Gun Control in the US

[Hurlshort]

I'm sick to my stomach right now about the shooting at the Connecticut school. It makes me want to rush out of work and go pick my daughter from kindergarten, and then take my family in the RV and live off the grid for awhile. I also keep staring sadly at my students, which they probably find a bit odd. Anyways, I know these are all emotional reactions to a very tragic situation, but I decided a good way to take my mind off of the horror is to discuss what we can possibly do to stop these things from happening. I realize we don't know enough about this case to really reference it yet, but I think there are enough recent shootings going back to Columbine to have a discussion.

 

So I want to talk about the big issue of gun control. I've always been on the fence about it, but after the shooting in the movie theater in Colorado, I started to really question why certain weapons are needed by anyone in a non-military or law enforcement role. The Oregon mall shooting could have been much worse if the gun hadn't jammed, and now we have this shooting in Connecticut.

 

I don't know a lot about firearms, so I am hoping some of you can educate me. Are there any restrictions we can place on rate of fire or something? Can we limit some of these guns strictly to gun ranges or something? I'm not sure what the answers are here, I just think something needs to change.

 

Other than gun control, I think we need a massive change in our psychiatric care system. But I suppose we can start another thread for that.

[Raithe]

From the cheap seats that I have over here in the UK, I'm aware that there are a whole slew of various restrictions on the types of firearms that can be picked up in the US and also carry laws. Although certain specifics can vary wildly between states. In some states its legal to get "concealed carry" licenses, in others if you're carrying a gun its legal as long as its in view, but if you hide it under your jacket you have legal problems if found.

 

I seem to recall a few things about certain hunters agitating for access to fully automatic weapons, which suggests that they aren't casually available. Of course, at the same time if you know what you're doing, it's not that hard to convert certain types of semi-automatic weapons to fully automatic. Then again, if you know what you're doing, it's not that hard to turn bleach and certain household chemicals into forms of explosive...

 

Not to say gun control isn't a needed thing, but if memory serves, in a fair few of those school shootings not all of the guns have been legally bought. So gun control laws wouldn't necessarily have prevented them, since they had gotten the weapons illegally from the get go..

 

Stricter gun controls can be a good thing, but the trouble is it's not going to answer all the problems behind these events.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Raithe

[Volourn]

Gun control wouldn't stop this. Doesn't Sweden have tough gun control?

 

The issue here are sick individuals who lack morals.

 

Gun control does one thing - it stops law abiding citizens from owning guns. It doesn't stop criminals from owning guns. Do you really think gun control wouldf stop this obvious mad man from finding away to find weapons and do this sick act? I doubt it.

 

Anyone evil enough to commit mass murder at this level isn't gonna let some silly gun law stop them from getting guns..

 

Honestly, as much as it is to think there something that can be done about this, I don't thinkl there really is - outside of people keeping aware on people in their lvies, and if they seem eally off say or do soemthing about it before it gets to that point. I bet there were plenty of warning signs about that guy that those around him ignored.

 

I certainly don't want guns in the hands of the gov't soley. That's scary.

 

And, this comes someone whose only experience with guns is pretty much non existent.

[Guest Slinky]

I just think something needs to change.

 

That would be making people at US realize that their weird ass right to own guns to "protect" themselves causes muuuch more deaths than there would be with restricted gun licences.

 

I just have a feeling many people there are willing to live with the murder numbers you have to keep their right to be John Wayne.

[Hurlshort]

I'm not really saying no guns. I get that hunting is a sport, my wife even has a shotgun for sport clays. My mother-in-law even has a revolver, she lives on a fairly isolated piece of property and feels safer with it. I'm really not sure what should be done here, as I said I was on the fence for most of my time, but I would like to think something could be done differently.

 

I agree with volourn that it is probably more important to recognize people who are capable of such terrible acts earlier. Most of these people aren't even really criminals, they are psychopaths who suddenly lose it. How do we pick up on that? That's why I mentioned overhauling our psychiatric system, I suppose that might be the bigger discussion point here.

[Gfted1]

Couple of excellent posts above.

 

TBH, I think the gun genie is too far out of the bottle to ever be able to have any realistic gun control. Too many out there. They would literally have to go door to door to make sure all guns were gone.

[Raithe]

Couple of excellent posts above.

 

TBH, I think the gun genie is too far out of the bottle to ever be able to have any realistic gun control. Too many out there. They would literally have to go door to door to make sure all guns were gone.

 

I guess one example is the issue of knife control here in the UK. Since we don't really have such a big issue of guns, the majority of violent crime tends to be done with blades of various sorts and clubs/bludgeoning weapons.

 

Over the last decade, there have been stricter and stricter laws about the size of blades you can carry with you. Nowadays, nearly any form of penknife will get you in trouble if the police have any reason to search you and find it on you. Hell, you can't even use the excuse of being a scout or such like. They aren't allowed to carry penknives around, and when on camping trips the scout master hands them out, then has to collect them back at the end of the event and put them in a lock box.

 

Every few years the government runs a "hand in knives" event of some sort, where they establish "safe bins" that people can go to and dump any "illegal knives" into with complete safety from prosecution, which then get taken away to be destroyed.

 

Personally, I think it has gone just a touch silly, but it's one of those processes. Plus, it makes it a pain about carrying my katana to and from dojo.

[Roxane]

What happened today in Connecticut breaks my heart, saddens me. No words can adequately express how I feel each time I've heard news of such terrible events.

 

No gun control laws will prevent this from happening, however, something in the US must change regarding their relationship with guns. Only them have the answer however.

[Calax]

Guns are really an all or nothing thing in terms of control. Either ALL (that is, everyone gets guns and nobody doesn't have guns) so that in situations where now there wouldn't be guns nearby there would be. Or nothing, nobody has guns and we become Great Britan.

 

of course, both of those are entirely incapable of happening, so an Assault Weapons ban would mean quite a bit. Yes, there would still be those guns around, but they wouldn't be as easy to get and as ubiquitous as they are now... where Chicago gang crews are driving around with M4's and AK's in their trunks.

[Gfted1]

Over the last decade, there have been stricter and stricter laws about the size of blades you can carry with you. Nowadays, nearly any form of penknife will get you in trouble if the police have any reason to search you and find it on you. Hell, you can't even use the excuse of being a scout or such like. They aren't allowed to carry penknives around, and when on camping trips the scout master hands them out, then has to collect them back at the end of the event and put them in a lock box.

 

Were they not allowed a penknife because they were minors or are adults also banned? I had no idea things were that strict there.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, I see you said even adults would be in trouble. Whats "trouble"? A ticket? Jail?

[HoonDing]

Ctrl + F : Guns don't kill people

 

Guess it's too early, carry on.

[mkreku]

Gun control wouldn't stop this. Doesn't Sweden have tough gun control?

Yes, we do. We also have far less shootings per capita than the US, even though there are a lot of firearms in Sweden (if I remember correctly, only Finland has more weapons per capita in Europe).

 

Gun control does not mean stopping people from owning guns. But there is no reason for everyone to own handguns (worthless for hunting, perfect for concealing) or automatic weapons (if you need more than 1-2 shots to kill your prey, you shouldn't have a hunter's license to begin with). If you really need to play with those kind of weapons, we have shooting ranges for that.

 

Just to put things in perspective here: 9/11 killed just under 3000 people. In the US, over 12000 people are killed by guns every year. Every year you kill 4 times as many of your own than that "biggest terrorist attack in history" did. You guys kill your own children and the right wing nuts will still say you need more guns to stop this..

 

It's just so pointless.

 

There will always be nutcases out there. But a nutcase with an automatic rifle/handgun is many times more lethal than one with a knife.

[casa]

Other countries managed to ban firearms after centuries of them being legal too. Sure it's a lot of effort, especially in a country like the US that has as many weapons in private hands as it has citizens. But it's only a question of how much you want it. And yes, I'm all for a strict gun control, I just can't get into my head why it's so important for so many people to own one - other than the fear of your neighbor who owns one too and being able to shoot him before he shoots you. There's absolutely no other reason to own a gun than being able to kill another person. Well, fine, or deer hunting, but that's not my favorite sports either.

 

The problem of illegal guns will always persist, and it's not that a country like Germany with strict gun controls doesn't have those too. The gun rampages that happened here were all committed with legal guns though, guns that weren't kept safely enough in dad's safe, legal for sports or hunting. So I'd say even in Germany gun control isn't safe enough and there's no damn reason for those who have them at home legally to keep them there legally. Criminals will always get a weapon anyway, but those are usually not used in school massacres and gun rampages with dozens of innocents killed. And usually way out of reach of someone who has a mental breakdown and decides to run mad.

 

How you want to find those individuals with an improved psychiatric care system as mentioned above is btw. beyond me. Mental breakdowns can happen suddenly, and usually first something happens and then psychiatric care steps in to help. Anyway, I'm not a hippie or die-hard pacifist, but IMO gun control is very much needed, everywhere.

[Gorth]

No gun control laws will prevent this from happening, however, something in the US must change regarding their relationship with guns.

 

Pretty much this. The tobacco lobby was once a world wide force to be reckoned with, but over the last couple of decades, targeting the message that having a cigarette hanging in the corner of your mouth was "cool" to being a social reject if you smoke is the way to go. It might still take decades for guns, but only if you target peoples attitudes and dare go against the all powerful gun lobbyists do you stand a chance of succeeding.

[Roxane]

Another issue is that, in the US, gun ownership is embedded in the constitution. Of course, when the constitution was written, there weren't any machine guns, assault and automatic weapons like we are dealing with today.

 

What Mkreku wrote makes lots of sense and I do believe that the US should look at their gun situation with an hard eye once the dust is settled upon this horrific tragedy.

[GhostofAnakin]

Psycho goes nuts in a school in the US with a gun, 27 wounded, 20 killed. Psycho goes nuts in a school in China with a knife, 22 wounded, 0 killed.

 

There will always been nutcases who snap and go on these sort of violent sprees, but I find it hard to believe that a stricter control over firearms wouldn't at least curb the overall extent of the damage when someone with mental issues decides to go on a rampage.

[Labadal]

I think this has less to do with guns and more to do with identifying disturbed people at an early stage. I know this can't always be done, but it seems like there needs to be more resources for helping troubled young people early in their life to identify their problems. It also seems to me like bullying is a common thing in the US. I read about it a lot. I won't pretend like we don't have that in Sweden, because oh God, do we have that. But the things I sometimes read, scares the **** out of me. Is the punishement for bullys not enough? Are schools too lenient? I know some schools don't want to touch on the subject and just pretend like it doesn't happen. I know kids who had to move to a new school because they were bullied. Why not send the bully away? It's all about how you handle these things. In the end, if someone loses it, something bad will happen. If that person has a gun, well, we've seen too many times what happens. Pretending that I know what goes on in the mind of a person that does something like this is something I won't do, but I feel that in some cases, that person just goes crazy. And by crazy, I really mean mentally ill. I'm not trying to defend a person that does something like this. Hearing about this makes me sick, hell, I work at a school myself. But, other than banning guns, there has to be more that can be done to prevent stuff like this happening. Well, at least try to stop these things from happening so often.

[WDeranged]

I agree with the view that banning all guns at this point would only affect the law abiding but I have to question the need for automatic assault weapons, beyond the obvious cool toy factor you're not going to need it for anything, even if the gub'mint goes full tyrant and you need a revolution your rifles won't do much against their armies of swarming killbots.

[Gfted1]

I agree with the view that banning all guns at this point would only affect the law abiding but I have to question the need for automatic assault weapons, beyond the obvious cool toy factor you're not going to need it for anything, even if the gub'mint goes full tyrant and you need a revolution your rifles won't do much against their armies of swarming killbots.

 

Fully automatic weapons are not legal for general ownership in the US. Semi-automatic, yes.

[Malcador]

Well, a semi-auto rifle is probably just as deadly as one on full, just requires more trigger presses, and is a bit more controllable too I'd imagine. Guess you could outlaw everything except bolt-action rifles, though. Still, an outright ban would fail in the US like drugs, I feel.

[mkreku]

Fully automatic weapons are not legal for general ownership in the US. Semi-automatic, yes.

 

Noone can aim a fully automatic weapon anyhow (on full blast). A semi-automatic is even more lethal because even if the rate of fire might not be as high, the accuracy is tenfold.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/cnn-the-connecticut-shooter-used-a-bushmaster-rifle-like-the-dc-snipers-2012-12

 

Why do you sell these to the general population??

[WDeranged]

I agree with the view that banning all guns at this point would only affect the law abiding but I have to question the need for automatic assault weapons, beyond the obvious cool toy factor you're not going to need it for anything, even if the gub'mint goes full tyrant and you need a revolution your rifles won't do much against their armies of swarming killbots.

 

Fully automatic weapons are not legal for general ownership in the US. Semi-automatic, yes.

 

I concede my ignorance when it comes to guns but I've seen enough dude-bro type videos on youtube to wonder why these guys need such firepower, a handgun and a shotgun at home should be all you need for personal safety, you're sailing pretty close to the crazy waves if you can't sleep without more.

 

Anyway, it's a sad day and I don't have any answers

[Malcador]

Well, if .223 rifles are legal, don't see why that one wouldn't be. I guess the magazine might make it overkill.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Malcador

[Gfted1]

Noone can aim a fully automatic weapon anyhow (on full blast). A semi-automatic is even more lethal because even if the rate of fire might not be as high, the accuracy is tenfold.

 

http://www.businessi...snipers-2012-12

 

Why do you sell these to the general population??

 

...they're for family protection, hunting dangerous and delicious animals, and keeping the king of England out your face. /Simpsons

 

Why are they legal? I dont know, Ive never looked into it.

[HoonDing]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

 

Compared to others, US really isn't bad off for such a large country. It's just that each violent event immediately gets in the news all over the world + Hollywood action movies and US media giving the impression that everyone's a gun-toting nutter.