Guns don't kill people

The number of people shot dead/ gun crime in Switzerland last year? 45, out of a population of 8 million

Well, see you’re onto a whole nother argument there. The thing is, there’s shootings and there’s shootings.

I suspect a very large portion of the US shootings are gangland drug related shootings. So it’s a social issue rather than a gun control issue, isn’t it? The real issue with US society is its deep divisions.

DrJ – it doesn’t ‘assume’ anything, its a real world data comparison.

I use the old fashioned method of reading a news source that looks like it may be reasonably independent, as opposed to just bending things to fit its own agenda

Like the BBC and the Guardian 😆

If you include the gun suicides for Switzerland then there are about 400 gun deaths
every year.

In the US it’s about 30 000 gun suicides.

There have been guns in circulation in lots of countries for years. What’s new are the shoot-’em-up killers that come from a generation of shoot-’em-up video gamers. How did Anders spend his days before walking around an island killing people? Doing exactly the same on his computer. I wonder if they’ll ever tell us how this latest American killer spent his days before exchanging his virtual guns for real ones.

Molgrips, an excellent point.

Would be very interesting to see by how much violent assault would fall as a result of tighter controls.

What’s new are the shoot-’em-up killers that come from a generation of shoot-’em-up video gamers

Now THAT’s what I call bollocks!

Going back to the OP, I sort of agree with the principle in a way. At school we were taught a lot of interesting but largely useless stuff (i.e. knowledge/skills that I have rarely or never used again) but there wasn’t any kind of focus on morals/ethics or how to be a good citizen or even what I’d call “life skills” (managing money/finances, coping with stress, etc).

What’s new are the shoot-’em-up killers that come from a generation of shoot-’em-up video gamers. How did Anders spend his days before walking around an island killing people? Doing exactly the same on his computer. I wonder if they’ll ever tell us how this latest American killer spent his days before exchanging his virtual guns for real ones.

You’re not really saying the video games are the cause are you?
Before video games it would have been violent movies, before that Death Metal, before that Rock ‘n’ Roll.
What nutters do doesn’t necessarily make them what they are.

DrJ – it doesn’t ‘assume’ anything, its a real world data comparison

True, it is a data comparison. So what conclusions do you draw from those data?

The thing is, there’s shootings and there’s shootings.

Good point – also worth considering is that there’s an argument for an ‘underlying’ murder rate – ie. in countries where guns are easier to access, the rate of knife murders etc is lower, as people opt for the gun as ‘easier’ in other countries the knife/hammer/cricket bat/poison gets used, especially in domestic murders – so essentially, a fair number of these murders would still happen, just in a different way – the same argument would go for suicides: lots more gun suicides, lots less paracetemol overdoses and hangings.

The per capita murder rate in Switzerland is lower than the UK – Not for one second would I say that was down to the widespread availability of firearms in their society, I’d say it was down to a myriad of socio-political differences between our two countries, but that argument works two ways when you also go on to compare the UK with the US.

That’s what all the shoot-’em-up video gamers say, Molgrips. A bit like smokers that don’t believe they’ll get cancer, drunk drivers that reckon they drive better after a few pints.

Not all smokers die of cancer, but a few will.

Not all drunk drivers will mow down a pedestrian but some will.

Not all shoot-’em-up gamers will get a gun and go on the rampage but some will.

I’ve banned video games in my house because my son was noticeably more aggressive and anti-social after playing them, even the non-shoot-’em-up games. A sample size of one you’ll say. Well on a bus full of kids it’s obvious which ones are playing music and which ones video games.

I lived in the US for a couple of years, most of my work colleagues and friends had guns, one had a gun in every room just in case! I never even thought about it to be quite honest as it seemed the US thing to do, flirted with getting a handgun myself at one point but the novelty wore off.
I would say it would take just as long to make the US on par with the UK/Europe with gun control as it would to have a free and stable Afghanistan.

I used to run around being antisocial when ‘Kung Fu’ came on.
Never killed anyone though.

but there wasn’t any kind of focus on morals/ethics or how to be a good citizen

Well there’s a reason for that. It was decided that parents should ‘bring up’ the kids, and teachers should just teach them knowledge. This is because it was considered undesirable to have the government or teachers influencing kids with their own morals. That’s also why they don’t teach politics in schools.

However, citizenship education is now on the curriculum I believe.

Not all shoot-’em-up gamers will get a gun and go on the rampage but some will.

Yes, but show me the causal link and I’ll give your idea some credit.

Mass shootings pre-date video games btw.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/18/gun-sales-surge-after-connecticut-massacre/?intcmp=trending

Switzerland has a high suicide rate compared with it’s neighbours, Zulu, and it’s not just suicide tourism with Frogs going there to take advantage of the assisted suicide laws for the chronically ill.

It’s much easier to pull a trigger and generally irreversible so the survival rate is lower. Some people survive cutting their wrists, (small) paracetamol overdoses, jumping off bridges, driving into brick walls etc..

There have been guns in circulation in lots of countries for years. What’s new are the shoot-’em-up killers that come from a generation of shoot-’em-up video gamers. How did Anders spend his days before walking around an island killing people? Doing exactly the same on his computer. I wonder if they’ll ever tell us how this latest American killer spent his days before exchanging his virtual guns for real ones

Except mass killings were higher in the 20’s and 30’s than they are now and started increasing in the 70’s and peaked in the 90’s.

Doesn’t really fit in with the proliferation of violent video games does it?

Where the hell did you draw these conclusions from?

BTW a lot of the most sociable blokes I know play shooters.

Not all smokers die of cancer, but a few will.

Not all drunk drivers will mow down a pedestrian but some will.

Not all shoot-’em-up gamers will get a gun and go on the rampage but some will.

Where for the love of god did you get the data to imply this?

it doesn’t ‘assume’ anything, its a real world data comparison

Its not really “real world data”. Its data that has been cherry picked to support a conclusion that has already been drawn. Their are serious flaws in their collections methods.

For example they used news sources, so for them to find data the event has to be newsworthy. A civilian “taking out a rouge” after the rouge killing 1 or 2 people will be big news, its a sensationalist dream. The police quietly arresting a nutter before he kills anyone isn’t news in the same way.

All their analysis really says is that in America you are closer to a nutter with a gun than a policeman with a gun.

Edit: Their data doesn’t show anything, because its flawed.

I’ve banned video games in my house because my son was noticeably more aggressive and anti-social after playing them, even the non-shoot-’em-up games. A sample size of one you’ll say. Well on a bus full of kids it’s obvious which ones are playing music and which ones video games

Same here. MY nephew used to play a lot of CoD:MW and my sister noticed he as a _lot_ more aggressive and harder to control because of it. So, she banned him from playing for a month and he calmed down a lot. Now it’s a treat for him.

I’m not saying that there is a plain correlation between video games and mass shootings, but there does seem to be a general trend towards violent games and a desensitisation towards violence in today’s youth. There are so many other factors to consider though… The way media reports events, television becoming more widespread in the house and at earlier ages and just generally becoming more “gritty”.

Switzerland has a high suicide rate compared with it’s neighbours, Zulu

Really? Are you quite sure about that?

I seem to recall France (and Belgium*) having extraordinarily high rates of Suicide, and wiki seems to bear that out…

(*well, you would, wouldn’t you)

The shoot-em-up video game argument is an interesting one. My stepson was noticeably more aggressive following long stints playing games like Medal of Honour and COD. On young impressionable minds something like that is obviously going to have an effect and therefore its fair to say that there is a chance, however small that it may affect someone enough that they think its acceptable to go into a school and kill a load of children. Highly unlikely but not impossible and where we’re talking about such large numbers the probability is higher.

Should shooter games be banned? No, I don’t think they should – we live in a big enough nanny state as it is. Should children be prevented from playing them? Yes I think they should and its also why a lot of games have a given age certificate. It’s the responsibility of the parents to police this.

The gun laws or lack of in the states is clearly a joke, allowing those who shouldn’t to possess firearms. As mentioned it’s a bit of a stand-off – we’ll give up our guns when you give up yours and I think its maybe too far down the road to make a broad change in policy – ie ban guns.

You Brits missed out on the German “killerspiel” debate that followed the Erfurt killings in 2002. Killerspiel have been the subject of parliamentary debate in both Germany and Switerland and have a judical definition. Psychologists have obviously joined in and as each new killing takes place there’s more evidence to show that either killers are more likely to play killerspiel or playing killerspiel makes players more likely to kill.

Anyhow, dismissing my comments as “bollocks” when I’m only repeating views expressed by the German interior minister is perhaps demonstrating you own lack of knowledge on the issue.

So, what’s the betting the latest American killer was, like the Erfurt killer and Anders, a killerspiel player?

Edit to add a Wiki page:

Killerspiel

What gets me is that something like 3/4 of those who are shot in the US are actually shot with their OWN guns, much like this latest little shit probably took his mothers gun and shot her with it.

Take out the gangsters providing a social cleansing service and i bet as many deaths are caused by accidental circumstances as those which are actual intentional murders

Edukator,

I read somewhere that he made sure his computer was trashed prior to shooting his mother and before going out on the spree. There are a lot of very talented forensic data specialists in the US, but I suspect even they would not be able to get much off a dismantled hard disk. ISP logs are another matter, assuming that his ISP actually tracked sites visited.

The Wiki suicide table is bizarre , high rank, low numbers

I’ve checked half a dozen sources and they contradict each other. This one puts Switzerland top others put France higher than Switzerland.

My data suggests that overuse of internet forums turns people into knobbers. The data to support that conclusion is published above.

Psychologists have obviously joined in and as each new killing takes place there’s more evidence to show that either killers are more likely to play killerspiel or playing killerspiel makes players more likely to kill

A pretty significant difference between those two conditions, isn’t it?

Do you know how many young men/boys play shoot-em-up games?

Everything I’ve read on the subject suggests that being aggressive and being capable of wantonly murdering innocent people are unrelated traits.

Me for example, I can get very very angry indeed, but I don’t feel like killing kids. And serial killers can be quite calm.

There’s the “desensitised” argument already mentioned above and also our references, the role models and norms that model our behaviour. It’s about what is acceptable and unacceptable in our own heads.

Taking another subject, Shades of Gray has resulted in an increase in the sales of BDSM gear (according to a TV report I saw). Try watching sujestive vids with your partner and see if they get a headache at bedtime or (more probably) try whatever you’ve been watching.

We are functions of aour environment and I’m convinced that someone who spends hours every day pulling a virtual trigger is more likely to pull a real trigger.

molgrips – Member
but there wasn’t any kind of focus on morals/ethics or how to be a good citizen
Well there’s a reason for that. It was decided that parents should ‘bring up’ the kids, and teachers should just teach them knowledge. This is because it was considered undesirable to have the government or teachers influencing kids with their own morals. That’s also why they don’t teach politics in schools.

However, citizenship education is now on the curriculum I believe.

Can it be assumed from your comments above that you think it better for a child or a young person to be “brought up”by the state ?

Ok just a few points –
The American Dream is built upon the idea that force can overcome all obstacles; look at those Cowboy films and other blockbusters.
Individuals should be able to rise up and attack/defend themselves from Federal interference at any point. Appratently it’s the Amerkin way.

The guns laws are tricky = what’s appropriate for the wilderness in Wyoming isn’t necessarily appropriate for downtown Manhatten.

Canada has a similar percentage of gun ownership but much lower murder rate; which would suggest it’s socio-economic related.

Kids get over-excited from video games (Shoot em-ups or otherwise) due to the excitement / adrenalin generated from the interaction with the game. A simple rule is 1 hour ON and 1 hour OFF outside to burn off the adrenalin.

What are young kids doing playing 16+ shoot ’em up games? Yes they may play them at their mates = different houses, different rules!

Can it be assumed from your comments above that you think it better for a child or a young person to be “brought up”by the state ?

I think it would be better if teachers were considered more as role-models rather than simply as educators. Obviously some parents do a great job at bringing their kids up, but at my school there was an obvious gulf between those (well behaved) kids and the kids whose parents didn’t bother or were bad influences. It’s not that they didn’t know the difference between right and wrong, they just didn’t care.

Canada has a similar percentage of gun ownership but much lower murder rate; which would suggest it’s socio-economic related.

Aren’t Canadian gun laws closer to European laws? ie you can get a licence for a hunting weapons etc, but you don’t get the same widespread ownership of military type weapons that is prevalent in he US.

As someone brought up with guns, I’ve always thought UK laws are too restrictive (I’ve modified hat with age). Context is all though – if you live in the countryside and want a shotgun or .22 for game / vermin, then by all means make that legally permissible.

Where I draw the line is that so many of the weapons held in the US have only one purpose – a hand gun, assault rifle, tactical shotgun is designed only for killing people. We aren’t talking about the sort of weapons seen in the UK, EU or Canada (afaik)

Educator, the shrinks in germany are talking bollocks. You need a sample size of 30 to make any significant conclusion, have they had 30 mass killers in germany to make such a conclusion? No. A big **** off resounding no. What were their methodologies for supporting such a conclusion because I bet statistically I can destroy their argument.

A lot of guns are designed and built for competition use. In Israel when school shootings took place they trained and armed teachers. School shootings stopped. Airplane pilots are given the option of going armed, hijackings virtually stopped. When there is already a proliferation of fireams, banning them will only affect the law abiding. Criminals can and will always get hold of firearms.
Banning firearms from schools, cinemas hospitals has just turned them into hunting (Killing)grounds for nutters.

Can it be assumed from your comments above that you think it better for a child or a young person to be “brought up”by the state ?

Not at all. I was simply explaining why things are the way they are.

There’s the “desensitised” argument already mentioned above and also our references, the role models and norms that model our behaviour

The thing is that ‘normal well adjusted’ people are easily able to tell the difference between make-believe and real violence. Kids have always shot/beaten up/stabbed each other in the playground, but they know it’s not real.

When you don’t know the difference between real and pretend, then you have some serious problems, regardless of what computer games you play.

Also – have you played any shoot-em-up computer games? They don’t tend to include wandering through schools killing kids. They are always either a) military conflicts, b) zombies/monsters or c) generic faceless bad guys.

The question is, WHY are the shooters doing what they do? For a laugh? That doesn’t seem likely given the circumstances in which these things tend to end. They seem to be the acts of desperate people whose minds have disintegrated. I remain unconvinced that computer games contribute towards this.

I think it far more likely that previous real life shootings contribute far more to the tendecy to commit further shootings, actually.

The American Dream is built upon the idea that force can overcome all obstacles; look at those Cowboy films and other blockbusters

Well you are right, but it’s not part of the American Dream as such. There is however a huge streak of machismo running through American culture as you correctly identify – if you look deeper, even the most innocuous seeming films carry plot lines where righteous force wins the day.

Like Back to the Future for instance. He teaches his dad to commit violence, and that makes everything better 🙄

If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.

marcus brigstocke

Also I’d be willing to bet the most significant factors in mass shootings are bullying, cultural attitudes to helping each other (eg usa style capitalism vs canadian socialism), access to mental health care, poverty and access to weapons.

Also as molgrips points out there seems to be a culture in the states where solving problems by force is idolized and where issues are dealt with almost pathalogicaly black and white reasoning.

Add cultural attitudes towards violence and social inclusion in that list bwaarp.

if every mentally ill person in the UK had access to a gun then we’d also be subject to these horrific massacres!

Molgrips makes a good point – and reminds me of a comment a (grown up) cousin made many years ago…

He was expressing exasperation with the “normal” parental response of fawning over babies / toddlers / primary aged kids – ie when they are “sweet”. His view was that kids really needed their parents love, support and guidance at 12-18, when they are ugly, stroppy, spotty and confused!

These struck me at the time as wise words (I was late teens / early 20s, his own sons were early teens). Kids need time more in their teenage years than is generally (publicly?) acknowledged.