Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717

"Many die in US school shooting."

Oh God no.

That's terrible.. That picture of the kids being led away has really got to me for some reason? It makes it all real. Horrific....

Horrible, horrible news. I was just about to post some random rubbish on Twitter about my iPod crashing when I saw the breaking news article. Puts things firmly in perspective.

Fucking Hell! What's wrong with people?

Nothing more or less in the USA than anywhere else.

Just too many fucking guns.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... un-control

Obama may as well put through some gun control legislation now. It'd be a guaranteed vote-loser, but he won't get another term anyway.

Yeah there does appear to be some consensus on that, if any president is going to do it, he's the one and now is the time.

I still can't quite get my head around the mere concept of 'constitutionally enshrined right to wield deadly weapons'.

I think, when America came into being they were worried about the government deciding to do the same sort of stuff that led them to go there in the first place. As a result, and not really trusting the people in power to do the same again, they had the idea of sticking a clause like that into their constitution so the populace could overthrow a government that was doing bad stuff. Over time, this has mutated into what it is now. I suspect Kern knows more.

Yes, that's it, Mali. It also seems to me that they've also wilfully misconstrued it, and ignore the qualifier about "well-regulated militia". I'm convinced it was never intended to be a blanket right for all and sundry to have guns for no reason.

They must have *some* checks, surely?



I'm not sure how that compares to the UK, but isn't that a case of having a need for one,and a chat with the police?

In the UK (for shotguns at least) you have to fill in a stupid form and pay some money, and then a policeman will come to your house and inspect your gun cabinet. If he's happy (and they've always been thorough in my experience) then off you go.

There are some odd rules still - for instance, you can own a semi-automatic shotgun (or a pump) that can hold up to seven shells, but you're only allowed to load five. I'm not sure about rifles, but I think the process is similar. As far as I know, handguns aren't allowed at all.

It's debatable both ways, I think the actual text isn't clear what the exact intention is:



In some states, it's very few. Connecticut, that you quoted, has unusually tough laws. Look at Texas for a counter example; no permits required for handguns, long guns, or shot guns. In many states, if you go to a licenced gun show, you don't even need to show ID to buy unlimited guns and ammo. And states have started to honour each other's firearms licences and concealed carry licences, which means (in effect) that the state with the laxest laws is becoming a nationwide standard.

Yes. There's some exemptions for small calibre pistols for target shooting, but other than that the legislation introduced in 1997 (IIRC) banned all handguns.

Mods -- gun control debate thread split?

On it.

Nobody has done a graph of frequency of shooting deaths vs ease of legally procuring firearms, have they?

Point 5 in this article does it on a state level.

Te;egraph reports that the mother's guns were used. She owned 5, and was a survivalist.

That's really good, thanks.

As Michael Moore tweeted; if only his first victim had been a gun owner, she could have fought back and stopped this happening.

Or if the school had armed guards.

I thought Moore was anti-gun, though?

Hah!

Should have armed the kids, tbf.

The first victim owned all the guns.

Sorry, durr. I forgot about the mother.

He is, that sounds like a sarcastic parroting of the standard NRA line against gun control - highlighting how stupid it is in cases like this.

Curio already figured why it was sarcastic

I'm not sure it's that debatable for anyone sane, is it? It's a simple, "because, so" construction. If the "because" is not operative then the "so" becomes irrelevant.

Of course, in reality it is fairly debatable because they have fairly free gun ownership laws rather than everyone having signed up to Mr Kissyfur's statutory interpretation.

I think it (gun ownership) is a tricky one. Guns are used for lots of things that are not shooting other people. Target shooting, hunting and, um, other stuff being some that spring to mind.

I'm not convinced that owning guns for self protection is a valid reason for ownership, the people that do that would probably feel vulnerable whereever they were*, and I'm not really convinced it is a proper reason. It seems that they are rationalising the ownership of the firearm to themselves, more than to the outside world. If they have this, then no bad will happen. or soemthing. Just conjecture.

Removing guns altogether wouldn't be a great move, because some people do have legitimate uses for them. Also, by removing them compeltely, sections of society would get really pissy. As we have seen, the guns used in this latest shooting spree were legally owned, and I think many of the firearms used in other places were, too.


Clearly, this where legislators should be looking to try to guard access to the guns. Maybe a good idea would be to allow the citizens to have guns but they must keep them in a neighbourhood silo, which is locked? Potential downsides are that it would be an easy target for gun thieves, and some element of inconvenience for owners, especially if they live in the arse end of beyond, colelcting their equipment. Another option is to keep the firearms at home, in a locekd box, but have the police call around to give the owner the key to open it, at 24 hours notice. However, I fear people will call "state interference!" on this idea, too.

So, all in all, I dunno. We're quite good in this country at not shooting up children, with access restrictions to firearms that appear to work. I don't see why, or how the US can sort themselves out of this. There can't be any way to get all states to agree on one solution. The amendment is so far in the past and out of the window nowadays, it needn't truthfully exist. If the US wants to keep its guns, then 20 6 year olds every now and again seems to be the price they are willing to pay for it.




*Sort of like peoople that keep weapons in their cars/by their bedsides to give rotters a jolly good hiding when they come calling.

Not by the person the did the shooting, though.

I still can't see one valid reason for owning a gun. People say they have then to defend themselves, but why do you never hear if crazed gun men getting shot before they've had chance to kill anyone?

Sorry, yes. I left hat bit out by mistake.

Maybe "gun ownership" isn't so much of a problem as "access to guns" is.

I agree.

I own one because I like clay pigeon shooting, and the club guns are all too light in the nose for me.

1) Huntin', shootin', fishin'
2)because it rarely, if ever, happens, and people feel safe if tehy have a gun on the 1/1,000,000,0000,0000,0000,000 event that soemthing will happen. And then you are putting your life on the line for the contents of a jewellery drawer. Which eans you value life less than the contents of that drawer. Which isn't a great deal, in the scheme of things.

But if someone said you couldn't own a gun, because there's a chance school kids could get killed with it.. You'd give it up, right?

Why should the small chance of kids getting killed interfere with my huntin', shootin', or fishin'?

You're better off banning cars to save kids.

Here's where you'll be invited to replace 'gun' with 'car'

See edit.

Damn, too slow.

There are already pretty significant limits on shotguns to try to prevent people getting shot by them. Secure home storage for guns, magazine size, ammo restrictions. It's not banning them, but it's limiting options and imposing rules for public safety reasons.

Here, or there?

I'd be pissed off, because they're quite expensive things.

I mean, if the police told me I had to then I would. I wouldn't be happy about it, though.

Here. I imagine the rules are much laxer in the US. But Grim... faces some pretty significant jail time if he's careless or naughty with his shotguns, even without shooting people.

It may be small to you, but try explaining that to a parent who's lost a child who's been shot.

Guns primary purpose us to cause damage and kill something living where as cars are a mode of transport. Argument invalid.

I don't suppose you can store your gun at the club?

This is true. A policeman once pulled me over on the way to work (when I worked at the clay pigeon place) on Boxing Day, saw the shotgun case on the seat next to me and asked me to show him what was in it. I refused and told him if he wanted to follow me to work I'd show him when we got there, or we could go back to my house. He argued a lot, and got a bit arresty. Fortunately he radioed in and they told him I was right.

Oddly, he never asked to see my shotgun license, which was a good job as it was at home

I'm sure I could, and that is a logical step (with the downside that they become places for baddies to go and steal lots of guns). This is hypothetical land though, so I don't know what would be allowed.

Try explaining that to a parent who's lost a child who's been run over.

Here's a table of gun deaths per head: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate

The UK: .25 per 100,000 (we're pleasingly near the bottom).
The US: 9 per 100,000 - that's thirty-six times higher
El Salvador: 50

Fascinating table that, so Georgia has the most incompetent gun owners with 1 in 100,000 shooting themselves by accident every year.

Also surprised at how low the figures are for the countries in the old Eastern Bloc...I bet those figures have come down a lot from the 'wild west' years.

I chose 'cars' as it caused me some amusement. More so with Kalmar's post. it wasn't completely serious reply. But I'll pick up that ball and run with it, anyway:

I'm fairly confident that I don't want a parent of a child killed by X arbitrating on anything to do with X. We've had 6 generations of guns being mass produced and readily available. We're doing OK. As tools, used correctly, they are fine and safe. When not being used correctly, people die. Same with a lot of things.

I think the problem is more to do with guns being used outside the legislation. Those who should not have had them, rather than those who own them. Legislation exists in one form or another to try and curtail the wrong people from being near deadly tools, sometimes it doesn't quite end well, othertimes it does. The tension exsits between the apparent right to have guns, and the legislation controlling this right.