBI Crime Reports You need to up your reading comprehension game. Who said 4 times more? I said "rifles and shotguns combined" which includes all rifles, not just AR-15's. Nice strawman though.

[DHeyward]

The RWNJ media consistently ignores the "random" and "mass" aspects of random mass murder where firearms are concerned, as if those two aspects are somehow irrelevant. I assume they have to, or else they won't get paid, but they consistently ignore both the vast difference in the degree of pure physical damage an assault rifle can do to a human body as opposed to a mere handgun, and they consistently ignore the fact that these incidents tend to occur in schools, churches, nightclubs, and movie theaters, in that order - they rarely (if ever) occur in grocery stores, police departments, city halls, political rallies, or even shopping malls. (Hollywood movies would lead you to believe the opposite is true, I might add.) So... why is that? It's an interesting question that nobody ever seems to ask. Instead, what we get is obfuscation and nit-picking over things like what the word "assault" means in this context. Any idiot knows exactly what is being referred to, so naturally their response is to tell you you're the idiot for having the temerity to think you know. It's yet another fine example of gaslighting the population for money.

Do you just make up your own facts? A 9mm handgun at the ranges of school attacks is brutally more effective at killing and inflicting damage than an AR. And that's a relatively small round. The mass of a typical AR round is designed to be small so soldiers can carry ammunition. It's usefulness is range and penetration of body armor. If your going to say things about damage, at least don't make your ignorance on the topic the most salient point.

Not sure what your point on location has to do with anything, but those places are where young people are found. The locations are not random to the shooter. MSD shooting was not a randomly chosen school. Rather the shooter was a random anomaly as there are millions of kids with behavior problems that raise red flags. Predicting which will be become a mass murderer is the same skill as randomly guessing. It's why everyone screams "we missed the signs" when in reality, the signs are present but so prevalent that they can't be policed. It's the same with teen suicide, though there are orders of magnitude more suicides than mass killers. if we had the skill to predict this behavior, suicide prevention would be a much higher priority.

[Kumioko]

A big problem with this topic is there is a lot of information to support both sides by reliable sources and a lot of it is subjective. Personally I blame the individual when they shoot up a school or theatre but some find it easier to blame the weapon. Both are technically correct since they did use a weapon, it's just a matter of where to place blame.

Using the Florida school shooting as an example, no one is asking the question of why he did it, why police or the FBI didn't respond more appropriately to the very real threats he was making calling himself a school shooter before the event, the couple dozen police reports filed against the shooter before hand, the pleas from his family and people around him to police to do something, etc. People are so focused on how to restrict access to a tool, when this guy could have just as easily used a nail gun, car bomb or any number of other methods to kill people, that they have lost sight of the bigger picture.

[Volunteer Marek]

A big problem with this topic is there is a lot of information to support both sides by reliable sources and a lot of it is subjective. Personally I blame the individual when they shoot up a school or theatre but some find it easier to blame the weapon. Both are technically correct since they did use a weapon, it's just a matter of where to place blame.

Using the Florida school shooting as an example, no one is asking the question of why he did it, why police or the FBI didn't respond more appropriately to the very real threats he was making calling himself a school shooter before the event, the couple dozen police reports filed against the shooter before hand, the pleas from his family and people around him to police to do something, etc. People are so focused on how to restrict access to a tool, when this guy could have just as easily used a nail gun, car bomb or any number of other methods to kill people, that they have lost sight of the bigger picture.

I don't care about "blame". I care about effective measures that will prevent these kinds of shooting. Even if "guns are not to blame" but banning AR-15's or high capacity mags would decrease the deaths, I'd be for it. The issue of "blame" is a red herring. Just like if requiring seat belts saves life, it's completely and utterly irrelevant whether it's the car or the driver that's to "blame" for a traffic death.

Part of how we got here is by letting certain people control the narrative (not to mention funding for research which would actually help us know whether restricting certain things would help or not)

[Volunteer Marek]

The RWNJ media consistently ignores the "random" and "mass" aspects of random mass murder where firearms are concerned, as if those two aspects are somehow irrelevant. I assume they have to, or else they won't get paid, but they consistently ignore both the vast difference in the degree of pure physical damage an assault rifle can do to a human body as opposed to a mere handgun, and they consistently ignore the fact that these incidents tend to occur in schools, churches, nightclubs, and movie theaters, in that order - they rarely (if ever) occur in grocery stores, police departments, city halls, political rallies, or even shopping malls. (Hollywood movies would lead you to believe the opposite is true, I might add.) So... why is that? It's an interesting question that nobody ever seems to ask. Instead, what we get is obfuscation and nit-picking over things like what the word "assault" means in this context. Any idiot knows exactly what is being referred to, so naturally their response is to tell you you're the idiot for having the temerity to think you know. It's yet another fine example of gaslighting the population for money.

Do you just make up your own facts? A 9mm handgun at the ranges of school attacks is brutally more effective at killing and inflicting damage than an AR. And that's a relatively small round. The mass of a typical AR round is designed to be small so soldiers can carry ammunition. It's usefulness is range and penetration of body armor. If your going to say things about damage, at least don't make your ignorance on the topic the most salient point.

(snip)

Ah, the ol' "I know more about the supposed technical details of guns therefore only my opinion should count" tactic. Hmmm:

In a typical handgun injury, which I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ such as the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, gray bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments.

I was looking at a CT scan of one of the mass-shooting victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, and was bleeding extensively. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?

One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle that delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. Nothing was left to repair—and utterly, devastatingly, nothing could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.

A year ago, when a gunman opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale airport with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, hitting 11 people in 90 seconds, I was also on call. It was not until I had diagnosed the third of the six victims who were transported to the trauma center that I realized something out of the ordinary must have happened. The gunshot wounds were the same low-velocity handgun injuries that I diagnose every day; only their rapid succession set them apart. And all six of the victims who arrived at the hospital that day survived.

Routine handgun injuries leave entry and exit wounds and linear tracks through the victim’s body that are roughly the size of the bullet. If the bullet does not directly hit something crucial like the heart or the aorta, and the victim does not bleed to death before being transported to our care at the trauma center, chances are that we can save him. The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different.

(...)
The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat traveling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.

With an AR-15, the shooter does not have to be particularly accurate. The victim does not have to be unlucky. If a victim takes a direct hit to the liver from an AR-15, the damage is far graver than that of a simple handgun-shot injury. Handgun injuries to the liver are generally survivable unless the bullet hits the main blood supply to the liver. An AR-15 bullet wound to the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding that the patient would likely never make it to the trauma center to receive our care.

And so on and so forth https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ns/553937/. But please, "educate" us about guns and about how AR-15s are really so ineffective in mass shooting (strange that they're so popular with the mass shooter crowd then) some more Dheyward.

Or perhaps you know all this already but was hoping people wouldn't know that F=ma and so you could get away with the little lie about how it's all about mass of the bullet while keeping quiet about velocity and acceleration.

[Kumioko]

A big problem with this topic is there is a lot of information to support both sides by reliable sources and a lot of it is subjective. Personally I blame the individual when they shoot up a school or theatre but some find it easier to blame the weapon. Both are technically correct since they did use a weapon, it's just a matter of where to place blame.

Using the Florida school shooting as an example, no one is asking the question of why he did it, why police or the FBI didn't respond more appropriately to the very real threats he was making calling himself a school shooter before the event, the couple dozen police reports filed against the shooter before hand, the pleas from his family and people around him to police to do something, etc. People are so focused on how to restrict access to a tool, when this guy could have just as easily used a nail gun, car bomb or any number of other methods to kill people, that they have lost sight of the bigger picture.

I don't care about "blame". I care about effective measures that will prevent these kinds of shooting. Even if "guns are not to blame" but banning AR-15's or high capacity mags would decrease the deaths, I'd be for it. The issue of "blame" is a red herring. Just like if requiring seat belts saves life, it's completely and utterly irrelevant whether it's the car or the driver that's to "blame" for a traffic death.

Part of how we got here is by letting certain people control the narrative (not to mention funding for research which would actually help us know whether restricting certain things would help or not)

Actually it's impossible to know for sure if it will have any effect on the number of deaths. That's just a guess.
Some things that are needed:
- Law enforcement needs to do their due diligence when notified of a problem
- Better mental health regulations including better access to mental health resources
- More research funding on the actual causes including the CDC and ATF
- News media should reduce coverage of these events rather than sensationalize it.
- Establish a culture of gun safety, not elimination

The bottom line is, if someone wants to kill others, having access to a gun won't really matter. Terrorists have figured out that using vehicles kills/maims more people and are much easier to get, so are pressure cookers, mail guns and fertilizer, all of which have been used in the past.

[Volunteer Marek]

A big problem with this topic is there is a lot of information to support both sides by reliable sources and a lot of it is subjective. Personally I blame the individual when they shoot up a school or theatre but some find it easier to blame the weapon. Both are technically correct since they did use a weapon, it's just a matter of where to place blame.

Using the Florida school shooting as an example, no one is asking the question of why he did it, why police or the FBI didn't respond more appropriately to the very real threats he was making calling himself a school shooter before the event, the couple dozen police reports filed against the shooter before hand, the pleas from his family and people around him to police to do something, etc. People are so focused on how to restrict access to a tool, when this guy could have just as easily used a nail gun, car bomb or any number of other methods to kill people, that they have lost sight of the bigger picture.

I don't care about "blame". I care about effective measures that will prevent these kinds of shooting. Even if "guns are not to blame" but banning AR-15's or high capacity mags would decrease the deaths, I'd be for it. The issue of "blame" is a red herring. Just like if requiring seat belts saves life, it's completely and utterly irrelevant whether it's the car or the driver that's to "blame" for a traffic death.

Part of how we got here is by letting certain people control the narrative (not to mention funding for research which would actually help us know whether restricting certain things would help or not)

(snip)

The bottom line is, if someone wants to kill others, having access to a gun won't really matter.

(snip)

No, actually it will. Look, this isn't hard. If someone has an access to a nuclear freakin' bomb and wants to kill others they will kill a lot more others then if they only have access to freakin' knife. Or a vehicle. Or whatever. Did you know that some weapons are deadlier than others? And "deadlier" means it matters.