Another shooting in America thread.

InKonspikuou2 wrote: »

And you don't hunt with hanguns and automatic rifles and machine guns.

Handguns, yes. It's considered quite challenging as, due to the shorter range, you have to get quite a lot closer to your quarry to be accurate, on the order of archery distances. Machineguns, no, I'm not familiar with anyone who hunts with them. Evil Black Rifles (which a lot of people confuse with automatic weapons due to the fact that they look identical, the uninitiated can't tell an AR15 from an M16) are used a lot more in hunting than people realise.

Other than other hunting rifles most guns are used to injure, maim and kill whether it be offensive or defensive actions. All aspects of using these non hunting guns are associated with the potential intent of using it on another human being.

Which makes them, as the US Supreme Court noted, 'The quitessetial self defence weapon.' Protecting yourself with a hunting rifle can be inconvenient at best (And, frankly, ill-advised).

It's gone too far where a ban on guns other than hunting rifles would work as there are too many of them out there. But if it had of been a lot of years ago it may have worked. The only guns i have problems with are the concealed ones. Would be a lot harder to shoot up a school, invade a home or rob a store when you gotta carry a gun almost the length of your body.

If you mean banning handguns, that's already been to the Supreme Court in the US and dealt with. More people use handguns to protect themselves than any other firearm. They're not going to go away, and I think rightfully so.

Ive been struggling in the last half hour to recall which university where a Homocidal man with a gun was preparing to go on a rampage when blam - shot dead by a student, who was holding a licensed firearm and a concealed weapons permit.

I can think of a couple of instances wherein students or faculty ran to their vehicles and grabbed firearms (The aforementioned University of the Appalachians Law School being a case in point) but I must admit to be unaware of a case where a CCW student actually killed a potential rampager. Granted, however, this is sort-of self-fullfilling. Cases of successful defence tend not to make the news.

An explosion might burn you really badly and you can survive

Depends on how big. Severe overpressure can kill you as well.

. It is of course a function of the law to protect every individual in society. The police enforce this law and are responsible for your protection

Bzzzt. Wrong answer. Police have a duty of care to society as a whole, not to any person within the society. Don't believe me? Next time you suffer a crime, attempt to sue the Gardai for failing to protect you. Let me know how you get on.
In the US, this is well settled law. See Warren v District of Colombia ("a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen") or Deshaney v Winnebago City Soc Services Dept. (""A State's failure to protect an individual against private violence generally does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause, because the Clause imposes no duty on the State to provide members of the general public with adequate protective services. The Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security")

The most effective tool for your protection is a safe society with sound gun-control policies which does not have mass shooting rampages in the media every other week.

Most killings, injuries and other crimes are not mass shooting rampages. It is estimated that there are between 1.5million and 2.5million defensive gun uses per year in the US. Vs how many shooting rampages? Dozen? Relying purely on sound gun control policies means that you are now reliant entirely on the goodwill of everyone else to obey the law (Which criminals tend not to do) and the capability of the police to enforce it. (Which they've not proven entirely successful at thus far, and I don't think they'll change that record any time soon).

3. No point having token laws banning firearm possession in certain circumstances when the real problem is how readily available they are. I dont think someone about to go on a killing rampage is worried they might infringe upon a law about carrying a firearm on campus.

With a couple of hundred million firearms currently in circulation in the US, I don't think you'll ever change 'readily available' to anything else simply as a practical matter. Heck, the Canadians couldn't even get a registration scheme to work, let alone a 'turn in your guns' type ban. Either way, until the Constitution gets changed (And it won't), removing them isn't going to happen as a legal matter.

Could you please reference the link to these statistics. Also how about the majority of non-concealment licences

. Simple Googling will get you some sites which reference them. It's a little difficult to find a 'reputable' site for such Internet debate, almost all the time it's a pro-gun site which has them, but after a little hunting around, here's an example. http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html
In the State of Florida, since CCW licenses were started in 1987, 1,700,000 licenses have been issued, and 4,600 revoked due to criminal action (157 involved a firearm). One out of every 370 or so.

http://www.civiliansdown.com/copcrimes%20Page%201.htm transcripts a TV news story on Houston PD, 5,400 officers, 254 cases of criminal activity. (1:21. Eek!)

On the other hand, across the water in the UK, according to http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/11/police-officers-criminal-records there are 104,000 police officers in the UK, of whom 1,063 have criminal records. One out of 97.

It's very easy to 'lose' a CCW permit: The people who take the trouble to get one tend to not 'throw it away' by doing something dumb. The possible exceptions might be Vermont and Alaska, where no license is required to carry a concealed firearm (But they're not known as crime hotspots either).

Figures for non-concealed firearms licenses are generally not going to be available as in most States there's no requirement for a license. Even in California, which hates CCWs, or Wisconsin where CCW is outright banned, you can walk down the street wearing an exposed sidearm without asking anyone for permission.

Provision for self-defence is well laid out in the law.

It is, indeed. Where's the provision for actually being able to carry it out? "I, the sixty-year-old man, have the right to defend myself against that 20-year-old attacker by any means except those which give me a fighting chance"
Heck, equal protection laws probably lay out that I have the right to have babies. The fact that I have no womb doesn't enter into it. (You may now call me Loretta)

Bugaries per capita
US - 7.09996 per 1,000 people
Ireland - 5.73755 per 1,000 people

Check out the 'hot' burglary rate (i.e. when the homeowner is home). It's on the order of 10% in the US, over 50% in the UK.

Of course on the flip side a mugger is more likely to carry a firearm and be even more aggressive if he believes his victim will be armed.

Actually the mugger is more likely to leave his victim alone if he believes his victim will be armed, and go find a safer target. They tend to be somewhat risk-averse individuals who prey on the weak. How often does a bodybuilder get mugged vice a granny?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2656875.stm
"A study found American burglars fear armed home-owners more than the police. As a result burglaries are much rarer and only 13% occur when people are at home, in contrast to 53% in England. "

Or "Professors James D. Wright and Peter Rossi surveyed 2,000 felons incarcerated in state prisons across the United States. Wright and Rossi reported that 34% of the felons said they personally had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; 69% said that they knew at least one other criminal who had also; 34% said that when thinking about committing a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "[m]ight get shot at by the victim"; and 57% agreed with the statement, "Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." (James D. Wright & Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms [1986].) "

An interesting quote from the BBC-linked piece above:

Much is made of the higher American rate for murder. That is true and has been for some time. But as the Office of Health Economics in London found, not weapons availability, but "particular cultural factors" are to blame.

A study comparing New York and London over 200 years found the New York homicide rate consistently five times the London rate, although for most of that period residents of both cities had unrestricted access to firearms.

When guns were available in England they were seldom used in crime. A government study for 1890-1892 found an average of one handgun homicide a year in a population of 30 million. But murder rates for both countries are now changing. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and by last year it was 3.5 times. With American rates described as "in startling free-fall" and British rates as of October 2002 the highest for 100 years the two are on a path to converge.

The murder rate here would be a lot higher if the victim pulled out a gun and blasted away some junkie with a needle trying to rob them.

I'm not sure I see why. That incident would count as justifiable homicde, not muder.

NTM

Of course, the level of protection offered is not infallible

Right, so if one acknowledges that there are cases where even the most well-meaning police forces can't get to you in time, it emphasises the fact that you have to be capable of taking care of yourself. "Not infallible" is simply a statistic, until that 'not infallible' happens to you. I will choose not to gamble my life, safety and security on statistics determined by the ill-will of others, and will instead be much happier having some input on what happens to me and those around me. I only have one life, I'm sortof attached to it.

The practicalilty of carrying out such defence is an entirely different matter.

So you acknowledge then that the authority/right to defend yourself can be pretty academic in a large number of cases. What's the point in it, then? For my mother, it may as well not exist. She's well beyond the age that she can swing a hurley with any effectiveness. I'll lay money she can point and use a handgun, though.

NTM