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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    If the guy had slit the throats of 50 LGBT people, nobody could blame the NRA or the second amendment.
    Who would the blinkered ones blame then? The kitchen and hardware shops?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 579 ✭✭✭Qs


    Slitting 50 peoples throats would have been a much more difficult undertaking.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,106 ✭✭✭Christy42


    recedite wrote: »
    If the guy had slit the throats of 50 LGBT people, nobody could blame the NRA or the second amendment.
    Who would the blinkered ones blame then? The kitchen and hardware shops?

    He would have been stopped long before murdering 49 people and less people would have died.


  • Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ Jeremy Howling Raffle


    recedite wrote: »
    If the guy had slit the throats of 50 LGBT people, nobody could blame the NRA or the second amendment.
    Who would the blinkered ones blame then? The kitchen and hardware shops?

    What might you use an assault rifle for?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Qs wrote: »
    Slitting 50 peoples throats would have been a much more difficult undertaking.
    A highly trained operative could make a good stab at it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    What might you use an assault rifle for?
    Me? Nothing.
    Anyway, sometimes these frenzied attacks by nutters are foiled by gun totin' citizens.


  • Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ Jeremy Howling Raffle


    recedite wrote: »
    Me? Nothing.
    Anyway, sometimes these frenzied attacks by nutters are foiled by gun totin' citizens.

    Hardly a fair comparison / question so?
    recedite wrote: »
    If the guy had slit the throats of 50 LGBT people, nobody could blame the NRA or the second amendment.
    Who would the blinkered ones blame then? The kitchen and hardware shops?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,944 ✭✭✭✭Links234


    recedite wrote: »
    A highly trained operative could make a good stab at it.

    At this point, this thread should be renamed to "Alt-right nucases say the dumbest things" because this is just idiotic.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,147 ✭✭✭JPNelsforearm


    Christy42 wrote: »
    Shocking. Morals have changed throughout time.
    Anyone who thinks the founding fathers of the US got it all right needs to double check a few things. Never got the American trait of attributing near divinity to the founding fathers (well ok we had it here but are getting over it). We can appreciate what the likes of Pearse or Franklin did without saying they were right about everything.

    And I think rights should be held above the grasping claws of the moral majority of the day. After the first is gone, the same crowd will be after the second, there is a groundswell of activists already lobbying against it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,253 ✭✭✭jackofalltrades


    Links234 wrote: »
    At this point, this thread should be renamed to "Alt-right nucases say the dumbest things" because this is just idiotic.
    No one is forcing you to read or post on this thread.
    If you think it's ridiculous and idiotic then just ignore it.
    It seems yourself and one or two other posters just can't stand any criticism of left wing ideology.

    Maybe start a thread in feedback and we can all discuss it there.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,944 ✭✭✭✭Links234


    It seems yourself and one or two other posters just can't stand any criticism of left wing ideology.

    What criticism? Crap like this and the above posted I quoted is total idiocy, and I'm calling it out for the callous moronic statement it is:
    recedite wrote: »
    If the guy had slit the throats of 50 LGBT people, nobody could blame the NRA or the second amendment.
    Who would the blinkered ones blame then? The kitchen and hardware shops?

    Criticism of left wing ideology my arse :rolleyes:


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    recedite wrote: »
    A tolerance for islamic homophobia is often characteristic of non-islamic liberals and feminists, oddly enough.
    Only for the weird self-serving sense of "liberal" used by the likes of Mr McKevitt of Alive! fame, Ted Cruz, Bill O'Reilly and other low-end shock jocks.

    The rest of us generally try to use the word properly :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,147 ✭✭✭JPNelsforearm


    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/firing-ar-15-horrifying-dangerous-loud-article-1.2673201

    "What is it like to fire an AR-15? It’s horrifying, menacing and very very loud"

    "The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary case of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable."


    Transcending beta male, we have the omega male, pure leftism in pale, quivering and doughy flesh form. Fear and pain permanently etched upon his visage, he tries in vain to make sense of a world that assaults his every sensory node, then he remembers its 2016, he doesnt need logic or coherent thought, he has a safe space he can retreat to. His still shaking fingers begin to type #BanAllAssaultDeathMachines #Hillary2016. He exhales and sighs with relief as the red wine and xanex kicks in...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,197 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    These posts are becoming bizarre.

    Roll on the Trump/Putin axis, eh?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,944 ✭✭✭✭Links234


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    These posts are becoming bizarre.

    Becoming? Have you been reading the forum lately? This utter nonsense is par the course.

    A horrific mass shooting, and the bullet-clutchers are out crying "Won't someone please think of the guns!" and making absurd mental gymnastics and leaps of faith in order to avoid the reality that had these shooters not been able to purchase the weapons they used to commit mass murder, scores of people would still be alive today.

    Australia data shows gun controls a huge success 20 years after mass shootin
    The chances of being murdered by a gun in Australia plunged to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2014 from 0.54 per 100,000 people in 1996, a decline of 72 percent, a Reuters analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed.


    In 1996, Australia had 311 murders, of which 98 were with guns. In 2014, with the population up from about 18 million to 23 million, Australia had 238 murders, of which 35 were with guns.


    It was the April 28, 1996, shooting deaths by a lone gunman of 35 people in and around a cafe at a historic former prison colony in Tasmania that prompted the government to buy back or confiscate a million firearms and make it harder to buy new ones.


    The country has had no mass shootings since.


    But according to some on this forum, easy access to assault weapons has no bearing on these mass shootings, because according to the top minds around here a "highly trained operative" could just as easily slit the throats of the same number of people. A highly trained operative for crying out loud... That's a statement that can only be described as utterly moronic, it is simply not in touch with reality, and in no way can be considered a rational thought, I don't care how many kills you can get on COD with a knife, we're talking about the real world.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,953 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Christy42 wrote: »
    Shocking. Morals have changed throughout time.
    Anyone who thinks the founding fathers of the US got it all right needs to double check a few things. Never got the American trait of attributing near divinity to the founding fathers (well ok we had it here but are getting over it). We can appreciate what the likes of Pearse or Franklin did without saying they were right about everything.

    The idea that a 250 year old document can be a perfect blueprint for a modern society is almost as idiotic as the idea that a 2000 year old document can be that also.

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,253 ✭✭✭jackofalltrades


    Links234 wrote: »
    What criticism? Crap like this and the above posted I quoted is total idiocy, and I'm calling it out for the callous moronic statement it is:

    Criticism of left wing ideology my arse :rolleyes:
    The criticism running all the way through this thread.
    You seem to be opposed to this threads existence.
    Questioning why it's open, mocking the OP and looking for it's name to be changed.
    If it upsets you that much avoid it or discuss your grievances in feedback, as per the MOD instruction.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,944 ✭✭✭✭Links234


    My posts here really seem to have offended you, you seem opposed to their existence, if they upset you maybe you should just avoid this thread or discuss your grievances elsewhere, it seems like you and other posters just can't handle criticism of right-wing ideology. See how little that accomplishes? It's an odd, almost duplicitous reasoning that suggests that someone should be silent or remove themselves from a discussion rather than criticizing another, with the allegation that said criticism is in itself an attempt to silence. I'd like to remind you that free speech doesn't mean freedom from speech, and if someone posts something as incomprehensibly stupid as what recedite has, they open themselves up to countering points of view, in this case it's having their post called out for what it is. Also, you do realize I'm not actually looking for the thread's name to be changed, right? You do get it was a specious suggestion to make a point?

    PS. The OP of this thread was a religious nut and a very, very mockable chap indeed. ;)


  • Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ Jeremy Howling Raffle


    Links234 wrote: »
    My posts here really seem to have offended you, you seem opposed to their existence, if they upset you maybe you should just avoid this thread or discuss your grievances elsewhere, it seems like you and other posters just can't handle criticism of right-wing ideology. See how little that accomplishes? It's an odd, almost duplicitous reasoning that suggests that someone should be silent or remove themselves from a discussion rather than criticizing another, with the allegation that said criticism is in itself an attempt to silence. I'd like to remind you that free speech doesn't mean freedom from speech, and if someone posts something as incomprehensibly stupid as what recedite has, they open themselves up to countering points of view, in this case it's having their post called out for what it is. Also, you do realize I'm not actually looking for the thread's name to be changed, right? You do get it was a specious suggestion to make a point?

    PS. The OP of this thread was a religious nut and a very, very mockable chap indeed. ;)

    There is an equally looney thread in this same forum that deals with this. Perhaps you might care for that a bit more?

    It's extraordinarily rare that anyone asks for that thread to be closed / renamed / severely moderated etc, perhaps most understand that both 'wings' of society (if we really choose to define them like that) are as prone to madness as each other.

    And that drawing attention to fringe opinions, drawing them out into the open for discussion, and showing them up to be Fools Gold is extremely beneficial to us all.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=99553008&postcount=1440

    FWIW, I've questioned the logic of recedite above, without any need for hyperbole or appeal to emotion. I can't see the use of 'Self-Agitation' when it comes to debate, yet it seems to pop up in this thread frequently enough. A group used to using logic and reason to defend their position (Agnostics) should probably aim to extend those tools elsewhere when possible, and not resort to what we correctly point out as fallacies in other's arguments.

    Here is a similar post I've had to write to another.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,953 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Links234 wrote: »
    PS. The OP of this thread was a religious nut and a very, very mockable chap indeed. ;)

    Really? IIRC he regularly professed his non-belief, but wouldn't be the first and certainly won't be the last to employ 'mental reservation for Jeebus' in here...

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Links234 wrote: »
    Becoming? Have you been reading the forum lately? This utter nonsense is par the course.
    A+A has always had people who have expressed views which the moderators find, at the very least, offensive. However, it's within the forum charter that these views can be expressed and - speaking as a mod here - they'll continue to be permitted, but only so long as there are in the minority and that there are voices raised against them. If at any point it seems that heavily anti-social views are pervasive and unchallenged, some or all of your friendly mod team will step in and put a short, sharp end to the discussion.

    Historically, I should also point out that the forum has always been supportive of people with unconventional views. In previous decades - the word slips unchallenged from my lips - these people and these views were typically religious. However perhaps it's part of society's continuing evolution that the religious component is declining, while seeing the rise of equivalent views and equivalent people posting, just not from a religious perspective.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Links234 wrote: »
    But according to some on this forum, easy access to assault weapons has no bearing on these mass shootings, because according to the top minds around here a "highly trained operative" could just as easily slit the throats of the same number of people.
    So according to your theory, the Charlie Hebdo and other attacks in France and Belgium could not have happened then, because of the strict gun control laws in European countries?
    And BTW I did not say it was "just as easy" to kill with a knife, but a knife wielding assassin could do a lot of damage to unsuspecting and unarmed revellers in a nightclub before being stopped.
    Or an assassin armed with home made explosives could.
    Maybe there is some other common factor to consider here, one that you refuse to acknowledge? That elephant over there in the corner; the fundamental incompatibility of Islamic ideology with modern western lifestyles and civilisation.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,106 ✭✭✭Christy42


    recedite wrote: »
    So according to your theory, the Charlie Hebdo and other attacks in France and Belgium could not have happened then, because of the strict gun control laws in European countries?
    And BTW I did not say it was "just as easy" to kill with a knife, but a knife wielding assassin could do a lot of damage to unsuspecting and unarmed revellers in a nightclub before being stopped.
    Or an assassin armed with home made explosives could.
    Maybe there is some other common factor to consider here, one that you refuse to acknowledge? That elephant over there in the corner; the fundamental incompatibility of Islamic ideology with modern western lifestyles and civilisation.

    Shootings and bombings can still happen with gun control laws. The argument that you are trying desperately to ignore is that there will be less of them. Until someone says that gun control laws eliminate all shootings please stop arguing against an argument no one made.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,789 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    recedite wrote: »
    Me? Nothing.
    Anyway, sometimes these frenzied attacks by nutters are foiled by gun totin' citizens.

    Citizens? 3 of those examples are of trained law enforcement engaging with an armed person (no 3 was a deputy and police officer, 6 was a school resource officer and 11 was a security guard and two corrections officers).
    And sometimes, gun totin' citizens shoot the wrong people in the head.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    recedite wrote: »
    So according to your theory, the Charlie Hebdo and other attacks in France and Belgium could not have happened then, because of the strict gun control laws in European countries?
    And BTW I did not say it was "just as easy" to kill with a knife, but a knife wielding assassin could do a lot of damage to unsuspecting and unarmed revellers in a nightclub before being stopped.
    Or an assassin armed with home made explosives could.
    Maybe there is some other common factor to consider here, one that you refuse to acknowledge? That elephant over there in the corner; the fundamental incompatibility of Islamic ideology with modern western lifestyles and civilisation.

    France's gun laws are not as silly as America's but considerably more lax than the UK's. But leaving that aside, the attacks you speak of were carried out by illegal weapons. The pulse attack at the weekend, in common with many American mass shootings, was carried out using legally purchased and held weapons.

    Another point. If I found myself in the middle of one of these attacks my preference would be for a knife wielding maniac. I do take your point that someone with a knife, and the will to use it can do a lot of damage, but I don't think that is the important point. The point is likelihood of survival. To try to argue the likelihood of survival is not considerably greater when the attacker is armed only with a knife is idiotic.

    MrP


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 579 ✭✭✭Qs


    recedite wrote: »
    Maybe there is some other common factor to consider here, one that you refuse to acknowledge? That elephant over there in the corner; the fundamental incompatibility of Islamic ideology with modern western lifestyles and civilisation.

    Why does it have to be one other the other? These attacks can't be whittled down to one single cause. Homophobia thats clearly steeped in religious hatred caused the motivation but the easy accessibility of assault rifles provided the opportunity. Both issues need to be discussed yet we have 2 sides who will willingly ignore or excuse whichever issue suits them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Links234 wrote: »
    No, it really doesn't.

    If you want effective gun control, that's one thing (and the majority of firearms owners worldwide happen to agree with the idea by the way), but "we just need to ban them and it'll all be okay" is not only not a plan, or an original idea, but it's wrong, and it's been proven wrong over and over again, not only in Australia and the UK but in Ireland as well.

    Whatever the US's problem is, they haven't studied it enough to know the cause yet; their first step has to be to overturn their congressional funding threats against the CDC and to do some research. I'd say "more research", but as the National Academy of Sciences pointed out some years ago, there wasn't any trustworthy research in the US on this topic because all of it was highly partisan and usually flawed in some basic way, so the CDC is almost starting from scratch, at least where the last few decades in the US is concerned.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,106 ✭✭✭Christy42


    Sparks wrote: »
    No, it really doesn't.

    If you want effective gun control, that's one thing (and the majority of firearms owners worldwide happen to agree with the idea by the way), but "we just need to ban them and it'll all be okay" is not only not a plan, or an original idea, but it's wrong, and it's been proven wrong over and over again, not only in Australia and the UK but in Ireland as well.

    Whatever the US's problem is, they haven't studied it enough to know the cause yet; their first step has to be to overturn their congressional funding threats against the CDC and to do some research. I'd say "more research", but as the National Academy of Sciences pointed out some years ago, there wasn't any trustworthy research in the US on this topic because all of it was highly partisan and usually flawed in some basic way, so the CDC is almost starting from scratch, at least where the last few decades in the US is concerned.

    None of those links prove it wrong. At best they are a call for more research. However there is only so long you can do research for while people dying. Especially as any research will be highly dependent on the model you use to predict murders which will never be entirely accurate. If you can add some extra measures then all the better.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Sparks wrote: »
    No, it really doesn't.

    If you want effective gun control, that's one thing (and the majority of firearms owners worldwide happen to agree with the idea by the way), but "we just need to ban them and it'll all be okay" is not only not a plan, or an original idea, but it's wrong, and it's been proven wrong over and over again, not only in Australia and the UK but in Ireland as well.
    Could you explain how you are defining "proven wrong" please?

    MrP


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    MrPudding wrote: »
    Could you explain how you are defining "proven wrong" please?
    I am defining it as "failed to do what it was proposed for by its proposers, namely stopping mass shootings from recurring".

    Hungerford saw a ban on SLRs and various other firearms as the sole response. Some years later, Dunblane happened. A ban on pistols was brought in there as the sole response (and in fact, there investigations were classified under the Official Secrets Act and were to have been sealed for a century; it took over a decade to find out the details). Some years later, Cumbria happened. Two attempts to prevent these incidents with a ban, two failures.

    Similarly, Port Arthur saw a ban used as the sole measure after the shooting; Monash happened some years later (Monash doesn't get classed by some as a mass shooting because only two people died; but seven were shot so the main justification for not calling it a mass shooting is dependant on luck and the skill of the medics involved and the technical proficiency of the shooter, which absolutely stinks as a logical argument).

    The Irish example is materially different; here we saw a rise in paramilitary terrorism and we introduced (illegally, as it transpired) a ban on the vast majority of firearms to prevent it (this was explicitly stated at the time). History does rather show that as a measure brought in to prevent terrorist attacks, it did not succeed.



    It's pretty important to note something here; there's more than one form of gun control. We have seen this specific one fail repeatedly. But we have seen others succeed repeatedly. In both the UK and Australia and also in New Zealand, funding a directed police programme to combat gun crime had dramatic, visible, provable positive results (that's also highlighted in the peer reviewed studies I linked to above). And in Australia, they showed that funding social programmes had a very positive effect on suicide rates (as in, they reduced them). And the details from Hungerford and especially Dunblane also give us methods that would have prevented those atrocities and which are not merely practical and economic, but which in some cases are actually legal requirements that for some reason were abandoned.

    TL;DR - one method doesn't work. We have many, many others, many of which have strong evidence proving they do work. We ought to be using them (in Ireland, we already do for quite a few of them btw).


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Christy42 wrote: »
    None of those links prove it wrong. At best they are a call for more research. However there is only so long you can do research for while people dying. Especially as any research will be highly dependent on the model you use to predict murders which will never be entirely accurate. If you can add some extra measures then all the better.

    Those links are peer-reviewed studies in major international journals carried out by independent researchers (as opposed to being the NRA or Brady funded partisan research dismissed by the NAS). That's a very high standard of work to be dismissing without justification, especially as at the end of your own paragraph you then propose that "extra measures" be taken without any data to support them at all. That's not an evidence-based argument.

    And for the record, I'm pro-gun-control. I happen to think Obama's comments in the week before Orlando were perfectly correct. I just also happen to think that evidence-based decision making doesn't support a ban, and based on fifteen years of studying firearms legislation in Ireland, I happen to think that this stuff is not intuitive or simple and policies that treat it as such have always run afoul of unintended consequences and have rarely achieved their original goals where those goals were actually stated, which is rather a rare occurrence.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,106 ✭✭✭Christy42


    Sparks wrote: »
    Those links are peer-reviewed studies in major international journals carried out by independent researchers (as opposed to being the NRA or Brady funded partisan research dismissed by the NAS). That's a very high standard of work to be dismissing without justification, especially as at the end of your own paragraph you then propose that "extra measures" be taken without any data to support them at all. That's not an evidence-based argument.

    And for the record, I'm pro-gun-control. I happen to think Obama's comments in the week before Orlando were perfectly correct. I just also happen to think that evidence-based decision making doesn't support a ban, and based on fifteen years of studying firearms legislation in Ireland, I happen to think that this stuff is not intuitive or simple and policies that treat it as such have always run afoul of unintended consequences and have rarely achieved their original goals where those goals were actually stated, which is rather a rare occurrence.

    Those links were less definitive than you.

    Several shootings don't imply that less guns don't work. Just compare to the sheer number of shootings in the States. It also depends on what you mean by ban. Ireland has plenty of legally held guns without having a large gun problem.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Christy42 wrote: »
    Those links were less definitive than you.
    Not so much. To quote from the abstract of the paper in the British Journal of Criminology,
    When compared with observed values, firearm suicide was the only parameter the NFA may have influenced, although societal factors could also have influenced observed changes. The findings have profound implications for future firearm legislation policy direction.
    That's straight-out saying the legislation did not work, that something else was causing the decline in gun crime.
    Several shootings don't imply that less guns don't work. Just compare to the sheer number of shootings in the States. It also depends on what you mean by ban. Ireland has plenty of legally held guns without having a large gun problem.
    Actually we have the third or fourth lowest ownership level of firearms in the EU so I don't think you can use the word "plenty". Also we have a massively different gun culture here (and the gun culture in the EU in general is massively different to that in the US) and honestly I think that has a lot more to do with our safety record here than the Firearms Act does, especially since so few people know what's actually in the Firearms Act here.
    In other words, I don't think the numbers are the causative factor, I think they're at most a symptom. But I can't prove that.

    Also, "ban" has a very defined meaning in law. It means you can't have them. At all. They're prohibited. Illegal to possess. For example, flamethrowers are banned in Ireland. That doesn't mean we only have a few or you have to have special licences for them or whatever; it means you can't have one, at all, under any circumstances (no, soldiers don't have any, they don't own their firearms).


    (that's a good thing btw)


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Sparks wrote: »
    Whatever the US's problem is, they haven't studied it enough to know the cause yet [...]
    Pace the various bans - most and possibly all instituted by NRA-supported, Republican politicians - on research into gun-related injury and death, most observers do agree that is caused by people with guns. Restrict or remove the guns and gun-related violence will decline or stop.
    Sparks wrote: »
    I'd say "more research", but as the National Academy of Sciences pointed out some years ago, there wasn't any trustworthy research in the US on this topic because all of it was highly partisan and usually flawed in some basic way, so the CDC is almost starting from scratch, at least where the last few decades in the US is concerned.
    The report you appear to be referring to is this one here:

    http://www.nap.edu/read/10881/chapter/1#vii

    Whose section on "Major Conclusions" states that "this report necessarily focuses on the important unknowns" so it seems a little unfair to expect much in the way of data-driven conclusions.

    BTW, I can't immediately find where this report says "there isn't any trustworthy research in the US on this topic" or anything similar - can you let us know where the report states that?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Christy42 wrote: »
    However there is only so long you can do research for while people dying
    One would think so, but it appears not to be the case.

    The NRA and its membership, together with similar organizations with their memberships, appear quite happy to fiddle for as long as it takes - they're in the business of promoting the sale and ownership of guns. Dead people aren't a part of that financial calculation since demand is for guns is obviously quite limited amongst the dead.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    robindch wrote: »
    Restrict or remove the guns and gun-related violence will decline or stop.
    Robin, this is not the first time we've talked about this, and you have such an aversion to accepting the fact that we have tried this many times and we keep observing that it just does not work that I'm not willing to discuss it further with you until you accept the actual observed facts. If you won't accept actual evidence, then it's not a debate or an argument, it's questioning your faith - and that's the correct word for it - and I grew out of arguing with priests a very long time ago.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Sparks wrote: »
    I am defining it as "failed to do what it was proposed for by its proposers, namely stopping mass shootings from recurring".

    Hungerford saw a ban on SLRs and various other firearms as the sole response. Some years later, Dunblane happened. A ban on pistols was brought in there as the sole response (and in fact, there investigations were classified under the Official Secrets Act and were to have been sealed for a century; it took over a decade to find out the details). Some years later, Cumbria happened. Two attempts to prevent these incidents with a ban, two failures.

    Well, I think we see this quite differently. And I should point out, I am actually undecided on a complete ban on firearms. I enjoy target shooting, though I don't get to do it as often as I would like and I don't own any firearms myself.

    What I would draw from your examples above is this: First, the ban put in place after Hungerford had the effect that SLRs/ assault rifle type weapons became harder (or impossible?) to obtain legally. Dunblane was carried out with pistols, not assault rifles. After Dunblane access to pistol was massively restricted, then we have Cumbria. it is worth noting that the shooter in the Cumbria murders used neither an assault rifle, not a pistol. He used a .22 rifle and a shotgun, the interesting difference between these weapons and assault rifles and pistols is it is relatively easy to legally obtain .22 rifles and shotguns.

    I would suggest that whether these bans were a success or failure would depend on how one defines success or failure. If one defines success or failure as stopping all gun related crime, then it is probably reasonable to say they failed. However, I don't think that is a reasonable definition for success in this context. I am not sure what the intent of the legislators was, and I don't have time to check Hansard to find out, but I am sure it probably wasn't an end to all firearm related offences or deaths.

    Let me ask you a couple of questions:

    1) Do you think the ban on self-loading rifles / assault rifles in the wake of the Hungerford mass shooting has either:
    A) Prevented further mass shootings using SLRs / assault rifles.
    B) Reduced the occurrence of mass shootings using SLRs / assault rifles.
    C) Had no effect on the number of mass shooting in the UK using SLRs / assault rifles.

    2) Do you think the ban on pistols in the wake of the Dunblane mass shooting has either:
    A) Prevented further mass shootings using pistols.
    B) Reduced the occurrence of mass shootings using pistols.
    C) Had no effect on the number of mass shooting in the UK using pistols.
    Sparks wrote: »
    Similarly, Port Arthur saw a ban used as the sole measure after the shooting; Monash happened some years later (Monash doesn't get classed by some as a mass shooting because only two people died; but seven were shot so the main justification for not calling it a mass shooting is dependant on luck and the skill of the medics involved and the technical proficiency of the shooter, which absolutely stinks as a logical argument).
    I don't know the circumstances of Monash, so I can't comment on it specifically. I would say, again, that whilst it might be nice to be able to completely stop certain behaviours or events, realistically that is never going to happen. All one can really hope to do is to try to reduce the number of occurrences and lethality.
    Sparks wrote: »
    The Irish example is materially different; here we saw a rise in paramilitary terrorism and we introduced (illegally, as it transpired) a ban on the vast majority of firearms to prevent it (this was explicitly stated at the time). History does rather show that as a measure brought in to prevent terrorist attacks, it did not succeed.
    You can't actually know this. And realistically, the same is true of your examples above. You can try to guess and you can use trends to try to come up with a possible answer, but at the end of the day, you can't actually know. I would allow that for the UK and Austrailian bans the statistics might be more relevant, but in the Irish context, I think this is a very bad example for you to try to use. First, all you know is that; there was a ban, people still got killed. You don't actually know how effective that ban was on stopping paramilitary killings, you can't possibly know that there would not have been any additional deaths without the ban. Also, you are ignoring the non-direct effects of the ban in this context. Whilst the paramilitaries obviously were still able to access weaponry, you can't say it wasn't more difficult. The ban also affecting how the paramilitaries handled their weapons. They had to hide them, they had to move then around. Getting caught with them was a serious offense. All of these little, small, indirect effects added to the burden of trying to use these weapons. Did it stop paramilitary killing? No. Did it make life a little bit more difficult for those paramilitaries? Certainly.

    Sparks wrote: »
    It's pretty important to note something here; there's more than one form of gun control. We have seen this specific one fail repeatedly. But we have seen others succeed repeatedly. In both the UK and Australia and also in New Zealand, funding a directed police programme to combat gun crime had dramatic, visible, provable positive results (that's also highlighted in the peer reviewed studies I linked to above). And in Australia, they showed that funding social programmes had a very positive effect on suicide rates (as in, they reduced them). And the details from Hungerford and especially Dunblane also give us methods that would have prevented those atrocities and which are not merely practical and economic, but which in some cases are actually legal requirements that for some reason were abandoned.

    I don't necessarily disagree with much of this. Gun crime, like many things in society, is a complex problem with no quick fix and certainly no single thing that can solve it. It certainly needs a multipronged solution but one of those prongs has to be reducing access to weapons in the first place.
    Sparks wrote: »
    TL;DR - one method doesn't work. We have many, many others, many of which have strong evidence proving they do work. We ought to be using them (in Ireland, we already do for quite a few of them btw).
    Agreed.

    MrP


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    MrPudding wrote: »
    Let me ask you a couple of questions:
    1) Do you think the ban on self-loading rifles / assault rifles in the wake of the Hungerford mass shooting has either:
    A) Prevented further mass shootings using SLRs / assault rifles.
    B) Reduced the occurrence of mass shootings using SLRs / assault rifles.
    C) Had no effect on the number of mass shooting in the UK using SLRs / assault rifles.
    2) Do you think the ban on pistols in the wake of the Dunblane mass shooting has either:
    A) Prevented further mass shootings using pistols.
    B) Reduced the occurrence of mass shootings using pistols.
    C) Had no effect on the number of mass shooting in the UK using pistols.
    In both cases, D. It made another mass shooting more likely by not learning the causal factors in those events and addressing them, and took the topic out of the national debate by "doing something".

    For example, after Hungerford it emerged that Ryan had been disciplined at work for showing up armed, and that he had been shooting at his neighbours for some weeks beforehand with an air rifle. Had either of those incidents been made known to police, they were more than sufficient grounds to pull his licence and confiscate his firearms. After Dunblane (a decade later thanks to the scottish police sealing the records for 100 years under the official secrets act), it emerged that Hamilton had been caught breaking the firearms act in 1976 and not prosecuted, that he'd been the subject of several complaints over the intervening years, that he'd been kicked out of every shooting club he had been a member of and was being kicked out of the one he cited on his last firearms licence application (but that that was never checked), and that the licence was granted over the strenuous written objections of the detective who interviewed Hamilton for the renewal and those of the local childrens protection officer, both of whom said Hamilton was untrustworthy and should not have firearms (and that's a mild paraphrasing, their actual words were far stronger).

    In both cases, the existing law was sufficient to prevent the shootings, but it wasn't applied. But this was ignored in favour of a ban (in the case of Dunblane, the legislation process was also compromised by the ongoing election at the time, with both sides anxious to get favourable press coverage).
    I don't know the circumstances of Monash, so I can't comment on it specifically.
    Monash university, 2002. Seven people shot, two died. There's a (rather intellectually dishonest) argument that it's not a mass shooting because though luck, good medical care and the shooter missing, more of those shot did not die; but in every respect other than that it matched the definition of a mass shooting.
    I would say, again, that whilst it might be nice to be able to completely stop certain behaviours or events, realistically that is never going to happen. All one can really hope to do is to try to reduce the number of occurrences and lethality.
    And again, there are many ways to do that other than bans which have been tried and found to be successful, including in Australia and New Zealand and the UK. But every time a ban is tried, it has not had the intended effect. After Hungerford, the ban was not bought in to prevent a recurrence with one specific kind of firearm; it was brought in to stop further mass shootings. It failed. The same is true after Dunblane, and Port Arthur.

    The question is: is the priority to address the problem of gun crime and mass shootings; or is the priority to ban private ownership of guns? Because there's an unstated assumption that those are the same thing, but the data from observing attempts in the real world has repeatedly shown that they are not.
    You can't actually know this.
    That's a metaphysics argument.
    What we know is: the trend in gun crime in New Zealand and Australia was in decline before the gun ban in Australia and that declining trend continued at the same rate after the gun ban. It had no effect on the overall gun crime problem; and we know it failed to prevent further mass shootings because of Monash. We also know that the trend in gun crime in the UK went significantly (in the "statistically significant" sense of that word) upwards after the gun bans there, and did not come back down after any subsequent legislation.
    We also know that in all of those cases, the decline in gun crime happened after the police in those countries were directed to address the problem and funded to do so.
    Which means that we know of one method which has not worked despite several trials and we know of another which has worked in all three countries where it was trialled. I find it very hard to accept the ethics of continuing to try an approach that has failed repeatedly when we know of one that works and the price of failure is so tragic, even if that failed approach seems so intuitive.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Sparks wrote: »
    In both cases, D. It made another mass shooting more likely by not learning the causal factors in those events and addressing them, and took the topic out of the national debate by "doing something".
    You mention intellectual dishonesty a little later in your reply, some might say you are displaying some with this poor attempt a trying to avoid answering two simple questions. I have noted your suggestion of D, but would suggest that even if we allow D to be the correct answers a, b or still would still be valid. So which is it A+D, B+D or C+D?
    Sparks wrote: »
    For example, after Hungerford it emerged that Ryan had been disciplined at work for showing up armed, and that he had been shooting at his neighbours for some weeks beforehand with an air rifle. Had either of those incidents been made known to police, they were more than sufficient grounds to pull his licence and confiscate his firearms.
    Interesting. And I do take your point, there were clearly opportunities to intervene and possibly prevent this mass shooting, but it also begs the question; how likely to do you think it would have been for him to turn up armed at work if the current restrictions on firearms had been in place?
    Sparks wrote: »
    After Dunblane (a decade later thanks to the scottish police sealing the records for 100 years under the official secrets act), it emerged that Hamilton had been caught breaking the firearms act in 1976 and not prosecuted, that he'd been the subject of several complaints over the intervening years, that he'd been kicked out of every shooting club he had been a member of and was being kicked out of the one he cited on his last firearms licence application (but that that was never checked), and that the licence was granted over the strenuous written objections of the detective who interviewed Hamilton for the renewal and those of the local childrens protection officer, both of whom said Hamilton was untrustworthy and should not have firearms (and that's a mild paraphrasing, their actual words were far stronger).

    In both cases, the existing law was sufficient to prevent the shootings, but it wasn't applied. But this was ignored in favour of a ban (in the case of Dunblane, the legislation process was also compromised by the ongoing election at the time, with both sides anxious to get favourable press coverage).
    Again, good points, but there are always going to be mistakes. There are always going to be lapses in policy and judgement. Anmd realistically, there probably isn't anything we can do about that. SO another question for you: Which do you think has more potential for harm, a) a lapse in policy or judgement, exactly as you mention above, where there is easy access to pistols, SLRs and high capacity semi or fully automatic shotguns or, B) where you have the same lapse, but access to these weapons is heavily restricted?

    Sparks wrote: »
    Monash university, 2002. Seven people shot, two died. There's a (rather intellectually dishonest) argument that it's not a mass shooting because though luck, good medical care and the shooter missing, more of those shot did not die; but in every respect other than that it matched the definition of a mass shooting.
    I would agree with you that there is an element of intellectual dishonesty in this response, and I would certainly consider this to be a mass shooting. What kind of weapons were used? Were they less lethal than might otherwise have been used? I do appreciate that all weapon are, or can be, lethal, but i am sure you will agree that some weapons are more lethal than others... Is it possible that, in addition to the quick reactions of medical staff, so few people died because the injuries were less serious?
    Sparks wrote: »
    And again, there are many ways to do that other than bans which have been tried and found to be successful, including in Australia and New Zealand and the UK. But every time a ban is tried, it has not had the intended effect. After Hungerford, the ban was not bought in to prevent a recurrence with one specific kind of firearm; it was brought in to stop further mass shootings. It failed. The same is true after Dunblane, and Port Arthur.
    Hmmm, are you sure? Are you sure the intention was to stop, outright, all further mass shootings? Whilst governments can do some silly things, there are generally some fairly clever people knocking around, and i doubt any of then thought they could eradicate mass shootings or mass killings. make them harder? Yes. Improve survivability? Yes. Get rid of completely? I seriously doubt. I have an exam tomorrow, and I am already doing enough procrastination, but over the weekend I will have a dig around Hansard anmd read the debates of the legislative amendments. That should tell us what the intention of the legislation was. I would be really, really surprised if it was to end all mass shootings.
    Sparks wrote: »
    The question is: is the priority to address the problem of gun crime and mass shootings; or is the priority to ban private ownership of guns? Because there's an unstated assumption that those are the same thing, but the data from observing attempts in the real world has repeatedly shown that they are not.
    I don't think there is a priority to ban private ownership of guns, but i that is not an unreasonable part of trying to reduce the occurrence and effectiveness of mass shootings.

    I would also take issue with the argument that these bans don't address gun crime. That there is still gun crime does not necessarily prove that the bans are ineffective. We have a ban on murder, but there is still murder. Should we make murder legal because the ban on murder obviously doesn't work?

    Sparks wrote: »
    That's a metaphysics argument.
    What we know is: the trend in gun crime in New Zealand and Australia was in decline before the gun ban in Australia and that declining trend continued at the same rate after the gun ban. It had no effect on the overall gun crime problem; and it failed to prevent further mass shootings because of Monash.
    I presume you have more than Monash...? What was the annual mass shooting rarte before and after the ban?
    Sparks wrote: »
    We also know that the trend in gun crime in the UK went significantly (in the "statistically significant" sense of that word) upwards after the gun bans there, and did not come back down after any subsequent legislation.
    We also know that in all of those cases, the decline in gun crime happened after the police in those countries were directed to address the problem and funded to do so.
    I would be willing to allow that increased police action contributed to the decline in gun crime if you will allow that restricted access to guns reduces the availability of guns. Both seem fairly obvious.

    Sparks wrote: »
    Which means that we know of one method which has not worked despite several trials and we know of another which has worked in all three countries where it was trialled. I find it very hard to accept the ethics of continuing to try an approach that has failed repeatedly when we know of one that works and the price of failure is so tragic, even if that failed approach seems so intuitive.
    I do take issue with "failed repeatedly". Perhaps you might answer the questions I asked you in my last post?

    MrP


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    MrPudding wrote: »
    You mention intellectual dishonesty a little later in your reply, some might say you are displaying some with this poor attempt a trying to avoid answering two simple questions. I have noted your suggestion of D, but would suggest that even if we allow D to be the correct answers a, b or still would still be valid. So which is it A+D, B+D or C+D?
    The reason I say D is twofold : 1) D is the more worrying point for me because a law that doesn't fix a problem is more harmful than no law at all in cases like this (because they give a false sense of security and divert attention away from the problem); and 2) in both cases option C is not the justification originally advanced for those laws, which was that they would prevent mass shootings. Not "prevent mass shootings using these specific classes of firearm". You can't make up criteria for judging the success of a law after it has passed, that would render any such evaluation utterly meaningless.
    Interesting. And I do take your point, there were clearly opportunities to intervene and possibly prevent this mass shooting, but it also begs the question; how likely to do you think it would have been for him to turn up armed at work if the current restrictions on firearms had been in place?
    Very likely; he wasn't armed with the rifle he used in the shooting in the event that led to the disciplinary hearing, he turned up on the job site wearing a large hunting knife and a pistol.
    Again, good points, but there are always going to be mistakes.
    There is a rather large difference in severity between "mistake" and "ignoring the written reports of the officer you sent to interview the applicant and the local child prevention officer citing twenty years of suspicious behaviour". Police officers do not routinely write the kind of report that we're talking about here. To quote it for context:
    During the course of my investigation I discovered that Hamilton was no stranger to controversy and similar investigations had been undertaken by this and Strathclyde Police Forces in the past. Hamilton also features in local criminal Intelligence files. Throughout my investigation I met and spoke with Hamilton on a number of occasions. It is as a result of the impressions left with me by this man that I feel compelled to make this report. I have recently discovered that Hamilton possesses a firearms certificate … This concerns me. I am firmly of the opinion that Hamilton is an unsavoury character and an unstable personality. … I would contend that Mr. Hamilton will be a risk to children whenever he has access to them and that he appears to me to be an unsuitable person to possess a firearms certificate in view of the number of occasions he has come to the adverse attention of the police and his apparent instability. The Procurator-Fiscal at Stirling has not yet decided on whether or not he will proceed with the case against Hamilton but at the moment it appears in all likelihood that he will not. I respectfully request that serious consideration is given to withdrawing this man’s firearms certificate as a precautionary measure as it is my opinion that he is a scheming, devious and deceitful individual who is not to be trusted.

    You could classify the failure to do the background checks properly as a mistake, that would be fair, but it would also suggest that more funding and more training and more manpower for the police was the better solution because that would address a known causal factor.
    Anmd realistically, there probably isn't anything we can do about that.
    Firstly, I don't agree. We've been studying the causes of mistakes in every field of human endeavour for centuries, and we know of several ways to reduce them; from domain-specific ones through to more general ways like having sufficient manpower to do the job instead of overloading workers.

    Secondly, if you feel we cannot stop mistakes and lapses of judgement in the police on this large a scale, why do you believe they would be able to enforce a ban correctly? Or that the legislation governing that ban would be written correctly (I ask that with a personal bias - fifteen years of studying Irish firearms legislation being written has left me with a very, very low opinion of the ability of our legislative process to pass good laws that deal with things that have any degree of technical complexity).
    SO another question for you: Which do you think has more potential for harm, a) a lapse in policy or judgement, exactly as you mention above, where there is easy access to pistols, SLRs and high capacity semi or fully automatic shotguns or, B) where you have the same lapse, but access to these weapons is heavily restricted?
    That question is assuming that those "heavy restrictions" are somehow not subject to the mistakes and lapses we're talking about.
    To give a domestic example, some years ago a target shooter here was sent the incorrect pistol through a mistake on the part of the retailer (who was on the continent) and instead of the legal semiautomatic pistol he ordered, he received a (highly illegal under EU law) fully automatic pistol. He took it to the Garda station and told them what had happened. They checked the serial numbers, which matched his application and sent him on his way. It took actual work on his part over a week for them to rectify the situation.
    So when you talk about mistakes and lapses, you have to understand that they undermine the entire legislative system and not just individual parts selectively; and as such can render all your legal protections useless. There are more technical examples, but the salient point is that if your defence against these shootings is a system that can be undermined by mistakes and lapses that you're not addressing (or, as above, think fundamentally can't be addressed), then your defence is flawed.

    Also, as a side point, the "easy access" you're referring to did not exist in that jurisdiction before the shootings. There was a firearms act in place which was not dissimilar from ours (in fact, ours *was* the UK firearms act until 1925 and our firearms act was a direct copy of most of the prior UK act, with one or two changes which seem to have been made primarily so that we would not have an identical firearms act). Firearms were not uncontrolled items before the shootings and then fully controlled afterwards. As I said earlier, the problem was not the law as it existed on the statute books at the time of the shootings; but that that law had not been enforced correctly.
    What kind of weapons were used? Were they less lethal than might otherwise have been used?
    A centerfire pistol was used (he was carrying five more in holsters but was prevented from using them). Two people died. Four more would have except for good medical care and the shooter not being an accurate shot (a fifth received minor injuries which wouldn't have been life-threatening). For me, that's "lethal", and it's virtually a binary measure. Had he not been physically stopped, he had the capability to have killed many more people.

    As a side point - he was physically stopped because he walked into the classroom and stood on a desk while surrounded by people, one of whom was a trained martial artist. If he had stood at the door of the room and opened fire, the number of people harmed could have been horrifically higher. Relying on someone being able to physically stop a shooter like that would be a serious mistake.
    Is it possible that, in addition to the quick reactions of medical staff, so few people died because the injuries were less serious?
    Possible, but that would have been because of where the shots hit (the kind of firearms banned by the Australian ban would not have been so powerful as to render a shot to the knee more lethal, for example).
    Hmmm, are you sure? Are you sure the intention was to stop, outright, all further mass shootings?
    Given the context at the time, yes, I'm certain that is how the various bills were presented to the public. If you're asking whether the politicians involved, away from the press, thought there wasn't a realistic chance the law could work and had an ulterior motive for presenting them, I can't comment; but if that was the case, then I'm not sure you can use their personal motivations to gauge the law's success in any meaningful way anyway because you're hip-deep in speculation by that point. Certainly the 1997 Firearms Amendment Act (post Dunblane) could have been said to be a success in that it assisted Tony Blair's election campaign; but I doubt you could readily prove that was it's original goal, and ostensibly it was introduced on the foot of the Snowdrop petition and was therefore meant to prevent all further mass shootings.
    I don't think there is a priority to ban private ownership of guns, but i that is not an unreasonable part of trying to reduce the occurrence and effectiveness of mass shootings.
    And because the studies and data show that this approach has not worked, I would disagree with that and I would argue that we would be better served by using proven methods while researching the problem to find more effective methods. Bringing in measures that present in the media as solving the problem is only good for the career of the politician presenting them. It actively does a disservice to the general public.
    I would also take issue with the argument that these bans don't address gun crime. That there is still gun crime does not necessarily prove that the bans are ineffective.
    No, but the lack of any measurable affect on the gun crime rates does. If the rate is in decline and the law fails to change that rate of decline, then you cannot merely say it worked, you would have to make a strong case, which nobody has done for the Australian case. And in the UK, the rates rose after the bans (significantly and for a significant period of time), rather than fall, and again, nobody has provided any case to indicate that this is not a failure of the ban to affect gun crime rates (I don't think you can prove the ban caused the rise, but you can show it failed to slow, stop or reverse it).
    I presume you have more than Monash...? What was the annual mass shooting rarte before and after the ban?
    The mass shooting rate? Did you mean the gun crime rate or did you actually mean the rate at which mass shootings occurred? The latter is not going to give you enough data points to get a meaningful rate (from 1980 onwards, it'll be mostly 0 with a few years where it's 1 and then there'll be 1987 where it's 4 and then 1996 when it's 2). The events were (thankfully) too infrequent for a year to be a useful timebase. Which is why the gun crime rate was used in the studies. The mass shootings tend to get treated as discrete events instead of as a continuous rate.
    I would be willing to allow that increased police action contributed to the decline in gun crime if you will allow that restricted access to guns reduces the availability of guns. Both seem fairly obvious.
    The second one seems obvious but isn't actually true, and Ireland proved that. We restricted access to firearms severely in 1972 (in fact, we resorted to illegal measures to do so); and yet the availability of guns to criminals was unaffected (it should be noted that had we done nothing to the law in '72, the kind of firearms being sourced by the criminals would still have been illegal to own here and the same legal mechanisms to prevent their acquisition would have been in place). And today, we have very strongly worded laws that ban the kind of firearms which are being nevertheless used by criminals on a depressingly regular basis in Dublin.

    It should also be noted that while the US is a very bad source of data (because of the lack of reliable data collection going on there), they have tried various bans and other access restriction mechanisms at federal and state levels with little to no success in curbing their problems with mass shootings. It doesn't help, I suspect, that many of these laws get drafted without regard to the technical details involved (which is a problem in every jurisdiction; for example, in Ireland thanks to a lack of regard to technical details and completely inadvertently, paintball is illegal with a penalty of up to seven years imprisonment for anyone who was charged and convicted of having a paintball marker or being involved in running a paintball field). Details in these kinds of laws are critical, but there's almost a stigma attached to noting the details (even knowing what the details are is a fast way to be afforded the title of "gun nut"), which is yet another problem to add to the list.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,789 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    Sparks wrote: »
    And again, there are many ways to do that other than bans which have been tried and found to be successful, including in Australia and New Zealand and the UK.

    Do you have examples of these?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Do you have examples of these?

    There's this study of what the police in Australia did (specifically sydney), and there are various reports from the media about approaches taken in the UK, as well as some from the US (though US research has something of a question mark over it) and some general research into the problem as a whole is good background reading.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,789 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    Sparks wrote: »
    and there are various reports from the media about approaches taken in the UK,

    Does this support your assertion? Seems quite an anti-gun approach to me:
    Nottinghamshire Police and Nottingham City Council say the significant improvement is down to [SNIP] more frequent raids to seize guns from criminals.
    ...
    He added: "We are bringing in more and more firearms off the streets while people are getting lengthy custodial sentences for gun-related crime."
    ...
    Supt Cooper added: "A lifestyle with guns cannot possibly be a nice lifestyle and hopefully that message is getting through now. The reduction is a pleasing one but we must continue to work hard."
    ...
    He said: "We, as a force, receive better intelligence from members of the public now. If people tip us off about the guns – maybe being in somebody's home – than we will raid that property quickly and seize weapons if necessary.

    "We are committed to getting bad people and harmful weapons off our streets."

    The police can only raid criminals and confiscate guns if ownership of those guns have been banned in the first place.
    Sparks wrote: »
    as well as some from the US (though US research has something of a question mark over it)
    Similar to above:
    This paper presents a systematic review of the impact of police strategies to reduce illegal possession and carrying of firearms on gun crime
    Possession can only be illegal if something is banned in some way.
    Sparks wrote: »
    There's this study of what the police in Australia did (specifically sydney),
    Sparks wrote: »
    and some general research into the problem as a whole is good background reading.

    I've only skimmed these as they are a bit long, but it seems like the efficacy of what is suggested/reported in them, not to mention your two other links, can only be improved by also banning certain types of guns.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Does this support your assertion? Seems quite an anti-gun approach to me
    Anti-illegally-held-gun. So in this case, you're not allowed to own a gun you don't have a licence for.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,789 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    Sparks wrote: »
    Anti-illegally-held-gun. So in this case, you're not allowed to own a gun you don't have a licence for.

    Still implies a level of banning - certain types of guns banned for anyone, certain types of people banned from owning any type at all.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Your use of the word "ban" there is sufficiently loose that it's confusing the carp out of me.
    We don't normally say that unlicenced firearms are banned; we say it's illegal to possess them. Because bans generally don't have exemptions governed by licence (I can't think of an example where they are).

    And banning certain people from owning firearms is almost always done on a binary basis, as opposed to banning certain people from owning certain kinds of firearm. Usually that's the mechanism we use for lower age limits, or prohibiting the ownership of firearms by convicted criminals or the mentally unsound (and I realise that's an insensitive description, but it's the one the Firearms Act uses). It's not actually a ban on the ownership of firearms, it's a ban on applying for a firearms licence (yes, they're functionally very similar, but the difference is not trivial from the point of view of the law even if it makes little difference in people's day to day lives).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    I see microsoft is getting into the marijuana business.
    While still technically illegal at a federal level, some individual US states have come to believe that by licencing the drug they can better control its use. Licenced availability also undermines the business model of the criminal dealers.

    I wonder if there are parallels here with gun control? We know that the lack of licence availability for hand guns and semi-automatic rifles in Ireland has never deterred criminals from obtaining and using them.

    BTW why do lefties typically support drug use, while righties support gun use? If you were going to be conservative, you should oppose both!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,944 ✭✭✭✭Links234


    Warning! Warning! The false equivalence is reaching critical mass! :eek:

    You know, unless there's been hundreds of cases where someone mowed down a bunch of innocent people with a spliff and I've never heard about it, I'll go out on a limb as say that's not an apt comparison. Oh no, we can't have any form of increased gun control, because a specially trained operative could probably cause just as much death armed with a bag of weed! And perhaps to underpin how utterly boneheaded a comparison that is, there's plenty of medical uses for marijuana, I don't see granny easing her arthritis with a 9mm semi automatic.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Honestly, apart from the illustration of the difference between federal and state laws, I don't see any parallels.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Links234 wrote: »
    a specially trained operative could probably cause just as much death armed with a bag of weed! And perhaps to underpin how utterly boneheaded a comparison that is, there's plenty of medical uses for marijuana, I don't see granny easing her arthritis with a 9mm semi automatic.
    That's a strawman you have created yourself, so feel free to attack it.

    The obvious legitimate use for a 9mm pistol in the USA is for self-defence.
    Hence the trade is such weapons is legal.

    When you drive the trade in anything underground it has two effects;
    1. You lose whatever control and monitoring you would have had by having a licenced trade.
    2. The revenues from the trade increase massively, and 100% of that revenue goes to criminals instead of to legitimate busineses.


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