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Another mass shooting in the U.S

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    Piliger wrote: »
    20 toddlers slaughtered as a direct result of ordinary people being able to buy guns for no valid reason.

    Care to put a figure on the lives saved by an average of 83,000 gun self-defense situations each year?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 516 ✭✭✭pabloh999




    guns guns guns


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 95,466 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    There is something to this, visibility and fame and making your own movie with you as the big hero and the gun.
    Just pointing out that for as long as anyone cares to remember when mass shootings become a media circus then there is usually another one shortly afterwards.

    there is correlation

    and probable causation


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 95,466 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    aaakev wrote: »
    criminals will get a gun if they want one wether they are banned or not
    Proper gun regulation would cut this down a lot

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/guns.html
    "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes," Wachtel said. Because when they want guns they want them immediately the wait is usually too long for a weapon to be stolen and find its way to a criminal.
    ...
    Responding to a question of how they obtained their most recent handgun, the arrestees answered as follows: 56% said they paid cash; 15% said it was a gift; 10% said they borrowed it; 8% said they traded for it; while 5% only said that they stole it.

    ATF officials say that only about 8% of the nation's 124,000 retail gun dealers sell the majority of handguns that are used in crimes

    Anyone got stats from other countries in which guns are the main murder weapons ?
    http://blogs.tees.ac.uk/uscjs/2012/11/20/how-232400-guns-are-stolen-each-year/
    According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and crime, there were 41 homicides using a firearm (less than 7% of all homicides) in England and Wales. By contrast, in the USA in the same year, there were some 10,300 homcides using a firearm (almost 67 percent of all homicides).


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


    Has anyone got statistics which have been compensated to allow for different definitions of what "homicide" is? (eg. the US includes everything from negligent homicide to manslaughter to murder, Japan doesn't include anything but premeditated murder, etc)


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,067 ✭✭✭✭fryup


    they sure do love their guns.....



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    One hateful asshat vs another hateful asshat. Doesn't really prove much, although I lolled about the fact that PM did in fact flee to the protection of the US Constitition when he was in the sh1t about the phone-hacking scandal.

    PM is a dick and has no right to claim any supposed moral highground nor claim to be a 'journalist'. He's a gutter dweller.

    Alex Jones really looks like a guy in the last stages of coke addiction, sweaty, paranoid and loud. No idea if he is an addict or just behaves like one.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,867 ✭✭✭✭BattleCorp


    Originally Posted by Sparksviewpost.gif
    He didn't say he was a drunk driver. He said he drank and that he was a driver, not that he was doing both at once. I don't mind a glass of wine every so often either, but I'd never drive after one. Does that mean I don't give a hoot about kids who are killed by drunk drivers?

    Originally posted by Piliger
    I believe so, yes. Absolutely.


    WTF. Am I really reading this correctly. You seriously think everybody who has a drink but doesn't drive after having that drink doesn't give a hoot about kids who are killed by drunk drivers?

    You've lost it, seriously. Time to get your coat boss.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,049 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    Piliger wrote: »
    This is the kind of twisted and perverted thinking we don't want in our country.

    The concept of personal responsibility is twisted and perverted thinking?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    The concept of personal responsibility is twisted and perverted thinking?

    ..and we are down the road that leads to the kind of thinking that calls for chefs knives to be banned.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,420 ✭✭✭Lollipops23


    fryup wrote: »
    they sure do love their guns.....

    Good grief, only got to see it now. Jesus H.

    It's a sad day when I feel bad for Piers Morgan.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,879 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Sparks wrote: »
    Arf.

    Nope. It was not as a direct result of people buying firearms, and "no valid reason" is also wrong. Those kids are dead because a mentally ill person who was barred successfully from owning those firearms killed his own mother and stole her firearms. What law do you think would have stopped him if he was that messed up? Do you think a law banning all legally-held firearms would have stopped him? It didn't stop the Troubles over here, did it? It wouldn't stop bombings, arson, poison, or any one of the methods used for mass killings in the past fifty or sixty years. If someone is that deranged, no writing on a piece of paper is going to do much good in preventing them from doing harm because by that point, it's way too late.

    Your problem, your direct cause, was mental health, and the lack of adaquate mental healthcare before he snapped and killed everyone. Not the tools used by the lunatic involved. You want to play whack-a-mole banning everything you could possibly use to do something heinous like this, you'll be at it your whole life and you still won't get everything, and people will still be dying because you won't look at the root cause of the problem.


    So your assertion is that firearm laws have no bearing at all? And that the troubles here prove that people have no difficulty in getting weapons.

    It's my assertion that a mentally ill person would not be able to walk into their mothers house and pick up a semi automatic weapon.
    I've known plenty of low level drug dealers in my time and I can honestly say that I wouldn't know where to start if I wanted to buy a semi automatic handgun, never mind an assault rifle. But according to you, our gun laws have no effect, and I should be able to grab a big gun and start shooting right now.

    Also, you said it didn't stop all the mass killings etc over here. Problem is that it did. There have been no mass shootings like there are the the US. Any killings occurred because large criminal/terrorist organisations made a large effort to import these weapons or steal them from the government.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    Grayson wrote: »
    There have been no mass shootings like there are the the US.

    Gonna go out on a bit of of a limb and suggest that in fact more people have been killed in the Troubles than have been killed in mass rampage shootings in the US.

    Just a hunch.

    ...and I'll just leave this here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18510327


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    Grayson wrote: »
    It's my assertion that a mentally ill person would not be able to walk into their mothers house and pick up a semi automatic weapon.

    http://ulsterherald.com/2013/01/08/court-hears-murder-accused-tried-to-strangle-mother/

    Sad. But he did walk into his father's house with a rifle, bolt action or semi, I have no idea. In Ireland. I'm now going to wait for the chorus of "ban rifles" etc.


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


    Grayson wrote: »
    So your assertion is that firearm laws have no bearing at all?
    No, that's not my assertion, and thanks for reading the few dozen posts where I've repeatedly stated my assertion as clearly as possible...
    But according to you
    No, according to the CDC.
    Also, you said it didn't stop all the mass killings etc over here.
    Or anywhere else.
    Problem is that it did. There have been no mass shootings like there are the the US. Any killings occurred because large criminal/terrorist organisations made a large effort to import these weapons or steal them from the government.
    So it doesn't count if it's a criminal who breaks into your house with an AK47 to hold your kids and wife hostage while you're escorted to the bank to withdraw a donation for the cause?

    Quick question or two - what do you call any person in the world who breaks into someone else's home with a gun and malice aforethought, except "criminal"?

    And do you think it matters much to people at the time what label you attach to the person with the gun?

    And given that assault rifles like the AK47 have never ever been legally licencable in Ireland, and that during thirty of the forty years we've been seeing these 'tiger kidnappings' you couldn't licence a rifle bigger than a .22 in Ireland, nor any kind of pistol at all, how well do you think the gun laws were doing in stopping that kind of crime?

    There's a bit of a disconnect here. On the one hand, you have people saying "well, it's very simple, ban the guns and no more gun crime"... but on the other hand, those same people have been living for forty years or more in a country where doing that manifestly did not work. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have any controls on firearms; and frankly, I think there's not many who know me who wouldn't have a giggle if you suggested to them that that's what I thought; but I do think you have to have a certain degree of understanding as to the limitations of what they can do and temper the urge to write pages of legislation with the knowledge that all that most of it does is create hoops for law-abiding people (who aren't the ones you have to worry about) to jump through without giving any real benefit to society in return. Especially when you keep in mind the process by which that legislative draft will become law and the mangling it will go through in the process and what kind of a mess you'll end up with if you try to send something too complex through that process.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,390 ✭✭✭clairefontaine


    Guns are not the cause of the violence, they are faciliatators of the cause.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 516 ✭✭✭pabloh999


    MadsL wrote: »
    Gonna go out on a bit of of a limb and suggest that in fact more people have been killed in the Troubles than have been killed in mass rampage shootings in the US.

    Just a hunch.

    ...and I'll just leave this here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18510327[/QUOTE]

    You're not really comparing a "war" situation to kids in school are you?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 377 ✭✭haydar


    fryup wrote: »
    they sure do love their guns.....

    That Jones fella is a nut job.
    I wouldn't want to come across him when he's angry with a gun!

    I don't think I'll be going to the US any time soon.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 516 ✭✭✭pabloh999


    haydar wrote: »
    That Jones fella is a nut job.
    I wouldn't want to come across him when he's angry with a gun!

    I don't think I'll be going to the US any time soon.

    Its a huge country, dont let some fool on tv put you off visiting!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    haydar wrote: »
    I don't think I'll be going to the US any time soon.

    That's like judging Kerry by the Healey-Raes.

    Come over, we really don't bite.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,390 ✭✭✭clairefontaine


    The concept of personal responsibility is twisted and perverted thinking?

    Personal responsibility can only take you so far.

    The facts are gunshot wounds are the number one killer of teenage boys in America, that if you have a teenager [male or female] and a gun in the house they have twice the chance of committing suicide than without a gun in the house.

    Let's say you are responsible and teach your kids how to shoot and handle a gun, that you keep the gun locked in cabinet, and the gun itself locked. Let's say you have a child or teenager with invisible mental illness or just pissed off one day, or depressed one day or he or she has a friend who comes over one day. If they want that gun, they will get that gun. And in these cases, how far will "personal responsibility" get you? Will you have legal culpability if anything happens to your child with the gun you keep in the house or if you child has access to the gun and harms someone else? Kills someone else? Will you have to pay for that crime?

    Lots of people dont lock their guns even with kids in the house. Personal responsibility has its limitations.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 377 ✭✭haydar


    I probably will go some time. It just scares me to see people like him and other lunatics freely able to go and buy automatic weapons etc


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 516 ✭✭✭pabloh999


    haydar wrote: »
    I probably will go some time. It just scares me to see people like him and other lunatics freely able to go and buy automatic weapons etc

    I lived there for the best part of a decade and never came across any "lunatic with an automatic weapon":)

    Amazing, varied and fascinating country, i loved living there.
    But i left to raise my child in Ireland, that says something i suppose.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 377 ✭✭haydar


    MadsL wrote: »
    That's like judging Kerry by the Healey-Raes.

    Come over, we really don't bite.

    Well its not just him I know he's an idiot but it's the likes of Wayne LaPierre who is head of an organisation of 4 million or something that scares me!

    I am exaggerating though as I have met quite a few americans on my travels who were great and would love to visit them


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,049 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    Personal responsibility can only take you so far.

    The facts are gunshot wounds are the number one killer of teenage boys in America, that if you have a teenager [male or female] and a gun in the house they have twice the chance of committing suicide than without a gun in the house.

    Let's say you are responsible and teach your kids how to shoot and handle a gun, that you keep the gun locked in cabinet, and the gun itself locked. Let's say you have a child or teenager with invisible mental illness or just pissed off one day, or depressed one day or he or she has a friend who comes over one day. If they want that gun, they will get that gun.

    Lots of people dont lock their guns even with kids in the house. Personal responsibility has its limitations.

    No, it has no such limitations. You are responsible for what goes on with your guns in your house. Not the kid. Not the burglar. You. If you don't know your kid well enough to think he's having troubles, or if you have a kid who's mentally ill and you still leave the gun around for him to get ahold of, it's your bloody fault, and one should not attempt to get around it.
    Will you have legal culpability if anything happens to your child with the gun you keep in the house or if you child has access to the gun and harms someone else?

    Where I am, it can happen. California Penal Code 12035: Criminal Storage of a firearm. Defined as if he or she keeps any loaded firearm within any premises that are under his or her custody or control and he or she knows or reasonably should know that a child is likely to gain access to the firearm without the permission of the child's parent or legal guardian and the child obtains access to the firearm and thereby causes death or great bodily injury to himself, herself, or any other person

    It does have an interesting exception: (6)The child obtains, or obtains and discharges, the firearm in a lawful act of self-defense or defense of another person, or persons.

    That's the parental responsibility clause. If you think your kid is responsible enough to use the firearm correctly, then you, as the parent, get to make that call as to the access that he should have.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    haydar wrote: »
    I probably will go some time. It just scares me to see people like him and other lunatics freely able to go and buy automatic weapons etc

    You can't buy automatic weapons freely in the US. Full auto requires a Federal Firearm dealers class III license.

    Semi-autos are trigger, bang, trigger, bang, trigger, bang, trigger, bang. A trigger pull is needed for each shot.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,049 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    An interesting suggestion just crossed my desk. Apparently a Vermont politician has noticed that the State Constitution says that if you don't want to carry a gun, you don't have to, but you may have to pay a cost in exchange (Article 9). He proposes a $500 tax on the choice to not own a gun.

    For background, Vermont does not require any permit for a person to carry a firearm, and has the lowest murder rate of any State in the Union.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    An interesting suggestion just crossed my desk. Apparently a Vermont politician has noticed that the State Constitution says that if you don't want to carry a gun, you don't have to, but you may have to pay a cost in exchange (Article 9). He proposes a $500 tax on the choice to not own a gun.

    For background, Vermont does not require any permit for a person to carry a firearm, and has the lowest murder rate of any State in the Union.

    Kel-tec are lobbying as we speak* :D





    (one of the cheapest guns on the market in the US)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,867 ✭✭✭✭BattleCorp


    haydar wrote: »
    That Jones fella is a nut job.
    I wouldn't want to come across him when he's angry with a gun!

    I don't think I'll be going to the US any time soon.


    There are extremists on both sides of the debate. A lot of people on his pro gun side of the debate are going "for fcuk sake" when they hear him speak. He isn't really doing them any favours. Just to make it clear, I'm on the pro gun side of the debate myself. I don't think that guns should be banned, I think they should just be in the hands of sensible people who will use them properly.

    It's like listening to the Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan. The Grand Dragon wouldn't be representative of my views even though I'm a white male and neither does that Jones fella.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,684 ✭✭✭FatherTed


    No, it has no such limitations. You are responsible for what goes on with your guns in your house. Not the kid. Not the burglar. You. If you don't know your kid well enough to think he's having troubles, or if you have a kid who's mentally ill and you still leave the gun around for him to get ahold of, it's your bloody fault, and one should not attempt to get around it.



    Where I am, it can happen. California Penal Code 12035: Criminal Storage of a firearm. Defined as if he or she keeps any loaded firearm within any premises that are under his or her custody or control and he or she knows or reasonably should know that a child is likely to gain access to the firearm without the permission of the child's parent or legal guardian and the child obtains access to the firearm and thereby causes death or great bodily injury to himself, herself, or any other person

    It does have an interesting exception: (6)The child obtains, or obtains and discharges, the firearm in a lawful act of self-defense or defense of another person, or persons.

    That's the parental responsibility clause. If you think your kid is responsible enough to use the firearm correctly, then you, as the parent, get to make that call as to the access that he should have.
    However, MOST parents are not responsible with such a dangerous weapon in the house. As a society we have failed miserably to demonstrate the responsibility and maturity required to justify private gun ownership.


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