www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717
27 dead, 20 of them young kids between 5 and 10.
How many of their kids need to bleed to death in the playground before the Gun Lobby are defeated in the US.
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>> How many of their kids need to bleed to death in the playground before the
>> Gun Lobby are defeated in the US.
>>
Roughly the same number as Kids in the Middle East who need to bleed to death before US foreign policy is defeated.
Maybe the two will go hand in hand.
They can (should) ban guns all they want in the US - they'll still be crazy. They need to cure the underlying sickness. If they can't get guns, they'll just go round with knives or home-made machetes or home-made bombs.
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>> They can (should) ban guns all they want in the US
No simple matter. Apart from the sacrosanct Constitution, there are 50 States with 50 administrations of widely differing views and outlooks. And will the citizens obey, or try to keep pistols, pump-action shotguns, infantry weapons, machine guns and so on hidden? If by some miracle a US government does decide on a clampdown, it may well take decades to reduce the number of deadly weapons in casual irresponsible hands to a more reasonable level, so that only criminals and murderous psychopaths will be really tooled up. A bit like here, only bigger and worse.
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Given the number of casualties, it seems likely that the shooter, who apparently pinched a gun from his mother, was in possession of an automatic weapon of some sort.
This does raise the question - why would a respectable school teacher, such as she, possess such a weapon in a domestic environment?
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Whereas in Scotland you'll soon(?) need a licence for an air gun:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20720203
"Under the new scheme, anyone wanting to own an air gun would need to demonstrate they had a legitimate reason for doing so."
I'm guessing "recreational plinking in the garden" won't count as a legitimate reason?
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>> This does raise the question - why would a respectable school teacher, such as she,
>> possess such a weapon in a domestic environment?
>>
>>
>>
Apparently she owned five. And in answer to your question;
1) Because they can.
2) Because it's ingrained in the American psyche that they have a God-given right to.
From the French newspaper, La Liberte, in 1932, quote often erroneously attributed to Georges Clemenceau;
" Does this government, which obeys gangsters, which capitulates helplessly before thieves and assassins of babies in the cradle, dare to assume such a height of moral authority that it thinks it can dictate to Europe and France?
Americans are the only race which passed directly from barbarism to decadence without knowing civilization."
Eighty years on, this is sadly more true than it ever was.
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"Americans are the only race which passed directly from barbarism to decadence without knowing civilization."
Was never true and isn't true now. Europeans have little right to lecture the Americans on the subject of barbarism looking back over European history for the past century.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sat 15 Dec 12 at 11:20
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"In any situation in life, we get a reflection of our own consciousness.
We can't really complain about what we have because that is us, it's a reflection of our own being".
George Harrison www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxmG0R9S2Qg
All-the-killing that Amerika has been responsible for in the Middle East for over 10 years now.
That is their consciousness - young and old.
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But as usual Obama talks in his beautifully worded rhetoric - but what will he do ??
Last edited by: R.P. on Sat 15 Dec 12 at 08:49
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Guns dont kill people, nutcases kill people. We dont currently have the technology to screen for nutters so occasionally these things will happen. I suspect nutters can source a gun if they so wish, illegal or not.
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Sorry FoR - easy access to automatic weapons and a country where almost any cretin can by an assault rifle has a big part to play....why the hell does anyone want an assault rifle at home- in the name of reason why ?
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People will say "the nutter could have had a knife" sure he could have done, but he wouldn't have killed 27 people before he got overpowered.
There can not be, in any civilised society, any excuse or justification for the legality of an automatic weapon in ordinary societies hands.
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>>>I suspect nutters can source a gun if they so wish, illegal or not.
Actually it would not be easy for the average person to source a firearm from criminal suppliers in a country where firearms are controlled... well an infinite amount harder than on a whim walking to the wardrobe in your parents home.
I grew up in a household with legally held automatic pistols and rifles as well as shotguns. Mid 60s to early 70s when control was more lax. As a 10yr old I knew where to find them and the ammunition and how to use them. I'm still chilled by the thought of just how easy it is to pull the trigger against targets etc on something so familiar to you when they are about the house from childhood. Add in a bit of insanity and pulling the trigger on another person is a smaller step.
Fully agree with the point re the American right to bear arms for defence creeping over into a right to attack... on a personal or global level.
They have a huge culture change needed to do anything meaningful about it.
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The original impetus seemed to stem from a soundly based fear of tyranny. Hence the US constitutional emphasis on a properly trained militia as a countervailing force in extremis. Even with the automatic weapons held by many citizens of the USA, they lack for defence against the weapons held by the state. In fact they are so outgunned (and unfit!) they would lose in any conflict against the state. This oversight should be corrected by the purchase of armoured vehicles, field guns, aircraft and tactical nuclear weapons. I'm just surprised the NRA have been so modest in their aims and so lax!
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Messed up country. So glad I don't live there.
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>> Messed up country. So glad I don't live there.
>>
Considerably worse things happen in countless other countries on a daily basis, often with the connivence of the state. Yet these are ignored or given scant attention by a media terrified of being labelled racist, and who make up for it by frothing at the mouth on the few occasions something happens in America.
Last edited by: Robin Regal on Sat 15 Dec 12 at 12:55
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>> Messed up country. So glad I don't live there.
Messed up world more like. Britain too. But most of us here don't really have to confront the unpleasant parts too often - we look after our own, mix with people we find congenial, and live in a peaceful area if we can.
I have found Americans charming and hospitable on their own turf, but I haven't really been to the dodgy bits of the US either.
It still concerns me though that such an economic powerhouse should have so many poor people. I don't know whether that is an indictment of humanity, or capitalism, which is good at generating wealth but left to itself concentrates it rather than shares the benefit. I incline to think it's human nature that's the main factor.
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>>Messed up country. So glad I don't live there.
Wonderful place, loads of really great places to live.
I've lived in California, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York. I've also done contracts in many other cities and/or states.
Pretty much always found the people pleasant, generous and friendly. Idiots too of course, like we all have.
But where have you found it so noticeably messed up?
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I have spent a lot of time in America and enjoyed it immensely. My sister-in-law is from California and I like her very much. I have nothing against Americans as individuals.
But their society is messed up to this lily livered Euro-liberal pinko commie.
As many as 1 in 6 people can't afford proper healthcare, and nobody cares. And half of the rest call for the head of a president who wants to fix it.
1% of the population have over a third of the wealth.
Anyone can carry a gun. And when it all goes wrong like it did yesterday, the "rights" of gun holders reign supreme. And so it happens again.
And as for American society's attitude towards gay couples - let's just say that one is pretty close to home (and no I am not gay).
Too much religion.
I stand by my view. It is not directed at Americans as individuals.
Last edited by: DP on Sat 15 Dec 12 at 14:27
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>> I've lived in California, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York. I've also done contracts in
>> many other cities and/or states.
Interesting Mark. I've never been to the US so my knowledge is based solely on reading and broadcast media.
California, Florida New York and Texas are all seaboard states and my understanding is that generally they're more liberal and closer to Europe in outlook. The South and mid West are said to be much more 'foreign' in outlook. More likely to be religiously/socially conservative to an extent that would be well outside mainstream in EU.
Was Montana different?
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>> >> I've lived in California, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York. I've also done contracts
>> in
>> >> many other cities and/or states.
>>
>> Interesting Mark. I've never been to the US so my knowledge is based solely on
>> reading and broadcast media.
>>
>> California, Florida New York and Texas are all seaboard states and my understanding is that
>> generally they're more liberal and closer to Europe in outlook.
4 places with vastly different out look in life. Thats the point about the states, there are so many, its so varied. 52 different countries mostly.
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There's plenty wrong with America, with capitalism and with democracy, just as there's plenty wrong with other western capitalist democracies.
Various people have said they have nothing against Americans as individuals. Well of course, they are generally welcoming and friendly, more so than Europeans who have varying sorts of class-based reserve.
I would go a bit further though, and remind people that the US state saved our bacon in both world wars. It's unfortunate but only to be expected that the main West European governments slavishly follow the US into all sorts of mad and evil adventures as a result, the war on drugs, the systematic provocation of the worst elements in Islam, the rubbishy, unthinking support for Israeli foreign policy at its worst.
Love me, love my cage full of scorpions and tarantulas. Oh dear. Gun control is petty piffle by comparison.
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I would go a bit further though, and remind people that the US state saved our bacon in both world wars
They may well have - but at a huge cost AC - Basically at the start of WW2 we emptied our national reserves into their gaping cake-hole whilst they stayed safely neutral and supplied us with obsolete kit and as a direct consequences pulled them out of a lengthy depression.
9000 deaths per annum in the US through gun crime against around about 40 in the UK. As my American cousins would say "go figure".
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>> They may well have - but at a huge cost AC - Basically
Yeah, whaddever... nothing is won without sacrifice. The US was a bit jealous of our rapidly-vanishing empire and of course disapproved of it morally, in a specific form of American hypocrisy slightly different from our own. Naturally they enjoyed kicking what was left of it to pieces and picking through the wreckage for valuables.
Who wouldn't? I didn't say there was anything saintly about the gringos.
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Montana is physically a stunning place. Also, there are not many people so the behaviour is different.
Texas is about as far from a European outlook as one can get.
But its an interesting point, I've got to get back to the barbecue right now (or else, I think I heard), but I'll think on it more later.
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I did a trip which took me through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana a few years back. Wasn't there long enough to really get the feel, but in a couple of bars I came across some very racist people (it was not long after Obama got elected so that's how the subject came up).
In Birmingham Alabama I hooked up with a couple of estate agents (realtors) in a bar one evening, who took the to all the local pubs. The driver reached into my footwell at the end of the evening to show me his handgun - apparently a necessity in his job, he said you can turn up to show a potential round a house and get attacked. Birmingham was, of course, the place where Martin Luther King led a march which was met with attack dogs and water cannon in the 60s, and was a turning point in the civil rights struggle, and the KKK bombed a church killing some small girls.
I really enjoy America - been annually for the past 10 years for motor racing in Florida, sometimes 3 days sometimes 3 weeks, often travelling with an ex-pat American.
I suppose you get all sorts here too, just look at the apparently open racism at football matches.
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>> I've lived in California, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York. I've also done contracts in
>> many other cities and/or states.
>>
>> Pretty much always found the people pleasant, generous and friendly. Idiots too of course, like
>> we all have.
>>
>> But where have you found it so noticeably messed up?
>>
I have visited some ethic ghettos, residential trailer parks, and seen some appalling living conditions while travelling in the USA. The tourist and affluent areas, and Disney gloss are a façade as they are in any country. I live in a clean comfortable area of the UK with tidy and safe tourist attractions but within 10 miles there are drug ridden ghettoes that you would not want to visit in daylight let alone at night.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sat 15 Dec 12 at 15:22
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On the way from central Boston to points north, we were strongly advised to steer clear of Lynn. If we were to find ourselves there, by mistake:- don't make eye contact, try not to look lost, just keep on going. Naturally we (she) made a mistake. I don't remember much of the place except there were very few whites. The paradox is that there is a higher murder and crime rate in Boston than Lynn. Boston pop. 600,000: murders pa 70+. At the next B&B (Swampscott) the owner, with relish, explained that he took his revolver to work. School teacher. We were quite glad to move on....
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I have seen plenty of poverty in Europe..Nothing in live is handed to you on a plate unless born with a silver spoon in your mouth.Very sad alll these children who died.It won't change the behaviour of Americans they still be armed.Ive seen the trailer parks in the States met the Hillbillys often down to earth decent people.I also leave in a clean comfortable area maybe we are the lucky ones.
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""I also leave in a clean comfortable area maybe we are the lucky ones."
Probably exactly what the teachers, pupils and their parents of Sandy Hook school thought before yesterday. Murderer was son of teacher and pictures show his home as a pretty opulent house in a rural setting.
Trouble is, nutters can grow up anywhere and nutters can always get guns - even in Britain apparently.
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It is a nice area - drove through it in the 90s on the way somewhere else. (spent the night there if memory serves me right.)
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And then you have idiotic perspectives like this from people who have been voted into office in the past...
"We don't have a crime problem, a gun problem or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem. And since we've ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn't act so surprised ... when all hell breaks loose."
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/mike-huckabee-school-shooting_n_2303792.html
Beggars belief.
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still trying to work out why a kindergarten teacher has to have a semiauto assault rifle...
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If you had met some of my female grandchildren you wouldn't be so mystified.
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>> It is a nice area - drove through it in the 90s on the way somewhere else. >>(spent the night there if memory serves me right.)
>>
I used to travel fairly regularly from JFK to a computer company in Norwalk on the coast of CT.
Just by Newtown is Danbury which was a substantial IBM Computer mainframe software development site.
This may account for some of the $$$$s around the area.
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Interesting that in Iceland there are 90,000 registered firearms - a very high 30.3 for every 100 head of population yet the latest figures show zero homicides caused by a gun.
I guess some societies are suited to gun ownership, others aren't.
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With only 300,000 of them altogether I imagine the bad eggs are fairly visible and well known.
Too easy to blend in here, we probably have that number who don't officially exist at all.
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It would be possible for the %age number of nutters to be similar in the US and Iceland but the absolute number of nutters would be 1,000 times higher in the US.
Perhaps there is a critical mass for nutter behaviour?
Certainly it is those absolute numbers which are the reason that there are more crimes reported on international news from the US than from Iceland.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 16 Dec 12 at 15:18
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At the US gun homicide rate you'd expect about 10 a year in Iceland vs 10,000 in the US, in round numbers.
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>>At the US gun homicide rate you'd expect about 10 a year in Iceland vs 10,000 in the US, in round number
That would be the numerically proportional comparison, yes.
However, you can put one person in a room and get no murders. But 10 people in a room and you can get 9 murders.
The point being, that there is more likely to be the required stimulus or motivation if one is close to an appropriate incident or person.
So it is not likely to be a linear progression.
If it was guns per person = murder rate, life would be much easier.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 16 Dec 12 at 16:29
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The Icelanders stole the contents of my bank account without resort to guns - More sophisticated criminals.
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Nearly 11000 people where killed last year in the States by handguns.Obama won't change anything they are to scared of the Gun Lobby.
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>>Obama won't change anything they are too scared of the Gun Lobby.
Can't, not won't. He's already been elected for his second term. I suppose you could mean scared of being plugged, but I don't think that even comes into it.
It's just not do-able; though any more of these and they might be able to wind back on the assault rifles. But I don't think that would be easy either.
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I agree.
Pandora's box cannot be closed.
Removing gun ownership is not the same, not even close, as preventing gun ownership in a society which never had that proclivity.
Its much harder, if not actually impossible.
And having got guns, then controls are mostly meaningless and ineffectual, other than to the law abiding and sane, who aren't actually the problem anyway.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 16 Dec 12 at 16:33
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And having just watched a report, for once I hope that there is an afterlife and that Adam Lanza forever burns in Hell.
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>And having got guns, then controls are mostly meaningless and ineffectual,
The real problem that I saw with gun ownership in the US when I lived there was the lack of licensing. Introduction of licensing for different classes of weapon, with competency made a condition of ownership, would be a good start. I don't see how the NRA could seriously object to that.
I found it rather odd that you need to give fingerprints and then take a theory and practical test to obtain a license to drive a car but not to own a firearm.
Buying a gun from a registered dealer requires you to undergo a five day federal background check but that doesn't apply to private sales. You can buy a gun from a friend, yard sale or hunting show with no checks.
Civilian possession of automatic weapons is prohibited everywhere in the US without federal govt. approval. Anything that can fire more than one round with a single pull of the trigger is classified as a 'machine-gun'. These have been subject to tighter and tighter control since the end of prohibition. The laws were tightened even further in the mid-80s to include sale, transfer, modification or repair. This effectively means that (legal) historical ownership of automatic weapons is dwindling because fed approval is extremely difficult to obtain. Billy-Bob Jr. will not be able to inherit his dad's Thompson.
Assault rifles are perfectly legal and deemed to have a valid 'sporting' purpose. Quite what that purpose is I'm not sure.
They do have a wicked sense of humour though.
I really, really wish that I'd had a camera with me one day when we'd driven into town from a friends ranch at the start of hunting season. The sign outside the roadside diner that usually advertised "All you can eat" lunches now proclaimed "Lampasas welcomes hunters!"
Parked outside the diner facing the road were about half a dozen army Humvees with 50cal. machine-guns mounted on the roll bars.
Lampasas also has a yearly festival, where children are awarded prizes for "Goat Slapping" and one lucky girl is crowned "Miss Spring Ho"
:-)
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Copied from a Facebook "friend" in Florida.... he plays the same on-line game as me, that's all...... and probably as accurate an insight into American mentality as any I've seen.
"I think instead of talking about Gun Laws - because the Criminals can and will always get guns. We need to ARM our Teachers - Train them and Protect our Kids - If we trust the Teachers not to Molest our Kids and keep them safe - then Arm them to give them the choice to FIGHT for their life and our KIDS. How many lives could have been saved if these Teachers had the option to be armed?"
I did reply suggesting that it would be easier just to put the kids in the Army at age five but he deleted the post. 'Tis verily true that the septics don't get irony.
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A significant proportion of Americans think more guns will defeat guns.
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>> A significant proportion of Americans think more guns will defeat guns.
The same significant proportion also feel that a gun is necessary to feel safe. Speaks volumes for modern America as a society.
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>> The same significant proportion also feel that a gun is necessary to feel safe. Speaks
>> volumes for modern America as a society.
If you were to run a survey in the UK "if it was legal would you consider buying a hand gun for personal and family protection" I suspect you would get a fairly large positive response.
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>> If you were to run a survey in the UK "if it was legal would
>> you consider buying a hand gun for personal and family protection" I suspect you would
>> get a fairly large positive response.
A UK citizen wouldn't be answering this question against a backdrop of 61 major shooting events involving the deaths of 4 or more people in the past 30 years, 11 of which were at schools.
America has a major problem. Gun control is part of the answer.
I'd also dispute the large positive response. I would hope that most Brits are intelligent enough to realise that general arming of households will just increase the number of armed criminals. The same reasoning I believe that sits behind police officers overwhelmingly voting against being armed themselves whenever they are asked.
Last edited by: DP on Mon 17 Dec 12 at 09:54
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>>The same reasoning I believe that sits behind police officers overwhelmingly voting against being armed themselves whenever they are asked.
I'm not so sure that's as true as it was. Another survey would be interesting. The one that's always quoted is from 2006.
The rationale for not arming all police is the old "policing by consent" model. Random events now seem capable of triggering mass civil disobedience, so is that working any more?
Not a step to be taken lightly, regardless. There's certainly no way back from there if it doesn't work so we should probably resist it and stick with the current policy - but it will be difficult to hold that line at the point that a majority of front line officers think it should change.
Incidentally, the idea of arming teachers is quite a logical one if you start from where the Americans are. I suspect there are a few armed teachers already in some of the more backward states!
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>> The rationale for not arming all police is the old "policing by consent" model. Random
>> events now seem capable of triggering mass civil disobedience, so is that working any more?
There's two main reasons why many police officers would prefer not to have guns:
1, The God almighty hoo-hah and witch hunt that goes with any shooting, regardless of the circumstances.
2, The whole style of policing would need to change, because our model has the police up close with the public. If you are carrying around a lethal weapon with you, you'd need to be noticeably more stand offish, so that the bad guy cannot access your lethal weapon.
There was a point, possibly still is the case, that most US police deaths were those killed by their own weapons.
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There is an article to the point on p. 12 of today's Telegraph. It notes that, since 1968 (Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King), over a million Americans have been shot to death. There are 300 millions guns in the USA, nearly one for every member of the population. A third of these are handguns so the "use for hunting" argument for ownership does not apply. There are 20,000 suicides every year using guns. Author Brian Masters highlights the malign and powerful influence of the National Rifle Association. He doubts there will be any improvement.
So it was no joke when Borat asked a gun dealer what gun would be good for killing a (member of his own racial group) the dealer said, without hestitation "That would be a thirtyeight".
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I just can't understand the mentality of the pro-gun comments on that article.
This is just going to keep happening. Twice a year on average. But hey, it's all about "freedom" I suppose.
I guess the views of gun control advocates such as myself are as illogical and offensive to them as their apparent low prioritisation of human life is to ours.
As I said before, thank God I don't live there.
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Reminds me of a trip to California a few years back. In each of two filling stations out in the sticks the proprietor had a loaded revolver by the till. (I guess those would be thirtyeights.)
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They where intervieuwing a vicar today.All he kept saying we have to talk to Jesus.Plenty of Americans are losing the plot watching Fox Television aint helping.
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Without being in any way judgemental it was noticeable how many parents, witnesses and other local citizenry interviewed for media cast a religious light on event. Far more refernce to The Lord and 'Their Maker' than would be the case in UK.
A foreign country.
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>> A foreign country.
Not invariably, but usually, citing Jesus, God and so on is done simply to intimidate, to muddy the waters by bringing up something unanswerable by anyone timid (i.e. most people). It is a means of making any rational argument impossible. It is intellectually despicable and psychologically both despicable and thuggish. People with a genuinely considered and sincere mainstream religious faith tend not to indulge in this bullying.
Alas, it could easily catch on here.
'The world is in a terrible state of chassis'. Joxer Daley was it?
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>> Without being in any way judgemental it was noticeable how many parents, witnesses and other
>> local citizenry interviewed for media cast a religious light on event. Far more refernce to
>> The Lord and 'Their Maker' than would be the case in UK.
>>
>> A foreign country.
>>
Indeed. Religious fanaticism, everyone carries guns, women and children murdered by nutters.... welcome to Yankistan.
No wonder the Afghans and suchlike struggle to take them seriously.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Mon 17 Dec 12 at 20:28
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>> >> A significant proportion of Americans think more guns will defeat guns.
>>
>> The same significant proportion also feel that a gun is necessary to feel safe. Speaks
>> volumes for modern America as a society.
>>
A quote I read yesterday from some official at Sandy Hook, or might have been the police, said that teachers should be armed so that they can defend themselves.
Meanwhile it was apparently business as usual at the shooting range just down the road.
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>> A quote I read yesterday from some official at Sandy Hook, or might have been
>> the police, said that teachers should be armed so that they can defend themselves.
The same thing has been floated by probably 50 separate American people in various debates I've seen or been involved in online.
I think Bromptonaut's comment about it being a foreign country best sums it up. Maybe with the common language and some overlap in "values", we sometimes forget how different America is from the UK and it takes something like this to remind us.
The laughable bit is that so many of them still think America is some kind of beacon for civilisation and a model for how to do things. The sense that the whole world is jealous of them and wants to destroy them, or at the very least aspires to be just like them is horribly prevalent among Americans too.
Last edited by: DP on Tue 18 Dec 12 at 09:40
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>>The laughable bit is that so many of them still think America is some kind of beacon for civilisation and a model for how to do things.
In many ways, I do.
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And apparently, the demand for new guns by local families has increased.
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The gun lobby are asserting that the tragedy is the fault of gun control as the teachers were not armed.
Had they been they could have shot the intruder.
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And indeed there is a certain logic to that argument. When there are a lot of armed criminals about it does indeed make sense to have a gun of your own and practice your marksmanship.
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>> And indeed there is a certain logic to that argument. When there are a lot
>> of armed criminals about it does indeed make sense to have a gun of your
>> own and practice your marksmanship.
>>
Yes, if true. But the problem here was not the presence of a lot of armed criminals, but one perfectly "normal" (by US standards) housewife and a son who was a nutter.
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Yes I realise that but if you want to persuade people to give up their guns you need to convince them that they are unlikely to confront an armed criminal or deranged person.
Since this not and is unlikely to ever be the case in the US then it is entirely logical from an individual point of view that they should own a gun. Gun ownership in the USA is not irrational.
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Its only logical if the level of analysis is at wild west level. Lower risk of confronting an armed criminal, than a family member in a mood. In any event very few people are able to shoot accurately when a gun is pointed towards them, even so-called trained police in the USA. You aren't having to keep your heart from pounding, limbs from shaking and your bowels from opening at a shooting range:)
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>> Yes I realise that but if you want to persuade people to give up their
>> guns you need to convince them that they are unlikely to confront an armed criminal
>> or deranged person.
>>
>> Since this not and is unlikely to ever be the case in the US
True, because you can no longer remove the gun from society due to the huge numbers in circulation. Under these circumstances there is some logic in arming everyone.
This also means that the gun situation is no longer controllable and is unrecoverable. Being a country of extremes, thats where they now find themselves.
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"This also means that the gun situation is no longer controllable and is unrecoverable. Being a country of extremes, that's where they now find themselves. "
That is a fair summary of the situation. I suspect that there will be some stricter controls imposed on the ownership on self-loading assault rifles but that is about as far as it is politically possible to go.
There is a sort of paradox at work whereby the more violent the USA becomes and the more die in firearm incidents the more convinced do people become that they need the ability to defend themselves with guns.
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>> T I suspect that there will be some stricter controls imposed on the ownership on self-loading assault rifles but that is about as far as it is politically possible to go.
>>
It is being reported, as happened last time, gun sales are booming today as are the large clips for more rounds plus of course stacks of larger sized rounds. All in anticipation of a clamp down.
Sadly, I think there will be a good few months, at best but maybe not before the next president is elected, before any legal changes get passed.
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>> the teachers were not armed.
>>
>> Had they been they could have shot the intruder.
>>
Always assuming they didn't miss the intruder and kill one or more of the children.
Especially if the 'intruder' wasn't an intruder at all, but had just come in to fill up the inkwells - or something equally innocent.
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Or if one of the teachers themselves goes loco, or one of the children gets hold of the gun, or, or, or........
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>> Or if one of the teachers themselves goes loco,
Far more likely than an intruding shooter I would have thought; if only because of the presence of a dozens of armed teachers in thousands of schools. Provide the means and opportunity, only the motive, or temporary loss of control, is required.
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>> Always assuming they didn't miss the intruder and kill one or more of the children.
listosaur.com/miscellaneous/top-5-causes-of-accidental-death-in-the-united-states.html
"Accidental shootings resulted in 642 deaths in 2009, placing them seventh on this list. Firearms are the second-leading cause of non-natural deaths for kids, typically from a gun the kid finds somewhere around the house, according to a University of Utah report that mentioned additional horrific statistics. About two-thirds of accidental shooting deaths happen in the home, with the kid shooting himself to death in 45 percent of the cases and friends or family members pulling the trigger in the remainder. More than 50 percent of American households have a gun in the house"
Wow. Just wow.
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Peter Oborne, chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph, speaking on Radio 5 Live this morning,
mentions the 1000's of deaths of innocent Afghan people - including loads and loads of children.
He says "If you compare the way we have marked the deaths, quite rightly, of those 26 children and teachers in Connecticut, with the fact of these drone attacks that go on all the time - we know they kill loads of children,
1000's of children".
He goes on to talk about two sets of values when we slaughter Afghan children using a drone attack,
we seem to be able to forget about that very regularly.
~ 42 minutes in www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pbj78/5_live_Breakfast_Your_Call_18_12_2012/
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>> Peter Oborne, chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph, speaking on Radio 5 Live this
>> morning,
>> mentions the 1000's of deaths of innocent Afghan people - including loads and loads of
>> children.
And in name of balance George Monbiot makes a similar point in today's Guardian re US drone attacks in Pakistan.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/us-killings-tragedies-pakistan-bug-splats?
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The children who die in Afghanistan are colleteral damage.The Americans don't care for them but do we?
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Some of us do Dutchie - there's you and me for starters.
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tinyurl.com/cc6h8ok (Telegraph)
...the National Rifle Association (NRA) dismissed growing calls for a ban on assault weapons as a “dangerous notion”...
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"The only cure to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"
It has a kind of crazy twisted logic to it if you avoid the "get rid of guns" angle.
He looked a tad right wing crazy saying it tho.
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>> a kind of crazy twisted logic to it if you avoid the "get rid of guns" angle.
Perfectly sound logic actually. But only with the unspoken assumption that the tooled up citizens are sane, calm, intelligent, thoughtful, competent with firearms and not deluded or drunk or stoned. Trouble with the NRA is that it idealizes some people and diabolizes others. Human nature of course, such as it is.
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That's what I thought what happens when the security guards they think should be employed go 'a bit funny' arm all the teachers? Then what then, arm parents who take it in turns to come into school? Where does it stop?
Last edited by: sooty123 on Fri 21 Dec 12 at 21:30
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They'd need at least 200,000 armed guards to get this off the ground.
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>> They'd need at least 200,000 armed guards to get this off the ground.
>>
When I heard this on the radio, my gf said how big the schools are over there and the amount of guards needed just at one big school. Multiply that across every school in America you're looking at a lot of guards like you say, all needing a gun, funny old thing.
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I must say I'm surprised they've gone this far.
Do they think that it will deter crazed and suicidal shooters? Or that they will wait for the guards to shoot them, rather than coming with bigger weapons and planning to get their retaliation in first? Or that none of the 200,000 or so guards they will need to recruit, arm, and place in schools will themselves be a problem?
Maybe it will take the the first guard going loco for them to see the problem.
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I think the NRA may have made a tactical blunder. The wise move would have been to mutter some platitudes, agree to talk to the anti gun lobby, and generally waffle the thing into a distant memory (till the next time)
Instead to come out guns blazing so to speak, while its still raw is a very bad gambit.
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I agree with Zero.
A day or two ago they seemed to start off considering talking but now perhaps they have been got at by the hard liners.
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Yes, it looks like an error, at least from here.
I think the NRA maybe saw the event as possible trigger for an shift of public opinion against the status quo if they didn't seize the initiative and make the case for 'good' gun ownership.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 21 Dec 12 at 22:44
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Some hardliner from the NRA was giving a press conference at which he said that the answer to a bad man with a gun was a good man with a gun and the public seem to be in support of a scheme to have an armed guard in every school. That's really going to work isn't it? How many guards for a 500 pupil school and is it really a good idea to have two men with guns shooting at each other in a school full of children!
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>> Some hardliner from the NRA was giving a press conference at which he said that the answer to a bad man with a gun was a good man with a gun
Another problem with that idea is, how can you be sure the good guy IS a good guy, and always will remain a good guy?
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"Instead to come out guns blazing so to speak, while its still raw is a very bad gambit."
Possibly but the more likely scenario is that they realise that restrictions on so called "assault' rifles are inevitable. In reality these rifles are only represent a tiny percentage of gun ownership in America and the NRA are happy to see the debate diverted to this area rather than gun ownership as a whole.
Nobody is talking about restrictions on hunting rifles, which can be more powerful than the weapons in question and can be re-loaded virtually as quickly or indeed hand guns which constitute the vast majority of guns in the USA and are responsible for 95% of all firearms incidents.
Even if the Obama law is passed it will have virtually no effect on the number of firearms in the hands of the population or the number of deaths by firearms which are nearly all caused by hand guns.
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I wonder what the NRA would make of this, and if their is any equivalent satirical repsonse in the US? (Daily Mash)
goo.gl/QLl3x
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The frightening thing is that the mindset is almost true.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Sun 23 Dec 12 at 13:21
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guns dont kill people... its the cold dead hands holding them that do ( blimey ive become a philosaphor)
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In the 9 days since the Connecticut shootings, 500 people have died in America as a result of guns,
so there must be a hell-of-a-lot of cold dead hands in that country.
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There's an even more polemical piece about the US gun lobby on the mash website that accompanies the very funny PregnantTeenager spoof magazine dummy (which I have forwarded to all my female descendants aged 16 or over). I do dearly love a bit of pointed swearing and blinding.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 2 Jan 13 at 00:37
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I think we can surmise from this that there are at least 30,000 raving nutters in the US -
www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/24/piers-morgan-petition-cnn-anchorman-deported
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This is truly is an unwelcome development. The prospect of Piers Morgan returning to the UK makes me shudder.
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Hopefully a nutter will shoot him.
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I don't know Piers Morgan but he has guts attacking these nutters.
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I liked Stephen Fry's comment a few weeks back.
Whats the definition of countryside?
Killing Piers Morgan
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Piers did a intervieuw on you tube with a Mr Pratt who sounds like a pratt.Piers Morgan made more sense.Clever man Stephen fry a bit strange do.>;)
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27 die for the right to bear arms. - Londoner
