Badmike wrote:.  A determined sociopathic lunatic can always find a way to mass murder.  Look at Breivik, he killed 77 in a country that doesn't have these sort of things happen normally, with a legally owned weapon.  

Mike B.

Red_Bus stated that the UK/USA Gun thing had been done to death, and hes right  but I think Mike sums it up quite nicely here. Culturally we Brits just don't understand guns and gun ownership so its easy to us to point at terrible tragedys like yesterday and say "see, look what happens"!. But its not as simple as that - Bad things are done by bad people, law or no law, and none of us can ever truly predict what might happen with stricter/more lenient laws. I think sometimes we must, as reasonable human beings, just resign ourselves to the fact that shit happens no matter what we do or what rhetoric/politics/nation we choose to follow or support.

When it comes right down to it, as individuals we must make a consious decision to do the right thing, and hope that everyone else does the same - realistically there is nothing else we can do. And if we do habitually do the right thing then our kids are almost certain to do the same, perhaps the only thing we can do to make the world a better place.

(Having re-read that I sound like a bit of a saddo, but the sentiment is well intentioned - I'm probably going to go home in a few hours after my night shift now and hug my kids (and they will probably think "what the f** are you doing you sad old man"))  

Anyone here seen The Hobbit movie yet? Thoughts?
I plan to go next week as the crowds hopefully die down a bit.

Happy Holidays everyone

Badmike wrote:

Sardan wrote:You Americans and your guns. On this side of the pond we just don't get it.

Don't worry, your government will protect you in case of crime, violence or rioting.  Just like they did in 2011.

Mike B.

I have never been a victim of crime, violence or rioting. Such things are thankfully rare.  And while I do not believe that I am somehow immune from it and want to protect my wife, my children and myself I do not think wider gun ownership would do that, quite the opposite. While I may have to worry about crime I do not worry about criminals carrying guns.

Guns make it very very easy to kill people. Yes, people are killed in many different ways, but guns make killing easier. Anything to make taking lives harder has to be a good thing in my opinion.

Comparisons with knives and petrol miss one important distinction, knives and petrol have other primary uses, guns to do not. In a civilized country that has the rule of law there is no reason to own a gun.

The figures in the google docs table linked to make it very clear.  60% of homicides in the US are by firearm. If you took away guns some of those murders would still happen, but I suspect many would not.

In the UK 0.07 deaths by firearm per 100,000 population. In the US 2.97 per 100,000.  Thankfully still a small number but the idea that guns keep you safe is ludicrous.

The idea that this has something to do with socialism is also ludicrous.

If banning firearms kept just one child alive then that is worth it.

Sardan wrote:

Badmike wrote:
Don't worry, your government will protect you in case of crime, violence or rioting.  Just like they did in 2011.

Mike B.

I have never been a victim of crime, violence or rioting. Such things are thankfully rare.  And while I do not believe that I am somehow immune from it and want to protect my wife, my children and myself I do not think wider gun ownership would do that, quite the opposite. While I may have to worry about crime I do not worry about criminals carrying guns.

Guns make it very very easy to kill people. Yes, people are killed in many different ways, but guns make killing easier. Anything to make taking lives harder has to be a good thing in my opinion.

Comparisons with knives and petrol miss one important distinction, knives and petrol have other primary uses, guns to do not. In a civilized country that has the rule of law there is no reason to own a gun.

The figures in the google docs table linked to make it very clear.  60% of homicides in the US are by firearm. If you took away guns some of those murders would still happen, but I suspect many would not.

In the UK 0.07 deaths by firearm per 100,000 population. In the US 2.97 per 100,000.  Thankfully still a small number but the idea that guns keep you safe is ludicrous.

The idea that this has something to do with socialism is also ludicrous.

If banning firearms kept just one child alive then that is worth it.

The ownership of guns is a concept about the freedom of the individual. Show me a dictatorship or communist country where the common citizen has the right to own guns. There aren't any. The concept that the state should only possess weapons assumes first that the state is some entity more responsible than its citizens and secondly that the state will 'always' remain trustworthy.

A molotav cocktail is an item designed to kill and damage. It has no other uses. A truck bomb is an item designed to kill and damage. It has no other uses. Guns are not unique as items that have no other use but to kill and damage.

Killing is never easy for the civilized part of ourselves and all too easy for the uncivilized part. Guns are not required, nor do they make the intention to kill easier or more difficult. They are a tool, but they are a tool that a free individual will sometimes desperately need and should hve every right to possess.

I accept that there is no direct correlation simply between gun ownership and homicide or homicide by firearms and other factors are involved.  But my central premise is that anything that makes killing harder, such as banning guns, has to be a good thing.  No one seems to disagree that a gun is a very easy way to kill people.

I also disagree with the idea that society teeters on the edge.  Yes we have examples of things like the riots but law and order is soon restored, rioters punished and look just how people respond:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14456857

That is society reexerting itself.

I also believe in keeping an eye on the state to ensure it does not become a tyrannical dictatorship but I think we are a long way from needing armed insurrection to protect us from the state. I also do not believe that, say our national health service is some sort of thin end of the wedge to a communist dictatorship. Instead I know that I don't have to worry about medical bills.

Simply because no communist dictatorship allows individuals to possess firearms (something asserted as fact without any evidence I might add) does not mean that it is firearms that prevent a state from becoming a communist dictatorship. That reasoning is flawed, it is a non sequitur.

I am quite happy for noone to possess weapons, that includes the State. That isn't entirely practical for defence of the realm but I am glad that our police do not routinely carry firearms. I do not believe that the state has rights that the individual does not. For example I am against the death penalty because, among other things, I do not believe that the state has the right or the power to decide to take lives, just as the individual does not have the right or the power to take lives. And yet in my experience it is the pro-gun people who are more relaxed about the state (which they do not want to give additional powers to lest it become a fascist tyranny) having the power to take a lives via the death penalty. I find that to be a startling contradiction.

It is a question of freedom. I am (relatively) free from the threat of being shot. That is freedom I cherish.

I've always considered behavior at sporting events to be a true mirror of just how violent a society is.

In America, most people at sporting events are fairly well-behaved.  They shout and yell for their team to excel and jeer at the opposing team players, especially when they aren't playing well.  There is some bad-mouthing of the officials and the occasional scuffle breaks out between fans of opposing teams.  During the more heated rivalry games it can be even worse.  But the majority of the time there is very little violence.  And when it does happen it is usually due to a drunken idiot who ends up being escorted out.  Situated around the stadiums  in random locations are a good number of security guards to make sure that people behave themselves.  But a lot of the "policing" is done by good-natured fans themselves with very little violence occurring.  After 9/11 the number of security personnel at these games was increased specifically at entrances in order to check people for explosive devices and other weapons as a precaution to prevent that type of grand scale destruction from happening at such an event.

In the rest of the world, most people at sporting events (from what I read in the press and see on television) are fairly well behaved.  They sing songs about their team and engage them to play well, scream and shout at the other team to play poorly, and cuss out the referees when they blow a call.  The occasional scuffle breaks out between fans but it usually occurs outside the stadiums due to the sheer number of security officials situated inside the stadiums to prevent fan on fan violence.  A line of security guards two deep separates the home fans from the away fans and prevent co-mingling.  Violence still rears its head every so often though, specifically during the main rivalries.  People throwing objects at players seems to be a common occurrence.  Coins I guess are the weapon of choice.  Every once in awhile someone finds a way to set something on fire causing a disturbance.  Mob violence in the streets is fairly common before and after such games especially when one team humiliates the other or the refs blow a serious call that tips the favor to one team.

Here is a telling article:  http://www.bestsociologyprograms.com/10 ... iots-ever/

Two of the events on this list occurred in Canada.  Where there is beer and ice hockey there is bound to be trouble.  But there wasnt much fan on fan violence, just destruction of property.  And in the aftermath you had fans themselves cleaning up the mess (at least in the Vancouver incident).  

Another on this list occurred in Detroit.  More commonly known at the shittiest place to live in the United States (sorry Bill) and where violent crimes are commonplace because people that live there simply hate living there.  When the city wins a sports championship, people start fires, loot, and break stuff but very little actual violence against people occur.

One particular time in a U.S. city where fan violence occured was in Cleveland....another of the aforementioned "shitty places to live".  Some dumbass thought it would be an awesome idea to offer 10 cent beer to sports fans.  Bad idea bud.  Drunk as hell fans pelted the opposing team with hot dogs, beer cups and human excrement (probably) and then surged onto the field intent on having a drunken orgy.  But the opposing team was defended by the home team players and taken to safety.

The rest of the events on the list are simply rampant fan violence.  Fans of one team beating and killing the other teams fans for the sheer hatred they feel for each other.  South America, Europe, and Africa.  And no mention of alcohol as a major contributing factor.

Go figure.

The concept that America is a violent society, or prone to violence, is simply wrong. People in the U.S. are no more violent than people anywhere else. However, as pointed out, we do have a significantly higher percentage of gun-based violence than many other countries. But you really need to take a deeper look at that. Gun violence in the U.S. is, far and away, more common in our larger, urban cities. Cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and for me personally, Detroit. Look a little deeper and you soon discover that this gun violence is nearly always drug or gang related. Basically, urban criminals are killing people and their weapon of choice is the gun.
You want to curb gun violence, find a way to get guns away from urban criminals. I have no idea how you do that. But taking guns away from the other 99.9% of law-abiding gun owners is simply not an option - mainly because the criminals will still have their guns!
Gun control advocates in the U.S. also spout out a statistic that people who own guns are more likely to be a recipient of gun violence upon themselves - by their very own weapons - than people who don't own guns. Sounds pretty convincing. But of course, like all statistics, it has a dirty little secret. Suicide by gun is included in that statistic. Yep, that is a fact. But there is more! They even include accidental discharge of guns. You take suicide and accidents out of the equation and the likelihood of you being killed by your own gun  is virtually non-existent. So what we have is people playing politcs with the issue of gun control.
And just one more little thing to think about. Somewhere around 500,000 people were massacred in Rawanda not so long ago. These people were unarmed and had no way to defend themselves from their own government and death squads. So when you say this kind of thing can't happen, well it does. Syria anyone.
I am not saying everyone should run around with a gun. But having that option with sensible gun laws is ok with me. And we have more than enough laws involving gun control. What we don't have is an effective way to stop criminals and those with mental problems from using guns to harm the rest of us.

I live in central Birmingham. Incredibly diverse.

Sardan wrote:Remove the guns from circulation. If that happened many lives would've saved.

Easier said than done.  If someone wants something bad enough, they find a way to get it.  There are laws banning guns in countries all over the world yet people still manage to get their hands on them...even in the U.K.

And you take guns away from law abiding citizens and criminals alike, they will just find another way to kill each other.  Knives, spears, axes, clubs, arrows, bricks, etc.  Take the guns away from the nutjob that killed all the children in the Connecticut elementary school and he still would have found a way to kill just as many people with a baseball bat, machete, or a homemade bomb.  Probably more since guns make a lot of noise and clubs and cutting weapons do not.  The people that survived that massacre heard the gunshots and ran to safety or hid.  And kids yelling and screaming would have brought other people into the rooms to see what was going on instead of running away (at least that is what normally happened when I was in elementary school).

Suicides?  Sure guns make it easier.  But killing yourself with rat poison, drugs, alcohol, razor blades, screwdrivers, hacksaws, ropes, cars, etc. isn't a whole lot more difficult if you are dead set on doing the job.  Should we ban those too?

Guns are a tool...use them incorrectly and you injure yourself or someone else or possibly die.  Use them properly and they can prevent crimes, save lives and put food on the table (for those of you into that sort of thing).

"We all know that obesity is a direct result of the proliferation of spoons & forks.  They need to be abolished." - Ted Nugent,