Gun laws

[heavycola]

Whitehouse spokesman Dana Perino quoted in my newspaper today:
"the President believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed"

I am sure this is a great comfort to all. If only the gunman had thought about his responsibilites as a gun owner beforehand.

So one apparently love-crazed kid can murder 32 random students and kill himself before he is stopped. Could he have done this without his arsenal?

Are these seemingly oh-so-frequent and terrible massacres the price you pay in the US for your right to bear arms?

[Guiscard]

Glad theres a thread about gun laws so the debate doesn't clutter the other thread.

My main point is this:

In the US you have pretty lax gun laws. Whatever you want to say about the right to own a gun, it being criminals and madmen that own guns, that its not right to prohibit sane people... Look at the UK

In the UK we have much stricter gun laws. You can 100% own a gun for sport, or even for self protection, but the laws are harsher. Hunters own guns and farmers own guns, but few others because we don't have the same kind of culture where firearms are permissable. When they are owned they have to be kept in a registered locked box and there are much stricter checks than in the US.

How many school shootings have we had in the UK, which is an arguably similar country in terms of culture, the mental state of its citizens and crime rate etc.?

We don't have that same firearms culture, yet its not illegal to own a gun. We don't have that because we have stricter legislation.

In the UK, I could get hold of any drug you fancied within an hour of you asking me, but I doubt I could get a gun at all. They ust aren't out there in the same way, and crazy young people don't have the same oppertunity to wreak such devastation and ruin people's lives like that.

Nobody is saying guns should be illegal, but stricter legislation will gradually erode that culture of firearms being acceptable and permissable in society.

[jnd94]

i think that there should be a law that syas that kids that arent past high school cant buy guns, to prevent some school shootings. I also think that if a parent owns a gun, there should be some way of locking it while it is where children are, so that a mad kid cant pick it up and (a kill him or herself or (b bring it to school and kill others.

[Anarkistsdream]

i think that there should be a law that syas that kids that arent past high school cant buy guns, to prevent some school shootings. I also think that if a parent owns a gun, there should be some way of locking it while it is where children are, so that a mad kid cant pick it up and (a kill him or herself or (b bring it to school and kill others.

Those things already exist...

It is up to the parents to be responsible... I have owned guns my whole life... I have been around them my whole life... There is nothin gwrong with owning a gun... It is about responsibility...

[millej11]

Having gun laws would have made no difference whether or not that kid got a gun.

[Guiscard]

Having gun laws would have made no difference whether or not that kid got a gun.

Read my above post...

Why have we not had school shootings in the UK???

We have guns, but stricter gun laws...

[Anarkistsdream]

Having gun laws would have made no difference whether or not that kid got a gun.

Read my above post...

Why have we not had school shootings in the UK???

We have guns, but stricter gun laws...

You still have school beatings, racism, stabbings...

I remember hearing about Australia after they abolished guns in THEIR country... It stopped good folks from having guns, and instead old men and women could be raped and robbed at knife point... or with a pair of scissors... Guns were what helped those people to protect themselves...

For every ONE of these incidents, there are ten incidents of people being saved by reponsibly using guns.

[Guilty_Biscuit]

The UK gun laws really tightend up after the shock of the Dunblaine school shootings in '96. I'm lost for reasons why America won't tighten up their laws

[Guiscard]

Having gun laws would have made no difference whether or not that kid got a gun.

Read my above post...

Why have we not had school shootings in the UK???

We have guns, but stricter gun laws...

You still have school beatings, racism, stabbings...

I remember hearing about Australia after they abolished guns in THEIR country... It stopped good folks from having guns, and instead old men and women could be raped and robbed at knife point... or with a pair of scissors... Guns were what helped those people to protect themselves...

For every ONE of these incidents, there are ten incidents of people being saved by reponsibly using guns.

No. Don't even bother to compare violence in the UK to the school shootings in the US. We don't have 31 people killed in one go. I'm not saying gun legislation will stop racism and stabbings, thats a different issue altogether, but it WILL help stop mass murder like the type witnessed in the US.

Why do you think we want to prohibit guns enitrely? You could own a gun in the UK. At no point have I said we should ban all firearms. I believe if people want to own a gun they should be allowed to, but there should be legal restraints on what is, in essence, a tool invented to kill.

[Anarkistsdream]

And what are your suggestions for those restrictions???

How will it stop illegal guns from getting in the hands ofcriminals???

All it takes is robbing one house to find a gun that belongs to a responsible gun owner and using it to commit a felony...

Nothing you do, aside from completely taking away that privilege of ownership, would stop these things from happening...

Again, you have NO IDEA how that young man accrued those two pistols...

[heavycola]

i think that there should be a law that syas that kids that arent past high school cant buy guns, to prevent some school shootings. I also think that if a parent owns a gun, there should be some way of locking it while it is where children are, so that a mad kid cant pick it up and (a kill him or herself or (b bring it to school and kill others.

Those things already exist...

It is up to the parents to be responsible... I have owned guns my whole life... I have been around them my whole life... There is nothin gwrong with owning a gun... It is about responsibility...

How do you teach a crazed lunatic about responsibility?

Look - handguns/automatic weapons are for shooting people. You can have a country made up of a majority of responsible gun owners, as I have every belief the US is, and still there will be kids with a mean streak or some teenage angst about life's cruelty and for them it will always be easy to obtain a gun and do what this guy did, or what the columbine kids did, or what happend on any one of a too-large number of killing sprees.
I was not suggesting all gun owners are irresponsible: my question is whether these massacres are the price gun-owners (and all americans) pay for your right to bear arms.

[Guilty_Biscuit]

In the UK it took the Dunblaine school shootings in1996 to shock us into getting the gun control laws tightened up. How many school shootings will take place before America follows suit?

[Anarkistsdream]

Again... It is obvious that this 'crazed teen' had issues... We DO NOT KNOW where he got the guns... Be it his parents, his friends, maybe they were HIS...

The point is, when a person buys a gun, they may be doing it because they enjoy target practice or hunting. Suddenly, they are on drugs or become mentally unstable and end up killing someone... HOW DO WE KNOW?

You can never be positive, so I don't understand what legislation you would try to pass.

[Anarkistsdream]

In the UK it took the Dunblaine school shootings in1996 to shock us into getting the gun control laws tightened up. How many school shootings will take place before America follows suit?

I ask for the third time... What legislation would you pass?

What helped the UK...? What are the EXACT laws?

[Aimless]

It's pretty funny that people here are holding up the UK as an example of gun control "success." Tell me, what is the current rate of violent crime in London? (Not gun crime, violent crime in general.) And what was it prior to 1996? See a pattern?

School shootings like this one are tragic, but they are also a statistically insignificant blip. It is the height of utter stupidity to base policy off of single incidents like this, no matter how high-profile they are.

Besides, what gun control laws do you propose? Maybe a zero-weapons law pertaining to the VT campus? Oh, wait, we already have one of those.

[Guiscard]

And what are your suggestions for those restrictions???

How will it stop illegal guns from getting in the hands ofcriminals???

All it takes is robbing one house to find a gun that belongs to a responsible gun owner and using it to commit a felony...

Nothing you do, aside from completely taking away that privilege of ownership, would stop these things from happening...

Again, you have NO IDEA how that young man accrued those two pistols...

Ok. You're not listening to me. In the UK it is 100% legal to own a gun. You have evry right to own a gun. YOU CAN OWN A GUN!

BUT there are stircter controls on ownership. Every gun must be registered, safe storage procedures are enforced, you can't own one if you've spent more than three years in prison and the penalty for owning an unregistered forarm is harsh and mandatory. You CAN own a gun, but the legislation means that most people don't Its not easy to get your hands on a gun. I'm not gonna lie, there are obviously incidents of gun crime, but nowhere near the scale of those in America.

You say that it is easy to get a gun as criminal by breaking into a house, yet in the UK we don't have that gun culture and it would be incredably unlikely that you would find a gun in someones house. If guns were more readily available and you didn't have such strict legislation, a lot of people would go out and buy one simply to have in the draw by the bed for self defence. This means there are more guns in general and it is easier to get your hand on them if you're a nutcase. At the moment, it would be incredably hard for an angst-ridden menta teenager to get his or her hands on a firearm, whereas in America it would be incredably easy.

Its a very very simple comparison:

USA: LEGAL GUN OWNDERSHIP, lax gun legislation, lots of gun crime
UK: LEGAL GUN OWNERSHIP, strict gun legislation, not much gun crime

[Anarkistsdream]

Until you can show me these laws, I could not give a shit. You have proven nothing...

Every gun must be registered, safe storage procedures are enforced, you can't own one if you've spent more than three years in prison and the penalty for owning an unregistered forarm is harsh and mandatory.

Guess what??? Those things exist HERE too! Amazing, isn't it?!?!

I love when you act high and mighty and you don't even know the laws of the country you are condemning! I thought you were better than that, Guis...

So, now, again, show me these laws... Show me how they are enforced so much stricter, as you say...

In my opinion, the UK just has done their best to abolish guns...

As a matter of fact, looking back through your thread, the UK does NOTHING different than the US... And, in fact, if you have EVER been convicted of a felony, regardless of if you spent any time in jail or prison, you can not legally own a gun... Looks like our laws are stricter...

[Guiscard]

It's pretty funny that people here are holding up the UK as an example of gun control "success." Tell me, what is the current rate of violent crime in London? (Not gun crime, violent crime in general.) And what was it prior to 1996? See a pattern?

Wait? Prior to 1996?



From the British Crime Survey.

A pattern? After stricter laws are brought in i 1996, violent crime falls...

[Guiscard]

Guess what??? Those things exist HERE too! Amazing, isn't it?!?!

I love when you act high and mighty and you don't even know the laws of the country you are condemning! I thought you were better than that, Guis...
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/postin ... e&p=353352
Conquer Club :: Post a reply
So, now, again, show me these laws... Show me how they are enforced so much stricter, as you say...

In my opinion, the UK just has done their best to abolish guns...

As a matter of fact, looking back through your thread, the UK does NOTHING different than the US... And, in fact, if you have EVER been convicted of a felony, regardless of if you spent any time in jail or prison, you can not legally own a gun... Looks like our laws are stricter...

It would take you a matter of minutes to google the relative firearms laws and find out just how lax american laws are compared to UK laws.

For example, In the UK EVERY gun sold needs a background check, whereas in the US you can buy a gun in a private sale or at gun shows without a background check, and this accounts for around 40% of sales.

Its not a debatable point that the two countries have very different gun laws. It is VERY different from the US.

[Kugelblitz22]

I "blame" our culture primarily. Of course I didn't come up with this idea.

But in more socialized countries I think there is a higher sense of responsibility to other people, strangers and society at large.

[lusi]

I wonder if the shooter in the VT massacre went in with no intention of ever coming out alive? If so what makes you that crazed to take 32 lives with you just because you are having a bad day? We may never know what was on his mind or why but he has destroyed countless families with his blindness!
I dont know what the gun laws are in the States or the UK for that matter but do know that you can not get a gun where we are without being of a certain age - much like driving and drinking laws (not together!). My licence at age 25 (which took 18 months to process as I had to have a complete background check as well as give valid reasons for obtaining a gun). We also have the 'right to bear arms' in our law but there are stringent processes to bear them. There are a lot of people in our country that do carry arms legally - from a small handgun to an AK47 - and yet I dont recall a single incident of a massacre shooting in our history! Maybe the western world could learn from a third world country?

[heavycola]

It's pretty funny that people here are holding up the UK as an example of gun control "success." Tell me, what is the current rate of violent crime in London? (Not gun crime, violent crime in general.) And what was it prior to 1996? See a pattern?

School shootings like this one are tragic, but they are also a statistically insignificant blip. It is the height of utter stupidity to base policy off of single incidents like this, no matter how high-profile they are.

So you agree that these massacres are just the price you pay for your right to bear arms? I don't know if calling what happened an insignificant blip is helpful (or particularly sensitive) either. 32 people were murdered in cold blood, and if the killer had had a harder time getting hold of those guns and ammo, who knows whether it would have been so bad?

Besides, what gun control laws do you propose? Maybe a zero-weapons law pertaining to the VT campus? Oh, wait, we already have one of those.

Of course, he should have read the campus rules and regulations! Perhaps the uni is to blame for not displaying them more prominently?

[tahitiwahini]

It's pretty funny that people here are holding up the UK as an example of gun control "success." Tell me, what is the current rate of violent crime in London? (Not gun crime, violent crime in general.) And what was it prior to 1996? See a pattern?

School shootings like this one are tragic, but they are also a statistically insignificant blip. It is the height of utter stupidity to base policy off of single incidents like this, no matter how high-profile they are.

So you agree that these massacres are just the price you pay for your right to bear arms? I don't know if calling what happened an insignificant blip is helpful (or particularly sensitive) either. 32 people were murdered in cold blood, and if the killer had had a harder time getting hold of those guns and ammo, who knows whether it would have been so bad?

Besides, what gun control laws do you propose? Maybe a zero-weapons law pertaining to the VT campus? Oh, wait, we already have one of those.

Of course, he should have read the campus rules and regulations! Perhaps the uni is to blame for not displaying them more prominently?

Are you arguing that it is in fact not a statistical blip? Or just that it's not sensitive in your opinion to point out that fact at this time?

[boberz]

i heard that one high up american (dont know who) reckoned that no deaths would have occured if all the 32 students had guns as well, but i thin that is stupid as a lunatic with a gun does not think about consequences

[Aimless]

It's pretty funny that people here are holding up the UK as an example of gun control "success." Tell me, what is the current rate of violent crime in London? (Not gun crime, violent crime in general.) And what was it prior to 1996? See a pattern?

Wait? Prior to 1996?



From the British Crime Survey.

A pattern? After stricter laws are brought in i 1996, violent crime falls...

Cherry picking, are we?

From the same site :



Trend rates for total violent crime in the UK.

Gee, next time you are going to post an image, have a clue first.