[Closed] How many killed by guns in the US since their mass shooting last week?

Q. How many members of the NRA does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: More guns

🙂

While I'm broadly in favour of greater gun control, what the US really needs to sort out is the country's weird cultural obsession with guns and violence. It's all tied up with their conception of themselves as a nation - myths about the 'old west' and 'pioneers' etc. Daft.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pcwqx

The comments are entertaining.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of elementary school kids with an assault rifle.

This message is approved by the National Rifle Association.

I think they should have a go at not making a deal out of the killer.

So they know they will be forgotten, Victims are forgotten by all who don't know them whereas a serial killer becomes famous.

Also focus needs to be on mental heath etc of the people who have guns, as thats more of a problem than the gun itself.

someone mentally ill without a gun is far less of a problem than someone mentally ill with an assault weapon

It may be easier to address access to guns than mental health

Its NRA type spin to suggest its just the mental illness its not its access to guns - some of whom who have access are mentally ill but most of the deaths [ if not sprees] will be done by sane folk

The NRA should know - the son of the NRA president is doing 10 years for using a gun in a road rage incident.

Now there I was under the impression that the only real way to deal with nutters with guns, was to give the non-nutters bigger and/or more guns....USA logic at it's best

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someone mentally ill without a gun is far less of a problem than someone mentally ill with an assault weapon

It may be easier to address access to guns than mental health

Agree, probably didn't word it in the best way.

I was meaning more toward the uk system, very hard to get a gun if you have mental illness/history of violence etc.

There are far to many variables to pin this down to one answer. So many issues need to be addressed.

I do like the facebook one circulating that your right to carry gunships outweighed by my right not to be shot by one.

Unfortunately it goes much deeper into culture that people don't see it as a problem.

I think anyone who can carry a gunship should be allowed to. It's not like I'm going to tell them no anyway.

Interesting that Radio 4 programme

30 people killed with handguns in the UK 2009/10 (last figures)

Well, banning handguns worked well, didn't it!

30 people killed with handguns in the UK 2009/10 (last figures)

Well, banning handguns worked well, didn't it!

It's impossible to say - got any Control data?

Impossible to say as we'll never know what the figures would have been if handguns hadn't been banned.

And of course Zulu-Eleven is intelligent enough to know that, but said it anyway to provoke a reaction. What do they call that again?

I think they call it fundamentally disagreeing with the premise that banning things as a sticking plaster rather than tackling underlying social problems works, as even when you ban things, determined people can and will still access them.

Zulu-Eleven - Member
Interesting that Radio 4 programme

30 people killed with handguns in the UK 2009/10 (last figures)

Well, banning handguns worked well, didn't it!

Despite the trollish nature of the post.

I'm genuinely suprised the number is that low. I'd have expected that just for Shottingham....

Well, maybe London

30 people killed with handguns in the UK 2009/10 (last figures)

Well, banning handguns worked well, didn't it!

Hard to tell, but we could try comparing it with a country with widespread easy access to hand guns. Like say the USA, where they have well over 10,000 handgun murders a year (not to mention roughly similar numbers of people comitting suicide with guns)

So banning handguns does not completly stop gun murders, but does appear to make it an order of magnitude less common, which has to be a good thing.

So looking at the statistic you've provided,it looks like banning handguns is a brilliant success.

It's obviously hard to tell if the ban specifically did that obviously, it could also be due to our incredibly strict compared to the US gun controls generally.

And of course Zulu-Eleven is intelligent enough to know that, but said it anyway to provoke a reaction. What do they call that again?

Zulu-Eleven - Member
Interesting that Radio 4 programme

30 people killed with handguns in the UK 2009/10 (last figures)

Well, banning handguns worked well, didn't it!

US gun homicides

2009: 9,146
2008: 9,484
2007: 10,129
2006: 10,225
2005: 10,158
2004: 9,385
2003: 9,659
2002: 9,369
2001: 8,890
1999: 8,259
1998: 9,257

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

works quite well, aye

The reason so few are killed by handguns here is because of the idiots who fire them - they (the majority of neds) have no training whatsoever in their use, they then have a 'feud' with a rival, which involves going armed with their 'shooter', and when it comes to pulling the trigger, they aim for the chest or head, and invariably miss the centre of the target, thus taking an ear off, or hitting an arm/shoulder.
If they were trained in the smallest way, or had fired a gun before, then there would be more deaths, but luckily, as handguns are banned, they can never practice legally, and doing so illegally would have them arrested in short order unless they could find a suitably quiet, remote location , and being as it is mostly urban thugs who do the shooting, they are very unlikely to know somewhere where they can practice their shooting, along with the difficulty in obtaining ammunition (harder than buying an illegal gun I am told), this conspires to make us safer.

As for legally held guns, apart from the 3 outrages here in the last 25 years, we are one of the most law abiding gun owners anywhere in the World. Very few legally held guns are used in a criminal activity - the biggest danger from the owner of a legally held gun is the owner him/her self - sadly, there are a lot of suicides each year from their own gun.

Raw numbers are meaningless.

UK population: 62,641,000/30 = 1 per 2,088,033
US population: 311,591,917/10,000 = 1 per 31,159

A random inhabitant is 67 times more likely to be shot dead in the US than in the UK, if I have that right.

They're 48 times more likely to be able to get a cup of coffee in less than fifteen minutes, though, so it's not all bad news.

Interesting little snippet from the Gunpolicy site;

Civilian Guns
CompareNumber of Privately Owned Firearms
The estimated total number of guns held by civilians in the United Kingdom is 4,060,000
CompareRate of Civilian Firearm Possession per 100 Population
The rate of private gun ownership in the United Kingdom is 6.7 firearms per 100 people
CompareNumber of Licensed Firearm Owners
The number of licensed gun owners in the United Kingdom is reported to be 861,958
CompareRate of Licensed Firearm Owners per 100 Population
The rate of licensed firearm owners in the United Kingdom is 1.46 per 100 people
CompareNumber of Registered Firearms
The number of registered guns in the United Kingdom is reported to be 2,158,572
CompareRate of Registered Firearms per 100 Population
The rate of registered firearms per 100 people in the United Kingdom is 3.48
CompareNumber of Privately Owned Shotguns
In the United Kingdom, the number of shotguns in civilian possession is reported to be 1,503,850

They also have the total number of gun deaths in the UK at

In the United Kingdom, annual deaths resulting from firearms total

2009: 138

Which is a figure I would have expected more than 30, includes all gun deaths though.

A tedious predictable counterbalance to the tedious predictable sanctimony of the Brits holding forth on American culture while demonstrating their ignorance of it.

Why not show us some of your insight then? Because just being sneery and superior isn't massively helpful.

I'll post up my dissertation on violence in modern American history if you like. 😉

The NRA is lobbying for all tourists to be allowed to carry a gun. They argue that you will be safer and enjoy your trip more.

Well its only a matter of time..

[quote=piemonster ]They also have the total number of gun deaths in the UK at
In the United Kingdom, annual deaths resulting from firearms total
2009: 138
Which is a figure I would have expected more than 30, includes all gun deaths though.
Maybe the 138 is total deaths (murder, suicide, accident) and the 30 is murders only?

piemonster - Member

I'm genuinely suprised the number is that low. I'd have expected that just for Shottingham....

It's a fear of crime thing- we're always hearing about how we've got an "epidemic of gun crime" and how gangs are running around shooting people all the time, in fact actual shootings are very rare.

The 138 will include suicides.

Possibly, I believe Z11 did quote it as hand gun deaths

Number of Handgun Homicides
ChartIn the United Kingdom, annual handgun homicides total

2008: 4
2007: 2
2006: 3
2005: 3
2004: 2
2003: 3
2001: 1
CompareRate of Handgun Homicide per 100,000 People
ChartIn the United Kingdom, the annual rate of handgun homicide per 100,000 population is

2008: 0.01
2007: 0.00
2006: 0.01
2005: 0.01
2004: 0.00
2003: 0.01
2001: 0.00

A tedious predictable counterbalance to the tedious predictable sanctimony of the Brits holding forth on American culture while demonstrating their ignorance of it.

Well, I LOLed.

Number of Handgun Homicides
ChartIn the United Kingdom, annual handgun homicides total

2008: 4
2007: 2
2006: 3
2005: 3
2004: 2
2003: 3
2001: 1

So handgun deaths went up 400% between 2001 and 2008, therefore banning them is obviously completely ineffective.

Why not show us some of your insight then?

what the US really needs to sort out is the country's weird cultural obsession with guns and violence.

being sneery and superior isn't massively helpful.

And of course Zulu-Eleven is intelligent enough to know that, but said it anyway to provoke a reaction. What do they call that again?

Nope. This:

A tedious predictable counterbalance to the tedious predictable sanctimony of the Brits holding forth on American culture while demonstrating their ignorance of it.

plus:

Oh, the iron supplements.

still puts you in the

sneery and superior

konabunny - again, you're not really saying anything are you?

I've studied American history as my main subject in the final year of my degree - focussing on what makes up their national identity, cultural myths etc I'm not claiming to be an expert but there is a lot of cultural baggage around the idea of the 'rugged individualist' able to solve his own problems through direct action/violence.

Obviously it's not an overriding factor for every single American but it does exist. Plenty of literature on the subject if you can be arsed reading it.

Again, if you have some of your own insight you'd like to share I'm all ears.

Compulsory corporal punishment and marching ought to be introduced into all american schools until they can learn to behave in a proper way, going round shooting folk is a disgrace !

So handgun deaths went up 400% between 2001 and 2008, therefore banning them is obviously completely ineffective.

Jesus H Corbett, hadn't looked at it that way.

I'm going to panic and fear and buy the Mail and stuff like that.

WE ARE DOOMED

[i]I've studied American history as my main subject in the final year of my degree - focussing on what makes up their national identity, cultural myths etc I'm not claiming to be an expert but there is a lot of cultural baggage around the idea of the 'rugged individualist' able to solve his own problems through direct action/violence. [/i]

But how much time did you spend there? The one time I'll never forget is been at a house party where I got into a conversation with a Creationist. Gobsmacked. Probably a good thing we did get onto guns...

I'll post up my dissertation on violence in modern American history if you like.

Weird, my dissertation was very similar to yours, although I showed how violence in films has been used in the US to reflect socio-political trends throughout the 20th century.

Leeds University? Professor Murdoch? 🙂

But how much time did you spend there?

Been there a few times - travelled around a bit. Never been to the Bible Belt though.

there is a lot of cultural baggage around the idea of the 'rugged individualist'

Yep. This can be seen in their choice of cars as well. All those big trucks. "I'm a frontiersman, really, you know". No, no, you're not. You're an accountant, working in a business park somewhere in suburban Los Angeles. You're really not a frontiersman.

[i]But how much time did you spend there? The one time I'll never forget is been at a house party where I got into a conversation with a Creationist. Gobsmacked. Probably a good thing we did get onto guns... [/i]

I was once in a data centre in Dallas and the manager was telling me about the security around access.

"And this here is the reception desk. Now y'all see there's this 3 inch thick perspex plate between us and the guys on the desk and that'll stop just about any gun known to man.

'cept maybe my .44 magnum.

I got it in the trunk of my truck, I'll show y'all later."

Australia banned semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession after a massacre in 1996. In the 18 years before the gun law reforms, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, and none in the 10.5 years afterwards. Seems fairly good evidence that banning these kinds of weapons is a good thing.

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

Rather interestingly I received the following spam email not long after reading the first 5/6 posts of this thread.

NRA: nut jobs....

The primary-school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, approximately 45 miles from the Colt Arms Factory, is just another one in the long line of government psyops designed to persuade the public to allow the government to take away their guns, and their means to defend themselves against the government and the banksters that the politicians really serve.

The small children murders are designed to create hysterical emotions in women to get them to demand that guns are banned. If that doesn’t work they will continue with their evil agenda with worse and worse atrocities on younger children, until they get their way and disarm the people, so that they cannot fight back against government tyranny.

Newtown is the U.S.A.’s Dunblane, which was orchestrated in Scotland in 1996 by the British establishment, to whip up hysteria in order to ban all handguns from the U.K. It was a follow-up to the Hungerford Massacre in England in 1987, which was carried out by mind-controlled Michael Ryan, who then shot himself so he could not be questioned, and it was used to ban semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.

It’s always the same people behind it – the gun-grabbers who want the people to be defenceless against the gun-grabbers’ employers – the banksters who own all of the politicians. They get their politicians to pass legislation for them, in order to remove the people’s freedoms and means of defending themselves, and enslave them in a draconian police-state, under a mountain of debt, and then exterminate the useless-eaters.

The Dunblane  massacre was supposedly carried out by Thomas Hamilton, who was a paedophile and procurer of children, for a high level paedophile ring involving senior members of the Tony Blair Labour-Party shadow-cabinet and others. The massacre served two purposes, it achieved their desired handgun-ban and killed the abused children, so they could not be witnesses against the elite-paedophiles. They then had the findings of the inquiry sealed for 100 years, which is proof of the above.

Like Newtown there were two shooters, Hamilton and a hit-man who shot Hamilton and made it look like Hamilton committed suicide after shooting 16 children, so that he couldn’t be questioned. Hamilton was found in the school gymnasium slumped against a wall and still gurgling, when an off-duty policeman PC Grant McCutcheon entered the gym and saw two semi-automatic pistols, one on either side of Hamilton’s body.

The autopsy revealed that Hamilton was killed with a .38 revolver. These people always slip-up with their crimes. There was no .38 revolver for him to have shot himself with. Thus, there was a second shooter who killed Hamilton.

Similarly, the first reports from Newtown were of two shooters, just like mind-controlled James Holmes in the Denver Batman Cinema massacre, the story then quickly changes to just one.

Columbine was similar, in that a team of shooters in black outfits were seen there and the two accused were on mind-altering prescription-drugs.

Wake up and see the pattern and their modus operandi and don’t fall for it. Never let them take your guns, except from your cold dead hands.

All of these are staged events to whip-up hysterical public support for banning the people from having guns. It works the same in every country – Hungerford in England, Dunblane in Scotland, Port Arthur in Australia and the list in America is endless, because of the Second Amendment and the people having a pro-gun culture. That makes it much more difficult to break the Americans’ love of guns and the Second Amendment, which was put in place to protect the people from the government.

Gun bans work well for tyrants. They worked well for Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao, to name just three.

If you want to stop these massacres, wake-up and get rid of the banksters, their puppet-politicians and all gun-grabbers; arm teachers and ban gun-free zones.

From one who can see the pattern and hopes to enable you to see it too.

😯

To be fair, it's decent grammar which is a must for STW

[i]The Dunblane massacre was supposedly carried out by Thomas Hamilton, who was a paedophile and procurer of children, for a high level paedophile ring involving senior members of the Tony Blair Labour-Party shadow-cabinet and others. The massacre served two purposes, it achieved their desired handgun-ban and killed the abused children, so they could not be witnesses against the elite-paedophiles. They then had the findings of the inquiry sealed for 100 years, which is proof of the above.

Like Newtown there were two shooters, Hamilton and a hit-man who shot Hamilton and made it look like Hamilton committed suicide after shooting 16 children, so that he couldn’t be questioned. Hamilton was found in the school gymnasium slumped against a wall and still gurgling, when an off-duty policeman PC Grant McCutcheon entered the gym and saw two semi-automatic pistols, one on either side of Hamilton’s body.

The autopsy revealed that Hamilton was killed with a .38 revolver. These people always slip-up with their crimes. There was no .38 revolver for him to have shot himself with. Thus, there was a second shooter who killed Hamilton.
[/i]

And there is some truth in some of this, and the PC wasn't called as a witness in the enquiry, even though he'd made a statement and it by someone of a second gunman. But it had nothing to do with either stopping the use of handguns nor getting rid of witness children.

There's a huge amount of very embarrassing information that was buried for a long time about the Dunblane massacre, the whole story of what went on there has potential to really do some damage, and I don't think we'll ever be allowed to find out the full facts.

One easy thing that can be put to bed from the conspiracy theorist bullshit is the .38 issue - the bullets for a .38 and a .357 magnum are identical.

yes. the americans like their conspiracy theories even more than their guns dont they. All this talk is just pissing into the wind though, they wont do anything about it and in time there will be another sandy hook and then another....they are too thick to do anything else