Guns in the US (again)

[Dav]

How many more times does something like this have to happen before the US works out that its gun controls are too relaxed

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7129906.stm

 

A shooting in a shopping centre this time has left 8 dead.

 

With all these incodents in america one has to wonder how the US gun laws are justified. Things like this do not happen where the ownership of a gun is tightly regulated.

[Shock]

"The gunman, Robert Hawkins, is said to have suffered from depression in the past, and recently lost his job at McDonald's and broke up with his girlfriend"

 

Wow, what a pathetic excuse.

 

Agreed with Dav on the gun law. Although, our second amendment kind of guarantees the right to bear arms...

[NBVegita]

The gun laws are strick, depending on the state of course. But the problem is that when someone with no mental instability in the past, with good references and a flawless background applies for a gun, gets one, and goes nuts, how the !@#$%^&* are you supposed to prevent that?

 

No matter how many restrictions you have, you can't prevent the crazy.

[Bak]

you could just ban all guns (amendment needed). i guarantee that with a knife or bat he wouldn't have gotten 8 people. I believe he took an AK-47 from his stepdad.

 

Then again, without civilian gun ownership Queen Elizabeth could walk all over us.

[masscarnage]

2nd amendment states that we can have guns for a well regulated militia, i dont think we have anymore militias

[NBVegita]

I know its a conspiricists theory, but one theory behind not banning guns is that if only the government is allowed to have guns, then if we attempt a revolution, we will never be able to overthrow our government.

 

How long do you think the american revolution would have lasted without guns?

 

I hate the idea of the only people in the country having guns being the government.

[Wild Luck]

i saw it yersteday in the news, its very sad. but i think is not US law problem, cause i think the black market would sell guns if they were illegal. The problem is what is causing kids to do this kind of kamikazi behavior.

[sil]

2nd amendment states that we can have guns for a well regulated militia, i dont think we have anymore militias

The Second Amendment reads: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

 

Which is not what you interpreted it to be.

 

And really, all of you saying "gun controls are too laxed", then what exactly do you propose they do different? I am not talking ideas like "well look at Australia or England and do what they do" ideas either. The US is an entirely different place.

 

And those for all out banning, do you really like "banning guns" is gonna stop people from getting them? Who are you going to ban them from? Everyone? Certain groups? How are they going to accomplish searching every place in the US for guns to make sure they get them? How are you going to replace the people's jobs who depend on gun and gun sales?

 

Now I do think there needs to be some review of gun control laws and the penalties for breaking them, but I am not familiar enough with each State's laws to say what. But really, I do not see it making much of a change as kids are taking from people who legally own them. Or they had no previous signs of craziness. As NBVegita said: No matter how many restrictions you have, you can't prevent the crazy.

 

Also, I live in Omaha and was almost there at the time of the shooting, but decided I was too lazy to go there that day.

[LearJett+]

I just wish someone in the mall had had their own gun with them (legally, by the 2nd amendment) and killed the guy.

[NBVegita]

owning a gun, and having the right to carry concealed are two different creatures.

 

Some states refuse to authorize you carry concealed, and even in the states that you can, it's very difficult to get, it's highly restricted and there are many areas (schools ect) that you can't carry in even with a permit.

[Bak]

I just wish someone in the mall had had their own gun with them (legally, by the 2nd amendment) and killed the guy.

I wish the guy didn't have a gun in the first place so less innocents would die.

 

 

And really, all of you saying "gun controls are too laxed", then what exactly do you propose they do different?

I propose we ban all guns from civilians.

[Dav]

True banning guns will not get rid of them. What it will do is mean most people will not have a gun.

 

Do you think these depression-fuelled shootings would still happen of there isn't a gun readily available to these people?

 

Almost all cases of these m!@#$%^&* shootings sound like an impulse act, if the gun isn't there in the drawer it is unlikely these people will seek a gun on the black market to do it.

 

In the cases where people are going to seek a gun they will be more visible to the authorities as their act of seeking the gun is illegal and may be picked up before they get a chance to murder.

[Bak]

I think the problem is that 99.999% of people with guns don't go murder people, so we're trying to create an amendment for the 0.001% that do which affects all 100% of gunowners. It's a sucky situation.

[Dav]

Yet stats show that where gun laws are more relaxed there is a higher amount of gun crime.

 

Is it not fair to protect that 99.999% from that 0.001% by preventing people from owning guns? Afterall one big argument is "they have a gun so I also need a gun". Take guns away and the need for them is also reduced.

[NBVegita]

Do you think these depression-fuelled shootings would still happen of there isn't a gun readily available to these people?

 

Actually look back at most of the shootings and they're highly premeditated. Even as recent as the VT shooter, he even made videos prior to doing it, did reasearch and spent months to get the guns.

 

Another statistic you don't see is how many lives guns save.

 

Me for example, would not be here if not for my mom having a gun. When I was 5 a drunk man broke into the house. My dad was at work. My mom immediately ran and got her .357 magnum, and the guy was still hesitant to leave even after seeing the !@#$%^&* monster of a gun. I had called 911, as soon as he broke in, which took 45 minutes to show up. Eventually the guy made the evening news because after he left our house he broke into another house and killed the entire family with the hunting knife he had hidden in his belt.

 

The funny thing is that we even called the news and told them our story, and aparently it wasn't good enough to make the news, even though it was a wonderful story on how a gun saved the lives a mother and her two children. And do you think we're the first or only? Guns save lives every day, but there's no coverage or statistic for that.

[Incomplete]

That's a difficult thing to say really. 'Guns save lives' If the man that broke into your house made a move to attack either you or your mum then i'm sure she would have blasted him away, in which case the gun would have killed someone else. Or in this case couldn't you say that she scared him off to a different home where he killed. So in this case everyone would have needed a gun to be safe because he seemed so determined to kill. Obvously everyone having a gun wouldnt prevent crime, just make it worse. It sounds like this man was slightly crazy as if I had a gun pointed at me I wouldnt think twice about having the risk of it happening again.

[Bak]

so like one of those taser sticks or those police guns that shoot tasers would have worked too.

 

also I remember hearing statistic that a gun in the home is more likely to be used against the family than an intruder.

[NBVegita]

It would have directly saved lives.

 

If my mom had shot him, one man is dead. He was a convicted felon out on parole. In the process one woman and two children had been saved. Even discounting the life you took, you've still saved 2 lives.

 

And if they had owned a gun, or the police had been faster, their lives would have been saved.

 

Case and point, with no guns, at least our 3 lives would have been taken, and possibly more.

 

also I remember hearing statistic that a gun in the home is more likely to be used against the family than an intruder.

 

Could you please post a source for that.

 

so like one of those taser sticks or those police guns that shoot tasers would have worked too.

 

A taser stick could easily be taken away from my 5'2" 95 pound mother, and two decades ago I don't believe they had invented taser guns.

 

Also a taser gun doesn't intimidate an intruder into leaving, plus you have to be a lot closer than a gun to use.

[Drake7707]

if you shoot him here in belgium, you'd end up being the murderer and be convicted as such. Only in some cases of self defense (meaning he has to actually point his gun at you and hope he misses because he'll have to shoot first in order you may legally shoot back), joy joy >.>

[ra$ta420]

I am waiting for u s a to blow up everything about it is wrong

[X`terrania]

so like one of those taser sticks or those police guns that shoot tasers would have worked too.

 

also I remember hearing statistic that a gun in the home is more likely to be used against the family than an intruder.

 

I actually back bak on this one, if I were to become insanely stressed or angered, or under the influence I would mostly like rage on my family.

[Bak]

also I remember hearing statistic that a gun in the home is more likely to be used against the family than an intruder.

Could you please post a source for that.

The paper is "Protection or peril? An analysis of firearms related deaths in the home." (New Engl J Med 1986. 314: 1557-60.) by Dr. Arthur Kellermann and Dr. Don Reay. Basically they tracked gun deaths in King County, Washington, from 1978 to 1983 and got the following results:

 

Type of Death			 No.
Unintentional deaths 	 12
Criminal homicide 		41
Suicide 				  333
Unknown 				  3

Self-protection homicide  9

which gives a 43:1 ratio that the gun will kill someone the owner knows rather then a stranger.

 

Admittedly there are some problems with this study, it is fairly dated and doesn't take into situations like the one mentioned here, where the intruder is deterred from doing anything without being killed.

 

Here's another article from the university of washington: http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=1910 The ratio they cite is 22:1 (although sadly they don't say from which study). another interesting tidbit from that article:

risk of domestic homicide increases three times when one has a gun, and suicide increases fivefold if a gun is present in the house.

 

 

If my mom had shot him, one man is dead. He was a convicted felon out on parole. In the process one woman and two children had been saved. Even discounting the life you took, you've still saved 2 lives.

Perhaps so but how was she to know he had a knife and was planning to kill someone?

[Falcoknight]

The problem is not the guns, but rather the lack of education on how and when to use a firearm.

Many people buy guns for "protection" as was pointed out, but many are not trained in any way on how to use the gun, nor are they used to being around guns.

[SeVeR]

I think its a given that there will be a lack of education. And given that given... is it worth allowing guns to be legal?

 

One might argue that guns can be used in self-defense. The alternate argument would be that legal guns find their ways into the hands of criminals pretty easily. The murder rate being three times higher in the US as compared with most developed countries (with firearm homicide rate being almost 30x) might lead one to theorise that self-defense is significantly outweighed by the aforementioned disadvantages.

 

Stats: www.nationmaster.com

[ESCANDAL0SA]

you guys are so blind. the problem is that America, as a whole, hasn't banned guns country-wide. in Canada, where guns are banned, in a big city like, for example, Toronto... there are probably about 16-20 gun murders a year. the total homicide rate falls between 70- murders a year. this compared to, for example, Philadelphia which has about 360+ murders a year, and i'm sure the portion of that related to guns is a lot more than Toronto's. obviously, the gun laws have worked and have made the streets safer. Canada's problem, and the problem of increasing shootings in America comes from the ,000 stores who sell guns "legally". The states with little or no effective gun laws allows licensed stores to sell guns to anybody who doesn't have a criminal record. And, evidence shows that even those who have criminal records are still sold guns to. These people are gun dealers, who then smuggle large amounts of firearms to states that have strict gun laws (New York), and also up to Canada. Street shootings and gun crimes use illegally smuggled guns. Almost all guns in Canada and certain states like New York, come from places like Georgia and Virginia, where there are practically no gun laws. !@#$%^&* the NRA. they preach false information. at a little meeting they had, they falsely informed Americans, "Let's not go the direction that Canada has gone where their ban on guns have had no effects on gun crimes, because the gun crimes have increased." no. gun crimes have actually steadily declined. the reason why they're still existent is because of stupid laws in America that allow store owners to sell up to 20 guns a visit to OBVIOUS gun dealers, knowing that these guns will end up on the streets and in the hands of the wrong people.

 

and let me add... as long as you have inconsistent gun laws in different states in America, you're always gonna see these shooting sprees. a strict gun law in one state means guns will be bought from dealers who smuggled them in from another state with a less strict gun law. it's contradictory.