Its all kicking off in Las Vegas

[northernladyuk]

As WTFH said. The government.

And each other.

[Mordac]

It showed one of the windows broken, presumably by the perp.

Astonishing he managed to kill and injure so many, though no figures on how many injured by bullet/shrapnel or by trying to get away or by others trying to do same.

How the yanks can legally own such military grade hardware is bonkers. Fair enough, if they want to preserve their rights to a musket or whatever they had when the constitution was written, maybe limit the fire rate of the rifles so the police have chance to put the perps down before they can get off hundreds of rounds.

If they still don't do something about automatic weapons then the USA is truly sick. The Sandy Hook kid massacre should have been their wake up call that they need to fix their collective mentality.

Bonkers and perfectly legal. On the same trip we filled up with gas* in a small town, and the gas station* had a gun counter. Only state residents could buy a gun, but anyone could buy ammunition (with photo ID to prove they were over 18). I can't remember if it was in Nevada or Arizona, and it was in the days before camera-phones so I couldn't get a piccy. They take their firearms very, very seriously over there.

*Sorry for slipping into septic mode there...

[scooterscot]

So you're saying it's both a Normal AND a Poisson distribution?
And what's an "increasing Poisson distribution over time"?

For a given year it appears to be normal. The number of events over time is what is making it Poisson.

[OwlHoot]

I had a bit of a heated “debate” on twitter last night (apologies to anyone who reads my rants on there) with a couple of Americans.
Bottom line is they believe that there is no issue with guns, in fact more people should be armed .

It's one thing being entitled to own and use sidearms or single-round (*) rifles or shotguns, but fully automatic weapons and machine guns are a different kettle of fish entirely.

(*) Whatever the term is for rifles that don't support rapid fire.

Also, when the founding fathers were drawing up the constitution automatic weapons didn't exist - A fully automatic would have been equivalent to a cannon loaded with shrapnel, instead of the muzzle-loading muskets that it was obviously envisaged at the time would be the only guns in private ownership.

[Hobosapien]

So it sounds like the yanks are paranoid not only of the government but each other, like they haven't progressed as a society from the days of the wild west.

Even back then they had a 'leave your guns at the entrance to town' policy to temporarily de-arm the nutters who may want to shoot up the place, if their movies are to be believed..

Logically it would be simple to have the population hand over the deadlier weapons and they defend themselves by participating in the local territorial army to access the military stuff, if they ever need to defend their own against themselves and those they elected to govern them.

[xoggoth]

Agree it's nuts. Being able to defend yourself and your home is fine but surely they should have better controls and checks to stop the loonies getting firearms.

May not have helped in this case as the person has no obvious mental or criminal issues but in other cases it would have.

[Jog On]

So the police are searching for his motive still - there has to be one that fits the right narrative somewhere!

Meanwhile people are getting in all sorts of trouble to calling the victims 'gun toting republicans' and 'likely Trump supporters'

Either way I suspect everyone will blame Trump and/or Russia - maybe with a sprinkle of Kim and while they're at it Assad (no brainer) - oh and not forgetting Iran of course!

[northernladyuk]

Agree it's nuts. Being able to defend yourself and your home is fine but surely they should have better controls and checks to stop the loonies getting firearms.

May not have helped in this case as the person has no obvious mental or criminal issues but in other cases it would have.

I thought he had a psychiatric history and his dad was a bank robber psychopath (the latter is family history I know, but must have played into the assessment and treatment of his psychiatric condition).

[WTFH]

Either way I suspect everyone will blame Trump and/or Russia - maybe with a sprinkle of Kim and while they're at it Assad (no brainer) - oh and not forgetting Iran of course!

And who do you think should be blamed?

[Jog On]

And who do you think should be blamed?

Soros - and Hillary. *If it's anti-Trump ultra-snowflake related