Gun Deaths Per 100,000 population per year:

United States: 10.64

BritLand: 0.26

Yeah I’m happy enough with our approach thanks!

chewkw you need to go and live in America.

You could sleep (and masturbate) with a Bernoulli M7 every night and we’d get a good 5 hours before you post. I’d recommend the west coast though if you’re planning on doing it.

You could sleep (and masturbate) with a Bernoulli M7 every night and we’d get a good 5 hours before you post. I’d recommend the west coast though if you’re planning on doing it.

Too late, too old … they don’t me.

Yes, guns might make it easier to carry out his/her intention but knife/machete would do the job too with a surprise attack.

Psychologically, its far harder to kill someone with a knife and also much more difficult to take down multiple targets in one attack. Close quarter armed combat is a completely different prospect than simply blatting off a few rounds from 100yds away. [/quote]

True, true … but in this case it’s not 100 yards away but arm length away.

Of course I would – that’s a silly thing to say.

Being happy with gun control doesn’t mean that I am against protecting my family. In fact that’s the main reason I am for it! [/quote]

Yes, in BritLand I agree.

In Merica that’s a different story.

Judging by the perp’s own camera footage, he could just as easily have used a machete, one good swing would have taken out the reporter and the cameraman, another the interviewee, a couple more to finish the job.
Would have been pretty quiet, too; no gunshots to alert anyone.
And he was a crap shot, too; seven or eight shots to kill two people a metre or so away?

Keep guns for killing small tasty animals? Fine.
Spend time in the backwoods of Montana and need one for defense against bears etc? Fine.
Keep a Desert Eagle in your bedside drawer for “home defense”? You’re a batshitmentalist.

American gun culture scares me, and I’m pro gun ownership! (For the aforementioned tasty animal purpose, or target/clay shooting). Once saw a couple of young men in a “sports” shop in Tennessee comparing handguns, including a Desert Eagle, by posing with them in the mirror. Yep. A mirror in the gun department. One said, while posing, “I think this one is more me”. Wish I’d repeatedly punched him. And then kicked him.

@Flash, no need for such a hand cannon. My dad swore by his 1911 when we lived in SA for a while. That and his Remington in the car.

I’ve grown up around weapons of various sizes and have used them whilst serving, never felt the need to own one in the UK though. However hypothetically, if there was a lifting of restrictions and more people had access, I may change my mind.

Thing is with shooting people, unless you drill and drill and drill, you’ll be all over the place, more so if you’re a little bit mental. Once the adrenaline starts pumping rounds go bloody everywhere. The reality is most people wouldn’t have the time to develop that kind of discipline, so the comment about passengers being armed on the French train, it would have been carnage if a bunch of people pulled out handguns and started shooting.

Interesting thing I read about the second amendment, it’s there to protect people from federal interference. the states can impose the rules they see fit. So if they say you can only own a single shot .22, best suck it up.

He is dead and has been for a few hours

Why would anyone watch the footage let alone the gunmans footage ?
Rhetorical please dont answer that

And he was a crap shot, too; seven or eight shots to kill two people a metre or so away?

One handed, holding a phone in the other it seems. Have you ever fired a semi-automatic hand gun? I have, and it’s actually quite difficult to hit things. It’s not like the movies.

Not really no. The table on the link gives you a full breakdown for suicide, homicide, unintentional and undetermined.

The figures for just Homicide were 0.05 for UK and 3.55 for the US.

I acknowledge that they do represent an average risk across the population though – the actual risk faced by nice middle class white people is quite a lot lower.

I agree. And I also agree that sadly it is a nearly impossible problem to solve in the states.

Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try though.

Fair enough – that was the last update I’d seen.

*wonders how it feels to shoot a gun*

*imagines it causes the strangest boner* (to someone who struggles for one normally)

Me mate’s uncle was a gun dealer when we were young. His uncle also represented the country in Olympic shooting …

But I wish I could shoot his other younger uncle because the bar-stewart boosted about him shooting the endanger wild Borneo buffolo …

The US has two choices IMO.

1. Maintain status quo.

2. Revoke the 2nd amendment and deal with the consequences.

Both will result in firearms related homicide. But at a different rate.

Guns don’t kill people.

Mentally ill people choose guns as an effective, remote medium to kill.

Nothing will change.

…

Yep, that’s a good and rational attitude. [/quote]

Ya, that bar-stewart uncle is still alive and healthy today … 😡

The fundamental difference you’re overlooking is,

Should I happen to find my life or that of my family under threat, it is incredibly unlikely to be from an assailant with a gun. Ergo, the chances of me finding myself suddenly having to play Dirty Harry in my living room one night is about as probable as me taking the lead in Swan Lake at the national ballet.

What would be assessed as mentally ill depends on the values of the society where the assessment is made.

In America there is a normalised view in many quarters that ownership of automatic weapons is safe and desirable, that disproportionate response to perceived threats is acceptable and that these are rights inviolate. So, no it’s not just mentally ill people who shoot people with guns.

The US has two choices IMO.

1. Maintain status quo.

2. Revoke the 2nd amendment and deal with the consequences.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to amend the US constitution?

To Propose Amendments

In the U.S. Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate approve by a two-thirds supermajority vote, a joint resolution amending the Constitution. Amendments so approved do not require the signature of the President of the United States and are sent directly to the states for ratification.

Two-thirds of the state legislatures ask Congress to call a national convention to propose amendments. (This method has never been used.)

To Ratify Amendments

Three-fourths of the state legislatures approve it, or

Ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states approve it. This method has been used only once — to ratify the 21st Amendment — repealing Prohibition.

The Supreme Court has stated that ratification must be within “some reasonable time after the proposal.” Beginning with the 18th amendment, it has been customary for Congress to set a definite period for ratification. In the case of the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd amendments, the period set was 7 years, but there has been no determination as to just how long a “reasonable time” might extend.

Of the thousands of proposals that have been made to amend the Constitution, only 33 obtained the necessary two-thirds vote in Congress. Of those 33, only 27 amendments (including the Bill of Rights) have been ratified.

From http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/usconstitution/a/constamend.htm

Mentally ill people choose guns as an effective, remote medium to kill.

Nothing will change.

So you’re saying everyone who killed someone with a gun in America was mentally ill and removing easy access won’t change that?

What a very strange view.

That’s almost the opposite of what I said. I am saying their societal norms are different from our own, which makes actions we would seem abnormal, normal. We throw this mental illness thing around a lot without considering the cultural background.

Presumably they could severely limit the types of guns allowed without needing an amendment to the constitution? I really can’t see how anyone can justify owning an assault rifle, machine gun or sub-machine that they keep at home, they should be restricted to highly regulated gun ranges only. After that start limiting other guns (e.g. 9mm 10-round mag max for a handgun).

Of course in reality the combination of the powerful pro-gun lobby and general anti-government-interference stance of the republican party (esp. the more right-wing part) mean nothing of any meaning will get done.