Shooting in school in America

[Butts]

Even Britains tight restriction of firearms didn't prevent Thomas Hamilton going on the rampage in Dunblane in 1996, this is the most comparable UK example to the recent tragedy in the USA.

It's quite frightening when you hear people saying "if only the teachers had been armed" in the States.

 

[90019]

I tweeted over the weekend that rather than the Americans banning guns (or, more realistically, imposing some tougher conditions) that they'd probably seek to arm teachers.

Can't we just ban Americans and be done with it?

 

[GB]

Even Britains tight restriction of firearms didn't prevent Thomas Hamilton going on the rampage in Dunblane in 1996, this is the most comparable UK example to the recent tragedy in the USA.

It's quite frightening when you hear people saying "if only the teachers had been armed" in the States.

At the time of that shooting, it was legal to own hand guns. It was only because of that shooting that the 1997 firearms act was introduced that banned the majority of privately held pistols.

However our current gun laws didn't prevent the cumbria massacre.

 

[gazzak]

Guns don't get up and decide to shoot people, it's the madman pulling the trigger. The following link is a really good article written by a Mother who's son has some huge anger issues and yet is being let down totally by the system. It's quite long but definitely worth a read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

 

[chris89]

Linked this from a friend.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ors-in-coverage-of-sandy-hook-school-massacre

Pretty normal and supprised took so long to start blaming games.

Chris

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Linked this from a friend.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ors-in-coverage-of-sandy-hook-school-massacre

Pretty normal and supprised took so long to start blaming games.

Chris

It's just a typical vicious claim that's done the rounds for years on both sides of the political spectrum - most claims are baseless, idiotic nonsensical drivel and paranoia from people just looking to blame anything they can. I'd be more inclined to say such games actually offer an escape for people to take out their anger in life on them, rather than encourage it. There has never been a proven correlation between violent video games and tragedies such as this one and do you know why? It's because there isn't one.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

There has never been a proven correlation between violent video games and tragedies such as this one and do you know why? It's because there isn't one.

Not strictly true.

 

[jon0844]

Did anyone watch the NRA conference? Un-f**kingbelievable!

Can any American seriously defend this group of nutters after that? It's OUR fault.. it's the fault of the President for not arming all schools after Virginia Tech.. and they've got men ready and willing to arm every school.

But what about the school bus, what about the shopping mall.. the street.. well, everywhere? Why not just arm the kids so they can protect themselves and cut out the middle men?

 

[SS4]

Did anyone watch the NRA conference? Un-f**kingbelievable!

Can any American seriously defend this group of nutters after that? It's OUR fault.. it's the fault of the President for not arming all schools after Virginia Tech.. and they've got men ready and willing to arm every school.

But what about the school bus, what about the shopping mall.. the street.. well, everywhere? Why not just arm the kids so they can protect themselves and cut out the middle men?

But what if the Queen of England wanted to invade? And the regular army couldn't see them off

 

[jon0844]

The mental state of anyone who supports this view (and from Twitter I can see there are a few, but a TINY percentage of the anti-NRA sentiment) makes me wonder if some of these people could actually aim their weapons in any sensible direction.

I do hope that the tide is turning and the NRA has shot itself in the foot! Oh, if only that was literal.

 

[Butts]

The mental state of anyone who supports this view (and from Twitter I can see there are a few, but a TINY percentage of the anti-NRA sentiment) makes me wonder if some of these people could actually aim their weapons in any sensible direction.

I do hope that the tide is turning and the NRA has shot itself in the foot! Oh, if only that was literal.

I suppose if you have grown up in a crime ridden Country where the private ownership of arms is commonplace, it would take quite a rift to change things.

The process if ever started will be slow and laborious with the gradual removal of weapons taking years until their elimination.

I can't see it happening

 

[jon0844]

Me neither.

However if this slow process was ever to take place over a generation, arming every school, cinema, church etc would be a good way of ensuring the process took even longer.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I am still waiting for the comments on this forum discussing the claims made by the NRA that pointed the finger at "violent video games" as part of the reason for the current wave of school massacres..:roll:

 

[jon0844]

My first job was a games tester. I now work for a website that reviews games.

I would say there's a link of sorts between violent games and certain people who can't separate reality with fiction. But, hey, there are people who believe EastEnders is real and that's why I guess stuff like TOWIE can exist.

I would say that someone who plays a violent game and then goes out on a mass killing just needed a trigger and was likely to do something like that anyway, sooner or later.

However, most people don't have easy access to weapons and can't carry out such atrocities. A knife or other stabbing/slashing weapon almost certainly isn't going to have such an awful outcome.

 

[wintonian]

[mild rant warning]

Not the most appropriate of reactions maybe, but my immediate reaction to reading the following was to bust out in laughter in utter disbelief of the lunacy of it.

I really do not know where to begin , clearly someones been sniffing at the herbicide.

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the NRA, criticised politicians who had "exploited" the tragedy in Newtown for "political gain"

I though gun control was a political issue, it is also a moral one which is something you do not seem to recognise.

"and took aim at laws designating schools as gun-free zones. They tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk," he said.

So your saying the schools should NOT be gun free zones? :roll: :roll: Can you get banned from here for calling someone a complete idiot or an absolute pratt, even if it's plainly obvious they are?

At what age do you start giving lessons in gunmanship?

Do you allow parents to send their kids to school with guns in-case they get there dinner money stolen?

I can't even be bothered to go down the 'what if a gun got misplaced in a school?', road

Mr LaPierre called for a national database of the mentally ill and blamed violent video games

So we should have a database of the mentally ill should we? Would this be like a sex offenders register? I see no mention of the importance of central register for those in legal possession of a firearm or for those convicted of firearms offences.

In any-case it's 'mentally ill' not 'mentally criminal' - there is such prejudice towards those with mental heath issues, and just because someone's a little odd that makes them a bad person, possibly a criminal does it?

and films for portraying murder as a "way of life".

Erm, I though the US movie industry did that all by it's self?

The murder rate in the US is 5.0 per 100,00 people (2009) according to UDOC figures, which is more than Yemin (4.2) and Afghanistan (2.4) & Iraq (2.0) put together (2008 figures)

According to the US governments own figures 9203 people were murdered by firearms in 2009 out of a total of 13758.

So it appears to already be 'a way of life'.

He spoke out against the media for demonising lawful gun owners, and for suggesting a ban on certain types of weapon would be effective.

I thought the guns in this latest incident were held legally?

Why would anyone want or need a semi-automatic assault weapon like the AR-15, which was developed for use in the Vietnam war and is now the most popular firearm in the US? - Doesn't that say something is very very disturbingly wrong with your country?

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," Mr LaPierre told reporters.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?

You shot me I'll shoot you?

You murder my friend/ relative I'll murder your friend/ relative?

Who's to say who the good guy are? Who's to say the good guys won't turn bad? Who's to say the good guys won't get mentally ill (see above)?

Where do the all these bad guys get their guns from? the good guys? or do you have a very serious problem controlling imports of firearms?



Most guns in the USA are owned by the white middle classes, predominantly in the south east (source: a recent Guardian article) Does this suggest another endemic problem with your society? Though judging by the prejudice shown so far maybe you think white middle class citizens are the only people who should have guns?

Maybe you believe in Social Darwinism and such like?

Why is it ever justified to kill (or harm for that matter) another human being? Perhaps I have misunderstood this whole thing and it's really just a perverse American blood sport / hobby, after all you do want such implements to be available in places used for educating the young and impressionable.



Absolute and complicate tosh, I have seem far less carp after wiping my backside with the daily mail. :roll:

[/rant]

Phew, needed to get that one of my chest.

 

[NSEFAN]

Tweets like this put the problem in context. Simply saying "ban this, ban that" doesn't necessarily get rid of the problem.

Whatever the cause of the problem is, it will not go away by tackling guns alone. Some thing (or more likely, multiple things) is (are) causing the people of the USA to arm themselves to the teeth, and this needs to be seriously looked at.

 

[wintonian]

Whatever the cause of the problem is, it will not go away by tackling guns alone. Some thing (or more likely, multiple things) is (are) causing the people of the USA to arm themselves to the teeth, and this needs to be seriously looked at.

I agree, there is a culture problem here, solve that and they quite possibly won't want or feel the need to arm themselves to the teeth.

Another very interesting article in the Guardian, contrasting this with gun control in Australia which evolved out of a massacre utilising the same AR-15 weapon.

On 28 April 1996, Martin Bryant, a troubled 28 year-old from New Town, Tasmania, took a Colt AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to the nearby tourist destination of Port Arthur. By the time he was arrested early the next day, he had killed 35 people and wounded 23. The reaction in Australia was profound, especially since it was a nation of gun lovers, target shooters and hunters.

The massacre provoked an immediate national debate over gun control. Strict laws were quickly put in place, banning semiautomatic weapons and placing serious controls on gun ownership. Since that time, there has not been one mass shooting in Australia.

and yet there has been 16 of them since Obama took office in the US.



Heres an intresting statistic for you:-

• 66.9% of US murders in 2008 were committed with a firearm (1)
• 67% of gun owning respondents to a 2005 US Gallop poll said they use a firearm for protection against crime. (this was the most common use reported by the the respondents) (2)

Hmm coincidence?

(1) US Department of Justice, 2008
(2) Gallup, 2005
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Another fantastic piece of lunacy - this time closer to home in the form of Simon Heffer and the Torygraph, who purports that since we are experiencing an epidemic of violent crime and the state won't bring back capital punishment we should be given 'the right to bear arms' and I'm not talking about the nice aristocratic pictorial type :roll: :roll:

To say there is an "epidemic" of violent crime is to push understatement to its limits. As this week's incidents show, it strikes across classes. At the root of it is the drugs problem.

</snip>

Mr Aston's repulsive son will not be hanged. Nor will the murderers of Mrs Vella. Nor will the drug dealers who are at the root of so much of this evil. Nor will the police be given the resources to put more men in uniform on the streets.

</snip>

Given this scandalous situation, it is time for the Government to confer a new right on the people: the right to bear arms. Gun control in this country is in any case a joke. There is far more gun crime now than there was before the idiotic law passed by the Major government to ban handguns after the Dunblane massacre.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Here's an NRA video from 2007 on how Britain and Australia have fallen apart since the introduction of gun controls.

[youtube]TkS2BRoCd2I[/youtube]

 

[LE Greys]

To put in my twopenn'orth:

Firearms cannot be un-invented, nothing can, and a massive reduction in them in a country that produces the things is a practical impossibility. However, I find it very hard to understand why civilians would even want to own assault rifles, or any weapon that is specifically designed for killing large numbers of people quickly. What do they think they will use them for? Reinstating the ban would be an appropriate reaction.

However, that doesn't answer the real problem. "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Leaving aside the Hollywood characterisation of "good guys and bad guys", the problem is that someone with a gun is the master of everything in his field of fire unless there is something to stop him firing. Several Police officers in this country found out about that recently, with fatal consequences. The problem is striking a balance between one and the other.

If I lived in the US, I would probably carry a gun myself, because I would be afraid of other people with guns who might want to shoot me. That is the honest reason why most people do so, they are afraid of being helpless if someone threatens them. I wish they didn't have to be, but wishful thinking never kept anyone alive.

So, what can be done about the real problem? I don't know.

 

[wintonian]

There's a petition now to have Piers Morgan deported due to his advocacy for gun control.

The Huffington Post has the story

The White House could be forced to respond to a gun lobby petition to deport Piers Morgan, which objects to how the CNN host and former British tabloid editor has attacked the right to bear arms in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre.

</snip>

The petition, which was launched following the interview, reads: "British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the US Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment.

"We demand that Mr Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens

No thanks America can keep him as far as I'm concerned.

Ohh there's 2 of them now.

We Petition the Obama Administration To send Piers Morgan back to Great Britain.

We Petition the Obama Administration To send Piers Morgan back to Great Britain.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

Ironic that the people who made the petition are directly ignoring their first amendment...

 

[MidnightFlyer]

This is just generally (and not in light of what he's said with regard to shooting) that I say this, but couldn't we just deport Piers Morgan to Jupiter or Saturn?

 

[chris89]

This is just generally (and not in light of what he's said with regard to shooting) that I say this, but couldn't we just deport Piers Morgan to Jupiter or Saturn?

Or the Sun?

Chris

 

[SS4]

Ironic that the people who made the petition are directly ignoring their first amendment...

Seems that first amendment only applies if your free speech agrees with the majority. That said my opinion of many Americans' attitude towards the first amendment plummeted with the way they treated Jessica Ahlquist.

 

[Bevan Price]

The mental state of anyone who supports this view (and from Twitter I can see there are a few, but a TINY percentage of the anti-NRA sentiment) makes me wonder if some of these people could actually aim their weapons in any sensible direction.

I do hope that the tide is turning and the NRA has shot itself in the foot! Oh, if only that was literal.

I wonder if / how much money the NRA (and similar gun lobby groups) might receive from the arms manufacturers ?

 

[anthony263]

Although I generally dislike him I believe Piers Morgan has a good point and the pro gun lobby are just having a tantrum because he wont support their view's.

Can we start a petition to keep him in the US though especially if we can upset the americans