Dear America,

[Jeremy Harris]

I'm sure that gun laws aren't the only factor that acts to massively increase the homicide rate in the US when compared to many other Western countries, but the ready availability of firearms does, I am certain, lead to more people being killed. The fact that someone can easily pull a gun on another has to lead to far more circumstances where lives are endangered. The example given earlier of the woman in Florida who felt threatened and so shot someone is a good example. A good few years ago now (see the funny national newspaper article scan attached!) I faced a potentially violent robber. He was armed with an axe and at the time I tackled him, just after he'd smashed a jewellers window and clouted the owner of the shop on the head with the axe, he was about to run off with a few tens of thousands of pounds worth of diamond jewellery. I strongly suspect that, if an incident happened like this in the US then someone may well have drawn a gun, and may even have shot and killed the man. Sure he was a thief, and was armed, but at that point he hadn't committed an offence serious enough to warrant death.

This is the difference that having freely available guns makes. It becomes just too easy to use lethal force in any encounter. As policing here has shown (the vast majority of our police never carry guns) you can tackle even serious offenders without the need for firearms. Sure, illegal guns are rife here in some areas, mainly in the city gangs, but even so we've only had three police officers killed by gunfire in the past ten years.

I am convinced that giving up guns would be a step towards a reduction in the very high homicide rate in the US, but only if, as in Australia, the majority agree that getting guns off the streets is a beneficial thing.

PS: No, I don't look anything like the archetypal Civil Servant pictured in that cartoon - they knew that, as they did have a photo of me in one of my aeroplanes which they printed at the bottom!

 

[flyinmonkie]

The reason for the 2nd amendment, and if you listen to the wording it is clear, is not for an individual to protect ones self or family from a burglar. It is for a civilian population to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. The British had done everything they could think of to maintain control over the colonies, right down to housing soldiers in the homes of "trouble makers". This is also addressed in the constitution.

The population was afraid of the new and untested government as they were of the former British rulers. They wanted a check and balance to the government should all else fail and make sure the government would think twice before using the military against them. Militias during the revolutionary war were all volunteers and not required to fight by the government or a formal part of the military. They could stop fighting any time they wanted and go home to protect their families and farms from the invaders, in this case the British.

This is all just a bit of history and I am not leaning for or against guns. I grew up in the US and though I lived a happy middle class life style, there was always a bit of fear hanging over the population. This is one of the things that held the greatly varied demographics of the US population together. As a kid, it was a fear of Russia and the cold war. There was also a bit of fear, and a lot of distrust of the government. As the cold war fizzled out, the fear for the government became greater in the culture. And it was all levels of government. As a child I was taught to respect a person in uniform, police, firefighter, etc. I was even told if lost to find someone in uniform and get help from them. Now police are not trusted, feared and hated. They are no longer respected by people of any age. This obviously isn't true in all place in the US, but it is pretty common.

Other than the government, people began to fear what is different to them. There was no one common big fear that brought the US together. Terrorism was close to being that big fear again, but didn't quite do it. Basically the US is a scared population on a whole. This may be an underlying need for so many to have guns, along with the deep seeded need to be able to protect their family from a government that has become to controlling. Not that I think there actually will ever be fighting in the streets like the Middle East.

Just rambling thoughts on why people from the US are so tied to their guns.

As for what to do about them, well I am a gun owner and think that they have a legitimate use in hunting, target shooting, and collecting. Education is the key. In the US you have a to take a hunter's safety course to buy a hunting license. 99% of which is basic gun safety. You do not have to take a safety course to buy a gun. You do have to take a test and usually a course to drive a car. I am all for having to take a course a pass a test to be allowed to buy a gun.

Perhaps many of the ill informed that purchase a gun to protect their suburban home would decide it isn't such a good idea. And those that do will hopefully store them properly, not loaded in the night stand.

As for the people with mental illness that end up perpetrating these terrible tragedies, we need to figure out how to see the signs and help them heal before it gets to that point. As several others have said, the cultural stigma needs to change and these people need to get the help they deserve. If nothing else, we need to recognize the signs so we can prevent them from carrying out these tragedies with any sort of device that can cause great harm to other people.

Lastly, now living overseas it is no wonder the rest of th world thinks the US in the most dangerous place on Earth. The only news to come out of the US is of violence and is greatly sensationalized. The TV shows all have a murder or 2 every week and most problems are solved with violence or guns. And the shows that follow the police (Cops, or the British narrated montage of US police dash cam footage) all shows the most violent areas, or only a small part of the story to make it look worse than it is.

I have never seen a gun drawn in a public place in the US and out of several friends that are police officer, none have fired at another human being. Evey one I have met from outside the US that has traveled there has said the people they meet are the friendliest they have ever met, and it felt completely safe every where they went. For those of you outside the US, it is not what you see on TV.

My thoughts and sincerest condolences to those touched by the most recent tragedy and anyone how has been touched by senseless violence.

Clay

 

[Jeremy Harris]

The reason for the 2nd amendment, and if you listen to the wording it is clear, is not for an individual to protect ones self or family from a burglar. It is for a civilian population to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. The British had done everything they could think of to maintain control over the colonies, right down to housing soldiers in the homes of "trouble makers". This is also addressed in the constitution.

The population was afraid of the new and untested government as they were of the former British rulers. They wanted a check and balance to the government should all else fail and make sure the government would think twice before using the military against them. Militias during the revolutionary war were all volunteers and not required to fight by the government or a formal part of the military. They could stop fighting any time they wanted and go home to protect their families and farms from the invaders, in this case the British.

This is all just a bit of history and I am not leaning for or against guns. I grew up in the US and though I lived a happy middle class life style, there was always a bit of fear hanging over the population. This is one of the things that held the greatly varied demographics of the US population together. As a kid, it was a fear of Russia and the cold war. There was also a bit of fear, and a lot of distrust of the government. As the cold war fizzled out, the fear for the government became greater in the culture. And it was all levels of government. As a child I was taught to respect a person in uniform, police, firefighter, etc. I was even told if lost to find someone in uniform and get help from them. Now police are not trusted, feared and hated. They are no longer respected by people of any age. This obviously isn't true in all place in the US, but it is pretty common.

Other than the government, people began to fear what is different to them. There was no one common big fear that brought the US together. Terrorism was close to being that big fear again, but didn't quite do it. Basically the US is a scared population on a whole. This may be an underlying need for so many to have guns, along with the deep seeded need to be able to protect their family from a government that has become to controlling. Not that I think there actually will ever be fighting in the streets like the Middle East.

Just rambling thoughts on why people from the US are so tied to their guns.

As for what to do about them, well I am a gun owner and think that they have a legitimate use in hunting, target shooting, and collecting. Education is the key. In the US you have a to take a hunter's safety course to buy a hunting license. 99% of which is basic gun safety. You do not have to take a safety course to buy a gun. You do have to take a test and usually a course to drive a car. I am all for having to take a course a pass a test to be allowed to buy a gun.

Perhaps many of the ill informed that purchase a gun to protect their suburban home would decide it isn't such a good idea. And those that do will hopefully store them properly, not loaded in the night stand.

As for the people with mental illness that end up perpetrating these terrible tragedies, we need to figure out how to see the signs and help them heal before it gets to that point. As several others have said, the cultural stigma needs to change and these people need to get the help they deserve. If nothing else, we need to recognize the signs so we can prevent them from carrying out these tragedies with any sort of device that can cause great harm to other people.

Lastly, now living overseas it is no wonder the rest of th world thinks the US in the most dangerous place on Earth. The only news to come out of the US is of violence and is greatly sensationalized. The TV shows all have a murder or 2 every week and most problems are solved with violence or guns. And the shows that follow the police (Cops, or the British narrated montage of US police dash cam footage) all shows the most violent areas, or only a small part of the story to make it look worse than it is.

I have never seen a gun drawn in a public place in the US and out of several friends that are police officer, none have fired at another human being. Evey one I have met from outside the US that has traveled there has said the people they meet are the friendliest they have ever met, and it felt completely safe every where they went. For those of you outside the US, it is not what you see on TV.

My thoughts and sincerest condolences to those touched by the most recent tragedy and anyone how has been touched by senseless violence.

Clay

That's exactly my understanding as to what the "Right to bear arms" in the US really means, too. It's worth noting that we may have inadvertently set the precedent for this here in the UK. In 1689 we passed a Bill of Rights. This was, in part, aimed to restore rights to Protestants who had had them taken away by James II, who had allowed Catholics to bear arms but denied that right to Protestants (there's a lot more too it, but that's the relevant bit here). Our Bill of Rights gave people the right to bear arms irrespective of the wishes of the King and may well have been in the minds of the Founding Fathers when the US Constitution was drafted almost 100 years later.

I'm afraid you're also spot on with the view much of the world has, through the media, of life in the US. The sad thing is that is is all US media companies making this stuff.

 

[Thud]

Being the season of Festivus,
I'll chim n again.
The most amazing thing to me still is the perception that we are all running amuk with our guns drawn...It just isn't the reality of America.
Our entertainment industry sells sensational, violent crap & it skews perceptions of thouse outside our boundries, & unfortunatly even a few inside of them.
Does anyone really think there is enough violent crime on the Hawain islands to keep a weekly cop show in buisness?

I have no doubt a hand gun ban would have a huge impact on the suicide rate....the lethality is undisputable & irreversible. Having the option for some one in a moment of anguish.
but here? i have no confidence that any criminals will hand over their gats.....will it make it harder for them to get a gun?

I'd have to ask the criminals in every country that has the restrictions in place. since these countries still have instances of gun violence.

Now its back to the cultural issues, We are bigger than most countries, have large pockets of very diveres cultures all living together. Its ironic to me that the large Arahb population we have in eastern Mi. all live iwhithin a few bolcks & still have tension between the Muslum sects. The local gang problems south of me are Laotion's fighting Koreans.......
All of my (3 LOL) laotion friends have a 45 auto purchased the minute they were naturalised....thier faters were all solders in the home country & they remember the side arm Dad carried...before the comunists came & shot them without a trial.

its their storys from abroad that are wondefully educating....listening to Toung talk about learning Kunfu in a refugee camp in thailand because he thought all americans were black & 6'5" tall...& he would be robbed & shot in the streets like in the movies. (that was the story the comunist told the children in the over run villages)

Are guns the answer to our problems? never. We need education, afordable heath care...some kind of safty net for the mentaly ill & damaged members of our land better than the prison system.

Do guns add to the problems we see? there is definatly valid argumants for that.

Are guns the Root problem?

Think about it, unemotionaly & be honest. no they are not....they are a stupid, inatimate object designed to throw a projectile with leathal force....some have more capacity than others, some are big & some are small.
but they can't hurt anyone with out outside intent & manipulaion from the human.

I said before, America is different. we are not homogenus, we are not lazy, we are not stupid. I will even say that we are no more violent than anyone else.....we just have more potential for the situations for violance to grow & develop in just on cultural diversity alone.

do we need guns? hell no. But we have them & we need to be responcible for them. & since no gun controll law has irradicated gun violance completely. I can't count that as a viable solution.
Gun controll is only a modifier of the root problem.

let the feats of strength begin.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

The most amazing thing to me still is the perception that we are all running amuk with our guns drawn...It just isn't the reality of America.

I hate to say this, but the statistics (and I know, lies, etc) say otherwise.

Here's a league table of homicides from firearms per 100,000 population for a few countries around the world for the past year:

South Africa 74.57
Colombia 51.77
Mexico 3.66
United States of America 3.60
Costa Rica 3.05
Portugal 0.85
Sweden 0.61
Canada 0.41
Germany 0.33
Australia 0.31
Austria 0.30
Ireland 0.26
Denmark 0.25
Spain 0.21
Switzerland 0.09
United Kingdom 0.02
Luxembourg 0.00

Clearly these stats don't say anything particular about guns, especially as Switzerland has probably more guns per head of population than most countries on that list, but it does show just how violent the USA is when compared to other Western cultures.

Our entertainment industry sells sensational, violent crap & it skews perceptions of thouse outside our boundries, & unfortunatly even a few inside of them.
Does anyone really think there is enough violent crime on the Hawain islands to keep a weekly cop show in buisness?

There's no doubt the media colours the world view of Americans, and as said before I think it seriously damages US international relations by planting the preconceived idea around the globe that Americans are violent people with little regard for human life. That's not wholly true, but in the absence of any other publicity that's how it appears in some countries.

I have no doubt a hand gun ban would have a huge impact on the suicide rate....the lethality is undisputable & irreversible. Having the option for some one in a moment of anguish.
but here? i have no confidence that any criminals will hand over their gats.....will it make it harder for them to get a gun?

I'd have to ask the criminals in every country that has the restrictions in place. since these countries still have instances of gun violence.

Here we have had a total ban on handguns for around 15 years, before that we had very restrictive gun laws where anyone who needed to own a gun had to be licensed and getting that licence needs some assurance that your responsible, in the form of two long standing witnesses from specific professions. Despite that the criminals here (mainly gangs) can buy illegal hand guns relatively easily - we are in Europe and Europe is awash with Russian and former Soviet Bloc weapons of all sorts. Nevertheless, the gun homicide rate here is massively lower than that in the US.

Now its back to the cultural issues, We are bigger than most countries, have large pockets of very diveres cultures all living together. Its ironic to me that the large Arahb population we have in eastern Mi. all live iwhithin a few bolcks & still have tension between the Muslum sects. The local gang problems south of me are Laotion's fighting Koreans.......
All of my (3 LOL) laotion friends have a 45 auto purchased the minute they were naturalised....thier faters were all solders in the home country & they remember the side arm Dad carried...before the comunists came & shot them without a trial.

its their storys from abroad that are wondefully educating....listening to Toung talk about learning Kunfu in a refugee camp in thailand because he thought all americans were black & 6'5" tall...& he would be robbed & shot in the streets like in the movies. (that was the story the comunist told the children in the over run villages)

The whole of Europe has become very multicultural in the past 30 or 40 years, too, so the US isn't at all unique in that regard. We virtually threw open our collective borders to people from the Middle and Far East, not to mention all the tens of thousands of refugees from the Balkans and the economic migrants from places like Poland (where I used to work Polish was the only language heard on our big development site - 90% of the workforce (of a British construction company) were Poles). Sure this creates tensions, not helped by the way migrants tend to cluster together and bring some of the tensions they feel for others with them. We have towns and cities with areas where you could believe you're not in England, with not an English sign to be seen and with everyone around speaking a foreign language, from Urdu through Farsi to Chinese or Polish. It hasn't had a significant impact on our murder rate though, and we are a tiny country with a relatively large population, so I can't see why it should be worse for a country as massive as the US, where everyone has far more room to spread out.

 

[marty]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/12/15/167344805/sandy-hook-elementary-victims-names-released
Here are the victims' names and ages:

Charlotte Bacon, 6

Daniel Barden, 7

Rachel Davino, 29

Olivia Engel, 6

Josephine Gay, 7

Ana M Marquez-Greene, 6

Dylan Hockley, 6

Dawn Hocksprung, 47

Madeline F. Hsu, 6

Catherine V. Hubbard, 6

Chase Kowalski, 7

Jesse Lewis, 6

James Mattioli, 6

Grace McDonnell, 7

Anne Marie Murphy, 52

Emilie Parker, 6

Jack Pinto, 6

Noah Pozner, 6

Caroline Previdi, 6

Jessica Rekos, 6

Avielle Richman, 6

Lauren Russeau, 30*

Mary Sherlach, 56

Victoria Soto, 27

Benjamin Wheeler, 6

Allison N Wyatt, 6

*The spelling of Lauren Russeau's name here comes from the list released by authorities in Connecticut on Saturday and differs from the spelling NPR and other news organizations have used.

 

[neptronix]

[youtube]T_ANRgcvjkk[/youtube]

Hate to derail the excellent discussion going on here, but i figured i'd post up this juicy tidbit from the man who oversaw a program selling automatic rifles to mexican drug gangs.. :lol:

 

[Jeremy Harris]

News reports here are saying that gun sales have increased 43% since the theatre shooting in the US earlier this year. I guess that's exactly what's needed, the problem was clearly that there weren't enough guns around to stop that massacre from happening.................................

 

[neptronix]

News reports here are saying that gun sales have increased 43% since the theatre shooting in the US earlier this year. I guess that's exactly what's needed, the problem was clearly that there weren't enough guns around to stop that massacre from happening.................................

Gun sales increase every time that there is a threat of gun sales ending. Because it is a realistic threat. Just listen to some of the left wing voices today.

We have been fighting for out 2nd amendment rights for centuries. Plenty of people obviously see the value in them, because they want the right to self defense. Our constitution intended for us to treat and view guns exactly like the Swiss do. I believe a lot of our problems with gun violence today are due to us getting away from that. Our military attitude is also far, far from what our constitution intended. Our military was intended for defense, not offense. The mentality that we should 'get people before they get us' is very corrosive as well. Other than the wild west periods of our history, i would imagine that murders were far lower back in the day. But there have always been mass murders here, and everywhere else.

I would rather that poor teacher who got shot trying to defend her children have a gun on her to be honest. But it is not legal for her to do so. That is a true shame. This was not always the case, and guess what, school shootings are UP now that shooters have an opportunity to waltz into rooms full of unarmed people. 'gun free zones' make excellent targets for murderers.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

The real problem is the the US freely allows nutters and unstable individuals to own and access guns. It seems that when massacres like the most recent one occur, it isn't criminals or gangs that have access to illegal weapons that are the perpetrators, it is unstable individuals, often individuals like the most recent one who was, apparently, known to be a bit unusual, and who have easy access to enough guns and ammo to go out and do whatever the voices are telling them.

I agree, guns aren't the root cause, but free access to them by near enough anyone is a major contributory factor. As has been observed elsewhere, countries that train, educate and control gun ownership have far lower rates of gun crime than the US, even countries where gun ownership is very common.

Here if you want to own a gun you need a Firearms Certificate. To get that you need to show that you're responsible, two people of good standing that you've known for a significant period of time and who are respected members of society have to sign to say you're OK, you then have to prove you have somewhere to use the gun safely, and that you have locked, secure, separate, storage for the gun and the ammo. You have to renew the licence every 6 years, or face losing the gun. Your storage cabinet is subject to random police inspection, and you're not permitted to transport the weapon outside concealed about your person, only if it's inside a gun bag.

My father was a keen target and game shooter and taught me to shoot with his old pump action Browning 0.22 when I was around 7 or 8 years old. I still remember him drumming the safety stuff into me, time and time again, emphasising this education with tales of his own mistakes, like leaving a round chambered by accident and dropping the gun in teh kitchen, causing an accidental discharge through the kitchen ceiling........... I also remember the police knocking on the door to check the gun cabinet and ammo cabinet from time to time.

Maybe if more people in the US were properly trained, licensed and assessed for responsibility before being allowed to own a gun things might be better. I well remember walking into a big gun store just outside Boise, Idaho and the hopeful salesman collaring me and pointing to a wall covered in guns saying "you can take any of these away right now, all I need is a drivers licence and credit card". When I replied that I was British, he said, "no problem, all I need then is your credit card"...........

 

[fizzit]

Is there a way to read the study? All i see is a short analysis of it.

I'm wondering if the mass majority of the people shot were gang members, drug addicts, drug dealers, or other people in the outskirts of society who have to provide their own protection because the law will not. These people are typically armed and involved in gun violence very often. These people are also often carrying guns illegally too, and aren't known for their good disposition.

Very easy to spin things and leave data out.

The study can be read here:
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099

In fact, they adjusted for the people that you mentioned.

Finally, as this was a case–control study, we had the advantage of being able to statistically adjust for numerous confounders of the relationship between gun possession and gun assault. These confounders included important individual-level factors that did not change with time such as having a high-risk occupation, limited education, or an arrest record. Other confounders that we included were situational factors that could have influenced the relationship under study: substance abuse, being outside, having others present, and being in neighborhood surroundings that were impoverished or busy with illicit drug trafficking. Although these situational confounders were potentially short-lived (e.g., a participant may have metabolized the drugs or alcohol they consumed, moved to another location, or left the company of others) this was less important given the incidence–density sampling and the fact that case and control participants were essentially matched on time.

We excluded self-inflicted, unintentional, and police-related shootings (an officer shooting someone or being shot), and gun injuries of undetermined intent. We excluded individuals younger than 21 years because it was not legal for them to possess a firearm in Philadelphia and, as such, the relationship we sought to investigate was functionally different enough to prompt separate study of this age group. We excluded individuals who were not residents of Philadelphia as they were outside our target population and individuals not described as Black or White as they were involved in a very small percentage of shootings (< 2%).

On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses are possible and do occur each year,33,57 the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should rethink their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures. Suggestions to the contrary, especially for urban residents who may see gun possession as a surefire defense against a dangerous environment,61,67 should be discussed and thoughtfully reconsidered.

 

[neptronix]

Points taken. But i believe it is still my right to engage in an activity or live a way of life that may or may not increase the likelihood of me being killed. I think you should have that right too.

Riding electric bicycles at 40mph are something we get to do because the law hasn't cracked down on us yet. We are also allowed to do other dangerous things like bungee jump, skydive, mountain climb, ski, or ride a motorcycle. Because something might cause me or you more harm is no reason to ban it.

But there are heavily armed states where gun crime is much lower; this would certainly buck your study. For example, Utah has super lax gun laws, but less gun crime per capita than California, where the laws are really strict. Washington DC is the murder capital but has the most gun laws.

But all the laws in the world don't matter to someone trying to kill the most amount of people, and then do the right thing for the common taxpayer by finishing themself after.

 

[Dauntless]

The real problem is the the US freely allows nutters and unstable individuals to own and access guns.

Wrong! There are laws, there are policies; THEN there are friends and relatives who, ILLEGALLY, help to circumvent them. Read of Richard Bardo. Not allowed to own a gun, but his brother went to get him one. Marcia Clark first made her name with her wacko theory in the prosecution of Bardo by rushing to the media with this lurid tale of the U2 'Joshua Tree' album being his motivational speaker that encouraged him to shoot Rebecca Shaffer, but you get the idea when you hear him speak that he's telling you the truth that he just couldn't handle a gun and it went off accidently. So many weapons used in these crimes are stolen from National Guard armories, where the buildings are also used for other purposes and the public has a bit of access to.

The most amazing thing to me still is the perception that we are all running amuk with our guns drawn...It just isn't the reality of America.

I hate to say this, but the statistics (and I know, lies, etc) say otherwise.

That's funny, I would say those numbers back up Thud. Gives me the idea that the homocides per 100,000 FIREARMS is probably the lowest in the world. Don't know the current numbers, but historically there are more than 3 times the homocides by people being beat to death by baseball bats than by being shot. Stabblings, etc., all more. Take the guns away and some will resort to bombs; which worked very well in Oklahoma City, (With fertilizer) never have near so many been shot.

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/malmstrom/news/archives/2012/11/20121121_en.htm

Then there's the 'Turkish Thompson.' During the unrest on the island of Cypress apparently the Turks were passing about the designs for a homemade machine gun, over 10,000 were confiscated but many more were used. What little I've heard of it was that for lack of the ability to create the accurate bore you didn't aim it, you just let it keep spitting bullets until one of them got lucky. Ain't no laws that can stop this. You have to stop the people. You don't stop them by making them feel they can attack unopposed.

If you REALLY think you can stop these people with some extraneous law. . . .

(Homemade cannon)

 

[Dauntless]

 

[Jeremy Harris]

That's funny, I would say those numbers back up Thud. Gives me the idea that the homocides per 100,000 FIREARMS is probably the lowest in the world. Don't know the current numbers, but historically there are more than 3 times the homocides by people being beat to death by baseball bats than by being shot. Stabblings, etc., all more. Take the guns away and some will resort to bombs; which worked very well in Oklahoma City, (With fertilizer) never have near so many been shot.

OK, lets ignore guns and just look at homicide.

In 2010 648 people were murdered in the whole of the UK, so 1.05 homicides per 100,000 head of population.

In 2010 there were 14,748 homicides in the whole of the USA, so 4.68 homicides per 100,000 head of population.

Whichever way you cut it Americans like killing each other more than pretty much any other civilised Western country. The reputation of America as a violent place where murder is far more prevalent than other civilised countries seems deserved.

 

[flyinmonkie]

There are quite a few restrictions on buying a gun legally in a gun shop theses days. Everyone gets a back ground check and paper work is filed that you own that gun and it is registered to you. If you are going to buy a hand gun there is a 3 day waiting period before you can have the gun from the shop.

Many of the people that commit these massacres have no criminal or psychiatric back ground on file. They have not been assessed or treated for the mental illness they have. In some cases, the shooting is the first seen outward sign. They almost always obtain the guns used from a family member or friend that has obtained it legally and there is no reason for that person to not be allowed a gun under current law.

Jeremy is correct saying there needs to be better education before one can purchase a gun in the US. Call what you receive after passing a gun safety course a license or a certificate or what ever you want. It is a powerful tool that can cause great destruction if used wrong, like a car. In the course the laws around ownership and what happens if you shoot an intruder, or robber, or an innocent bystander need to be covered. Also, safe handling of a variety of guns, safe storage, and educating those you live with should you choose to own a gun.

Our society needs to try and recognize the signs of people struggling with mental illness as early as possible and give them the help they deserve. The stigma of mental illness needs to be broken so people are willing to seek treatment when they feel they are struggling as well.

No gun law will keep a criminal from owning and using a gun, but having educated legal owners that can handle, store, and use them responsibly is a great idea.

As for "assault or military type" weapons. You can take any rifle and change to stock to make it look like an assault rifle or a hunting rifle. Clip capacity is more of an issue. If you need 30 or more rounds to shoot an animal, you need to stop hinting and spend all your time at the range. Hunting should be as close to sniping as possible. One shot one kill, otherwise it is a bad shoot and not a humane kill.

Clay

 

[Chalo]

But i believe it is still my right to engage in an activity or live a way of life that may or may not increase the likelihood of me being killed.

When your activity or way of life starts to increase the likelihood of others being killed, then we have a right to some influence over it. Just because we see ourselves as rugged individualists does not mean we have to tolerate dangerous asshole behavior.

I'd much rather live in a place where nobody who's in public on a regular basis has a gun, where driving is as restricted and regulated as flying is today, and where industrial scale polluters can be stripped of all their assets and imprisoned for a term proportional to the harm they've done. Society should not exist for the benefit of cars, or perpetual violent conflict, or concentrations of money, but for the people who compose and support it.

 

[neptronix]

When your activity or way of life starts to increase the likelihood of others being killed, then we have a right to some influence over it. Just because we see ourselves as rugged individualists does not mean we have to tolerate dangerous asshole behavior.

What you really want to do is consider the dangerous asshole behavior first. Every single serial killer has had some serious mental defects. The majority of these times, they were well known to friends, family, and public officials who have all done nothing to stop what's boiling up. Can you believe that the police department in the Columbine area saw the shooter's AOL webpage where they were bragging about how many people they'd kill, showed off their pipe bombs and guns, etc - and did nothing for 2 entire years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#Preliminary_activities_and_intent

^-- read this. You will be shocked at how that was handled back then.

Okay, how about the Aurora shooter? There were tons of a signs! a gun range turned him down because they felt he was crazy. He was known to have dangerous mental health issues by friends and family. He met with multiple mental health folks at the university of Colorado. He warned other students to stay away from him. When the shooting happened, his mom assumed that the shooter was him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Eagan_Holmes#Events_leading_to_the_shooting

What about the friends and family of this lady who knew she had a dangerously mentally ill son and a bunch of guns in the house?

You can take away some tools but another tool can be easily found.

[youtube]fQrhLiRdAT4[/youtube]

Timothy McVeigh killed around 170 people with racing fuel, fertilizer, and a box truck - Iraqi insurgent style. There were hundreds of signs that he would have done this beforehand.

[youtube]6Gr7xBa6G28[/youtube]

Billy Ferry ( paranoid schizophrenic ) killed 5 people and permanently burned around a dozen. The people around him knew he was messed up but failed to get help.

How about addressing the problem with these mentally ill people rather than stomp on everyone's rights?

I'd much rather live in a place where nobody who's in public on a regular basis has a gun, where driving is as restricted and regulated as flying is today, and where industrial scale polluters can be stripped of all their assets and imprisoned for a term proportional to the harm they've done. Society should not exist for the benefit of cars, or perpetual violent conflict, or concentrations of money, but for the people who compose and support it.

Let me know when you find this place, we can pack our bags and get on the boat to that place

 

[Dauntless]

But i believe it is still my right to engage in an activity or live a way of life that may or may not increase the likelihood of me being killed.

When your activity or way of life starts to increase the likelihood of others being killed, then we have a right to some influence over it. Just because we see ourselves as rugged individualists does not mean we have to tolerate dangerous asshole behavior.

But at what point do you acknowledge the same right to others' influence over you? There that stance always comes up short, it's ALWAYS the right thing to do unto others, it's just that it turns around and is wrong when it's your turn to lose out to your own philosophy. In politics, it's all a matter of whose sacred cow is being gored.

Meanwhile people keep talking as though there are 'Signs' these people will do these things. Not really. I have an older brother who had his own segment on 'America's Most Wanted.' Easy for me to say I knew that day was coming, but nothing I would cite would prove anything. According to the FBI there are some 5 million people in America who fit the 'Profile' of a serial killer, but maybe as many as 200 will engage in such behavior. There's nothing to distinguish that almost insignificant percentage from the nearly all who won't.

Timothy McVeigh wanted to live outside the law. Gee, I wonder why almost every line of the themesong of 'The Dukes of Hazzard' continues the theme ". . . .Been in trouble with the law since the day they was born?" What a wonderful romantic verbal spewing so many engage in! Almost all without ever having been arrested.

In 1977, this guy by the name of David Berkowitz told a lurid tale of the dog next door ordering him to kill. A few years later FBI Behavioral Scientist Robert Ressler went to see him and said he didn't want to hear any of that nonsense about the dog, which prompted him to laugh and tell Ressler he was the first who didn't fall for it. Berkowitz told Ressler the whole 'Son of Sam' legend that most people STILL believe was nothing more than his plan to beat the death penalty with an insanity plea. Ressler depicted Berkowitz as having a great time bragging about his genius in coming up with that story and pulling the whole thing off.

Mark Chapman became irritated with the brusque manner in which John Lennon rushed off to an interview and waited for him to return. People insist that he sat on the curb reading 'Catcher in the Rye' until the police came when in fact the hotel security took him into custody. He did spin quite a tale of acting out the book, (Which has been dismissed as the plotting of a highly manipulative mind) while John Hinkley acknowledged that shooting Ronald Reagan was an attempt to borrow some of Reagan's fame so he could date Jodie Foster, but this is a long way from 'Catcher in the Rye' being some sort of "Assassins Bible," as many tout. Including Marcia Clark, who didn't even need Richard Bardo to tell her such a yarn, SHE took upon herself to insist he shot Rebecca Shaffer to "Steal her fame," which Bardo has always denied but Clark has continued to spout.

So why did Sirhan Sirhan believe that he could fly home to Syria to a hero's welcome and speak to cheering throngs about why he shot Robert F. Kennedy? Why would he live out his life believing he could impress the jailers, the FBI behavior science unit, pretty much ANYONE he came in contact with about how much better he was doing and how he was ready to be released? There's a real life comparison to the film 'Primal Fear,' where Richard Gere is taunted by Edward Norton after falling for Norton's plan to make the insanity defense work and Ted Bundy's interview with a self styled preacher/activist whom Bundy plays quite a set of cards upon telling everything the preacher wanted to hear about how it was pornography, that's it, pornography that made him kill, interspersed with giddy coments aside such as '. . . .And that's a real nice tie you're wearing, by the way.' Just couldn't contain himself with all the fun he was making of the fool that was talking to him.

For all the socalled 'Signs' people try to convince themselves are there, what about the guy who WON a lawsuit, got his money, yet still went in and shot up a law firm involved? I think the real key to it isn't anything that comes from within him, but the fact that he was making plans to go on 'Oprah' and other talkshows to discuss why he did it. In fact he shot himself before the police could take him. But why did he think he could explain this and make it rational to others? And why did he think he would ever get the chance? I don't believe saying he was merely a pressure cooker getting ready to blow covers it.

But what does?

Theme of 'The Dukes of Hazzard'

Just two good ole boys,
Never meaning no harm.
Beats all you never saw,
been in trouble with the law
Since the day they was born.

Straightenin' the curves,
Flattenin' the hills.
Someday the mountain might get 'em but the law never will.
Makin' their wayyyyyy, the only way they know how.
Well, that's just a little bit more than the law will allow.

Just two good ole boys,
Wouldn't change if they could.
Fightin' the system like two modern day Robin Hoods. [Yee-haw]

[youtube]zRX4mlFi06A[/youtube]

 

[salty9]

John Hinkley acknowledged that shooting Ronald Reagan was an attempt to borrow some of Reagan's fame so he could date Jodie Foster

The fact that Hinkley was sent to St. Elizabeths rather than a prison had more to do with his father's Republican connections and status in the Mormon church than his mental condition.

 

[liveforphysics]

I'd much rather live in a place where nobody who's in public on a regular basis has a gun, where driving is as restricted and regulated as flying is today, and where industrial scale polluters can be stripped of all their assets and imprisoned for a term proportional to the harm they've done. Society should not exist for the benefit of cars, or perpetual violent conflict, or concentrations of money, but for the people who compose and support it.

I would rather live in a place where folks realized they are all going to die, and that no amount of education, money, or power is ever going to matter a bit in the attainment of fulfillment before they die (generally does the opposite in fact), and the people love and respect the string of experiences we get to have for a handful of decades that we call life.

Happy people enjoying life is the world I want to see. This means no cops disrespecting life so viciously as trapping people and putting them into cages because they wish to explore consciousness or spirituality assisted by plants/chemicals or whatever works for them.

If you make a world of happy enlightened loving people (which I believe is 100% possible to do, it just requires a roughly opposite indoctrination path of the current money/stress/power valued system to a love/experience/enjoyment valued system), you're going to live in a way better world than anything that imposes more rules to try to limit/regulate etc.

That said, I would love to see all SUV's crushed, and 99% of the cars on the road replaced with ebikes etc. But I would never want to do it with regulation, I would want to do it by having it be the choice that makes the most sense to people who begin to put value on the correct things in life.

 

[TheBeastie]

I think the way most Aussies who have seen the gun laws change in Australia believe that it has changed things here.

Basically the way to implement the Aussie gun laws in the USA is like this.
You ban all rifles that are semi automatic or full. Limiting people to bolt action rifles, optionally you could make a law where you need to have a reason to own such a gun like being a farmer, etc.
But considering the second amendment maybe just drop that one.

By allowing people to own bolt action rifles etc you still allow the right to bare arms, it's just significantly more difficult to engage in mass murder which makes all the difference.
The large in concealable size and low rapid fire of rifles make far less effective.

You can try and argue that with just bolt actions you can still commit mass murder but the proof here in Australia is that isn't true, you probably get just as much distance going nuts with a good plan with a machete.

Use the QE/printing money stimulus program in the USA to buy back all the guns, this is something good to do with all that spare money as its better to give it back to people then funnelling it into large corporate banking institutions.

It was the Port Arthur massacre in Australia where a guy that looked a lot like Kurt Cobain killed 45 people with a semi automatic rifle that caused the gun laws to change here. The child massacre could be the one for the US.

Sure some people say "guns don't kill people, people kill people" but I say it's much easier to fix your access to guns then fix people.

 

[Dauntless]

The fact that Hinkley was sent to St. Elizabeths rather than a prison had more to do with his father's Republican connections and status in the Mormon church than his mental condition.

The fact that Hinkley's brain had physically shriveled like a raisen had nothing to do with it, eh?

 

[Jeremy Harris]

It was the Port Arthur massacre in Australia where a guy that looked a lot like Kurt Cobain killed 45 people with a semi automatic rifle that caused the gun laws to change here. The child massacre could be the one for the US.

It was a child massacre in a school here that caused our gun laws to radically change. The tragedy was similar to that in Newport, a man walked into a primary school and killed 16 children aged between 5 and 6 years old, together with their teacher. He had four handguns and over 700 rounds, and fired over 100 rounds in the school. The result was a total ban on handguns in the UK, a law which upset a few thousand target pistol shooters who had their sport taken away from them but which has resulted in a very clear legal situation - any handgun seen here is illegal, unless it's held by the military or police (who don't normally carry or use hand guns anyway).

The effect has been like that in Australia, we've not had a similar gun massacre in one place since that tragedy in Dunblane in 1996. In fact we've only had one other major shooting incident, and that was a mad man who drove around Cumbria with a shot gun and killed 12 people over a fairly wide area in the space of a few hours, then killed himself.

I don't believe that guns are the root cause of massacres like this, but making guns hard to obtain certainly makes the probability of them a great deal lower.

 

[jonescg]

Hey Beastie - it was 35 in Tassie. Unlike most US massacres, he was arrested, charged, found guilty and is serving 35 life sentences. We don't have the death penalty, and with one exception, the victim's families are OK with that. A sign of a mature and informed democracy.

As a result of the Port Arthur massacre, the Australian gun control laws made owning a rifle more difficult, but not impossible. All guns designed specifically to kill humans as efficiently as possible were banned. Why? BECAUSE KILLING PEOPLE IS WRONG! The only people who need to be able to kill other armed people are the defence forces, and they are trained with all of the rigour and discipline you would expect for such a position. Anyone else is just a wannabe with a warped sense of what it means to be safe and free.