f6andBthere
Well-known
You're right ... where the hell did I get Stephen Bryant from?
Thanks ... will edit. 🙂
Shoot a camera, not a gun
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You're right ... where the hell did I get Stephen Bryant from?
Thanks ... will edit. 🙂
sanmich
Veteran
I don't know what is the crime profile in the US (I figure it's generally pretty high) but maybe isolating a gun free zone with millions of guns around simply doesn't work?
About Israel, things are more subtle. First there was a suicide bombing inside the Hebrew University, so it's not 100% effective. Second, the people guarding schools (very low wages, you complete the picture) are not exactly what can stop a determined attacker with an automatic riffle. My conclusion (and I'm sure lots can disagree with me) is that schools where and are out of the range for the terrorist organizations.
On the other hand, some of the guards are involved in violent crimes, sometimes against their wives, and the availability of a gun makes the violence more likely to end very badly.
I think the only thing you could learn from Israel, is that contrary of what one may think, we have a pretty tight gun control for civilians, and that even in the case when they are allowed for self defense, war weapons are totally out of the game for civilians to own.
I, and several of my friends have given up on owning a gun when we had kids. In the balance of things, even if in some rare occasions, a gun would
add some security, it is much more dangerous than protective. It can be stolen, an idiot can want to play with it, and even if some day I get in a fight (not my type, but still), I would rather not have a gun on me. Better have my face punched than having the puncher grab the weapon from me and turn it against me, or me killing him and having to face the legal and moral consequences.
sevo
Fokutorendaburando
They may reasonably suspect who fired the gun and who among the present did not - they can not in their own power declare a death by shooting self-defence, at any rate within the European legal concepts I am familiar with (and the US are not that different from the UK systems). It would not end before a grand jury, probably not even in a public hearing - but somebody assigned to the judiciary rather than executive (possibly a coroner, magistrate or examination judge) would have to decide.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Entirely true. On the other hand, if the Old Bill judge it to be self-defence, and do not arrest the shooter, then events are likely to take a rather different course than if they immediately rush him off to the big house. The latter was for some time in the late 20th/early 21st centuries the preferred course in the UK despite centuries of case law.
Cheers,
R.
paulfish4570
Veteran
thank you, sevo and gavin. well done.
you need not worry about the teachers-with-guns effort. won't happen.
the wapo editorial doesn't break down homicide assaults into gun and non-gun segments. nor does it say whether suicides (which are, by definition, here in the states, homicides) are included. i have to wonder how/if the statistics are significantly changed. the second highest cause of death for teens here is suicide. (the first is dui vehicle crashes.)
additional so-called gun control here would affect ONLY law-abiding citizens. criminals - as is always the case - would continue to ignore any firearms laws.
most law-abiding gun owners here, i believe, would ignore ANY federal gov't buy back program or give-up program, thus creating millions of gun-owning "criminals." i think you'd find very few law enforcement officers willing to go house to house to search for and confiscate firearms.
if i remember correctly, less than 1 or 2 percent of all gun-related crimes here involve semi-automatic rifles, and even fewer involve fully automatic rifles or submachine guns.
just saying ... 🙂
you need not worry about the teachers-with-guns effort. won't happen.
the wapo editorial doesn't break down homicide assaults into gun and non-gun segments. nor does it say whether suicides (which are, by definition, here in the states, homicides) are included. i have to wonder how/if the statistics are significantly changed. the second highest cause of death for teens here is suicide. (the first is dui vehicle crashes.)
additional so-called gun control here would affect ONLY law-abiding citizens. criminals - as is always the case - would continue to ignore any firearms laws.
most law-abiding gun owners here, i believe, would ignore ANY federal gov't buy back program or give-up program, thus creating millions of gun-owning "criminals." i think you'd find very few law enforcement officers willing to go house to house to search for and confiscate firearms.
if i remember correctly, less than 1 or 2 percent of all gun-related crimes here involve semi-automatic rifles, and even fewer involve fully automatic rifles or submachine guns.
just saying ... 🙂
gavinlg
Veteran
I just wanted to highlight this part of your post. I was raised around guns, and I was raised in strict adherence to firearm safety. My dad pounded it in to me, he sent me to a safety course who pounded it into me. It is second nature to me to feel the chamber and pop the mag of a firearm to check for ammunition as soon as I touch it. It's second nature to avoid at ANY cost pointing a firearm at someone, even if I know 100% that it isn't loaded. It's second nature to check the chamber and mag as soon as I have finished using a live firearm to confirm that it's indeed dry. It's second nature to know how the safety works and run my fingers over it constantly to check that it's on.
These things come from education about firearms. My absolute adherence to firearm safety comes from being taught about it. I have seen teenagers and young adults who haven't been exposed to this kind of education pick up a (bolt-less/dead) firearm and point it at someone (knowing that it won't fire) and I have shouted at people for it.
Respect for the firearm can only really be obtained through understanding it, and that can only be obtained through safety training/education. I see the same paradox in driving - speeding is demonized, learning the limits of the car is demonized, driving eduction might as well be nill (at least in Australia) and that is why road deaths are so ridiculously high. There is no exposure to what a car or a firearm can do - how it should be handled, and how devastating it can be, and that is one of the BIG problems with the anti-firearm argument. Limiting what a law abiding citizen can do just dumbs them down. Educating them (from a young age!) WILL save lives.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Highlight: so do I. Well, most of the ones that I've met, anyway.
On the other hand, a nation is not exactly the sum of its parts. A body politic can fail to reflect the views of its members. One of the jobs of a body politic (and a job it does not always do well) is to act as a brake on hysteria, especially hysteria as fostered by the gutter press, special interest groups including opportunist politicians, and others who do not share the interests of the nation as a whole.
Cheers,
R.
Peter_wrote:
Well-known
you forget one fact: it saved the life of your cousin, that the intruder hadn't a gun.
even with very liberal gun laws, the airlines wouldn't allow to carry arms in their aeroplanes. and if it would be allowed, the terrorists would have had guns, too.
so this is a very good illustration. what do you think would be safer? harsh controls, and no guns allowed, or everyone with a gun armed in the aeroplane?
at least the airlines, with their unemotional, professional view, know what's safer...
Roger Hicks
Veteran
This thread is why I FIRMLY believe that non-photo-related topics are VERY important on forums like RFF. We've had widely differing but generally reasonably respectful views from numerous countries, with widely differing laws and experiences, that we'd never have had if we'd logged on to the NRA website or www.woolly-minded-liberals-against-the-bomb.com (to save you the trouble, no, it doesn't exist).
In other words, we're dealing with people who, insofar as they are concerned with 'single issue politics' are more likely to be interested in the right to keep and bear cameras than in the right to keep and bear arms. How can such a multifaceted discussion not benefit intelligent, informed discourse?
Cheers,
R.
In other words, we're dealing with people who, insofar as they are concerned with 'single issue politics' are more likely to be interested in the right to keep and bear cameras than in the right to keep and bear arms. How can such a multifaceted discussion not benefit intelligent, informed discourse?
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Brett,
Probably matters to Stephen Bryant, cf. the confusion of Adam Lanza and his elder brother,
Cheers,
R.
Paul T.
Veteran
Indeed.
Actually to understand the internal workings of the political system, is pretty staggering. I've seen some of how this works in the UK at first hand, and it was pretty depressing to see legislation being subverted at the last moment in the House of Lords.
Yet reading MAster Of The Senate - the volume of LBJ's biography by Robert Caro, in which Caro lays out the whole corrupt system - is truly jaw-dropping.
LBJ brought in civil rights, Medicare and Medicaid. But he used corrupt millions from Brown & Root - now Halliburton - to do it.
Obama, or others, can bring in a degree of responsible gun control, something a civilised nation needs and can live with. But ultimately, he'll need a huge amount of money to do so - for money speaks louder than public opinion.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Paul,
That's not fair. Money BUYS public opinion. Or at least, the part that's listened to...
Cheers,
R.
Beemermark
Veteran
One misconception is that the US does not have "gun control " laws. At last count the number is about 28,000 laws covering gun control.
Also, legal semi-automatics (which include the so called assault rifles) do not shoot 100 of rounds per minute.
And last of all some examples - Great Britain has some of the toughest most restrictive gun control laws existing prior to WWII in any free nations. Being a relatively small island it should be possible to rid the place of all guns and keep it gun free. Besides gun crime increasing dramatically in England for the last decade you have events like this -
The Cumbria shootings was a killing spree that occurred on 2 June 2010 when a lone gunman, Derrick Bird, killed 12 people and injured 11 others before killing himself in Cumbria, England. Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 1996 Dunblane massacre.
How about Norway, another country with strict gun control laws. 80 killed in July 2011.
Maybe instead of screaming about more and more "laws" we should concentrate on passing laws that really protect people.
Also, legal semi-automatics (which include the so called assault rifles) do not shoot 100 of rounds per minute.
And last of all some examples - Great Britain has some of the toughest most restrictive gun control laws existing prior to WWII in any free nations. Being a relatively small island it should be possible to rid the place of all guns and keep it gun free. Besides gun crime increasing dramatically in England for the last decade you have events like this -
The Cumbria shootings was a killing spree that occurred on 2 June 2010 when a lone gunman, Derrick Bird, killed 12 people and injured 11 others before killing himself in Cumbria, England. Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 1996 Dunblane massacre.
How about Norway, another country with strict gun control laws. 80 killed in July 2011.
Maybe instead of screaming about more and more "laws" we should concentrate on passing laws that really protect people.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Or possibly on enforcing the ones we have. When I was reading law, decades ago, my father pointed out, "Certainty of punishment is much more effective than severity of punishment." In other words, better a $1000 fine and the virtual certainty of being caught, rather than the death penalty and one chance in 10,000 of being caught.
The 'size of island' argument is not however compelling in the form in which you present it. Population density is arguably more convincing. The population of the UK is about 3x the population of Australia, but for the geographically challenged, Australia is quite a lot bigger. Albeit with much more unevenly distributed population.
Cheers,
R.
Ezzie
E. D. Russell Roberts
I would hesitate to compare the two. What happened here in Norway was not akin to a disgruntled youth laying hands on some obviously readily attainable guns and going to town (as has happened more than a few times in the US it would seem). The Utøya massacre and the Prime minister´s office bombing was more akin to the Oklahoma affair. It took years of planning and rooted in a strange form of white superiority, antisemitic, anti-islamic, anti just about everything foreign, belief. He wrote a so-called manifest of 1500 pages, which the acts of terrorism were meant to promote. He had no intent of getting killed, he needed a trial in which to further promote his bile. No gun control could hinder such an act, a better anti terror intelligence service may have.
astro8
Well-known
For me it's not all about crazed gunmen with automatic rifles and a deathwish....
When I was in my teens some of my friends and I wanted rifles.
We went to Kmart and bought guns, just like you would a fishing rod or a pair of underpants for that matter....a scenario that is unimaginable here today. A couple of us bought .22 semi autos, someone else a 12 guage and others .222's, if I remember correctly.
A week later one of the friends had an altercation with a bunch of louts in his street. He walked inside his door, picked up the rifle he had bought, walked back outside, took aim and shot the ringleader dead where he stood.
One young life gone, another ruined.
I know in my heart that if we hadn't bought or been able to so easily buy those rifles, he would of just walked inside his door and closed it behind him.
When I was in my teens some of my friends and I wanted rifles.
We went to Kmart and bought guns, just like you would a fishing rod or a pair of underpants for that matter....a scenario that is unimaginable here today. A couple of us bought .22 semi autos, someone else a 12 guage and others .222's, if I remember correctly.
A week later one of the friends had an altercation with a bunch of louts in his street. He walked inside his door, picked up the rifle he had bought, walked back outside, took aim and shot the ringleader dead where he stood.
One young life gone, another ruined.
I know in my heart that if we hadn't bought or been able to so easily buy those rifles, he would of just walked inside his door and closed it behind him.
frank-grumman
Well-known
Indeed, certainty of punishment also interwoven with immediacy of punishment coupled with intensity/severity of punishment. At least in one of the jurisdictions in which I spend much of my time, no such sequence appears in instances of individuals charged with the illegal carrying of weapons. Not surprising then that the homicide rate by persons already known to be criminals in that jurisdiction is, shall we say, quite substantial.
Bille
Well-known
I am trying to follow your logic ...
Would you say losening the strict gun law of say Germany, would make this country safer for everyone?
MikeDimit
Established
I was always convinced that there is something nuts in this combo- U.S. citizen and The Gun. Why you don't want to register your guns?!?! You DO register your cars, cell phones but still as for weapons - nope? It seems like everyone of you have in their mind to shot somebody and not be caught? In my country guns are not forbidden - it is difficult to get a license to own one, but it is not impossible. And there are a lot of guns in people hands ( a kind of a tradition), yet they are REGISTERED. So if you shoot with your gun you WILL be caught . So simple!!
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