Gun Violence is as American as Apple Pie

[Going411x7]

And the beat (insanity) marches on. :sad:

 

[Going411x7]

And the beat (insanity) marches on. :sad:

12/14/12 --almost two years later: And the insanity continues to march on. :bad:

 

[ColtAR-15]

My suggestion for those that hate guns. Don't own one. I just wish the schools weren't unarmed victim zones (gun free zones) so the victims could have a fighting chance and not be lambs to the slaughter. Theres a reason why theres no mass shootings at police stations and its not because people adore the police. Their armed and can defend themselves. But I know guns are evil.

 

[Going411x7]

Maybe we should arm all the kindergartners.

 

[CUSP82]

Maybe it's not the guns but the culture that needs to be changed. Do you want to see how little people value life? Go to Detroit; just a couple of murders everyday. We have taken morality out of life and replaced it with individual rights. You're a bit nuts and you don't want to take your medication that keeps you somewhat normal? Sure you have rights; we can't force you. You want to take mind altering drugs that slowly over time will change your personality one way or the other and maybe result in a violent person? Why not! Take whatever you want because it's your right to put into your body whatever you want to and you know you can get it anywhere. Have a couple of DWI's but you can still drive until you kill someone and then it's not really your fault; it's the alcohol. Hey we're getting standards in some states on how stoned you can be before you're too stoned to drive. People can't drive safely when they're not impaired but it's a good idea to make some kind of standard of when you're too fucked up to drive. It's our culture, not the guns, that need to change. Take God out of schools and life itself because it psets a small minority, get rid of Christmas, get rid of anything that makes the individual responsible, buy beer for your 16 year old because you know he's reponsible, give the keys to an unlincesed driver ( as happened here in NY and let him kill 4 of hs friends), and on and on!

 

[BigRooster]

My suggestion for those that hate guns. Don't own one. I just wish the schools weren't unarmed victim zones (gun free zones) so the victims could have a fighting chance and not be lambs to the slaughter. Theres a reason why theres no mass shootings at police stations and its not because people adore the police. Their armed and can defend themselves. But I know guns are evil.

Or why there isn't any shootings at gun shows. Our tax dollars are wasted on so many useless things. Why don't we use that money on an armed security. In Israel the teachers are armed to protect their children. Our own regulations are killing us in situations like this.

Yep. Guns are evil knives are evil. Gardening tools are extremely dangerous. Pens and pencils are deadly. No people are evil. There is nothing good in us.

Maybe we should arm all the kindergartners.

Really?

 

[Pegasus]

Low rates of non miltary gun owernship throughout europe and low rates of gun violence. I do agree with Cusp in part I don't think it is only the availibility of guns, the culture is a big factor. A crazy person in Japan may suicide but they rarely murder.
We in Australia seem to be becoming more Americanised, it is a worry on many fronts.

 

[Closed039]

Maybe we should arm all the kindergartners.

I don't think it is a good idea to arm kindergartners. However, weapons training at a young age could be a good idea, so I agree with you there.

Pilots can now apply for a license and carry firearms. Why not let teachers?

 

[ColtAR-15]

We in Australia seem to be becoming more Americanised, it is a worry on many fronts.

And theres nothing worse than behaving like an "American", right.

The U.S.A. Every countries favorite punching bag until they want something!

 

[ColtAR-15]

Maybe we should arm all the kindergartners.

Go ahead and make that suggestion to your Congressman.

 

[ColtAR-15]

Or why there isn't any shootings at gun shows. Our tax dollars are wasted on so many useless things. Why don't we use that money on an armed security. In Israel the teachers are armed to protect their children. Our own regulations are killing us in situations like this.

Yep. Guns are evil knives are evil. Gardening tools are extremely dangerous. Pens and pencils are deadly. No people are evil. There is nothing good in us.



Really?

By conventional "wisdom" given the amount of firearms present at gun shows every one of them should result in a bloodbath.

 

[ColtAR-15]

Some facts:

Counties with the highest rates of gun ownership have less violent crime than those with lower rates of gun ownership.

In states that adopted "shall issue" concealed carry license policies the crime rates dropped after adopting those policies. Why? Because criminals prefer not to get shot. This was contrary to the rhetoric of the anti 2nd amendment crowd who said there would be frontier style shootouts in the streets on a daily basis.

Despite very restrictive gun control in the U.K. gun crimes increased by 89% in a decade. Some areas reported a seven fold increases. Like certain counties in the U.S. the areas with the highest rates of legal gun ownership reported the fewest amount of gun crimes.

Despite very restristrictive gun control laws in Mexico it is one of the most violent countries. Mexico city is the world leader in kidnappings. Mass buriel sites and be- headings are almost commonplace. Cartels regularly possess weapons that have never been sold in American gun stores. Crew served machine guns, Heavy machines guns, RPG's, grenade launchers, etc. Only the corrupt police, federal forces and cartels are afforded an opportunity to defend themselves.

In Australia after law abiding gun owners were forced to turn in 650,000 privately owned guns in 1996 crime has been on the increase. It was on a steady decline prior to this. Country wide homicides increased by 3.2%. Assaults increased by 8.6%. Armed robberies up by 45%. In the state of Victoria homicides increased by 300%. Gun control works. It efficiently disarms the law abiding, emboldens criminals and leaves their victims defenseless.

Despite very strict gun control in Norway, 92 adults and children were killed by a mass murderer in 2011. Had any of the victims been afforded the means of self defense there is no doubt in my mind the casualty count would have not been this high.

In Switzerland, a country of 7.9 million there are 4.5 million firearms. It has one of the highest rates of gun ownership of any country. In 2009 they reported only 24 gun related homicides.

During WWII Imperial Japan formulated an invasion plan for the U.S. After taking into consideration the amount of firearms in civilian hands they cancelled their invasion plan.

So called assault weapons are used in only .20 of 1% of all violent crimes and in about 1% of all gun crimes yet they are depicted by the media and politicians as personally owned nuclear devices and are the first thing to typically be called for banning. In California AR type rifles are considered "assault rifles" and are restricted. Mini-14's are not. Both fire the same caliber, have the same rate of fire and accept 20 and 30 round magizines. They are equally deadly. Why is one banned and the other one isnt. Because one looks mean and the other doesn't. It is obvious that those that make the laws are clueless.

Several states have banned 50 BMG rifles. I cannot find one documented case of this rifle type ever being used in a crime. Several states have restrictions on the possesion of air guns, slinghots, slinghot ammo, folding knifes, crossbows etc. Has there been a rash of air gun crimes that I am unaware of?

American cities with the highest incidence of violent crime coincidentely also have the most restrictive gun control.

After taking power totalitarian regimes have traditionally then called for strict gun control.

If you were a robber, burglar or aspiring mass shooter, would you prefer for your victims to be armed or unarmed?

While calling for gun control seems to be politically correct and just "feels" good to some, it has no effect in preventing crime. In fact the opposite is true.

Draconian gun control is as American as Communist China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Am I against all forms of gun control. Absolutely not. Felons, drug users, and those with certain psychological disorders should not own guns. I even think that a certain level of training should be required along with gun storage requirements. If the requirements are reasonable I am all for it. The problem is most law makers are not reasonable and it is more than obvious if they had their way there would be no civilian ownership. Total disarmarment and restrictions of personal liberties almost always happens in small increments. That way there measures appear to be reasonable and it gives the population time to get accustomed to having their rights violated.

 

[Going411x7]

I was raised with hunters--learned fire arm safety at a young age. I had many hunting
guns--no assault weapons, for sure. They were and are for the military.

A family member took one of my shotguns, (after I left home), and in a psychotic
rage, murdered a stranger, shotgunned this woman to death, orphaning her two children.

I hate guns--always have--always will. They have no place in a civilized society;
although I hardly think of our society as civilized.

 

[ColtAR-15]

I was raised with hunters--learned fire arm safety at a young age. I had many hunting
guns--no assault weapons, for sure. They were and are for the military.

A family member took one of my shotguns, (after I left home), and in a psychotic
rage, murdered a stranger, shotgunned this woman to death, orphaning her two children.

I hate guns--always have--always will. They have no place in a civilized society;
although I hardly think of our society as civilized.

I'm sorry for the events you summarized. Its unfortunate that this happened. I agree some people are not to be trusted around firearms. Did your family member have problems before this?

Curious what specific characteristics define a "assault weapon" for you?

 

[Going411x7]

That's a "no-brainer." Automatic or semi-automatic guns, with multiple rounds, primarily used for killing human beings.

In answer to your first question, of course. He went into a psychotic episode.

We have more and more mentally disturbed people in our society, a big factor in the mass killings of recent years.

 

[ColtAR-15]

That's a "no-brainer." Automatic or semi-automatic guns, with multiple rounds, primarily used for killing human beings.

In answer to your first question, of course. He went into a psychotic episode.

We have more and more mentally disturbed people in our society, a big factor in the mass killings of recent years.

So you knowingly left a firearm accessible to someone who had issues before and in all probability you knew to be mentaly unstable. And after your psychotic family member kills several people you seem to place all the blame on the firearm itself and place no culpability on your family member or yourself for leaving the gun for him to use. Because it is often dificult for people knowadays to place blame on themselves or family members for tragic events you put all the focus and blame on a firearm.

You seem to blame every gun owner and gun because they exist rather than the psychotic family member. I am glad you hate guns and I really hope you don't have any accessible to you. Sorry to be blunt but that is the way I see it. In California if you leave a firearm accessible to a minor and it results in death or serious bodily injury to anyone that individual just bought themselves a felony. I have zero tolerance for irresponsible gun owners. I think all this comes down to just a breakdown in society. No one is ever at fault. There is no personal responsibility anymore, its always someone elses fault, the guns fault, the teacher, the parent, they were spanked,society, etc. In your family members case did the gun fire on its own or did he pull the trigger? You have a right to hate guns but if that situation happened to me I would hate the family member who committed those terrible deeds not whatever method was used. If your family member used a car and intentionally killed that woman would you then hate cars or would you place the blame where it belongs. Since you suffered a horrible personal tragedy it has biased your judgement and caused an irrational hatred for firearms. Its understandable but still irrational.

According to your description of what is a assault weapon about 70% of firearms including most handguns would fall under this. Even liberal California falls way short in such a description. Pretty radical. Would my 30-06 semi auto deer rifle be allowed? After all the 30-06 was created for the 1903 Springfield. A military rifle.

So the 2nd amendment means nothing. Is the only speech that is guaranteed under the 1st amendment just speech that can be agreed upon also. It seems to be the case nowadays. My conclusion is people tend to hate guns because they know nothing about guns. People fear the unknown and I am willing to bet you think fullauto weapons can be purchased at any gun store, no questions asked. I

 

[Pegasus]

Shame on you Coltar and all like you.

 

[camaro]

All gun control laws strip the LAW ABIDING only.Since when do criminals care about gun carry restrictions? NEVER HAVE, NEVER WILL!!!

 

[Stumpy]

Some facts:

In Australia after law abiding gun owners were forced to turn in 650,000 privately owned guns in 1996 crime has been on the increase. It was on a steady decline prior to this. Country wide homicides increased by 3.2%. Assaults increased by 8.6%. Armed robberies up by 45%. In the state of Victoria homicides increased by 300%. Gun control works. It efficiently disarms the law abiding, emboldens criminals and leaves their victims defenseless.

I backed out of these discussions for a lot of reasons, but primarily because both sides of the debate have intractable views and won't shift on the basis of any of these posts. But I won't let this one past.

Most of the stuff in that post is NRA propaganda, including the Australian references. The NRA trawled for any statistic that they could twist to suit their argument, knowing that so many of the crime types came off such low bases that any interpretation or supposed increase was either statistically insignificant or meaningless. This was just as true for the UK. See for example: snopes.com: Australian Guns Stats

At the time the Attorney-General of Australia, Daryl Williams, pointed out in letter to Charlton Heston that "firearms are being used less often in murder, attempted murder, assault, sexual assault and armed robbery in 1998 compared with 1997." He also stated in his letter, "The 54 firearm-related homicides in Australia in 1998 equate to a rate of only 0.28 per 100,000 people. I have been advised that this compares to a rate which is in the order of 4 per 100,000 in the United States. Now that you have the facts, I request that you withdraw immediately the misleading information from your latest campaign."

I live in New South Wales, the most populous state in Australia, and I can tell you that every major crime category here has been falling or stable over the last decade. The pattern across the rest of Australia is much the same. But don't take my word for it, it's there for anyone who wants to read it at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) site or the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR).

If you go to the BOCSAR site you'll see that: "... the total number of criminal incidents involving a firearm declined by 48 per cent between 1995 and 2011."

So from just before our new gun laws came into effect to just recently, gun related crime has pretty well halved.


tl:dr: Don't believe NRA propaganda.

 

[Going411x7]

Coltar, you are making all kinds of judgments about me and my family that you know nothing about. Shame on you.
I thought you had more sense than that.

I can tell you that this family member had been hired as a guard in a maximum security prison--a man with many mental
issues. What does that tell you about our society?

The reason I posted this personal detail was to demonstrate how the madness of the gun culture in the U.S.A. has
affected me on a personal level.

Many Americans are obsessed with guns. We must turn this obsession around. F.D.R. said, "The only thing we have
to fear is fear itself. This has never been more true than it is today.