Batman Shootings

[+and-then]

The ability to reason between the parties has been lost. Ultra left gun control types want ALL gun ownership gone. Their opposites want unrestricted ownership rights. Those in the middle who try to craft a solution are stumped because they know that any concession, no matter how small, will set precedent that will cost them more and more standing in the "argument" There are reasonable solutions. The easiest start is limiting hi capacity magazine clips. If someone has to drop and reload every 8 or 10 rounds it will slow the carnage and give victims a chance of escape or resistance. A multi tiered background check system based on the type of firearm could help as well. An AR-15, AK-47, etc would require a more extensive background check and your name be placed in a registry to avoid straw buyers. A sporting/hunting type long gun would require minimal background check, handguns somewhere in between. The problem is that the discussion is so polarized that reasonable concessions cannot be made. Most card carrying NRA members will freely admit, I think, that rules could stand to be tightened some. But those on the left whose goal is abolition of a citizen's right to own a firearm is at the heart of the problem.

[Mr Right Wing]

Have you seen the size difference between the UK and the US..?..levy it out and no doubt the figures will be similar.

You can ignore that the US has a problem but others wont.

In the UK we get one every few years not every other day. We have 1/4 your population. This isnt about US bashing its about a society problem there that needs fixing.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Mr Right Wing

[Mr Right Wing]

You don't have to ban guns out right, I have no idea why the Americans think it is the only option which is unpopular at best.

You stop people from having them that do not a a genuine sporting reason. Make people prove they do by making sure they are members of gun clubs etc. Don't let people buy them who have violent criminal records. Then gradually and it would take decades remove the non-sporting weapons off the street.

I have owned firearms in the UK, when I gave up shooting as a sport I gave up my guns.

I don't need a firearm for protection as the chances of me being attacked either inside or outside my home by a gun is very slim. You will never stop every type of these crimes, however you can reduce the chance.

I agree with gun freedoms and think they should be more available here in the UK.

Its not a gun that kills but the mind behind the trigger. Banning guns doesnt address the problem and is an infringment of the freedoms of people who like going shooting.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Mr Right Wing

[Toadie]

I live in Australia we don't have guns and seem to cope fine

[WoIverine]

I live in Australia we don't have guns and seem to cope fine

Here's a tip, criminals still have them, even in Australia.

[JonathanVonErich]

I live in Australia we don't have guns and seem to cope fine

Sorry but this is a ridiculous statement.

From gunpolicy.org:

The estimated total number of guns held by civilians in Australia is 3,050,000 to 3,500,000 ( may 2012 )

You don't have guns in Australia ?? Sorry, you have.

[questionmark]

Sorry but this is a ridiculous statement.

From gunpolicy.org:

The estimated total number of guns held by civilians in Australia is 3,050,000 to 3,500,000 ( may 2012 )

You don't have guns in Australia ?? Sorry, you have.

Most of those are long weapons and shotguns, and given a population of 22,677,460 that makes 12% of the population having a gun,. In the US it is more like 47-50%.

[JonathanVonErich]

Most of those are long weapons and shotguns, and given a population of 22,677,460 that makes 12% of the population having a gun,. In the US it is more like 47-50%.

Very true sir, I agree. But our friend Toadie said that there's no guns in Australia, something that is totally untrue.

12% of the population is low compared to the US, but it's still a high number in my opinion. It sure is a lot of weapons.

[ninjadude]

The ability to reason between the parties has been lost. Ultra left gun control types want ALL gun ownership gone. Their opposites want unrestricted ownership rights. Those in the middle who try to craft a solution are stumped because they know that any concession, no matter how small, will set precedent that will cost them more and more standing in the "argument" There are reasonable solutions. The easiest start is limiting hi capacity magazine clips. If someone has to drop and reload every 8 or 10 rounds it will slow the carnage and give victims a chance of escape or resistance. A multi tiered background check system based on the type of firearm could help as well. An AR-15, AK-47, etc would require a more extensive background check and your name be placed in a registry to avoid straw buyers. A sporting/hunting type long gun would require minimal background check, handguns somewhere in between. The problem is that the discussion is so polarized that reasonable concessions cannot be made. Most card carrying NRA members will freely admit, I think, that rules could stand to be tightened some. But those on the left whose goal is abolition of a citizen's right to own a firearm is at the heart of the problem.

I surprisingly liberal position you've taken there that I agree with (Surprise!). Although I see no need for assault weapons at all. The NRA and RNC would vehemently disagree.

[Aus Der Box Skeptisch]

Don't need a gun to do that.

LOL certainly not but a bullet has a better chance of traversing the distance between myself and the attacker. With better odds of making a difference especially if I had to traverse the distance on foot while he had a gun....

[Aus Der Box Skeptisch]

You can ignore that the US has a problem but others wont.

In the UK we get one every few years not every other day. We have 1/4 your population. This isnt about US bashing its about a society problem there that needs fixing.

You completely missed the point. I am wondering if you understood it at all. Take the capita of the UK. Now take a sample capital from the us or mathematically reduce the statistics per capital and leverage that against the UK. Take all murders in the UK and compare it to your statistic per capital and I'm willing to bet it would be close to the same. Your comparison is flawed if you do it any other way.

[ohio traveler]

Batman shooting, Oikas University shooting, Chardon High School shooting are three prominant ones I remember from this year alone. A few months back Sky News was reporting nearly 1 every day.

Maybe you only know about the ones that get put on the front of US papers?

I suppose. But all cable news networks here in the US were covering the Batman shooting. That rarely ever happens. Sure there are daily small scale shootings in most major cities here. But it's usually just single deaths. Thugs, drug activity, small scale crimes, etc. They rarely make the news. I'm mainly talking about large scale mass shootings. Again, very very rare here considering a population of 314+ Million.

[ninjadude]

Again, very very rare here considering a population of 314+ Million.

Sadly they are not rare in any sense.

According to an ongoing tally kept by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the United States is experiencing an average of around 20 mass shootings each year.

https://rt.com/usa/news/mass-year-people-massacre-710/

[Toadie]

You misread what I mean. In saying we don't have guns I mean to say it is not common for a household to have a gun or do I rarely hear of people being gunned down. I don't feel unsafe in my house because I don't have a gun. I have no need for one.

Sure you can say what if someone comes into your house I don't have a gun I guess what will be will be but at the end of the day I'm not going worry about something that is very unlikely to happen. I would be more likely to die behind the wheel of the car but I still drive

[Mr Right Wing]

You completely missed the point. I am wondering if you understood it at all. Take the capita of the UK. Now take a sample capital from the us or mathematically reduce the statistics per capital and leverage that against the UK. Take all murders in the UK and compare it to your statistic per capital and I'm willing to bet it would be close to the same. Your comparison is flawed if you do it any other way.

Eh?

If you times the UK rate by 4 because we have a quarter of the population it comes out at about 1 a year. In the US its 1 every other day.

[Mr Right Wing]

I suppose. But all cable news networks here in the US were covering the Batman shooting. That rarely ever happens. Sure there are daily small scale shootings in most major cities here. But it's usually just single deaths. Thugs, drug activity, small scale crimes, etc. They rarely make the news. I'm mainly talking about large scale mass shootings. Again, very very rare here considering a population of 314+ Million.

I'm talking about gunmen going on the rampage.

Kids shooting 3 or more of their class mates, restuarant massacres, etc. Over the next few weeks I will note them down and give you some examples.

[Drayno]

Guns do not necessarily ensure protection - but they have saved lives before.

With so many violent video games; which I will not put all the blame on, the United States' youth have been baptized in violence. Does that make every child who plays Call of Duty a manical, violent, mass murderer? No, not always - but the ESRB ratings are there for reasons; violent video games that have M+ ratings are for 17 and older, but it seems all the more common that younger children play these games, and thus are introduced to violence increasingly at a younger age.

When I was far younger the first rated R film, or any part of one I watched was a scene from The Patriot.

And that is because my parents wanted me to understand the reality of things, since I was mature for my age. They wanted me to get an idea of what this country has gone through since its inception - and how it originally came to be. They knew I would learn things on my own, and eventually form my own opinions. But they gave me the proper tools to ready myself before the time came when reality fully descended upon me. Now, we cannot blame video games, films, and television for violence - we have to blame the parents for their lack of accountability. Of course parents cannot determine what their child does at all times; at a friend's house, when they have a computer or game system of their own, or when they are babysat by the television, instead of learning or running around outside, playing with sticks like children from my generation and before. Still, it seems more and more parents just brush off their responsibilities and let the television raise their children because of the complacent, lazy nature of our nation. We have become so accomadated to our way of living that it has made us arrogant..

We have the necessary right to bear arms to overthrow tyranny. Anyone who wishes to take away our rights to redress our government is an enemy to our freedom - and that is the truth. We are a Constitutional Republic for a reason; so that the politicians will be limited by our law, the systems of checks and balances will limit the abilitiy of groups of individuals to amend the law - or will give a systematic process to do so; so that corruption will be far less apparent..

However, corruption is embedded in our very lives, in our contemporary time..

The origin of this tragedy could be questioned, but we could not know for sure.. Do we know all the facts?

Still, be wary of those that would want to take this tragedy as an opportunity to sway the public to give up, or limit their rights to bear arms.

Once that happens, we have lost our Republic; if we already have not now.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Drayno

[Gummug]

I live in Australia we don't have guns and seem to cope fine

That's fine I guess, but I just hope you don't get a crocodile creeping into your backyard.

[Toadie]

Lol yes that really going to happen

[Gummug]

Lol yes that really going to happen

I thought I read somewhere that it had happened, and that it was becoming a problem...maybe I'm thinking of a different country *doh* *slaps forehead*

[Toadie]

First I have heard of that. If they are building houses near crocs breeding grounds humans own fault if a croc wanders in

Go swimming with the sharks you will get bitten one day

[Gummug]

I may be thinking of our own state of Florida...got confused maybe from watching "Crocodile Dundee". Anyway, swimming with the sharks and running with the bulls are neither one exactly first on my list of things to do, lol

edited to add: sorry for getting off topic

Edited July 21, 2012 by Gummug

[+and-then]

I surprisingly liberal position you've taken there that I agree with (Surprise!). Although I see no need for assault weapons at all. The NRA and RNC would vehemently disagree.

I am STAUNCHLY pro second. But I'm also the father and husband of a couple of wonderful people and as such would be willing to compromise IF a true compromise could be found that did not just set precedent for the next round of rights being usurped. There is room in the middle but the extremists from both sides keep the issue deadlocked. But if my choice is NO ownership versus unhindered ownership with no middle ground then I'll take my chances with ownership. And not to be argumentative of your point about hi power, hi capacity weapons but more people die from .22 caliber every year than any other kind of long gun.

[skookum]

I am sorry but I will never see the logic of allowing the public to walk into a shop and buy an assault rifle over the counter.

It isn't the gun but the finger that pulls the trigger, problem is the unhinged people can easily get hold of them when they finally go loopy.

[None of the above]

Is there any way to put restrictions on the materials for making homemade bombs, like pipe bombs, sticky bombs, that can kill far more people than automatic weapons? Won't make a damn if you put more restrictions on automatic weapons when the ability to make those kind of bombs are a lot easier for psychopaths, terrorists and criminals to blow people up with; especially in a theatre.

I'm all for gun control but we need to do something about the bombs and the ability to make those bombs first. It's too easy to make those damn things these days, versus getting automatic weapons.

In the Uk we have almost eliminated this sort of shooting because we've made it so difficult to get this type of gun (you can't own handguns or automatic rifles in the UK)

The argument that gun control doesn't work because it doesn't affect criminals, doesn't hold water in this type of situation more often than not. Reason is these people aren't career criminals with access to black-market guns. They are seemingly 'average' citizens who are not on the authorites 'radar' most of the time, which is why they can (as in this case) go and legally buy these weapons when one day they snap and decide to plan mass murder.

Also in the UK, the sale of any types of explosives, chemical components that can easily make explosives etc is regulated.

Which is why in the UK it's usually not the authorities that foil terrorist plots, it's the fact that often the home made bombs are so difficult to get right that they don't go off properly and the would be assasins are captured.

We are used to evil bombers, we fought the IRA for long enough and they were proper terrorists, not 'first offence' crazies. So when extremist terrorists wanted to start blowing things up, they did not always succeed becuase there are already laws in place to make procuring the raw materials dificult.

The USA has a completely different approach to dangerous items, guns especially.

This won't change that, None of the other mass shootings did. The huge amount of people shot each year in the states doesn't change the laws and the NRA and pro-gun lobby are so vocal and powerful that it's unlikely that any politician could manage to make the changes that would be needed to begin to reverse the body-count.

The soultion would start with a generation long tightening of gun laws until the numbers held privately were a fraction of those now held, with the complete banning of assault rifles and fully automatic weapons of any sort.

The alternative is an continuing esscalation of the current situation where you have the utter madness of an 'arms race' between criminals and the general public, assault weapons in private hands, armed militias and extremist private organisations that when things do go wrong can turn into a 'waco' type situation, and every nutcase who'se had a bad time having the ability to 'go postal' or become the next 'clocktower sniper' or any of the other euphemisms that you have to describe this type of situation. Metal detectors at every school, shopping centre etc.

When in any modern society you have average law abiding citizens convinced that they need an assault rifle in the house or need to carry a concealed pistol because they are afraid of crime, what it says is that not only is something hugely wrong in that society, but also that the state has failed to provide adequate protection for it's citizens and the police and justice system isn't effective enough.

Attitudes need to change.

Whether you believe that the right to bear arms should be kept or sacrificed for the greater good, only the most ardent supporters of gun ownership wouldn't admit that it was not designed for modern society and is being misused and taken advantage of in many wyas.