Soldato
Are you ignorant?
Google any of those countries and put school shooting, you'd find out a lot more have happened than you realise.
Another school shooting in the US
- Thread starter .Griff.
- Start date
Are you ignorant?
Google any of those countries and put school shooting, you'd find out a lot more have happened than you realise.
Deleted member 651465
D
Deleted member 651465
The shooter shown on BBC news, this morning, looked like a stereotypical geek.
Also, at least one teacher died shielding the children
. Terrible.
Also, at least one teacher died shielding the children
. Terrible.
Soldato
How many more school shootings must happen before the US decides to change their laws?
They really need to sort out their own issues before attempting to help other nations.
They really need to sort out their own issues before attempting to help other nations.
Soldato
I think it comes down to the culture too. Watch Bowling for Columbine!!
things wont change though because the NRA and gun companies have too many politicians in their pockets. There is literally no reason why everyday people need to carry handguns or have guns in the home. This country has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world, its no coincidence we have the lowest number of handgun deaths either. America needs to modernise its gun laws and check out UK firearms legislation for ideas.
As much as I have criticise Obama in the past, it was very hard to watch him give his reaction speech and not see this mans heart. I can't imagine exactly how Romney would have handled this but I know it wouldn't have been in the same manner.
Unbelivably tragic, total waste of life and so close to Christmas.
Unbelivably tragic, total waste of life and so close to Christmas.
Soldato
The USA needs to control guns more. Bloody nutters.
Soldato
Totally agree. Just to clarify I am not suggesting an out right ban. To be honest the USA has such a gun problem that restrictions would take years to have any effect.
The strangest thing is I always hear the self defense argument. With so many law abiding citizens owning and carrying guns for protection, however not a single one of these massacres is stopped short by a responsible gun owner using it for self protection.
Caporegime
Leaving aside the fact that these statistics clearly show the USA's per capita gun ownership is overwhelmingly the highest in the world (more than 50% higher than the second-highest), I have two words for you: (a) legislation, and (b) culture.
Soldato
I am not arguing against legislation, my argument is against a ban. There are some people that should be not allowed guns.
-Children
-Mentally ill people
-Convicted criminals (serious crimes)
-Convicted gang members
-People with terminal diseases
I also agree that the culture needs to be altered, if you remove guns the premeditated attacks will still happen. They may not be as bad or frequent but they will still happen. If you really wanted to go somewhere and your cr wouldn't start you would get a bus or taxi, less effective same end result.
Anyone who wants to or does carry out attacks like this is not rational or 'normal', we cant apply our rational thoughts to them as really they dont work. We need to work out why people get to this point, are there warning signs that people can look for. This will have a bigger impact imo.
I also agree with this article on the BBC,
Its a cultural thing, we can sit here and say they should get rid of them why do they want them etc etc the truth is though unless we grew up in that culture then we don't understand. I guess there are things in the UK that to outsiders seem strange and we want to keep (I know before you say they are not deadly) but still its hard for outsiders to "get" the culture.
If the US wants the freedom of guns they have to accept the downsides that are attached to this freedom, that sometimes some people will take the freedom and abuse it and make it seem like it is a freedom the common man should not have. As long as the US population want guns then they have to put up with these events.
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The availability of guns in America is a some what circular debate. The problem with the US is their culture, not the availability of legal weapons. Sadly, the availability of their firearms directly influences their culture... So the previous sentence is, practically speaking, false.
Soldato
OK lets do the last 20 years from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting
Country Guns per 100 people (school shootings)
United States 88.8 (106 if I counted correctly)
Serbia 58.2
Yemen 54.8 (1)
Switzerland 45.7 (0)
Cyprus 36.4 (0)
Saudi Arabia 35
Iraq 34.2
Finland 32 (2)
Uruguay 31.8 (0)
Sweden 31.6 (0)
Norway 31.3 (1)
France 31.2 (0)
Canada 30.8 (6)
Austria 30.4 (0)
Germany 30.3 (5)
Iceland 30.3 (0)
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
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As I said on the other page, Americans are stupid (or have way too much faith in their own ability) if they think that during a shootout they will suddenly turn into Magnum PI, roll over a car bonnet and take out the bad guy(s) with their pistol.
Police marksmen have years of training to handle situations like that, the idea that your average Joe with his 9mm could do it is asinine.
Even when armed, it is far more likely that the 'flight' mode would kick in and you'd just run away.
You haven't mentioned the large disclaimer about error:
So really it's safe to say that the US has 3 times as many guns per person as other developed nations.
Also, that survey counts "privately owned small firearms". If you do a bit more reading you'll see that Switzerland has an apparently very high number because it has a very small army supported by a large militia, every member of which is allocated a rifle and/or a pistol. By making it traditional and compulsory, and part of a wider military training program, and ensuring the guns are stored safely, they largely avoid them being used for crime/killing sprees.
It absolutely baffles me that you can buy military weapons in the USA. Or in any developed nation for that matter.
The premise of "hunting" is laughable. If you want to shoot animals here you get a shotgun. It's relatively easy but you need to prove you're storing it correctly and using it responsibly. In the states, having pistols and automatic weapons for sale when a shotgun/rifle are the only defensible choices for "leisure" is madness.
Also, basing the whole thing on the historical notion of "bearing arms" is laughable. It's from an era when firearms were slow, heavy, inaccurate, unreliable contraptions which most troops conscientiously refused to fire in battle (according to a documentary I watched several years ago). Extrapolating that to military weapons now is invalid.
They need an all out ban on anything which can't reasonably be called a hunting weapon IMO. With big enough deterrents (jail time) on the possession of pistols and automatic weapons you'd see them disappear. As above, move responsibility away from the individual to (ineptly) defend himself, and place it on an efficient, well funded, and well trained police force.
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Soldato
Agreed, but look at the number of school shootings above, the US have more than 3 times as many school shootings, something like 20 times more than anyone else?
Bearing arms is to allow the people to be armed to overthrow the government if they wanted to, to stop the government from doing things that would make it a tyranny or dictatorship. At the moment that seems like it is not needed however no one can predict the future. You could not overthrow the government with a single shot hunting rifle.
Caporegime
I entirely agree with you. Banning guns is not the answer. The appropriate response is to regulate gun ownership and change the culture that contributes to their abuse and misuse.
It is interesting to note that the USA experienced its first school shooting in 1764 (source) and has seen a consistent upward trend in such incidents over the past 248 years.
By contrast, Australia has not experienced a single school shooting in its entire 224-year history.
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
- Posts
- 10,938
They already have a mechanism to stop that though in their triple lock political system (inspired by ours). The very purpose of that system is to stop one of the pillars of power from being able to dictate to the population.
It's not like the President can just say "Right I'm getting rid of democracy, announcing myself as the de facto leader and setting the army on the people". He can't do anything on his own, he needs the support from the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.
The only way the US could become a dictatorial tyranny would be for one organisation to somehow infiltrate all three houses of power at the same time (which they could only do by tricking the US public into voting for that).
Ain't never gonna happen.
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If that's true then it's a very expensive insurance scheme paid in children's blood.*
From what I've seen recently, if the people of a country want to overthrow the government then weapons inevitably appear. When they wrote that in things were wild and lawless. A few centuries later as a developed nation it's time they take out the irrelevant bits.
*(ooh what a sentence)
Caporegime
And yet that is not how the 2nd Amendment is currently being interpreted. Therein lies the problem.
Anyone who honestly believes the US military could be defeated by a civilian uprising is deluding themselves.
^^ This (although countless Americans will claim otherwise).
The entire country runs on a lethal brew of fear, prejudice, paranoia, and irrational superstition.
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America needs to get rid of the whole frontier mentality over time... there are two many people out there who religiously defeat their 'rights' to guns that any debate around the issue is already clouded by the fact that the constitution has given them this absolute right to carry firearms and its somehow infallible...
The UK banned handguns in response to Dunblane and it worked in the sense that we've not had an incident as bad as it and are unlikely to*. While gun violence in the UK has increased in spite of the ban its amongst gang members etc... and arguably irrelevant to the ban. Some nut-bag gun collector getting worked up in his own little world doesn't have the option anymore.
Taking away the ability to conceal firearms, banning automatic weapons and restricting rifles seems to be a fairly sensible option. I don't have an issue with the idea of someone owning a shotgun for home defence (not a legitimate reason in the UK but perhaps should be) or shooting rabbits and I don't have an issue with someone owning a bolt action rifle for hunting - neither of them are going to be particularly effective when it comes to indiscriminately attacking people in the form of a massacre and if you're carrying one in an area where you've got no use for it its not exactly inconspicuous. Legislation to ensure guns are kept securely aren't permitted to be owned by people with criminal convictions etc... would be fairly sensible.
No one needs to take away the 'right' to bear arms - but its a fairly vague amendment and some sensible legislation/cultural changes need to be introduced over time in the US if they want to avoid this sort of thing in future.
*We've had 'incidents' - what would the death toll be, for example, if Raoul Moat had access to handguns or automatic weapons instead of a shotgun. The ex girlfriend wouldn't likely have survived nor the policeman and we might have had other police fatalities.
The UK banned handguns in response to Dunblane and it worked in the sense that we've not had an incident as bad as it and are unlikely to*. While gun violence in the UK has increased in spite of the ban its amongst gang members etc... and arguably irrelevant to the ban. Some nut-bag gun collector getting worked up in his own little world doesn't have the option anymore.
Taking away the ability to conceal firearms, banning automatic weapons and restricting rifles seems to be a fairly sensible option. I don't have an issue with the idea of someone owning a shotgun for home defence (not a legitimate reason in the UK but perhaps should be) or shooting rabbits and I don't have an issue with someone owning a bolt action rifle for hunting - neither of them are going to be particularly effective when it comes to indiscriminately attacking people in the form of a massacre and if you're carrying one in an area where you've got no use for it its not exactly inconspicuous. Legislation to ensure guns are kept securely aren't permitted to be owned by people with criminal convictions etc... would be fairly sensible.
No one needs to take away the 'right' to bear arms - but its a fairly vague amendment and some sensible legislation/cultural changes need to be introduced over time in the US if they want to avoid this sort of thing in future.
*We've had 'incidents' - what would the death toll be, for example, if Raoul Moat had access to handguns or automatic weapons instead of a shotgun. The ex girlfriend wouldn't likely have survived nor the policeman and we might have had other police fatalities.
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