[duncan]

"A Portland man arrested on attempted murder and other charges Thursday by Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies and SWAT Team was planning a shooting attack with several guns at a rock-climbing event, possibly at Smith Rock State Park, authorities said."

Link

More on the Smith Rock Craggin' Classic.

Words fail me.

[Dingdong]

Terrifying. Glad they caught him in time!

[duncan]

One imagines one or some of his friends must have had a very clear idea what he was intending to do. They must have been in very little doubt to report it and for the police to act on their reports.

[Will Hunt]

Can anyone enlighten me on how the law works over there and how this sheds light on what he was planning?
His charge sheet is "four counts of attempted murder, eight counts of first-degree attempted assault and 15 counts of unlawful use of a weapon".
So does that mean he planned an attack with 4 specific victims (Belayers 1 & 2 and Spectators 1 & 2)? How did they then arrive at the 8 and 15 counts?

[Fiend]

Sounds just like Cheetham heading back down The Depot 

[ben]

My phone says. "Possible Smith Rock mass shooting averted by fiend"

good work Fiend!

[jwi]

It is a rather worrying situation with anger, guns and violence over there, no?

https://www.climbing.com/news/touchstones-hollywood-boulders-employees-walk-out-after-likely-shooter-threat/

[seankenny]

It’s just the price of freedom, you Euro-weenies wouldn’t understand, etc etc.

[jwi]

It is the constant rage that I find most confusing. Sure guns are a lot more efficient at killing people then sticks and stones, that is why thousands of years of development have gone in to producing them --- but there must also be alot of willingness to cause harm over there? Or is it just the guns? (I am totally ignorant)

[Oldmanmatt]

It is the constant rage that I find most confusing. Sure guns are a lot more efficient at killing people then sticks and stones, that is why thousands of years of development have gone in to producing them --- but there must also be alot of willingness to cause harm over there? Or is it just the guns? (I am totally ignorant)

There’s something specifically US in the equation. Switzerland, for instance, has very high levels of gun possession, usually military weapons (due to their defence policy), huge gun suicide rates, yet very few mass shootings. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[seankenny]

It is the constant rage that I find most confusing. Sure guns are a lot more efficient at killing people then sticks and stones, that is why thousands of years of development have gone in to producing them --- but there must also be alot of willingness to cause harm over there? Or is it just the guns? (I am totally ignorant)

It’s worth mentioning that a lot of New World societies are very violent, so there was perhaps something in the creation of new states in the Americas that led to this? I remember reading ages ago that if you strip out gun deaths, American rates of violent crime with other weapons are still pretty high, but I’ve not followed this up further so it might be nonsense.

My purely anecdotal observation is that American men seem kind of macho and a bit stuck in one way of being (and note this not a left/right political thing - I see plenty of angry and aggressive behaviour amongst progressives too). Last time I was there I was climbing with a Canadian guy and I said that despite being fairly streetwise in the U.K., and feeling reasonably confident in reading situations elsewhere, I just could not tell what was going on when I was out and about in urban areas in the US. I was well surprised when he said that it was the same for him, despite living relatively close to the border.

So… maybe it’s not just the guns? I dunno either really.

[duncan]

It is the constant rage that I find most confusing. Sure guns are a lot more efficient at killing people then sticks and stones, that is why thousands of years of development have gone in to producing them --- but there must also be alot of willingness to cause harm over there? Or is it just the guns? (I am totally ignorant)

There’s something specifically US in the equation. Switzerland, for instance, has very high levels of gun possession, usually military weapons (due to their defence policy), huge gun suicide rates, yet very few mass shootings. 🤷🏻‍♂️

If you read headlines you'd be excused to think Switzerland and the US had similar rates of gun ownership. Reliable data is hard to find but, if you believe Wikipedia, Switzerland's gun ownership is pretty typical of a European country with where hunting with guns is popular. It is similar to Finland, Norway, Germany, Austria, Serbia, and Montenegro (all ~30-40 guns per 100 people).  It has nothing like the number of guns owned per head in the USA which the lowest estimates put at 90 guns per 100 and more commonly 120 per 100. Figures do vary according to source but the US is always way out in front.


The comparator is usually firearm related deaths, however this underestimates the amount of gun violence in the USA compared with other countries. US emergency doctors have had a lot of practice at treating gunshot injuries so whilst you're more likely to get shot in the US you are also more likely to survive the equivalent injury in the US (as always, it helps to not be black, the ambulance might take longer to arrive). The improvement in US emergency care also means the historical rise in gun violence has been grossly underestimated: don't believe charts that claim gun deaths have fallen as gun ownership has risen.

Some of these ideas are covered in Malcom Gladwell's recent Revisionist History podcasts on US gun culture, particularly episode 4.

[Nails]

If I achieve nothing else today I have at least discovered a really interesting new (to me) set of history podcasts. Thanks Duncan.

[Oldmanmatt]

It is the constant rage that I find most confusing. Sure guns are a lot more efficient at killing people then sticks and stones, that is why thousands of years of development have gone in to producing them --- but there must also be alot of willingness to cause harm over there? Or is it just the guns? (I am totally ignorant)

There’s something specifically US in the equation. Switzerland, for instance, has very high levels of gun possession, usually military weapons (due to their defence policy), huge gun suicide rates, yet very few mass shootings. 🤷🏻‍♂️

If you read headlines you'd be excused to think Switzerland and the US had similar rates of gun ownership. Reliable data is hard to find but, if you believe Wikipedia, Switzerland's gun ownership is pretty typical of a European country with where hunting with guns is popular. It is similar to Finland, Norway, Germany, Austria, Serbia, and Montenegro (all ~30-40 guns per 100 people).  It has nothing like the number of guns owned per head in the USA which the lowest estimates put at 90 guns per 100 and more commonly 120 per 100. Figures do vary according to source but the US is always way out in front.


The comparator is usually firearm related deaths, however this underestimates the amount of gun violence in the USA compared with other countries. US emergency doctors have had a lot of practice at treating gunshot injuries so whilst you're more likely to get shot in the US you are also more likely to survive the equivalent injury in the US (as always, it helps to not be black, the ambulance might take longer to arrive). The improvement in US emergency care also means the historical rise in gun violence has been grossly underestimated: don't believe charts that claim gun deaths have fallen as gun ownership has risen.

Some of these ideas are covered in Malcom Gladwell's recent Revisionist History podcasts on US gun culture, particularly episode 4.

Yes, however, the 90-120 guns/100 people is slightly misleading, in as much as many US gun owners own multiple weapons. It looks, though is difficult to be certain, as if distribution (% of population owning guns, is similar).
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/#:~:text=About%20a%20third%20of%20adults,reported%20they%20owned%20a%20gun.

Also, I picked Swiss because of it’s civilian military model, large numbers of military style weapons are kept in private housing (or were, last time I looked), whereas the majority of weapons in most Western European countries are hunting weapons. In a mass shooting scenario, the difference between being able to fire 10-30 rounds/shells without reloading and 1 or 2, is significant.

[Oldmanmatt]

I had a quick look and Swiss military gun possession has changed a bit since I resided there, but not completely. Essentially, there are a lot of military grade weapons in peoples homes in Switzerland. However, they don’t have the same kind of mass shooting issues that the US do.



“The Swiss army has long been a militia trained and structured to rapidly respond against foreign aggression. Swiss males grow up expecting to undergo basic military training, usually at age 20 in the recruit school, the basic-training camp, after which Swiss men remain part of the "militia" in reserve capacity usually until age 30 (age 34 for officers).

Prior to 2007, members of the Swiss Militia were supplied with 50 rounds of ammunition for their military weapon in a sealed ammo box that was regularly audited by the government (Pocket ammunition). This was so that, in the case of an emergency, the militia could respond quickly.

In December 2007, the Swiss Federal Council decided that the distribution of ammunition to soldiers would stop and that previously issued ammo would be returned. By March 2011, more than 99% of the ammo has been received. Only 2,000 specialist militia members (who protect airports and other sites of particular sensitivity) are permitted to keep their military-issued ammunition at home. The rest of the militia get their ammunition from their military armoury in the event of an emergency.[6][30][31]

When their period of service has ended, militia men have the choice of buying their personal Stgw 90 after it has been converted to semi-automatic and keeping other selected items of their equipment. However, keeping the firearms after the end of service requires a weapon acquisition permit and in the case of the rifle to have participated in two repetition shootings (obligatorische Programm) and two Feldschiessen in the last three years of service (art. 26-33 VPAA/OEPM).[19]

The government sponsors training with rifles and shooting in competitions for interested adolescents, both male and female. The sale of military-issued ammunition, including Gw Pat.90 rounds for army-issued assault rifles, is subsidized by the Swiss government and made available at the many Federal Council licensed shooting ranges. That ammunition sold at ranges to minors must be immediately used there under supervision (art. 16 WG/LArm).

The Swiss Army maintains tightened adherence to high standards of lawful military conduct. In 2005, for example, when the Swiss prosecuted recruits who had reenacted the torture scenes of Abu Ghraib, one of the charges was improper use of service weapons.[32]”

[andy popp]

however, the 90-120 guns/100 people is slightly misleading, in as much as many US gun owners own multiple weapons.

I have many close American family and friends. None of them own guns, to my knowledge. There are probably one or two who would surprise me and do own one, and one for whom I think it's likely as I know she's pro-2nd amendment despite being very left; but for most, I actually do know they don't own one. Gun ownership is very unevenly distributed and to a large extent (though always with outliers, of course) can be mapped onto geography (urban vs rural), class, race, and - yes - politics.

[Wellsy]

Honestly I think that the reason the US has mass shootings as well as other spree killing, serial killers, violent crime etc is multiple factors which boil down to ease of access and culture

Every time I go to the US I am struck by how dehumanising and isolating  lot of American society is. I think all that inequality and alienation plus a culture of desensitisation to callous treatment of others creates a lot of disaffected and violent men (and it nearly is always men)

[stone]

South Africa for example looks to be much worse than USA.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/South-Africa/United-States/Crime
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country

I guess, American society is harsher and less respectful to much of its population than European societies are and European societies are similarly behind Japan or Singapore. Places such as South Africa etc are a step worse than America though.

[Potash]

In my time living in LA I was occasionally surprised by the number of my liberal friends, who when pushed, would confirm they had guns in the house. These were typically hunting rifles that were often inherited from grandparents but not exclusively.

I thought about jumping through the California hoops to legally buy a handgun and write an article about the difficulty or otherwise of doing this as I could see it getting published in the UK press but my wife banned me from doing so.

[stone]

It's curious how the murder rate in Medieval Oxford was 50-65 / 100k. That's as high as the worst in the world today (El Salvador) https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/medieval-murder-maps

[Oldmanmatt]

It's curious how the murder rate in Medieval Oxford was 50-65 / 100k. That's as high as the worst in the world today (El Salvador) https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/medieval-murder-maps

Oh, we live in a much safer UK than even a century ago.

https://www.vrc.crim.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/manuel-eisner-historical-trends-in-violence.pdf

[jwi]

however, the 90-120 guns/100 people is slightly misleading, in as much as many US gun owners own multiple weapons.

I have many close American family and friends. None of them own guns, to my knowledge. There are probably one or two who would surprise me and do own one, and one for whom I think it's likely as I know she's pro-2nd amendment despite being very left; but for most, I actually do know they don't own one. Gun ownership is very unevenly distributed and to a large extent (though always with outliers, of course) can be mapped onto geography (urban vs rural), class, race, and - yes - politics.

Well it is quite dangerous to have a gun at home, much more dangerous than not having one of course. It can be partly mitigated by keeping the rifle locked in one safe, the bolt in another and ammunition in a third safe --- as required by the legislation in many countries. Even with these precautions it is much more dangerous to have a gun at home than not.  I assume that the well-educated part of the population would know this. But perhaps not, as even quite a few well-educated parents own SUVs, which is of course is more dangerous for their children than owning a normal car.

[Moo]

I'm consistently surprised by how much attention is given to the problem of gun violence in America by British news and even in media around the rest of the world. It may sound a bit callous but I see it as an American problem (And it's far from their largest problem) to be solved by Americans. I'm not sure why so many people here are so ready to get involved in this debate as opposed to say the conversation about drug deaths due to fentanyl or horrific gang violence in Mexico or the current sweep of military coups running through Africa.

Do you think it's its just that violent headlines sell? or maybe just that it's the shock value which attracts the audience?

As an example of what I'm talking about the guardian seems to regularly bleat on about American shootings whilst relatively little attention is paid to the problem of violent crime in the UK.

[jwi]

Why do French newspapers write so much about sub-saharan Africa but so little about Nigeria or South Africa do you think? Or why is the coverage of South American politics excellent in Spain's El País?

[mrjonathanr]

I had a quick look and Swiss military gun possession has changed a bit since I resided there, but not completely. Essentially, there are a lot of military grade weapons in peoples homes in Switzerland. However, they don’t have the same kind of mass shooting issues that the US do.

Well, it is Switzerland, where using wrong the recycling bins is considered unacceptable lawlessness…