[Closed] 26killed in america. sky news now.

Just noticed your last post...

Most states ban automatic weapons, leaving semi-auto as the only available option if you want something vaguely military. I think it was Clinton who tried banning assault-type weapons and that ban got rescinded by GW in his second term (I think).

Interestingly, gun ownership has risen sharply both times Obama got elected on fears that he would try banning weapons.

...and probably because his name sounded a bit, y'know....brown!

Don simon I would like you to have a think about how much worse it would have been had they had the right to bear arms

Sad though the total is it is less deaths than this one incident

It would tend to support the view [ poorly expresses in the comment you have chosen]that access to guns makes these incidents worse which was the point being discussed.

deadlydarcy - Member
...and probably because his name sounded a bit, y'know....brown!

Gordon??

Is he actually still an MP?

How many kids have the US killed in drone attacks. How often does this get wall to wall coverage? Seems that in the eyes of the west, American kids lives are worth more.

OOh davidjones15 is Don Simon?

Yes.

What can one say? Repeated polls have shown that the US public oppose tighter gun controls, or anything that would regulate the (IMO, absurd) availability of high-power weaponry.

The consequences of lax gun laws make it [i]all[/i] too easy for nutjobs to go postal. The gun lobby know & seem to accept this.

Nobody [i]needs[/i] an assault rifle.

Nobody [i]needs[/i] a car that can go faster than the speed limit

Hundreds of people die every year in the UK as a result of speeding

Yet repeated polls have shown that the UK public oppose tighter controls on cars and speeding

Maybe our attitudes to risk and regulation aren't so different from the Spam's after all?

Wow, you're on to comparing cars and guns already? You normally wait till you're really desperate to head there. We're only on page 3 FFS. 😆

Especially for [i]the[/i] Zulu:
[img] [/img]

Are you incapable of discussing the points Darcy?

Do you really need to rely on ad hominem for [i]everything[/i]

is that [i]really[/i] the best you've got?

Go on, which of my points do you disagree with?

Is it the interpretation of the US supreme Court judgement in Heller?

Or perhaps the Statistics on Gun ownership comparisons between the US and canada?
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/rs/rep-rap/1998/wd98_4-dt98_4/p2.html

But the best you can really come up with is that?

[b]weak[/b] 🙄

The US has such a short history and it's mostly a history of US and THEM! Of division.

There's more profit in a system of division. People will defend what they know and love more fiercely if it's perceived there's a band of others out there doing the same for an alternative.

The military moved away from relying so heavily on sharpened blades when firearms became more readily available.

And now they use bombs.

Then the next level was drones. Now there's an even further 'detachment' through the use of robotic drones. Can killers be more detached from the action of killing than certain modern militaries have become?

Anyway, I wandered off there. War is too big a business for there not to constantly be one going on for the USA.

9/11 deaths: ~3000
War on Terror per capita: ~ $4 mil per person (1.283 tril / 313 mil)
Gun deaths: Chicago alone, over 4,000 people age 21 or younger (over last 4 years)
Mental Health budget per capita: $90-270 dollars per person (cut by 1.6 Billion)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/24/87-gun-deaths-a-day-why-the-colorado-shooting-is-tragically-unsurprising.html
http://www.nami.org/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm?ContentFileID=147771

Do you really need to rely on ad hominem for everything

Calm down Zulu FFS. 😆

Are you incapable of discussing the points Darcy?

Do you really need to rely on ad hominem for everything

is that really the best you've got?

Have you read the boy who cried wolf...chuckles

Its amusing to read you doing this - shame you are only doing it for a reaction as usual though

So, you [i]really[/i] still can't come up with anything better?

Thats rather poor - I mean, I gave you the chance... but come on, you [i]really[/i] can't pick any holes in my argument?

Its a pretty poor show isn't it really? You're really flagging - I mean, arguing with you is increasingly like watching my opponent turn up to a knife fight with a spoon. Its just upsetting to see you fall by the wayside like this.

Hope you feel better soon 😕

Hold on were you not just complaining about ad hominems

The high ground argument was short lived 😕

Ah a nice Big Hitter troll thread. It's threads like this where tagging is really missed 🙂

Volvo for sale

On the pro-gun arguments:

1)The Canada thing is rubbish. Canada has roughly half the gun ownership compared to the USA (22 percent vs 48 percent of households according to the document linked above). Further to that, in Canada, less than 12 percent of those households own any handguns, being the best guns for sneaking into places to do murders (and the best for killing lots of people quickly at close range once you have done so.) In the US, it is 58 percent.

So Canada has less killings with guns, because they mostly buy guns that are only very good for hunting, mostly only own them in remote rural areas, and hence mostly shoot animals with them. In the USA, they buy handguns, which are good for killing people, keep them in busy cities, and often carry them all the time, and voila, they tend to kill people with them.

So basically, guns don't kill people, but providing vast numbers of people with the type of gun that is designed to kill people, tends to make it a lot easier for them to kill people.

It also makes it way easier for them to commit suicide - hence the really really high rate of suicide in the US, particularly amongst teenagers. Similar percentages attempt suicide in many other countries, it's just that we don't provide about half our kids with a foolproof method of killing themselves. Unless one is to argue that any suicide, even amongst confused teenagers, is natural selection, by supporting widespread and unrestrained gun ownership, you are supporting this state of affairs - essentially saying that your 'right to bear arms' is more important than giving thousands of kids the chance to live at least until they are 18.

2)If you arm the teachers, you are giving guns to many thousands of people, all of whom have every day easy access to kids, are regularly stressed out by kids and have mental breakdowns at at least the same rate as any other profession. So, you're putting guns in the hands of a load of people, all of whom are the most likely people to have some kind of a breakdown around kids, and to be blaming the on kids at the point they have that breakdown. Nice idea.

3)Further to that, and more importantly, assuming you want the teacher's gun to be close enough at hand for them to shoot an intruder at a moments notice, you are putting a gun which is not safely locked up in a secure lock box (or else they'd never get it out in time), right near a load of kids. That's not a recipe for an accident when a curious kid finds it (about 200 kids a year die from gun accidents in the USA, and more adults - according to some statistics at least, they have a significantly higher rate of accidental death by gun per 10,000 population than our murder rate).

4)The mental health thing is a bit of a red herring - if mental health services had any way of knowing who was likely to go postal, the people would be locked up already. Other than that, if you seriously think that anyone with mental health issues shouldn't be allowed a gun (the commonly stated statistic is that this would include approx 25% of people), logically, you've also got to say that they shouldn't live in a house with a gun, which would mean probably a majority of people wouldn't be allowed guns. It would also be an active deterrent for gun nuts to seek mental health support, as they'd know their guns would get taken away, so could actually make things worse. So the only logical thing to do there is to argue for extreme restrictions on guns.

Joe:

USA : 32% -

Can - the document linked to above gave a 1998 estimate of 26% - there's plenty of discussion on the underreporting of firearms ownership in canada here:

USA Vs Canada crime rates:

http://web4.uwindsor.ca/users/m/mfc/41-240.nsf/0/10ff8b04ff3a317885256d88005720f6/$FILE/ATT8BNDV/0110185-002-XIE.pdf

and

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/its-the-guns-_b_1700218.html

Junkyard - Member

Hold on were you not just complaining about ad hominems

The high ground argument was short lived

You're supposed to do as he says, not as he does. I'd suggest doing neither tbh.

I've not seen any mainstream accounts of this yet.

Is it still like this?

"And they blame it on Marylin and the heroin
Where were the parents at? And look where its at?
Middle America now it's a tragedy
Now it's so sad to see, an upper class city"

I'm guessing the scapegoat of today is xbox games and weed?

Nobody needs a car that can go faster than the speed limit

Primary purpose of a car: to travel from a to b.

Primary purpose of an assault rifle: to kill efficiently.

You, as an ordinary citizen, might well need a car. You certainly don't need an assault rifle. Public liberty has become confused with what amounts to a gun-fetish.

Well, I agree, 'legitimate' gun owners (hunting etc) don't need a fully automatic assault rifle.

But nobody [b]needs[/b] a car that can do 120+mph do they?

Speeding drivers kill far more people than guns in the UK.

Fatal motor vehicle accidents in which speed was determined to be a contributory factor [i]probably[/i] do outnumber gun deaths in the UK. However, many of those will have involved speeds of less than 70mph. So, even assuming we could govern all vehicles to that maximum, fatal accidents would still occur.

800 under 5's die every hour from illness and starvation.....nearly 7 million a year! maybe the 1st world gun owners (me included) should sell thier guns and do something usefull with the money, come to think of it no one needs more than 1 bike or phone or tv or car or pc etc etc. People in the future will look back on us and wonder why we did so little to help.

Speeding drivers kill far more people than guns in the UK.

Its because we regulate the guns unlike the americans innit

maybe the 1st world gun owners (me included) should sell their guns and do something usefull with the money

Bizarrely the folks in the US are rather good at philanthropy as well (e.g. Bill Gates). It's a difficult country to grasp

Junky - Big book of Science: page 1, chapter 1

[i]correlation is not causation[/i]

😉

Ah right so the lack of availability of guns in our country has no impact on the gun death rate and liberalising them would have no affect as it is just a correlation...interesting "scientific" argument from you as usual.

No holes in that one hence your "joke"

People in the future will look back on us and wonder why we did so little to help.

what we will be recorded as in history doesn't bare thinking about..

a pretty despicable nation of effete and braying self indulgent dandies I imagine

I think our (1st world) main problem is greed, we've confused being greedy with being successful, if you have more than you need you are a success.....praise the greedy ridicule the needy.

2nd amendment....Why?

it goes something like this

[i]800 under 5's die every hour from illness and starvation.....nearly 7 million a year! maybe the 1st world gun owners (me included) should sell thier guns and do something usefull with the money, come to think of it no one needs more than 1 bike or phone or tv or car or pc etc etc. People in the future will look back on us and wonder why we did so little to help. [/i]

You've not been to the 3rd world then? Maybe if their rich/powerful gave a toss, then we could be accused of doing nothing - but until those countries do more to help their poor, then I'm doing nothing else.

It not the best entry I have ever read for humanitarian of the year but fingers crossed for you

Perhaps you could flash it up on screen over this song and Merry Christmas

man with massive firepower kills lots of small children. I Say take away any possibility of massive firepower to any citizen and **** their so called constitutional rights. or at least legislate to anyone owning much more than a shotgun for vermin etc. Hugely deadly combat weapons do not belong in the hands of your ordinary person in the public arena. This is the only argument here. IT's just wrong and impossible to change which is sad cos this will happen again and again 🙁

Thing is Kevevs, a lot of folk can only get hard-ons with guns in their hands. Some of them here get hard just thinking about them, let alone using them. Imagine the cost of supplying Viagra to them instead?!?

well get those mixedup-****s in Gun therapy!

The coverage is getting pretty upsetting now - it's not like your normal shooting coverage - distraught presenters vissibly bordering on crying etc. I'm a bit shaken myself now.

Who the **** shoots a 6 or 7 year old with a rifle 11 times. I can't even begin to consider what it must do those trying to identify them.

What really concerns me is I think that the cats out the bag in terms of guns in the USA, there are millions and millions of illegal guns in the US and loads of recorded crime using illegal weapons....those states that have concealed carry laws have lower crime rates.

So the Americans it seems have so ****ed their country by allowing easy access to semi automatic weapons that it's become like nukes....ie certain countries have nukes and can't get rid of them because international security is effectively a mexican standoff. If the legal guns are gotten rid of, it does seem that there will still be plenty of illegal guns and crime will actually increase. 🙁

It has to start somewhere though...

But it won't.

For them all everywhere - possibly NSFW but its just about a gun 😉

Happiness is a warm gun
( bang bang shoot shoot )
Happiness is a warm gun, yes it is
(bang bang shoot shoot)

When I hold you in my arms (oh yes)
When I feel my finger on your trigger (oh yes)
I know nobody can do me no harm
Because
happiness is a warm gun, momma
Happiness is a warm gun
-Yes it is.
Happiness is a warm, yes it is...
Gun!
Well don't ya know that happiness is a warm gun, momma? (yeah)
Comes from an advert

I have the strangest boner.

Tough luck you aint getting any for months 😉

My youngest celebrated her 5th birthday party today along with 5 other friends of her age.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to experience what went on 🙁

We do not watch very much in the way of television so we have avoided to watch the news.

I don't think it would have been right to have watched coverage of it when we are celebrating the life of a wee 'un.

Will this event change the views of that country? I doubt it unfortunately.

nice one ho hum i can read the crap accent
🙂

I think it's totally precient if you live there to bring up the gun laws in a political conversation, especially if you are the president. Surely Obama could change one thing before his office is ended. these weapons have to end
.

If I didn't have the virtual outlet of the various incarnations of GTA over the years, goodness knows what I might have done in real life.

Sadly some of my more religious FB buddies have started posting this drivel.....
[img] [/img]
So apparently its not to do with crazy people and easy access to guns after all.

Cultivating an appetite for violence is not healthy for society. Wether or not you might actually be the next Thomas Hamilton or Michael Ryan.

Who knew that playing "cowboys and Indians" with toy guns would turn me into a mass murderer?

Not sure taking extreme views here will help

I think few of us will think that violence in games and society in general will help reduce violence but how causal it is in creating violence we can never really know.

FWIW experiments consistently show that kids who watch violent stuff then play more violently. I am not sure I would generalise this to mass murder but I would be sure it is not helping reduce violence

just been reading about Victoria Soto, one of the teachers who died. she hid her class in a cupboard and faced the gunman so he wouldn't look for them, telling him the kids were in a different part of the school.
that's ****ing brave that is. well done girl. rip

Is it standard practice to have cupboards large enough to hide a whole class full of schoolkids in?

i dunno, my school had big storecupboards that were certainly big enough to get the whole class in. but it was an old victorian/edwardian building so didnt really lack space

I struggle with long sentences but Morgan Freeman had this to say.. pretty sage I reckon

Morgan Freeman's brilliant take on what happened yesterday :

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

Is it standard practice to have cupboards large enough to hide a whole class full of schoolkids in?

Everything is bigger in America.

Including their gun problem.

TBH, I was wondering if these cupboards were actually "panic rooms". The idea that such a thing would be standard in school design......

yeah i figured that was your thoughts, i dont think so, it was described as a store cupboard. i think a panic room would be a better idea then arming the teachers though for the reasons mentioned above. shame either option needs consideration really...

Morgan Freeman's [i]the man[/i].

Not sure that the car v guns argument really holds up. Alcohol, tobacco and drugs probably kill more than cars so where do we stop with the banning of specific items. We then end up with steam irons kill more than hair dryers so ban steam irons. There really is no correlation between vehicle deaths and gun deaths particularly in the UK where guns are restricted and vehicles are freely available.

As it happens there are more vehicle deaths in the US than gun deaths.

I cant understand why the thread degenerates into personal arguments when we should be thinking about the tragedy. Unfortunately the "right to bare arms" is part of what the US hold most sacred, their constitution. Until they realise the world is now a very different place than when the constitution was formulated they won't begin to prevent this.

I can only assume that the next tragedy will be an attempt on "the record" to create the worst gun tragedy in US history.

As someone who lost his hobby after Dunblane (and I fully understand why the new measures were put in place) I can see it from the gun owners point of view. What's needed is a sensible approach with all parties coming to an agreement on the best plan for moving forward to try to make their country a safer place to be.....but by all parties, I mean just that.

It's easy to blame it all on the access to machine guns but there are way more factors that need to be taking into account rather than just blaming the NRA for the ills that America suffers from. There are plenty of countries around the world that allows their citizens access to guns, allows them to defend their property and themselves but not the extent that America does.

The Morgan freeman thing is fake. Standard for the sh**e that's posted on facebook

still.. fake or not.. the message has some value..

I suspect that you too are fake comrade.. but thanks for the useful input there.. 😉

@Comrade - Let me ask how you know the Morgan Freeman thing is a fake. Plus wether or not it is it does have some substance and the best you can come up with is that its fake. I guess that you consider that a worthwhile contribution!

the ownership of guns in america as more to do with Nathaniel "Nat" Turner than the 2nd amendment,he is still the american nightmere

druidh - Member

Is it standard practice to have cupboards large enough to hide a whole class full of schoolkids in?

Was at my school. I think they were supposed to be full of stuff- books, paper, etc- but they were nice and empty because Thatcher.

You've not been to the 3rd world then? Maybe if their rich/powerful gave a toss, then we could be accused of doing nothing - but until those countries do more to help their poor, then I'm doing nothing else.

I was wondering if these cupboards were actually "panic rooms".

Might well come

One of the teachers was desgnate as responsible for security - not really sure what this means
The school had to be designated as a gun free zone

I would say you are in deep do do if you are at this stage

When suggestions for solutions include letting god in or arming teachers then it makes me want to shake my head in disbeleief

Its a strange a country - they think they are the envy of the world but tbh living like that would not appeal to me in any way shape or form and it has a dark under belly to the American dream and such complete individualism.

It seems that those at the margins are so disenfranchised [ with easy access to guns] that stiff like this will keep happening

What they want to do about is their problem but it would seem clear there is little need for militia or for folk to be armed lest the govt oppress them.

I dont think many will willingly give up this right so , tragic though it clearly is, I fear they may need to get used to one of these every year or so 😥

bwaarp - Member

What really concerns me is I think that the cats out the bag in terms of guns in the USA, there are millions and millions of illegal guns in the US and loads of recorded crime using illegal weapons....those states that have concealed carry laws have lower crime rates.

The public are heavily armed so criminals are heavily armed.

The argument that people should be free to own weapons to protect them from the government is somewhat twisted.

So the Americans it seems have so **** their country by allowing easy access to semi automatic weapons that it's become like nukes....ie certain countries have nukes and can't get rid of them because international security is effectively a mexican standoff.

There's a lot of fear and paranoia about crime. I've heard a lot of US citizens using the terms "bad guys" and "good guys", which suggest a somewhat quaint, over-simplified view.

It wouldn't surprise me if gun sales increased after each of these school/college/mall shootings, although handling a handgun in an emergency situation - whipping it out quickly and accurately, then shooting the armed assailant(s) without harming bystanders is easier said than done.

If the legal guns are gotten rid of, it does seem that there will still be plenty of illegal guns and crime will actually increase.

As somebody pointed out earlier, there is a very large difference between rural folk hunting wildlife in the forest with rifles and urban dwellers carrying semi-auto pistols on their person -something which seems absolutely ludicrous to members of other supposedly orderly societies...

[i]"Hmm, I need some milk and bread from the local shop... Where are my keys, my wallet, possibly my phone and, oh silly me, I almost forgot, my 9mm semi-automatic pistol with hollow-point rounds. I'll not walk because my assault rifle is in the car and, you never know, I might just need it "
[/i]
Having travelled about the world (USA included) without any form of firearm in my pocket or vehicle I've never felt that I needed one.

Its difficult to legislate for the insane, without trampling the rights of the sane. Makes a mockery of majority rules.

lazybike - Member

Its difficult to legislate for the insane, without trampling the rights of the sane. Makes a mockery of majority rules.

Why should the majority have the right (or the need) to carry semi-auto pistols around though?

urban dwellers carrying semi-auto pistols on their person -something which seems absolutely ludicrous to members of other supposedly orderly societies...

Junkyard

One of the teachers was desgnate as responsible for security - not really sure what this means
The school had to be designated as a gun free zone

I would say you are in deep do do if you are at this stage

When suggestions for solutions include letting god in or arming teachers then it makes me want to shake my head in disbeleief

To the outsider it seems that they are missing the point. Ramping up the firepower isn't solving the problem.

Junkyard

Its a strange a country - they think they are the envy of the world but tbh living like that would not appeal to me in any way shape or form and it has a dark under belly to the American dream and such complete individualism.

I like the US (the parts I've been to), but what struck me when I first went there was the number of visibly poor people, very run-down neighbourhoods and the level of 'scruffiness'. Outside of large cities, nobody walks anywhere either. Middle-income people had a very pleasant lifestyle though.

Despite what some people like to think, the UK has more in common with our European neighbours.

Why should the majority have the right (or the need) to carry semi-auto pistols around though?

lazybike - Member

Why should the majority have the right (or the need) to carry semi-auto pistols around though?

No idea...I think it's a principal thing with them.

It's fairly screwed-up, that's what it is.

You or I could jump in our car and drive down to Southern Europe. At no point would we consider the need to carry fire-arms.

"Joe Middle America" considering a similar journey would probably have to consider how/where he would carry his personal side-arm and, possibly vehicle weapon, as he passed through the various states. If stopped by the law he would be careful to keep his hands in view so as not to concern the officer (with his pistol drawn).

If you or I travel to the USA and make the same journey, we would be unarmed....

How many (non-military/law) people feel that any point in their life would have been enhanced by carrying one of these concealed about their person?

[img] [/img]

or one of these in the house/car?

[img] [/img]

Ramping up the firepower isn't solving the problem.

That said there seems to be something in the psyche of americans as well as the huge numbers of weapons.

Its a strange one in all honesty if I knew hoodlums were armed on the streets etc i suspect I would also be armed - how they break this cycle I dont know

Re concealed weapons reducing crime the picture is somewhat unclear as the reduction also coincides with the massive increase in incarceration so it may be an effect of that rather than guns per se.

While Americans only represent about 5 percent of the world's population, nearly one-quarter of the entire world's inmates have been incarcerated in the United States in recent years.[3]

It's fairly screwed-up, that's what it is.

Junky - thats very interesting when you look at it against this:

[img] [/img]

Prison works?

Zulu-Eleven - do you think that the residents of the US feel safer now than they did in 1990?

I like that the rates all tail off after Ecstacy use became mainstream..