Man dies in a "swatting" prank

[Selah]

8 hours ago, Theminecraftaddict555 said:

I feel like the first two (the guy that hired the person to do the swatting and the person who did it), should be charged heavily while

 

For the third guy that gave out the fake address, I understand his position but seriously I would have just used an obvious fake address like somewhere in the north pole where "santa" lives.

think for 2 seconds. these kids are known swatters. they've found peoples adresses before. He can give a blatantly fake address or give a real address, one is more likely to take heat off of him. He can't be incriminated because he gave out a wrong address; not only is that super inadmissible in court it's for his own protection.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Never going to happen in the US. Aside from the fact that (if interpreted in a specific, somewhat broad manner) gun ownership is a constitutionally protected right, Americans are very touchy about their gun rights and freedoms. 

 

Something to do with ensuring civilians have the ability to overthrow a corrupt government, if the need arises (which in itself is a holdover from their war of independence against the British empire). 

It's also a very common misconception of Americans that other countries citizen's do not have protected rights to have guns and the more strict the gun laws in the country the more they believe it to be true. Not that there won't be countries where ownership is not allowed but that list is very small.

 

We have tough gun laws here in NZ but a lot of people have guns, like heaps (230k or 5% population with 1.1mil guns, 2006), and many different kinds. We have different classes of gun licenses and different rules for different gun types but the only thing that will stop you from owning a certain gun is four things: Criminal history, psychological deemed by a medical professional approved by the court, failing to comply with regulations, the gun is not compliant i.e. Only has full auto mode, magazine cannot be modified to restrict number of bullets  (7 is our max, 15 for rimfire). Basically if you want an AR-15 in NZ yes you can, fairly easily in fact. Category A firearms also do not need to be registered, any category higher than A does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_New_Zealand

 

I'll quote Jim Jefferies for basically the only broad reason to own a gun, applicable to the wider population, "Shut up, I like guns". Not trying to start a gun debate more trying to encourage people to go look up information since the more you know about something the better and I fully support American's rights to own guns.

[Jito463]

6 hours ago, CyberFern0 said:

This is one of the reasons why guns shouldn't be owned by civilians.

Funny, I've never once shot someone with my gun, nor felt the inclination to do so.  That's like saying, because some moron kills someone with a car, civilians shouldn't own cars.  A gun - like a car - is a tool.  A tool (of any sort) can be a useful instrument or it can be a weapon, just depending on the person wielding it.

 

Back on topic, I watched the video and I personally think the cop acted improperly.  You can just barely make out the gun in the lower left corner of the video, and the cop has his finger on the trigger.  Anyone who practices safe gun procedures knows you never put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to pull it.  I know the guy made a sudden move (which is a really dumb thing to do when you're facing down anyone armed), but my personal opinion is that the officer was in the wrong.

[TheCherryKing]

7 hours ago, CyberFern0 said:

This is one of the reasons why guns shouldn't be owned by civilians.

Take away the guns? Sure that will work... People will just use cars, trucks, and buses to kill each other like over in Europe. 

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, TheCherryKing said:

Take away the guns? Sure that will work... People will just use cars, trucks, and buses to kill each other like over in Europe. 

Probably should be careful about watching news stories about terrorist attacks, that is not a common thing in any country. Homicides are done more often with physical in person violence with some form of weapon be it a baseball bat, hammer or a knife, using vehicles is very uncommon. People use the most convenient thing and there being more guns than people in the US it's no surprise that is the most common weapon used in homicides there. Even without all the gun related homicides in America there is still more homicides per capita than in European countries, there is a cultural issue that needs to be addressed because if it's not then these and other types of incidents will continue to happen.

 

Be proud of your country but never deny a problem when it exists, no country is perfect.

[LAwLz]

44 minutes ago, TheCherryKing said:

Take away the guns? Sure that will work... People will just use cars, trucks, and buses to kill each other like over in Europe. 

I don't think you realize how common shootings are in the US, vs how rare murder involving cars/trucks are in Europe... Because that argument is laughably bad.

 

But I agree that taking guns away would not work. But that's because of cultural issues in the USA, not because "people would just switch from shooting to running people over".

[TheCherryKing]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I don't think you realize how common shootings are in the US, vs how rare murder involving cars/trucks are in Europe... Because that argument is laughably bad.

 

But I agree that taking guns away would not work. But that's because of cultural issues in the USA, not because "people would just switch from shooting to running people over".

How would you know? You don't live here. I am well aware of the shooting here but guns have also prevented homicides. There are nearby neighborhoods with drive-by shootings. These shootings are targeted and random. The only reason why there are many gun deaths is because using a gun is the easiest way to kill people. 

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, TheCherryKing said:

How would you know? You don't live here. I am well aware of the shooting here but guns have also prevented homicides. There are nearby neighborhoods with drive-by shootings. These shootings are targeted and random. The only reason why there are many gun deaths is because using a gun is the easiest way to kill people. 

I don't have to live somewhere to look up facts about that country. I don't live in Japan either but I can still make fairly accurate comments and claims related to crime in that country. I don't live in the moon and yet, I can make comments about how the climate is there.

In fact, I think not living in the country you are commenting on is a big advantage. It removes anecdotal evidence, which is very often inaccurate.

[TheCherryKing]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

I don't have to live somewhere to look up facts about that country. I don't live in Japan either but I can still make fairly accurate comments and claims related to crime in that country. I don't live in the moon and yet, I can make comments about how the climate is there.

In fact, I think not living in the country you are commenting on is a big advantage. It removes anecdotal evidence, which is very often inaccurate.

The information online you call "facts" doesn't mean the same thing as what actually happens. According to your logic I don't have to live in Sweden to know what happens there.  

[sof006]

It's not the cars, knives or guns that are doing the killing. It's the people using them. Banning them won't stop people killing people, if someone wants to kill someone they'll find another way to do it. As they saying goes "guns don't kill people, people do".

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, TheCherryKing said:

The information online you call "facts" doesn't mean the same thing as what actually happens.

Actually, it does.

What you are referring to as "facts" is actually anecdotal evidence, which often do not quality as scientific evidence.

Your experience from living in the US only accounts for a tiny fraction of the country, and is therefore not a reliable source for information for the country in general. 

 

1 hour ago, TheCherryKing said:

According to your logic I don't have to live in Sweden to know what happens there.  

Exactly. You most certainly don't have to live in Sweden to know what happens here. In fact, there are plenty of people who do not live in Sweden, yet has far more knowledge about certain things related to Sweden than the people who live here.

I mean, if I say that the surface of the sun is very roughly 15 million degrees Celsius are you going to counter with "you don't live there so you can't know"?

 

 

19 minutes ago, sof006 said:

It's not the cars, knives or guns that are doing the killing. It's the people using them. Banning them won't stop people killing people, if someone wants to kill someone they'll find another way to do it. As they saying goes "guns don't kill people, people do".

You can't think about laws in terms of absolute terms. Making murder illegal did not stop murder from happening, but that does not mean murder should be made legal.

(I am not saying guns should be made illegal, I am just saying that your rational for keeping them legal makes no logical sense).

[Jito463]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

People use the most convenient thing and there being more guns than people in the US it's no surprise that is the most common weapon used in homicides there. Even without all the gun related homicides in America there is still more homicides per capita than in European countries, there is a cultural issue that needs to be addressed because if it's not then these and other types of incidents will continue to happen.

 

Be proud of your country but never deny a problem when it exists, no country is perfect.

Honestly, the bulk of the problem is in 4 cities: Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago and Washington D.C. (in 2016, Chicago alone had 762 gun deaths).

 

Those four cities comprise about 25% of the gun related deaths, mostly due to gang violence.  Those same cities also happen to be Democrat strongholds, and have some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

 

The more interesting breakdown would be per capita homicides on a state-by-state basis.  The prevalence of guns isn't the issue.  In fact, it's a proven statistic that more guns actually leads to less violence, while stricter gun control laws actually leads to more (as evidenced by the four aforementioned cities).  I found this graph online, though I can't find the corresponding statistics, so I'm not certain how accurate it is (based on the recent gun ban in Australia).  I wouldn't be surprised to find it is accurate, though.

 

[sof006]

20 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

-snip-

 

 

You can't think about laws in terms of absolute terms. Making murder illegal did not stop murder from happening, but that does not mean murder should be made legal.

(I am not saying guns should be made illegal, I am just saying that your rational for keeping them legal makes no logical sense).

Not saying to keep them legal or make them illegal. I agree that guns are bad and no one should have them, what I am saying though is even if you did ban them someone somewhere would find a way to kill someone if they wanted to. Just like when alcohol was banned in the US many years ago people still found a way to drink alcohol.

 

Basically what I am saying is... you can ban guns (which I am completely for) but people will still find a way to kill even if it means obtaining a gun illegally.

[XenosTech]

20 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Actually, it does.

What you are referring to as "facts" is actually anecdotal evidence, which often do not quality as scientific evidence.

Your experience from living in the US only accounts for a tiny fraction of the country, and is therefore not a reliable source for information for the country in general. 

 

Exactly. You most certainly don't have to live in Sweden to know what happens here. In fact, there are plenty of people who do not live in Sweden, yet has far more knowledge about certain things related to Sweden than the people who live here.

I mean, if I say that the surface of the sun is very roughly 15 million degrees Celsius are you going to counter with "you don't live there so you can't know"?

Hence why I made a conscious decision not to renew my U.S visa. I'm probably more likely to be shot there from the police because of my skin colour more than I would in, let's say Canada for example. Countries in my region are predominantly black and have very minor white populations and the USA didn't take it lightly when we issued travel warnings to our citizens about the police there and having increased chances of being shot.

[Master Disaster]

3 minutes ago, XenosTech said:

Hence why I made a conscious decision not to renew my U.S visa. I'm probably more likely to be shot there from the police because of my skin colour more than I would in, let's say Canada for example. Countries in my region are predominantly black and have very minor white populations and the USA didn't take it lightly when we issued travel warnings to our citizens about the police there and having increased chances of being shot.

Yeah, without going into too much detail, when you have black cops shooting black people because they're black you kinda know your country has some major racism issues.

 

Even in other countries the police are more of a threat to the population than vice versa. Here in the UK, on average, around 5 police officers die per year while directly in the line of duty while around 100 people die each year in police custody.

 

That makes it 10x more likely the police will kill a suspect than a suspect will kill an officer.

 

Statistics like that kinda make you think.

[LAwLz]

51 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

In fact, it's a proven statistic that more guns actually leads to less violence, while stricter gun control laws actually leads to more (as evidenced by the four aforementioned cities).  I found this graph online, though I can't find the corresponding statistics, so I'm not certain how accurate it is (based on the recent gun ban in Australia).  I wouldn't be surprised to find it is accurate, though.

I have not been able to find evidence that more guns = less violence.

The picture you posted seems either biased or inaccurate as well, or at least your understanding of Australia gun laws.

 

Guns are not banned in Australia. What happened was that after a mass shooting in 1996 they banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons, created a national firearms registry, introduced a waiting period for gun purchases and made new licensing regulations. They did not outright ban guns.

 

Since the new laws, gun-related homicides and suicides have dropped by around 60%, and it is estimated that it saves around 200 lives a year.

 

Even if we assume that the amount of armed robberies went up (again, can't find any reliable source for this) the evidence is clear, the amount of deaths has decreased sharply by introducing what I would consider very obvious regulations as well as the temporary buy-back program.

 

 

 

20 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yeah, without going into too much detail, when you have black cops shooting black people because they're black you kinda know your country has some major racism issues.

 

Even in other countries the police are more of a threat to the population than vice versa. Here in the UK, on average, around 5 police officers die per year while directly in the line of duty while around 100 people die each year in police custody.

 

That makes it 10x more likely the police will kill a suspect than a suspect will kill an officer.

 

Statistics like that kinda make you think.

What does those statistics make you think about exactly? Those statistics makes me think "wow, it sure is easy to manipulate data to further your agenda". I mean, it doesn't even take into account the population difference between cops vs non-cops. If we just plug in those "5 police killed and 100 non-police people killed" numbers into the number of police in the UK (123,142 officers, and 65,64 million citizens), without accounting for anything else (such as people dying in custody without the police being responsible).

 

Percentage of police who dies yearly: 0.00406%

Percentage of population who dies in custody, yearly : 0.00015%

 

You are 2606% more likely to die working as an officer, as you are being a citizen who dies in custody.

 

It also doesn't take into account the necessary sacrifices which might be needed in order to keep the 0.99984765387% of people safe. For example a police shooting someone who is a threat to other peoples' lives.

 

I am not saying that the police are flawless, in fact it seems like the US has an especially large problem with horrible police officers. However, I think there is a lot of blind hatred against police which is not based on facts, logic or reason. 

[XenosTech]

10 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yeah, without going into too much detail, when you have black cops shooting black people because they're black you kinda know your country has some major racism issues.

 

Even in other countries the police are more of a threat to the population than vice versa. Here in the UK, on average, around 5 police officers die per year while directly in the line of duty while around 100 people die each year in police custody.

 

That makes it 10x more likely the police will kill a suspect than a suspect will kill an officer.

 

Statistics like that kinda make you think.

Sometime last year a video surfaced with a police officer kicking the shit out of a guy who was already pinned to the ground by another officer. That sparked a national outrage and the officer no longer works in the force.

[Jito463]

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Guns are not banned in Australia. What happened was that after a mass shooting in 1996 they banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons, created a national firearms registry, introduced a waiting period for gun purchases and made new licensing regulations. They did not outright ban guns.

I didn't say they banned all guns, I mentioned a "gun ban", which is accurate (albeit not specific).  Also, you do realize that the bolded part makes up the vast majority of gun types, right?

 

*EDIT*
I was actually mistaken in one thing, the numbers I found were based on the 1996 gun ban, not the most recent "amnesty" program.  According to Australia's own statistics, those numbers are fairly accurate.  There was a sharp rise in violent crimes from 1996 until the mid-2000's.

 

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTools/facts/vicViolentRate.html

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

The more interesting breakdown would be per capita homicides on a state-by-state basis.  The prevalence of guns isn't the issue.  In fact, it's a proven statistic that more guns actually leads to less violence, while stricter gun control laws actually leads to more (as evidenced by the four aforementioned cities).  I found this graph online, though I can't find the corresponding statistics, so I'm not certain how accurate it is (based on the recent gun ban in Australia).  I wouldn't be surprised to find it is accurate, though.

Most of that is untrue or that data was very poorly gathered or improperly compared, tons of bias from pro and anti sides. When you look at data from studies on the matter it shows a statically insignificant change in overall crime rate but the types and severity of crime changes, that doesn't mean the gun control law was ineffective though. Reducing the severity of crime being committed is a good thing and injury and death is reduced when a gun is not present, an even bigger impact is the reduction of injury to bystanders.

 

If you see any anti gun control information being presented and you seed the words 'Gun Ban' in relation to Australia take the whole thing with a very heavy amount of skepticism because that is a very well chosen wording to imply something which did not happen, gun control laws were passed guns were not banned.

 

As to the picture/stats you referenced those are not correct, robberies went down by more than 50% after the gun control laws were passed.

 

Quote

Around 2001, a piece appeared on the Internet that has been circulated widely and often ever since, attempting to make the case that Australia’s gun reform efforts were a dismal failure in terms of reducing violent crime:

Quote

The conclusions drawn in this piece were both premature and inaccurate, however. In a peer-reviewed paper published by American Law and Economics Review in 2012, researchers Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University found that in the decade following the NFA, firearm homicides (both suicides and intentional killings) in Australia had dropped significantly:

https://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

 

 

The notion of more guns means the city or local population is safer isn't accurate either depending on how you look at it, every other developed country shows the exact opposite of this. But this leads me in to my next point, comparing gun control laws and their effectiveness and relating it back to the US is difficult. If you go back to the picture of homicides rates a page or so back the breakdown of gun vs non-gun then unlike every other country the scope for improvement is just so much greater for the US.

 

I mentioned it before but Jim Jefferies bit on guns is actually very good, sure he is a comedian but as is their profession he presents his view very well and entertainingly. He also mentioned his bit was being used in Harvard Law School in his special after that one.

 

The biggest issue with gun control debate is the intentional misrepresentation of data and the actual intentions of each side of the debate. The people that actually want gun control, the people educated on the matter who do the research and the law makers are not trying to pass it to actually reduce crime, that is basically where the debate gets stuck at every time and it's done like that on purpose. Gun control is about reducing the extremes of crime, the injury and severity of crime being committed. Gun control is very well documented as showing a reduction of all of these even within the US.

 

The major contributors to crime is poverty and lack of education, these are the solutions to reducing all types of crime and the most severe crime goes down first and by the most. If you want to stop people from being injured, jobbed and murdered don't pass gun control laws put more money and effort in to education and outreach programs. Create apprenticeship programs, retrain people out of work due to changes in industry. Hungry, disillusioned people who are out of work and feel disenfranchised commit crime. Hope and a little life purpose goes a long way, more than taking a gun out of a persons hand.

[Jito463]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Gun control is about reducing the extremes of crime, the injury and severity of crime being committed.

This right here is where you made your biggest mistake, by falling for the fallacy that gun control is about the guns.  It's never about the guns, it's about the control.  Gun control only affects people who follow the laws.  Criminals - by their very nature - do not follow the law.

 

Also, the graph you posted (which I also linked to), shows the opposite of what you were trying to prove.  Yes, the numbers dropped in recent years, which requires more data to determine why; but in the years following the gun ban (or gun control, however you want to word it) the numbers rose drastically.  Look at the spike, at it's peak it was approximately a 55% increase over the 1996 numbers.  That does not prove gun control works, quite the opposite in fact.

 

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Gun control is very well documented as showing a reduction of all of these even within the US.

I've yet to see a single instance where more gun control led to reduced crime.  As Thomas Jefferson put it:

 

 

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

The major contributors to crime is poverty and lack of education, these are the solutions to reducing all types of crime and the most severe crime goes down first and by the most. If you want to stop people from being injured, jobbed and murdered don't pass gun control laws put more money and effort in to education and outreach programs. Create apprenticeship programs, retrain people out of work due to changes is industry. Hungry, disillusioned people who are out of work and feel disenfranchised commit crime. Hope and a little life purpose goes a long way, more than taking a gun out of a persons hand.

On this, I agree with you wholeheartedly. 

[leadeater]

53 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

This right here is where you made your biggest mistake, by falling for the fallacy that gun control is about the guns.  It's never about the guns, it's about the control.  Gun control only affects people who follow the laws.  Criminals - by their very nature - do not follow the law.

That is just a very common mind set based on not much other than a person point of view. As I said the people actually doing the research and wanting the laws passed do it for the exact reason I mentioned, nothing else.

 

If your premise is gun control is about control, someone wants to take my gun or anything along those lines that is a clear bias in mindset. Nothing specifically wrong with that but it doesn't make your opinion or my opinion on what people are actually wanting to do true. 

 

And criminals not following the law, well yes that is exactly what it means. It has very little baring at all on the effects of law changes, crime happening is an extremely poor reason to bring in to this unless it's about the type and severity being committed.

 

53 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Also, the graph you posted (which I also linked to), shows the opposite of what you were trying to prove.  Yes, the numbers dropped in recent years, which requires more data to determine why; but in the years following the gun ban (or gun control, however you want to word it) the numbers rose drastically.  Look at the spike, at it's peak it was approximately a 55% increase over the 1996 numbers.  That does not prove gun control works, quite the opposite in fact.

No it doesn't, it shows a decrease. Looking directly after a law is passed is very incorrect, it's impossible for a law change to have a measurable effect that quickly. This is why data is taken over years and trends are used to represent the effect of things, year on year data is useless for this type of analysis. There is even a study linked on that data and has been peer reviewed which is what i was paraphrasing.

 

As you said criminals don't follow the law, do you actually think they handed in their guns? Do you think the police did nothing after the law change to find those illegal guns? Does the 20 years of no mass shootings after the law change mean nothing where there were 13 in the 15 years previously? Does Australia having the 20th highest rate of gun ownership indicate a lack of guns?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

 

Gun control is actually effective at what it's designed and intended for.

 

53 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

I've yet to see a single instance where more gun control led to reduced crime.  As Thomas Jefferson put it:

Gun control is not meant to reduce crime. If you think that is what it's about then stop, it's not.

 

As I mentioned earlier I don't want a gun debate, wrong forum for it. I find very few people are actually willing to discuss the topic without bring up these exact points which is an utter non stater for me as it's a clear indicator of bias that makes it not possible to have a reasonable discussion where points raised are actually assessed and thought about. I'm one of the very few people you'll find that is for gun control that will say gun control is not about reducing crime rate, if you remove that entire section from your reasoning and debate you'll find it's a completely different discussion.

[Jito463]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Gun control is about reducing the extremes of crime, the injury and severity of crime being committed. Gun control is very well documented as showing a reduction of all of these even within the US.

 

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Gun control is not meant to reduce crime. If you think that is what it's about then stop, it's not.

I'm confused.  What did you mean by the first part I quoted, then?  As I read it, it sounds like you just contradicted yourself.

[leadeater]

Just now, Jito463 said:

I'm confused.  What did you mean by the first part I quoted, then?  As I read it, it sounds like you just contradicted yourself.

I mean crime rate is not reduced and gun control is not intended to reduce it. Gun control is about reducing the severity of crime, the number of people killed and injured by it. That type of thing. Bringing crime rate reduction in to the mix is a very good way to discredit the effectiveness of it while ignoring all the other effects of the law change, like number of people killed and injured per incident or crimes resulting in death.

[CyberFern0]

11 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Never going to happen in the US. Aside from the fact that (if interpreted in a specific, somewhat broad manner) gun ownership is a constitutionally protected right, Americans are very touchy about their gun rights and freedoms. 

 

Something to do with ensuring civilians have the ability to overthrow a corrupt government, if the need arises (which in itself is a holdover from their war of independence against the British empire). 

Owning guns is the one reason why so many crimes happen. For example, India doesn’t allow guns to be allowed by civilians, and because of this, in the graph that @dizmo showed, it’s not even there.

[CyberFern0]

9 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Funny, I've never once shot someone with my gun, nor felt the inclination to do so.  That's like saying, because some moron kills someone with a car, civilians shouldn't own cars.  A gun - like a car - is a tool.  A tool (of any sort) can be a useful instrument or it can be a weapon, just depending on the person wielding it.

 

Back on topic, I watched the video and I personally think the cop acted improperly.  You can just barely make out the gun in the lower left corner of the video, and the cop has his finger on the trigger.  Anyone who practices safe gun procedures knows you never put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to pull it.  I know the guy made a sudden move (which is a really dumb thing to do when you're facing down anyone armed), but my personal opinion is that the officer was in the wrong.

I believe that they were both at wrong. You never should make sudden moves when you’re facing armed police. The policeman himself seemed ready to kill someone.