J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Seems to be a fact of life living in the US that there will be a Massacre of innocent people in a public place every few months.

It's sad but I really don't think they can ever stop it happening, Guns are just to commonplace.

Suresh

The right to shoot each other when having a bad day is protected under their constitution. Build a wall around the place and let them get on with it! IMHO.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Funny how when this happened in Finland last month there wasn't a mention on here about walling up Finland. Nothing like a good stereotyping to keep the SN NSR boys happy though

Suresh

Exactly how many Finnish massacres have there been then? Please enlighten me!

Paddi70

There a big country with lots of big people, they'll get over it I'm sure.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I'm actually starting to think that Hollywood plays some part. The amount of films where there is some dumb American that can save the world/planet/himself/whatever he wants is just crazy. Maybe they are just teaching all the idiots in the population that they are much more important than they actually are.

From what I gather, the people who have done this in the past have taken these measures as they felt society owed them something. They were angry that they had not been given/rewarded with what they thought was rightfully theirs.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

You don't need enlightening, you just need to stop with the xenophobic crap. My point is when this does happen in another country no one on here seems to bat an eyelid, but as soon as it happens in the US out comes allthe usual anti-US tripe.

Perhaps you have some level in mind at which it becomes unacceptable and you decide to wall off the country. What is it? 2 massacres in a year, 5, 10 ????

Finally maybe before we all start criticising other countries we should look closely at the shining example of a perfect society we call the UK because the last time I looked I find it hard to believe there is a more crime ridden, scum addled and intrinsically bent nation of people in the Western world.

WRX_Dazza

some of the yanks i come across online need shooting badly!!!!

however its always nearly the good folk that get caught up in this type of tragedy....

very sad indeed.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Whilst there arent any proper controls on owning guns, it will happen, we still have problems with Guns over here but they are illegally held ones by and large, and its criminals killing other criminals.

I strongly feel that the gun ban was a good thing, a shame for all responsible gun owners losing a hobby but you can get other hobbies, 16 people died in Dunblane at the hands of a gun owner and its easier to get a new hobby than lose a child, I know it is contencious, its what I beleive as I still cannot shake how I felt that day when I heard what had happened on the radio.

andythejock01wrx

"The right to bear arms"...............against one another it seems !

I would think that when the founding fathers incorporated this line into their constitution over 200 years ago, their intention was to enable the people to overthrow the government if they chose to, not to go about killing one another whenever they fancied ! As I understand it, when the constitution was originally written the idea was that it could be amended by future governments, although now of course it is considered sacred - it would be like throughly reworking the bible to modernise it !

So...... muppet decides he wants to kill himself - fair enough. Muppet has easy access to arsenal - Hey presto - he can take out lots of other folk at the same time !

All IMHO, of course.

AtJ

Dave T-S

No they didn't. 16 people died in Dunblane at the hands of a nutter.

Let's not mix up legitimate gun ownership in the USA with legitimate gun ownership in the UK, because gun licensing laws between the two countries could not be more different.

Let's not confuse atrocities and crime as a result of legitimate gun ownership with atrocities and crime caused by illegal gun ownership.

Let's ban ALL remaining legal gun ownership in the UK then. Will that stop gun crime. No, because the vast majority of crime is carried out with illegally held firearms most of which are smuggled in to the UK from other countries.

Will that stop nutters causing atrocities. No. Yes, Hungerford and Dunblane were caused by legitimately held firearms but subsequent to those atrocities both semi automatic weapons and handguns were banned. However nutters will still find ways to go postal. You can still go in Tescos and buy a bread knife. Let's ban those too.

Gun laws get ever tighter in this country and unless you actually own a Firearms Licence you will not be aware of how stringent the procedures are.

Let's keep things in perspective - 3,172 people were killed and 258,404 injured on the road in Great Britain in 2006. Clearly drivers are murderers, let's ban all cars then.

Let's also exterminate all murderers, child molesters, rapists and all other creators of atrocities and generally undesirable people before we go after legitimate gun owners in the UK, shall we?

And yes, I will nail my colours to the mast and say I am obviously a firearms owner - which I don't feel in the slightest bit guilty about

Leslie

I think it is getting more likely that this could happen here again, it worries me a great deal.

Les

Dave T-S

Les

I clearly don't condone the atrocities, but in the 20 years since Hungerford between that and Dunblane there have been 32 deaths in those two gun atrocities.

In the same period, getting on for 100,000 people (no, that is not a mispost, check the government statistics) have been killed on the roads alone in Great Britain. Much of that is down to pure stupidity and irresponsible driving (or innocent drivers as recipient of).

I know which one I worry about, particularly as in September a guy on a Harley came round a blind bend towards me on my side of the road, smashed into and wrote my Forester off, nearly killed himself and could easily have killed me too.

Go figure, as our gun totin' friends across the pond would say

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

Stereotyping? Like America doesnt lol
Dont worry NBC or CNN will be on shortly to tell us all it was friendly fire

Any loss of life through lunatics with guns is a tragedy no matter where it happens.

It just so happens that our brethren accross the pond think there should be a gun in every cupboard and then wonder why this happens so often to them

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

It isn't as simple as that, other countries have similar gun laws and they don't have the same level of gun related deaths. It isn't the guns despite what you might find it convenient to believe.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Nicely put

Brendan Hughes

Oh yes they did.

Agree with you about the driving deaths though.

Nice bit of research in 1997 by a degree student who tried to compare the laws of UK and US. It was just after Dunblane so he didn't get much help from the authorities, but the surprising conclusion was the biggest difference between the two countries was the number of people in the US who died by accident - cleaning, playing with guns, etc.

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

You're right it is not the guns it's the idiot pulling the trigger. It just so happens that more of these idiots inhabit America than any other shore

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

True, but then there are 6 times as many Americans than there are brits? So that means we should hear about these things six times more often. I have an awful feeling the Americans are running at a rate much greater than this

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

My Grandfather told me this little rhyme they used to say in the war regarding the Yanks;

When the German bombers flew over the British dived for cover.
When the British bombers flew over the Germans dived for cover.
When the Yank bombers flew over EVERYONE dived for cover.


How true is that 60yrs on

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Well actually I believe more idiots inhabit the UK, you only have to look at the carnage in towns up and down the country every weekend caused by our 'hard man' drinking culture to start to see what I mean, but you carry on denigrating the US if it makes you feel better.

Geezer

Because it's not commonplace in Finland. How many massacres have there been it the US in the last 30 years? Proportionally more than Finland I would say.

The argument about cars is a stupid argument, and one that is wheeled out regularly by the gun lobby. Cars are a means of transport, and unfortunately, through carelessness, they cause deaths. They are a necessary evil.

No one needs guns (except possibly farmers for vermin control and such like).

I also realise that banning guns will not stop gun crime, but that is not the issue. Your average Joe does not need access to automatic or semi-automatic weapons, and that is generally the type of weapon used in such things.

OK, you're now gonna say that a loon could get hold of one if they really wanted to, but the fact that since we banned those type of weapons, there hasn't been a massacre in the UK of this ilk speaks volumes. The loons either are too loon to realise they can still get them or it's too difficult or they can't be arsed.

As for the knives argument, killing 30 people with a knife would be really difficult, not so with a gun where you don't have to get really close.

And as for the constiution, there is a case coming up in Washington which may set a precedent, as it actually says "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.", and if the ruling being challenged is upheld it could make life difficult for the gun lobbyists.

Guns are designed to kill. You can get target guns, but the original design was to kill, and that still holds true.

Geezer

Jaybird-UK

The yanks only just make the top ten of Murders with firearms (per capita) (most recent) by country

#1 South Africa: 0.719782 per 1,000 people
#2 Colombia: 0.509801 per 1,000 people
#3 Thailand: 0.312093 per 1,000 people
#4 Zimbabwe: 0.0491736 per 1,000 people
#5 Mexico: 0.0337938 per 1,000 people
#6 Belarus: 0.0321359 per 1,000 people
#7 Costa Rica: 0.0313745 per 1,000 people
#8 United States: 0.0279271 per 1,000 people
#9 Uruguay: 0.0245902 per 1,000 people
#10 Lithuania: 0.0230748 per 1,000 people

and we dont appear until...

#32 United Kingdom: 0.00102579 per 1,000 people

Geezer

Howver, if you include ALL deaths from firearms, not just murders, then the US jumps to 3rd, behind Brazil and Jamaica.......

Geezer

Brendan Hughes

So homicide rate per capita with firearms in US is 27 times higher than UK.

I know about reliability of statistics, but I think that's a good place to start for a more reasoned argument.

Next question - how many of the victims knew their attacker? Eg domestic/gangland vs random mugging/street massacre?

Suresh

What's the source there?

I Googled for stats and got these, which are a bit more realistic with US gun murders coming in at 27x the English level -

andythejock01wrx

Are you arguing that the yanks are quite right to allow chaps to run around with assault rifles ?

If we accept that you are correct in your assertion that Americans are more likely to shoot one another than other nationalities, then surely if folk don't have access to guns then (over many years) the number of such incidents will decrease in the States ?

andythejock01wrx

Makes sense tht the US will have far more shootings,even proportionately , than us, but the fact that South Africa does not top that list gives the impression that those statistics are either out of date or that they simply didn't have the figures for S Africa, which IIRC has about 40,000 murders a year, of all types.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

Agreed. It is a very extreme measure but I think in most cases it's just attention seeking. Maybe where the individual concerned believes he/she will leave a mark in history.

Suresh

America has a major problem with gun massacres, predominantly because of choices made when deciding their constitution. That is a fact. Get over it and stop acting like a "star-spangled fanboy".


I have nothing against America by the way. I'm typing this on a Dell, using MS software and a Firefox browser after all!