Shooting at small town elementry school in Conneticut

[Deepcrush]

Another issue with gun laws is that when the bulk of your crime is committed by criminals who can't purchase legally anyways. Passing more laws to ban more guns from people not committing crimes doesn't help. There are already states that have pushed similar laws to that of the UK in which self defense is anywhere from discouraged to illegal. However those states are also the ones with the bulk of the murders in the US. In rural places where the vast majority of firearms are located, crime rates are extremely low. This is based largely because criminals would much rather try to rob a cowardly and disarmed population, rather then a population raised with firearms a part of their daily lives.

Final note, rifles are a must in a number of areas of the country. Growing up, we used ours to hunt and on the bad days drive off the hungry bears that came looking for an easy meal. Ever wake up with a bear stalking your house or dry shed? I have and its not a happy feeling. And if anyone brings up the modern british plan of hide and beg. Bears are very good at finding you and begging a hungry bear doesn't do any good.

[Graham Kennedy]

Is your house burning down common place? Do you have insurance on it anyways? I value my family far more than my house. So if I'm going to insure my house against something as unlikely as a catostrophic fire wouldn't I also take steps against something as unlikely as armed burglary or worse? Besides, preparing before hand is easy, once it happens you're pretty much stuck with what's on hand.

The difference is that widespread ownership of fire insurance doesn't make it easy for fire insurance to fall into the hands of crazy people who can then use their fire insurance to murder dozens of children.

Of course, going by the numbers living in the UK you're more likely to be a victim of violent crime than I am living in the US.

But vastly less likely to be the victim of a crime involving a gun.

Could it be that guns aren't the problem? Murderous assholes are?

Seems to me that the problem is the combination of murderous assholes and guns.

Getting rid of guns won't stop people from being assholes, and it won't stop people from murdering. It will make it more difficult for assholes to murder large numbers of people, though.

Doing that involves giving up some of your freedom. Whether you want to do that is a judgment call, and I actually don't say that you're wrong to make the call you do even though it's not the call I make on that issue. The UK is a different culture and people here value things differently - the idea that owning a gun for self defence purposes is reasonable is one most people here wouldn't just disagree with, but would rather find fairly comical. But this isn't about the UK being right on this and the US wrong, because such comparisons are stupid given how different the culture in each country is.

But be clear that that is the choice being made. America has, for some time now, decided that having the occasional mass murder of innocent people, many of them children, is a price worth paying for the freedom to have widespread gun ownership.

If you're willing to accept that tradeoff then fair enough. And I really don't mean that in a judgmental "won't somebody think of the children!" kind of way. Societies often strike such deals with themselves - hell, striking a collective bargain in how much individual freedom is surrendered for how much security and benefit gained is a pretty good definition of what society is.

I wonder if the next few incidents like this might change the way most Americans might view that tradeoff, though. If the past is any guide, I'd guess not.

[Deepcrush]

GK, considering that less then 5% of firearms used in shootings are legally gained. The answer is no because the places where the 95% on the other side are, are some of the safest places in the country. You'll have to convince a large part of the US to willingly become murder victims, which isn't likely to happen.

[stitch626]

I wonder if airplanes should be banned, as they were used to murder more than all of the big firearms mess in recent years combined.

[Deepcrush]

Depends on if the Europeans are going to tell us we should try hiding and asking nicely as tools to stop aircraft violence.

[Sonic Glitch]

There are already plenty of stringent processes for getting access to the cockpit of a plane/learning how to fly a plane. However apparently there aren't enough with guns, or perhaps not enough regulations that take mental health into account.

That and I believe use of airplane is an outlier on the scale of "common violent crimes"...

[Captain Seafort]

Depends on if the Europeans are going to tell us we should try hiding and asking nicely as tools to stop aircraft violence.

The aircraft equivalent would be reinforced and locked cockpit doors. Which is what was done.

[Deepcrush]

There are already plenty of stringent processes for getting access to the cockpit of a plane/learning how to fly a plane. However apparently there aren't enough with guns, or perhaps not enough regulations that take mental health into account.

That and I believe use of airplane is an outlier on the scale of "common violent crimes"...

The problem with guns is simple, if people don't have the ability to get them legally then they do so otherwise. Security, not increasing victim numbers, is what is needed.

The aircraft equivalent would be reinforced and locked cockpit doors. Which is what was done.

Which is helpful only if the person intends to use a commercial aircraft and smaller private ones cant support the changes.

[Captain Seafort]

The problem with guns is simple, if people don't have the ability to get them legally then they do so otherwise.

And reducing the total number of guns, especially handguns, in circulation reduces their ability to do so. It also reduces to zero the number of crimes committed by legally held handguns.

Which is helpful only if the person intends to use a commercial aircraft and smaller private ones cant support the changes.

They also can't bring down skyscrapers.

[Graham Kennedy]

GK, considering that less then 5% of firearms used in shootings are legally gained.

What's that got to do with it? Banning guns would reduce the number of illegal ones too.

I wonder if airplanes should be banned, as they were used to murder more than all of the big firearms mess in recent years combined.

Or maybe we should greatly restrict who gets to own and operate airplanes, putting all sorts of regulations in place to make as certain as possible that they don't fall into the hands of murderers, especially the big powerful planes that were used to murder all those people. Just a thought.

[stitch626]

The problem with guns is simple, if people don't have the ability to get them legally then they do so otherwise.

And reducing the total number of guns, especially handguns, in circulation reduces their ability to do so. It also reduces to zero the number of crimes committed by legally held handguns.

That is a pointless statistic if it doesn't reduce the number of crimes committed with handguns period.

Legal or not doesn't change how dead you are.

[Deepcrush]

The problem with guns is simple, if people don't have the ability to get them legally then they do so otherwise.

And reducing the total number of guns, especially handguns, in circulation reduces their ability to do so. It also reduces to zero the number of crimes committed by legally held handguns.

That is a pointless statistic if it doesn't reduce the number of crimes committed with handguns period.

Legal or not doesn't change how dead you are.

Pretty much on the head here. Doesn't matter how much you declare illegal if you do nothing to stop the crime.

[Deepcrush]

What's that got to do with it? Banning guns would reduce the number of illegal ones too.

No, it would increase the number of illegal ones. If you have a set number of guns, some legal and others not. Changing the laws so that more are illegal doesn't reduce anything.

[Graham Kennedy]

No, it would increase the number of illegal ones. If you have a set number of guns, some legal and others not. Changing the laws so that more are illegal doesn't reduce anything.

But you don't have a set number of guns. With the ban you collect, confiscate, seize and destroy.

[stitch626]

No, it would increase the number of illegal ones. If you have a set number of guns, some legal and others not. Changing the laws so that more are illegal doesn't reduce anything.

But you don't have a set number of guns. With the ban you collect, confiscate, seize and destroy.

We all know how well the war on drugs went. A war on guns would be just as much a failure.


The US already can't collect all the current illegal weapons (as in illegally purchased/owned), what makes you think they could handle even more?