Not again!

[Principessa]

Well, there are depressed people the world over, the US doesn't have the monoply on this. I didn't mean to imply that we did. FYI: the first 'insane asylum' was located in the UK. Yet the US does have close to a monoply on events such as transpired today. I'm not suggesting that easy access to firearms is the cause of such incidents (note please, HG) only a moron would say that - but I am asserting that it's a factor.


It would take a moron not to see that. What can be done about it is of course the debate, but denying it's an factor at all isn't likely to achieve much.[/quote] I still maintain that outlawing guns is like putting a band-aid on a festering boil. You need to look at the cause of the festering boil and not the end result.

 

[HazelGod]

I agree, they are an effect but I disagree that the mode is incidental. People will use whatever weapon they have at hand, granted. And if that's a gun they will use that. Make guns even a little more difficult to obtain and there will be a change. Yes, the root causes need to be addressed but that shoudn't preclude all other considerations.

Here's the basis of our disagreement. I don't consider my 2nd Amendment right to be held cheaply. It's #2 on the list for a very good reason. It's not something I care to have casually nipped at by half-baked suppositions that doing so might ameliorate somthing that affects 0.003% of our population.

Pragmatically, I hold that guns aren't the problem. Even the densest reader should have picked up on that by now. Then again, my statistical illustration seems to have gone right over everyone's head...

Philosophically, I have a huge problem with punishing large groups of individuals in the hope of correcting the misbehaviors of a few...particularly when the propsed restrictions are based on specious reasoning at best and involve curtailment of one of the fundamental rights of this nation.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I still maintain that outlawing guns is like putting a band-aid on a festering boil. You need to look at the cause of the festering boil and not the end result.

What are the causes? What would you attempt to do about them? And what would be the likelihood of success?
Are any of those questions even answerable?

It should be easier, far easier, to control firearms ... however, in the States, it's not very clear that that's the case, such is the citizenry's love affair with the bam-bam tube.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

My statistical illustration seems to have gone right over everyone's head...

You mean mention of the fact that Americans have killed more of each other with guns in the last four decades that their foreign enemies did during all the wars of the Twentieth Century?

Oops. No.

That was Drifter's stat.

 

[HazelGod]

Then why do we notice that these rampages all seem to occur in the States?

I suppose there are so many suicide bombings in the Middle East becuase explosives are legal there, but not here, right?

The math's been done, and is shown in reams and reams of statistics.

Then you should have no problem finding a citation to justify your position. Do so, because I'm of the opinion that you're talking out your ass.

Come on, HG.
You're being disingenuous.

No, I'm going back to my original point: you're asking the wrong question. You shouldn't ask why Whitman chose a rifle over a chainsaw...that answer is obvious. You should ask why Whitman decided to randomly murder strangers on a college campus (aside from that god-awful color they like to wear).

 

[dong20]

I didn't mean to imply that we did. FYI: the first 'insane asylum' was located in the UK.

I didn't think you were, and I was merely pointing out that access to mental health care was a factor as was his choice to use and have easy access to a weapon.

There is considerable uncertainty about the existence (or not) of a link between gun control and gun crime, yet too many are ready(despite plenty of evidence to the contrary) to write the notion off as distracting 'noise' citing it is as a distraction from the main issue. I don't and I'm entitled to my view as anyone.

FYI, while London can seem like a madhouse at times, the location of Bedlam isn't really germane to this discussion now is it?

I still maintain that outlawing guns is like putting a band-aid on a festering boil. You need to look at the cause of the festering boil and not the end result.

Indeed and I don't (entirely) disagree. However, as I understand it the primary purpose of a band-aid isn't to cure the wound so much as help prevent it getting infected and thus more 'complicated'. In doing so it assists other measures in obtaining a cure.

 

[Drifterwood]

[quote=playainda336;1140912]Not to sound ignorant, but does this kind of stuff happen in other countries?

Yes, though not nearly as often as in the US.

For the love of God in heaven, the issue is not our gun laws! It's the fact we have millions in this country in desperate need of good, affordable, mental healthcare. This boy in Omaha was seriously depressed. He had been dumped by his girlfriend a few weeks before and then got fired from Mc Donald's. His actions were those of a mentally unbalanced person. He was not acting like a person with respect for guns.[/quote]

I suppose there are so many suicide bombings in the Middle East becuase explosives are legal there, but not here, right?
.

So when I get pissed with the world, I should just find a fucking assault rifle and blow away as many innocent people as I can. WTF

McVeigh is the most successful single suicide bomber ever. No. 1

FFS you shoot the equivalent of five 9/11's each year. Whatever, carry on.

How about some fucking sympathy for the victims????????????????????????

 

[Ethyl]

My sister lives in a rural area (pop. maybe 600) where everyone owns a gun. Many are hunters and my brother-in-law is the "sheriff". They keep them stored in locked cabinets. My brother has never found it necessary to use his gun nor does he encounter problems with the residents shooting each other. They grew up in an atmosphere where they were taught to understand what guns should be used for (killing animals) and what they're not supposed to be used for (killing people).

Problem is that people in urban areas see guns in a glamourous light thanks to Hollywood. Got a problem with someone? Pick up a gun and shoot them, it's that easy. How do you reverse that in a culture inundated with images of people using guns to solve their problems? Some have never known a life without the sound of constant gunfire in their neighbourhood.

What really pisses me off is that people who decide to pick off a number of innocent citizens at random end their own lives with their weapon of choice without fail almost every time. None of those people in the mall were responsible for his girlfriend breaking up with him or losing his job but they suffered or died because he had access to a weapon.

 

[Not_Punny]

Two points:

DW -- what gun control laws would you propose that America adopt, and what are the statistics in their favor.

- - - - - -

NJQT has a point. Seems like most shoot-em-up perps have been mental. In a thread I posted recently, I commented that sixty years ago, roughly 512,000 people in America were living in a mental home. Today, only 52,000 are in a mental home. As Italian978 pointed out, this is due to the advent of meds to help control symptoms.

The idea of meds is to socialize people who cannot otherwise fit in with humanity.

I hate the idea of using drugs to control populations, but....

Yikes.

 

[Drifterwood]

TBH HM I am way too tired now UK time to have a proper discussion.

But as I have posted before

Interview with a trained and experienced Police Officer before getting a license

Major caveats within the license terms

Full checks on individuals with licenses

A registry with all gun licensees and their guns

All the above are in force in the UK btw and no one has invaded us properly since 1066. OK we beheaded one monarch in the meantime ;-)

Perhaps raising the age??? - remember you can't buy booze till you are 21??

Get the gun culture out of your culture - stop mythologising it? Is adherence to an anachronistic document really worth so many lives every year? Amend the amendment.

 

[dong20]

My sister lives in a rural area (pop. maybe 600) where everyone owns a gun. Many are hunters and my brother-in-law is the "sheriff". They keep them stored in locked cabinets. My brother has never found it necessary to use his gun nor does he encounter problems with the residents shooting each other. They grew up in an atmosphere where they were taught to understand what guns should be used for (killing animals) and what they're not supposed to be used for (killing people).

As it should be. I grew up in a semi-rural area (well, it was then) and I knew some folk with guns, mostly shotguns but some handguns and rifles. It was a legal requirement to keep them locked away and spot checks were carried out. I don't recall any incidents of people shooting anything much other than the odd fox, pidgeon or some such thing.

Problem is that people in urban areas see guns in a glamourous light thanks to Hollywood. Got a problem with someone? Pick up a gun and shoot them, it's that easy. How do you reverse that in a culture inundated with images of people using guns to solve their problems? Some have never known a life without the sound of constant gunfire in their neighbourhood.

This was a point Snr R made and one with which I agree. Gun culture has become embedded within the national psyche, at least to a degree. Thus it's entirely unsurprising but entirely understandable that people can get defensive and, some, openly agressive when they are presented with an reasoned argument that a de jure right to own a weapon may in fact contribute to the problem of gun crime rather than the solution to it.

What really pisses me off is that people who decide to pick off a number of innocent citizens at random end their own lives with their weapon of choice without fail almost every time. None of those people in the mall were responsible for his girlfriend breaking up with him or losing his job but they suffered or died because he had access to a weapon.

Indeed, it denies the victims, or rather their family and friends true justice. While I'm not opposed to guns per se, I would argue that (except in some specific circumstances - merely wanting one not being an example of such) they present a clear and present danger when embedded in a modern society significant numbers of which that have proven willing if not eager to use them on each other.

People may argue that guns are not the problem, people are and in principle I'd agree. But does that mean society shouldn't take steps to protect itself from itself.

 

[HazelGod]

Perhaps raising the age??? - remember you can't buy booze till you are 21??

Yes, because that's been so effective at preventing minors from drinking. Besides, federal law already requires people to be 21 to purchase handguns or ammo for them.

Is adherence to an anachronistic document really worth so many lives every year? Amend the amendment.

I think not. Your manner of governance was deemed unpalatable, and so we came here. We proceeded to shoot the shit out of the redcoat wearing sumbitches who followed and tried to impose your monarch's way of thinking. That amendment was put in place to ensure that our citizenry was never again ruled against its will by force of arms.

I'm being a little cheeky, but you have no idea how much that last remark infuriates me.

 

[dong20]

NJQT has a point. Seems like most shoot-em-up perps have been mental. In a thread I posted recently, I commented that sixty years ago, roughly 512,000 people in America were living in a mental home. Today, only 52,000 are in a mental home. As Italian978 pointed out, this is due to the advent of meds to help control symptoms.

She does, but such incidents while appalling, account for a tiny fraction of gun deaths each year. What they do is throw into sharp relief the cosy complacency that contemorary American society seems to have with the huge numbers of 'non shoot-em up' killings. The throwaway statistics are a symptom of this.

It seems from this thread, and others like it that there is a head in the sand attitude from some and a headless chicken attitude from others. Between those two extremes may lie a solution, or at least the beginnings of one.

It seems sensible, to me at least, that the right to bear arms which was after all enshrined in a different era may be in need of reconsideration. It's abundantly clear from this remove that the problem isn't going to go away without some form of action to curb the effectively uncontrolled access to firearms by anyone. A cultural adjustment of some significance may be needed.

Of course the tired refrain that criminals will get them anyway will come out. They will and gun control legislation will not stop them. But that's the case here in the UK and bad as it is we don't have anything approaching the level of gun crime (per capita) that the US does. Are we supposed therfore to conclude that Americans are inherently more homicidal, or could it be that other factors are at play?

As DW says, it's late here....my brain cell wants to call it a night.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I suppose there are so many suicide bombings in the Middle East because explosives are legal there, but not here, right?

There are so many suicide bombings in the Middle East because of complex historical and sociological factors, and because explosives are quite freely available in those war-ridden societies.

Then you should have no problem finding a citation to justify your position. Do so, because I'm of the opinion that you're talking out your ass.

Easily done. (You should know this, BTW.)
Here's the first thing that showed up on Google.


Friday, April 17, 1998
U.S. Leads Richest Nations In Gun Deaths


[FONT=helvetica, arial, geneva]BY CHELSEA J. CARTER[/FONT]
[FONT=helvetica, arial, geneva]THE ASSOCIATED PRESS[/FONT]

ATLANTA -- The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths -- murders, suicides and accidents -- among the world's 36 richest nations, a government study found.
The U.S. rate for gun deaths in 1994 was 14.24 per 100,000 people. Japan had the lowest rate, at .05 per 100,000.
The study, done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the first comprehensive international look at gun-related deaths. It was published Thursday in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
The CDC would not speculate why the death rates varied, but other researchers said easy access to guns and society's acceptance of violence are part of the problem in the United States.
``If you have a country saturated with guns -- available to people when they are intoxicated, angry or depressed -- it's not unusual guns will be used more often,'' said Rebecca Peters, a Johns Hopkins University fellow specializing in gun violence. ``This has to be treated as a public health emergency.''
The National Rifle Association called the study shoddy because it failed to examine all causes of violent deaths.
``What this shows is the CDC is after guns. They aren't concerned with violence. It's pretending that no homicide exists unless it's related to guns,'' said Paul Blackman, a research coordinator for the NRA in Fairfax, Va.
The 36 countries chosen were listed as the richest in the World Bank's 1994 World Development Report, with the highest GNP per capita income.
The study used 1994 statistics supplied by the 36 countries. Of the 88,649 gun deaths reported by all the countries, the United States accounted for 45 percent, said Etienne Krug, a CDC researcher and co-author of the article.
Japan, where very few people own guns, averages 124 gun-related attacks a year, and less than 1 percent end in death. Police often raid the homes of those suspected of having weapons.
The study found that gun-related deaths were five to six times higher in the Americas than in Europe or Australia and New Zealand and 95 times higher than in Asia.
Here are gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in the world's 36 richest countries in 1994: United States 14.24; Brazil 12.95; Mexico 12.69; Estonia 12.26; Argentina 8.93; Northern Ireland 6.63; Finland 6.46; Switzerland 5.31; France 5.15; Canada 4.31; Norway 3.82; Austria 3.70; Portugal 3.20; Israel 2.91; Belgium 2.90; Australia 2.65; Slovenia 2.60; Italy 2.44; New Zealand 2.38; Denmark 2.09; Sweden 1.92; Kuwait 1.84; Greece 1.29; Germany 1.24; Hungary 1.11; Republic of Ireland 0.97; Spain 0.78; Netherlands 0.70; Scotland 0.54; England and Wales 0.41; Taiwan 0.37; Singapore 0.21; Mauritius 0.19; Hong Kong 0.14; South Korea 0.12; Japan 0.05.

No, I'm going back to my original point: you're asking the wrong question. You shouldn't ask why Whitman chose a rifle over a chainsaw...that answer is obvious. You should ask why Whitman decided to randomly murder strangers on a college campus (aside from that god-awful color they like to wear).

That's a perfectly fine question, but no better than the question of whether he would have committed such carnage without a firearm.

In any case, we shouldn't focus overmuch on this small part of the overall landscape of death by firearms in the United States.

Add up all these mass killings and you will have only a tiny percentage of the overall death toll.

A stressed-out husband speaks to his wife with a gun instead of the back of his hand; a challenging look through the windshield costs someone his life; a petty neighborhood turf war leaves several families bereaved; on a dare a teenager holds up a corner grocery and an immigrant Korean family is fatherless.

Your media is full of things like this.

These things happen in other countries, but far less often.

Why? Because there isn't a gun in every second hand.

 

[HazelGod]

So when I get pissed with the world, I should just find a fucking assault rifle and blow away as many innocent people as I can. WTF

This doesn't even come close to making any sense. What exactly are you trying to illustrate here?

McVeigh is the most successful single suicide bomber ever. No. 1

McVeigh wasn't a suicide bomber. He stood trial, was found guilty, and executed for his crime. Which, pointedly, did NOT involve firearms.

FFS you shoot the equivalent of five 9/11's each year. Whatever, carry on.

More like three to four times, on average. Alcohol-fueled drivers kill far more every year, yet booze remains legal? Why do you think that might be? Perhaps because there are far more people who can (and do) use it responsibly than who don't?

How about some fucking sympathy for the victims????????????????????????

Sympathy is a private, personal matter. It's an emotional response that has no place in the making of public policy. That type of knee-jerk reactionism is what gave us such gems as the USA PATRIOT Act and "zero tolerance" policies. Grieve for the victims and seek justice for those responsible, but do not presume to rewrite the Constitution based on those emotions.

 

[Drifterwood]

There's a fine line between patriotism and nationalism. You don't have to swallow mythologising to be a good patriot.

The people who keep commiting these atrocities against your citizens are terrorists and you give them the means and protect their right to spread terror.

I note HG that you chose to ignore my question about the financial cost of all this carnage.

I bet you anything you like that if Mr. Jefferson were alive today, he would be this first to be amending the constitution to bring it in line with the realities of the modern world.

 

[HazelGod]

I note HG that you chose to ignore my question about the financial cost of all this carnage.

I'm glad you noticed. Being one so observant, however, I'm rather surprised you failed to recognize the concurrent implication that the notion was unworthy of consideration...both on its face, and with respect to the topic of discussion.

I bet you anything you like that if Mr. Jefferson were alive today, he would be this first to be amending the constitution to bring it in line with the realities of the modern world.

I'm not of a mind to indulge in such pointless mental masturbation...most of us grow out of the "Superman could beat up Mighty Mouse" phase before the plumbing really works. You're free to project whatever supposed fantasies you like upon the memories of men long dead. However, you might wonder if Jefferson et al did at least give a few minutes thought to the prospect of changing times, what with the fairly comprehensive guidelines for modifying the document as needed. It's come in handy a few times, too...those old guys had some very non-PC notions with regard to the liberty, and even humanity, of black people. Later generations were able to fix that. We also learned some hard lessons on zealous misuse of the process during the Prohibition era...about the consequences of categorically proscribing certain behaviors.

The reality is this: You don't go decreeing "thou shalt not" to everyone in a large and diverse society without being damned sure the benefit is demonstrably apparent, particularly to those whose rights you're removing.

 

[Drifterwood]

HG, if you can not see the difference between a fledgling nation with a population of just 4 million and a superpower that accounts for half of the world's entire military spend, then there isn't much point discussing anything.

You keep racking up the numbers and the rest of world will just continue to and hold some of the opinions about you that get you so riled.

 

[Principessa]

In light of recent information, it would seem that his family did try to help him as best they could prior to this terrible tragedy occurring. Unfortunately it was not enough. :frown1:

IMO he was just a bad seed. I realize this will sound hateful and not at all christian; but I wish he had just taken his own life and no one elses. :redface:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

December 8, 2007

From ‘Troubled’ to ‘Killer,’ Despite Many Efforts

By ERIC KONIGSBERG

OMAHA, Dec. 7 — “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” A sign bearing these severe but hopeful words marks the entrance to Cooper Village, a residential treatment facility for teenagers along the rural northern edge of Omaha.

Robert A. Hawkins, as a ward of the State of Nebraska, received extensive care at Cooper — private psychotherapy, family therapy, drug counseling — from 2003 to 2005.

It was his longest stop in a five-year journey through a maze of juvenile-services programs that began when he was 13 and was charged with making homicidal threats toward his stepmother.

On Wednesday, just a few miles away, Mr. Hawkins, 19, took a semiautomatic assault rifle into the largest mall in the state and opened fire, killing eight people before turning the gun on himself. It was the deadliest attack in Nebraska since Charles Starkweather killed 10 people here in 1957-58.

“I’ve just snapped,” Mr. Hawkins wrote in one of two suicide notes the police released on Friday.

But his actions did not come without warning signs; nor were these signals ignored. The rampage appears to be not so much a case of a young man slipping through the cracks, as a tragedy in which measured vigilance ended up not being enough.

“We all cared about this child,” said Sandra K. Markley, a deputy county attorney who represented the state in a juvenile case involving Mr. Hawkins and played a role in determining his course of treatment. “I’ve been reviewing his file, and, of course, there is a lot of second-guessing. But there were no indications that he was harmful in this way.”

That is the point state officials have emphasized. Todd Landry, the director of children and family programs for the Department of Health and Human Services, said at a press conference Thursday that “all appropriate services were provided when needed and as long as needed.”

The state estimates it spent more than $265,000 on Mr. Hawkins’s care.
“He was in good facilities,” Ms. Markley said. “He had good supervision. It didn’t all go perfectly, of course. But we deal with a lot of troubled children, and, as far as we could tell, he was no more troubled than many of them.”

But even with the intervention, said Denis McCarville, who runs Cooper Village, the state failed Mr. Hawkins.

Article cont.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

Ah, another bash-the-USA thread clumsily framed to appear sympathetic for the victims of a shooting.