Gun control in the USA

wonderfullife · 21-12-2012 01:31AM

Right this is for anyone Mads, Manic, anybody with better knowledge of US Law.

In Ireland, if a member of your family applies to become a member of the Gardai, there are limited sort of background checks conducted on family members - siblings, parents, uncles, aunties. I've first hand experience of this.

Would it be a reasonable proposal that ANYBODY applying for a gun license in America must submit to these checks?

I'm not proposing that people are rejected on the basis of having a mentally-ill sister/brother/father/mother/uncle. But at least if everybody was thoroughly checked on a similar basis, it would enable certain things to be tightened. So, for example, Lanzas mother applies for a license for the Bushmaster .223. It is discovered her son has x/y/z mental illness. She then is given stricter conditions upon which she can own the guns (perhaps random house visits by Regulators to spot-check the guns are in the safe).

I'm sure there's got to be some sort of legal blockade to this but i'd see it as a step in the right direction.

Sparks · 21-12-2012 01:33AM

robindch wrote: »

Again, can you tell me exactly how "racism" is connected to my belief that guns have no place in a civilized society?

It's not; someone was making a comparison between the kind of lack of thought put into sanctions in racism; and the kind of lack of thought put into sanctions when talking about blanket gun bans in response to tragedies like this.

MadsL · 21-12-2012 01:39AM

wonderfullife wrote: »

Right this is for anyone Mads, Manic, anybody with better knowledge of US Law.

In Ireland, if a member of your family applies to become a member of the Gardai, there are limited sort of background checks conducted on family members - siblings, parents, uncles, aunties. I've first hand experience of this.

Garda records would be checked. As far as I am aware no-one checks medical records. The reasoning is pretty plain, if your brother is a career criminal they would not want you in AGS for obvious reasons.

Would it be a reasonable proposal that ANYBODY applying for a gun license in America must submit to these checks?

Given personal permission is needed to run a credit check, I would say it would be difficult to run such checks without that person's permission. It could be done. Denying a gun to someone on the basis of someone else's mental health would robably be found to be unconstitutional and there are laws to prevent access of those people to handle firearms already in existance. At some point you have to have some level of personal responsibility, pretty much the crux of the gun control debate.

I'm not proposing that people are rejected on the basis of having a mentally-ill sister/brother/father/mother/uncle. But at least if everybody was thoroughly checked on a similar basis, it would enable certain things to be tightened. So, for example, Lanzas mother applies for a license for the Bushmaster .223. It is discovered her son has x/y/z mental illness. She then is given stricter conditions upon which she can own the guns (perhaps random house visits by Regulators to spot-check the guns are in the safe).

I'm sure there's got to be some sort of legal blockade to this but i'd see it as a step in the right direction.

Possibly, I still think it could run into those legal and constitutional difficulties.

Mark Hamill · 21-12-2012 01:45AM

MadsL wrote: »

It might do is exactly my point. It might not.
To look at the overall homicide rate, the US has 5.9 homicides per 100,000. Liechtenstein 2.9, Scotland 2.6, Czech Republic 2.2.

Do you see the anomaly? Two of these countries have liberal gun ownership laws, and two have restrictive gun laws.

And yet again, instead of responding to points, you mix and misinterpret sources of data to find the answer you want :rolleyes:. What's wrong with the wiki pages I quoted earlier, the one on gun ownership and the one on gun related deaths, they're more up to date (2011/12 vs the newspapers 2003-2005) and allow for us to compare the number of guns to deaths?

Liechtenstein has a population of less than 40,000 (making the error when scaling up to the US's 300 million huge)

Scotland I already included in the UKs data in my post

Czech Republic has 16.3 guns per 100 people, with 1.76 deaths per 100,000 meaning it has a five fold number of deaths related to guns, just like the US (16.3/11.2*0.25 = 0.364, which is roughly 1/5 the actual number of deaths)

(11.2 and 0.25 are the UKs number of guns and gun related deaths, respectively)

Sparks · 21-12-2012 01:49AM

wonderfullife wrote: »

The reactionary nature of changes in the laws on guns may not have worked fully but they did result in 9 year and 14 year gaps between mass-murders.

Did they?
Or is that gap caused by something else?
Or is it just meaningless coincidence?

Or perhaps they did work very well and there would be more of these happening regularly other than for lawmakers regulating guns.

I think it's a reasonable hypothesis that this is not the case because if it were true, then we would have seen these kind of tragedies far more frequently prior to Hungerford; which we do not. There is the possibility that we did not see them before Hungerford for social reasons that have nothing to do with firearms; but that in and of itself also speaks against your assertion.

On the other hand, the complete lack of reactionary changes on gun control in America

...is not the full story, because there's also a complete lack of reform in the mental healthcare system there over this period as well; and we did see reactionary changes in gun control in America in 1994 with the assault weapons ban, and that did not prevent Columbine or other mass shootings.

I still support the hypothesis that the causal link you are alluding to either does not exist or is not the dominant link in this situation; and treating it as a (excuse the pun) silver bullet will have tragic long-term consequences.

It's dangerous to suggest any law "leads" to a tragedy - i hope that was just a poor word choice, but is it non-action not worse? Seems to me to be worse.

You misunderstand - I'm claiming that the law led to a tragedy because it gave the illusion of safety and stopped any search for a root cause; that cessation was a contributory factor in subsequent shootings.

The mother having legal ownership of an assault rifle and handguns, by extrapolation meant her son pretty much had the run of them too. Saying he didn't legally own them is facetious.

In this case it appears he had access to her firearms.
However this was not lawful; in fact it could be argued to be a felony.
Even the NRA doesn't support the idea of just leaving firearms lying around unsecured, especially under those conditions.
And if you're suggesting a blanket ban on ownership of firearms because one person committed what was not only a blatent example of a lack of common sense, arguably a felony and arguably depraved indifference to the lives of those around her (again, assuming what we've been told is correct); well that's not a suggestion I could describe as ethical because you're applying sanctions to innocent people on the basis of an unproven and unaccepted hypothesis.

My point is this : If the reports are true that Adam Lanza was refused a rifle on mental grounds, surely there is an onus on the authorities to remove the assault rifles from his mother or to ensure impossible access to them.

Personally, I don't have much of a problem with that at a conceptual level; but it's doubtless got a lot of side effects and legal implications that would need to be fully explored before implementing it. And again, as I've been saying repeatedly, I have no voice nor vote in US domestic policy, so frankly the point that I have no problem with it is a fairly valueless one as far as policy goes.

I know punishment by-proxy may seem harsh, but bottom line if your son is mentally disturbed and you have assault rifles, handguns around AND bring him to shooting ranges, there's questions need to be asked over how and why this was allowed to happen.

Indeed - but have you considered that the appropriate authority to ask those questions should have been their equivalent to child services?
This was hardly a situation that only arose last Thursday, after all.

And I suspect that when all the details are known, this will have echos of Hungerford - ie. with locals seeing the danger but never reporting it or doing anything about it.

Mark Hamill · 21-12-2012 01:52AM

Sparks wrote: »

All of which means he lied about his membership on the renewal form;, which means the licence was void, so the firearms were held illegally, and had the police done the background checks (ie. called the club up for a 1-minute phone call), then the whole mess might have been averted. . (In Ireland, if you were caught lying on your application form that you're facing up to €20k in fines and 5 years in prison).

So what you are saying is if there was better gun control at the time, then he wouldn't have been able to commit the murders because he would have been in jail?

Sparks · 21-12-2012 01:53AM

MagicMarker wrote: »

It's not silly word games, it's coming a reasonable conclusion based on available information. You've already agreed about this "conjecture", but allow me to demonstrate none the less...

a) Adam Lanza may not have committed this crime if he did not have any access to guns = a reasonable assumption.

b) Adam Lanza may not have killed as many children had he not had access to any guns, forcing him to use alternative means = a reasonable assumption.

c) Adam Lanza may have killed less children had he had access to more guns = an unreasonable assumption.

Actually, (b) is unreasonable given the events of the Bath school massacre.

And (a) is sketchy at best, it has rather large implicit assumptions about the psychology of a mass murderer who had - by all accounts - a serious case of a mental condition which results in a person's internal mental state being almost completely unknown and not understood by modern psychology.

Sparks · 21-12-2012 02:02AM

Mark Hamill wrote: »

So what you are saying is if there was better gun control at the time, then he wouldn't have been able to commit the murders because he would have been in jail?

I'm saying - and it has been said by many others including Cullen's official enquiry - that had the existing and in place legislation been enforced to a basic standard, then he would have been denied his licences, the firearms would have been confiscated and he would have been facing some serious charges in court; this could have led to further prosections regarding the other deeply unpleasant complaints laid against him and the tragedy could have been avoided.

But life's not as predictable as we'd like; perhaps he'd have been given a slap on the wrist, as he was when he illegally purchased a different .22 pistol to the one that was on his licence (this was several years before the shootings; he sold the pistol and bought fullbore pistols afterwards, despite his stated firearms club having no facilities to use them in).

Or, as I said earlier, he might just have used another means - set fire to the school or blown it up. I don't believe the man would have acted in a sane, well-balanced manner.

Mark Hamill · 21-12-2012 02:05AM

MadsL wrote: »

Let me try this...

Would you agree that

a) Adam Lanza may have committed multiple murders equal to this massacre if he did not have any access to guns = a reasonable assumption.

b) Adam Lanza may have killed as many children with alternative means = a reasonable assumption.

But which is more reasonable, your assumptions a) and b) or MagicMarkers assumptions a) to c)?
Your assumptions a) and b) are possible, there are other ways to kill besides guns, but guns are generally the easiest way to kill, so MagicMarkers assumptions are more likely, and therefore more valid.

MadsL wrote: »

c) Adam Lanza may have killed more children had he had access to less guns = a reasonable assumption. (He had multiple guns, and may have been more effective without the rifle - wielding two pistols for instance.

I am offended at the stupidity of this statement. I'm used to seeing some despicable and demented reasoning to justify horrible notions (just look that Hazards of Belief sticky). But to argue that the killer having multiple guns somehow slowed him down because he couldn't dual wield pistols. For **** sake.

Mark Hamill · 21-12-2012 02:12AM

Sparks wrote: »

I'm saying - and it has been said by many others including Cullen's official enquiry - that had the existing and in place legislation been enforced to a basic standard, then he would have been denied his licences, the firearms would have been confiscated and he would have been facing some serious charges in court; this could have led to further prosections regarding the other deeply unpleasant complaints laid against him and the tragedy could have been avoided.

But life's not as predictable as we'd like; perhaps he'd have been given a slap on the wrist, as he was when he illegally purchased a different .22 pistol to the one that was on his licence (this was several years before the shootings; he sold the pistol and bought fullbore pistols afterwards, despite his stated firearms club having no facilities to use them in).

Or, as I said earlier, he might just have used another means - set fire to the school or blown it up. I don't believe the man would have acted in a sane, well-balanced manner.

So you are saying that gun control would have prevented him from using guns in the killings? Yes, there were laws where in the books at the time, but, as you say, they weren't enforced so he was essentially in a low gun control environment. Properly enforced laws at the time would have prevented him getting the guns. And if the laws that were brought in after the event had existed then, then he would have been less likely to get away with a possible "slap on the wrist" because of more stringent punishments, thus making him less likely to be able to commit the murders with another weapon.

You are making a very good argument for strict gun control.

MadsL · 21-12-2012 02:22AM

This thread has descended into pointless conjecture. The fact that this is a forum about healthy agnosticism - the refusal to believe that which cannot be shown to be objectively true makes that a pretty sad way to end up. Even sadder that it's mod was the cause of such nonsense.

Sparks · 21-12-2012 02:27AM

Mark Hamill wrote: »

So you are saying that gun control would have prevented him from using guns in the killings?

The existing gun control measures, yes.

MH, you're talking as though there were two sides here and one was vehemently against any form of legislation regulating gun ownership; but it just ain't so. Even in the US, even in the heart of Texas, there's gun control (and no, I don't mean the - very funny but a bit daft - kind of gun control that the Mayor of Brooklyn Park advocates). And it's the kind of gun control that would have prohibited the shooter in this case from getting access to firearms and would have given felony punishments to anyone who aided him in gaining that access.

Yes, there were laws where in the books at the time, but, as you say, they weren't enforced so he was essentially in a low gun control environment.

I understand what you're saying, but do you not accept that the fault here lay not with the law, but with those charged to carry it out?

And do you not accept the logical corollary that if a law - any law - is not enforced, then the crimes that happen are not a valid argument to change the law because if laws are not enforced, then changing one will not fix the problem?

And if the laws that were brought in after the event had existed then, then he would have been less likely to get away with a possible "slap on the wrist" because of more stringent punishments, thus making him less likely to be able to commit the murders with another weapon.

It's a tempting chain to follow, but it's flawed; if he had not been able to gain access to one means, why do you believe he would not have used another?
Please don't say "just because" or something equivalent. You must have some reason to believe that he would have just gone "oh well" and stopped the very dodgy conduct around minors, the violations of the firearms legislation and the "creepy" attitude (that's the description from Cullen's report by the way, not mine).

On top of which you are trying to solve the wrong problem.
If you have legislation that works, but the police don't enforce it, the consequences are something the police should be liable for, not the legislation and if changes need to be made, they should be made to the police and not the legislation; because if you change the legislation, why would the police enforce the new laws any better than the old laws without some sort of change? And if you introduce that change to the police, why would you need to change the existing legislation when it works already?

You are making a very good argument for strict gun control.

You seem to believe that I'm arguing against it. Or, for that matter, that anyone is arguing against it (with the possible exception of Ted Nugent, who frankly... shouldn't be allowed cut his own fingernails, let alone have access to a firearm)

wonderfullife · 21-12-2012 02:53AM

Sparks wrote: »

The existing gun control measures, yes.

MH, you're talking as though there were two sides here and one was vehemently against any form of legislation regulating gun ownership; but it just ain't so. Even in the US, even in the heart of Texas, there's gun control (and no, I don't mean the - very funny but a bit daft - kind of gun control that the Mayor of Brooklyn Park advocates). And it's the kind of gun control that would have prohibited the shooter in this case from getting access to firearms and would have given felony punishments to anyone who aided him in gaining that access.

I understand what you're saying, but do you not accept that the fault here lay not with the law, but with those charged to carry it out?

And do you not accept the logical corollary that if a law - any law - is not enforced, then the crimes that happen are not a valid argument to change the law because if laws are not enforced, then changing one will not fix the problem?

It's a tempting chain to follow, but it's flawed; if he had not been able to gain access to one means, why do you believe he would not have used another?
Please don't say "just because" or something equivalent. You must have some reason to believe that he would have just gone "oh well" and stopped the very dodgy conduct around minors, the violations of the firearms legislation and the "creepy" attitude (that's the description from Cullen's report by the way, not mine).

On top of which you are trying to solve the wrong problem.
If you have legislation that works, but the police don't enforce it, the consequences are something the police should be liable for, not the legislation and if changes need to be made, they should be made to the police and not the legislation; because if you change the legislation, why would the police enforce the new laws any better than the old laws without some sort of change? And if you introduce that change to the police, why would you need to change the existing legislation when it works already?

You seem to believe that I'm arguing against it. Or, for that matter, that anyone is arguing against it (with the possible exception of Ted Nugent, who frankly... shouldn't be allowed cut his own fingernails, let alone have access to a firearm)

On the top point, as a general rule the police are not liable in a civil court or for criminal proceedings in the execution of their duties. I.e. Cops hunting for a serial killer, botch the investigation missing an opportunity to catch him, further victims die beyond that point - they are not liable for any of the deaths. Generally, it's not fair or just to have police trying to execute their duties under fear of repercussions for mistakes.

Whether you agree or not, the cops have a difficult job to enforce every piece of legislation on the Statute Books. Moreover, a piece of legislation is only as good as its pratical enforceability. For example, the smoking ban in this country could be classed as good legislation as it has a high success rate of enforcement and meets the aims of the legislation.

It's easy to hold an opinion that the police should do better on enforcing X/Y/Z piece of legislation - but general reality dictates they neither have the manpower nor funding to do so. That's applicable to most countries. Certain pieces of legislation will always be neglected or prioritised over others as par for the course. Jay Walking for example, unlikely to get pulled up on often, pissing against the front window of McDonalds at 3am very likely to be pulled up on.

As a final point, your tone (to the lay person) in all of these threads is one of defensiveness of guns. Most people will take that away as a lasting impression. It's very possible multiple sorta-intelligent posters like me get blind-sided by the posting styles of you, Manic, MadsL, Overheal and Wibbs to a lesser extent. It's because they are statistic-laden, law-laden, history-laden defences on the basic right to own a gun.

All of which creates the illusion you are against any type of strict gun control. Your message gets distorted by the delivery. Also, it's not helped that most posts by Wibbs, Manic, Mads, Overheal and yourself are, indeed, thanked by the above named. It tends just to view like a clique of gun nuts chanting down "people kill people it's not the guns fault!!"

Having read your posts quite a lot, on reflection you seem like a decent skin and a good bloke but you're aware i'm sure that the majority of posters outside the perceived-clique i mentioned, disagree with you conceptually and battle with you on these points. Maybe most of us just have the old "guns are bad mmmkay" lodged in our brain somewhere. Or maybe we would concede to rational posting like yours if there was less antagonistic stubborn defiance and an air of superiority (not specifically by you!)

Sparks · 21-12-2012 03:11AM

wonderfullife wrote: »

On the top point, as a general rule the police are not liable in a civil court or for criminal proceedings in the execution of their duties.

I know - it's why I said "should" instead of "are".
But you accept Cullen's point that the failing was not in the legislation?

Whether you agree or not, the cops have a difficult job to enforce every piece of legislation on the Statute Books.

In other cases - depending on the case - I might; but in this case, we manage to do it in Ireland despite there being fewer Gardai assigned to the task and less training given to them. This was a failure to make a phone call that we're talking about here (in fact, worse; this was overruling the written recommendation of the officer who did the interview with Hamilton in '95 regarding his licence renewal), not a failure to singlehandedly end drug smuggling in the Outer Hebrides.
(Those sheep father, they're devils for the heroin).

As a final point, your tone (to the lay person) in all of these threads is one of defensiveness of guns.

Perhaps; but I'm more defensive of myself, because of reading things like this written on Irish newssites about Irish people (he's not talking about US people in that comment). And yes, that one's a bit much, but it's not the most extreme thing I've read over the years, and I've seen nastier things said by people of far higher social standing. We've been given the same accusation in the Dail by sitting Ministers.

A few years of that kind of treatment and you tend to become very cautious in conversations like these because there's this pattern where people assume you're going to be their foil, they roll out cheap logical fallacies like it was a school debate tournament, and invest emotionally in trying to argue that your sport is evil and wrong and must be eliminated to prevent a recurrance of an event in a foreign country, the likes of which has never happened here (we have a perfect safety record in formal target shooting that goes back to the mid-1800s); and far far worse, our government tends to act on ideas like that. That's how our current handgun ban came about, for example. It wasn't logic or reason; it was that Jim Deasy embarressed Dermot Ahern in the Dail and Ahern grabbed the nearest idea to him and said he'd ban something. I wish that was hyperbole; but we were working with the DoJ at the time (we being the shooting community as a whole, and about 20-30 of us in particular, myself included) and we saw this happen up close. There was no pondering, no deep thought, no contemplation, no higher purpose, no debate; there was just the Minister worrying about the next election.

That's the reality of firearms legislation. It's not clean, it's not well-thought-out, and it never ever ends up on the books looking like what was originally envisaged at the beginning. I could eat a few pages describing the flaws in the process, because I spent six years involved with that side of things. Maybe one day we'll write a (depressing) book

wonderfullife · 21-12-2012 04:01AM

Sparks wrote: »

I know - it's why I said "should" instead of "are".
But you accept Cullen's point that the failing was not in the legislation?

In other cases - depending on the case - I might; but in this case, we manage to do it in Ireland despite there being fewer Gardai assigned to the task and less training given to them. This was a failure to make a phone call that we're talking about here (in fact, worse; this was overruling the written recommendation of the officer who did the interview with Hamilton in '95 regarding his licence renewal), not a failure to singlehandedly end drug smuggling in the Outer Hebrides.
(Those sheep father, they're devils for the heroin).

Perhaps; but I'm more defensive of myself, because of reading things like this written on Irish newssites about Irish people (he's not talking about US people in that comment). And yes, that one's a bit much, but it's not the most extreme thing I've read over the years, and I've seen nastier things said by people of far higher social standing. We've been given the same accusation in the Dail by sitting Ministers.

A few years of that kind of treatment and you tend to become very cautious in conversations like these because there's this pattern where people assume you're going to be their foil, they roll out cheap logical fallacies like it was a school debate tournament, and invest emotionally in trying to argue that your sport is evil and wrong and must be eliminated to prevent a recurrance of an event in a foreign country, the likes of which has never happened here (we have a perfect safety record in formal target shooting that goes back to the mid-1800s); and far far worse, our government tends to act on ideas like that. That's how our current handgun ban came about, for example. It wasn't logic or reason; it was that Jim Deasy embarressed Dermot Ahern in the Dail and Ahern grabbed the nearest idea to him and said he'd ban something. I wish that was hyperbole; but we were working with the DoJ at the time (we being the shooting community as a whole, and about 20-30 of us in particular, myself included) and we saw this happen up close. There was no pondering, no deep thought, no contemplation, no higher purpose, no debate; there was just the Minister worrying about the next election.

That's the reality of firearms legislation. It's not clean, it's not well-thought-out, and it never ever ends up on the books looking like what was originally envisaged at the beginning. I could eat a few pages describing the flaws in the process, because I spent six years involved with that side of things. Maybe one day we'll write a (depressing) book

In all of this i keep having to try "forget" my hypocrisy. Because in the Olympics i was literally screaming at the tv for the English guy to win the gold in the Clay Pigeon event. Couldn't believe it when he had the 4 point lead and missed both clays.

MY hypocrisy is this - i never once, i mean not once, during that event in the Olympics thought - guns are bad, or that gun is designed (original purpose) to kill something.

When it's hard to balance your own thoughts on the issue, it's sure difficult to rationally debate the issue with others. That's when the emotional reflex of "ban the semi-automatics, limit access etc" comes in. But what i do feel is that plenty has to be changed and if it's not merely a gun control issue then there's some really messed up stuff going on in American society as it does happen there more often than in any other comparable country (going by democracies, european states etc). To my mind there's no point comparing USA mass-murders with Cambodia or some other far flung places of vastly different make-ups.

Manic Moran · 21-12-2012 06:26AM

robindch wrote: »

I simply have no idea how anybody who holds these military-grade weapons, can continue to do so with an apparently clean conscience after the events of last Friday morning.On the contrary.

I haven't done anything wrong, why shouldn't I have a clean conscience?

surely there is an onus on the authorities to remove the assault rifles from his mother or to ensure impossible access to them

I know punishment by-proxy may seem harsh

I see no such onus, and I'm not sure how it could be practically carried out. Heck, the local police here have officially announced they are no longer going to execute warrants for people guilty of lesser crimes because they haven't got the manhours available to do it.

Now, there is a related possibility of passing a law to create an effect. For example, here in California: "It is an offense to store or leave a loaded firearm within easy access of a minor (under the age of 18), where the minor obtains unauthorized access to the firearm and the minor threatens someone, injures someone, or carries the firearm off the premises."

Granted, in the Newton case it's a bit redundant as the offender is no longer alive to be punished for it.

Would it be a reasonable proposal that ANYBODY applying for a gun license in America must submit to these checks?

See manhour problems again. With a couple of score of millions of people in the US who own firearms, this isn't a case of a few hundred people out of a population of 4 million trying to apply to the Gardai. When I got my security clearance, the Office of Personnel Management sent out various investigators to interview friends, colleagues and so on. It cost about $5,000-$10,000 to do this. We would have an entire economy of people checking on other people. The current criminal background check is reasonable enough. Currently such interviews are only carried out for Title II permits (Machineguns and other destructive devices). Also, with a clear constitutional right to a functional, unlocked firearm in the home, it would be an extreme legal hurdle to mandate that someone not be allowed to exercise that right.

NTM

equivariant · 21-12-2012 10:25AM

Manic Moran wrote: »

I haven't done anything wrong, why shouldn't I have a clean conscience?

Because, by choosing to own and keep such a weapon, you become part of a culture of gun approval, which legitimizes and normalizes the use of such weapons. So, yes, keeping such a weapon means that you have done something wrong.

mewso · 21-12-2012 10:26AM

HemmingSay wrote: »

I'm not well read on the subject and to be honest my eyes glazed over at some of the maths involved - but this article covers the effects of Australian gun reform following a massacre in 1996.

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.full

Seems to strongly suggest gun control works.

Ye gotta love a thread that completely ignores a study on the effects of reducing the availability of guns. What is the discussion again?

joseph brand · 21-12-2012 11:27AM

I remember after the Aurora massacre, some idiot had a brain fart on a forum. He wondered why there weren't other 'armed' cinema goers, because, in his mind, they could have stopped the guy, covered head-to-toe in bullet-proof clothing.

Yes. Some folks over there believe the solution is more guns. He saw it as a pity, that there wasn't a shoot-out in the cinema. If only someone had brought grenades, or a rocket launcher to the cinema, it would have been fine. :rolleyes:

Dear America,
Get well soon,
Regards,
Europe.

joseph brand · 21-12-2012 11:38AM

Manic Moran wrote: »

I haven't done anything wrong, why shouldn't I have a clean conscience?

NTM

I knew you'd be in this thread somewhere. I suppose it's good to have an NRA spokesperson here to tell the other side. Regardless of how crazy it is.

I haven't gone through the thread, but I'm going to wager that you've already mentioned how you need handguns, rifles, shotguns and M16's to protect your home. (their must be an invading army of zombies or something?)

Republicans are obsessed with the 3 G's; God (lol), Guns ("Yeehaw")and Gays (closet). It's an unhealthy obsession.

In the words of Barack Obama; "Proceed."

The Black Oil · 21-12-2012 12:13PM

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1221/breaking8.html

Armoured backpacks, really? This seems pretty pointless to me. A child will only really be wearing a backpack to and from school. The rest of the time it will be on the floor/at their school desk...

seamus · 21-12-2012 12:17PM

There is no end of useless safety equipment that you can sell to panicky idiots.

I can guarantee you there are a not insignificant number of people who think children would be safer if they (the children) were permitted to carry a small pistol to school to defend themselves.

robindch · 21-12-2012 12:29PM

The Black Oil wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1221/breaking8.html

Irish Times wrote:

After last Friday’s Connecticut shooting, Ken Larson and his wife decided to buy their one-year-old son an armoured backpack just to be safe. Mr Larson already owns one which he takes to cinemas.

Jesus Tap-dancing Christ, a one-year old child. Words fail.

Maybe everybody in the USA should arm themselves with personal nukes, even the kids. That'll make the country even safer, won't it? What was the acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction again?

The Black Oil · 21-12-2012 12:30PM

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

MagicMarker · 21-12-2012 12:52PM

Sparks wrote: »

Sorry MM, it's so familiar to me at this point that it jumps out and I forget that it's not obvious if you haven't had your head buried in legislation for a few years.
He got his licence originally in '77 and renewed it up until '95.
However, his licence was predicated on his being a member of his local target shooting club (Callander Rifle & Pistol club) (see 6.3 in that link) and as their secretary testified in the Cullen report, he was never a member, not in '77 and not at any time after that; he didn't even approach them until '96. (transcript is here, read Reid's testimony).

All of which means he lied about his membership on the renewal form;, which means the licence was void, so the firearms were held illegally, and had the police done the background checks (ie. called the club up for a 1-minute phone call), then the whole mess might have been averted. (In Ireland, if you were caught lying on your application form that you're facing up to €20k in fines and 5 years in prison).

Or he might have just built a bomb and blown the school up; but that's another point of contention alltogether.

It's too early for me to go over those links, but I'll take your word for it.

But not to state the obvious, there was clearly not enough restrictions in place here, as you said had the police called the gun club they would have found he wasn't a member. Surely you will agree that he was able to acquire the firearms far too easily in this case?

And yes, maybe he would have made a bomb instead. Maybe he wouldn't. I'd rather not hand out guns freely to people just to stop them from maybe using a bomb instead.

Sparks wrote: »

The phrase in federal law is "knowing or having reasonable cause to believe" that there's a mental health issue. Not to cause offence, but if the reports are correct and the shooter had autism or aspbergers which was sufficently serious that his mother would seek committal, then there's no way that anyone is going to not have "reasonable cause", those syndromes are too obvious.

Agreed, I wasn't aware of his mental state, but I did say in such a small town he may have had trouble finding such firearms. But now it's clear the only source of his firearms was his mother, who had enough weaponry for a small army, and who clearly wasn't a responsible firearms user.

Sparks wrote: »

If the checks described in the firearms legislation are carried out, yes; but words on paper in a statute book somewhere without enforcement are, as we've learnt at great human cost, worse than useless. (Worse because they give the illusion of safety instead of alerting you to a potential problem while you can still avert it).

There's very little "could" about it.
The firearms laws we have and that the UK had were perfectly able to prevent Hungerford and Dunblane; but in the former case, the police got no warning and in the latter, they didn't act on the warnings they got.

Given those details, I can't really accept the assertion that a ban on guns is necessary is valid (and neither could Cullen in his inquiry in to Dunblane from what I read).

Just to be clear, I'm not calling for a total ban on guns, and I don't think anyone else is. This is where my problem lies with this thread, we're ALL for effective gun control, but we have some active gun users debating with mainly non gun users as if it's an "us vs them" scenario, it's not, we're all on the same side here.

All I'm saying is gun control in America is not effective enough, when any 18 year old in America can buy an assault rifle or any high calibre weapon in a private sale, without having to submit to a background check, then things need to change. When legal loopholes allow the Virginia Tech killer to legally purchase 2 handguns after he'd already been found to be mentally unstable, then things have to change.

seamus · 21-12-2012 01:07PM

To be fair, gun control aside, I think there are cultural issues in the USA around guns which need addressing.

It's absolute madness that in a stable, peaceful, democratic society, citizens would be permitted to carry firearms concealed, for nothing more than self defence against a human attacker. Craziness.
But what's even worse than that is that in many quarters it's seen as a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do.

Getting a gun in Ireland isn't that difficult. There are a few hoops to jump through, but we have our own few examples of unhinged individuals being in charge of legally-held weapons. So if they can do it, so can most other people.

But there is a cultural difference in Ireland - the man on the street would consider owning a gun for self-defence to be a weird thing to do.
Carrying a concealed weapon in public while going about your business would be the considered the actions of a complete nutjob, someone who is so paranoid, unstable and dangerous that they felt the need to carry it.

So gun control aside (and I think most reasonable people recognise that there are many perfectly valid reasons to choose to own a gun), I'm not sure if restrictions on the availability of firearms (say banning anything above a pistol and a hunting rifle) in the US would have that big an effect on the number of legally-held weapons.

Sparks · 21-12-2012 01:42PM

robindch wrote: »

Jesus Tap-dancing Christ, a one-year old child. Words fail.

They do, but mostly because they're trying to express how much fear they must be feeling and how little we'd like to live like that.

You know, like how I feel if you mentioned that the only school within walking distance of my home was run by a religious order...
/ahem.

Thing is, I don't see the harm in that particular product, and I really don't understand why those who want a blanket firearms ban put in place would laugh at it - wouldn't you prefer everyone in the US who was worried about gun violence to buy body armour instead of a gun?

Sparks · 21-12-2012 02:00PM

MagicMarker wrote: »

But not to state the obvious, there was clearly not enough restrictions in place here

That isn't stating the obvious, because what you meant was that the existing restrictions were not enforced.

as you said had the police called the gun club they would have found he wasn't a member

And the same end result would have arised if they'd not overridden the recommendation of DS Hughes, who said (this is a quote from the Cullen inquiry:

"I am firmly of the opinion that Hamilton is an unsavoury character and unstable personality.
It emerged from enquiries that he, during the course of the first week of camp, seemed to become increasingly stressed and had difficulty in managing the group. It was during one such moment that he became extremely angry and assaulted one of the boys. This particular child was in fact assaulted three times by Hamilton during the first few days of the holiday and was eventually removed by his parents.

Furthermore, allegations were made, albeit uncorroborated, by one of the children that Hamilton induced the child to pose in various compromising positions, scantily clad in extremely ill-fitting swimming trunks, for photographs. To date these photographs have not been recovered but neither I nor the officer who interviewed the child have any reason to disbelieve that the allegations are in fact wholly true.

Convincing corroborated evidence was uncovered which confirms that two boxes containing approximately 36 slides each have not been recovered by the police despite Mr Hamilton's claims that he handed over all of the photographs taken. Mr Hamilton has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal in this regard for obstructing the police.

The foregoing report, in part, conveys some of the concerns which I harbour about this man. I firmly believe that he has an extremely unhealthy interest in young boys which to a degree appears to have been controlled to date. It was his ploy, whenever challenged, to engage in 'smoke screen' tactics which divert attention from the focal issue and this is the purpose for the profusion of correspondence to MPs, Procurators Fiscal, the Chief Constable and the like. 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 firearm 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 firearm 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".

Surely you will agree that he was able to acquire the firearms far too easily in this case?

I agree he should never have had them at all; but we blame different things. I blame the Scottish police who had a falsified application form, a known (and commented on by the police) incident where the Hamilton broke the firearms act to buy a pistol, and recommendations from DS Hughes and the local child protection officer that his firearms cert be pulled. The first two weren't picked up on because of a failure to investigate; the last, well feck that required actual effort to avoid pulling his cert.

And yes, maybe he would have made a bomb instead. Maybe he wouldn't.

According to evidence given by psychologists in the Cullen inquiry, that's actually exactly what they would have expected (as opposed to stealing a firearm or obtaining one from "the criminal fraternity" as they call it.

I'd rather not hand out guns freely to people just to stop them from maybe using a bomb instead.

That's good because nobody else thinks that either

Just to be clear, I'm not calling for a total ban on guns, and I don't think anyone else is.

Even in this site, there have been many such calls; outside of here, where things are less polite, it's even more prevalent.

All I'm saying is gun control in America is not effective enough, when any 18 year old in America can buy an assault rifle

*cough*notheycantevenbyprivatesale*cough*

or any high calibre weapon in a private sale, without having to submit to a background check, then things need to change. When legal loopholes allow the Virginia Tech killer to legally purchase 2 handguns after he'd already been found to be mentally unstable, then things have to change.

But change doesn't have to mean a change in the law, as Cullen's inquiry shows; it can just mean an increase in resources to the police to enforce the existing laws. In Dunblane's case, that would have prevented the atrocity completely. In this case, maybe, maybe not; but it's hard to tell how you can draft any law that would address the specific issue in this case given the US legal framework.

Sparks · 21-12-2012 02:05PM

seamus wrote: »

It's absolute madness that in a stable, peaceful, democratic society, citizens would be permitted to carry firearms concealed, for nothing more than self defence against a human attacker. Craziness.

*cough*
Yeah, er, about that.
We do it.
In a tiny minority of cases, and even fewer these days than in the Bad Old Days, but we do (though it's not done through the licencing scheme and the Gardai control it, you can't just apply for one).
And in N.I. there were tens of thousands of them issued at one point, and still are quite a few.
It's not to say it's the norm, just to point out that we're not somehow magically utterly immune. For fairness' sake if nothing else.

Getting a gun in Ireland isn't that difficult. There are a few hoops to jump through, but we have our own few examples of unhinged individuals being in charge of legally-held weapons. So if they can do it, so can most other people.

We did, in fairness, change the law after those incidents, and now the Gardai have full access to your medical records, require character references, can inspect your storage at any time, and so on.

Carrying a concealed weapon in public while going about your business would be the considered the actions of a complete nutjob, someone who is so paranoid, unstable and dangerous that they felt the need to carry it.

Yup, pretty much .... but I think that that's got more to do with the last 40 years of our history than some innate sensibleness. Alas.

joseph brand · 21-12-2012 03:19PM

seamus wrote: »

Carrying a concealed weapon in public while going about your business would be the considered the actions of a complete nutjob, someone who is so paranoid, unstable and dangerous that they felt the need to carry it.

Man: "Honey, I'm just popping down to the garage for smokes."
Wife: "You got your gun?"
Man: "Yeah."

Problem?

Gun control in the USA

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