Throbbing Member
I hope no fellow ETS New Yorkers here are hurt, or know anyone who is. Thoughts are with you if so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/ny...-building.html
You know what? I have an increasingly funny feeling that this would happen a lot less frequently if the US hurried up and banned guns.
Administrator
b-b-but if everyone carried arms, bad shooters like this would get taken down by 'good' people with guns!
Some reports I've read are saying that victims of the shooting may have been hit by police bullets in the effort to take down the shooter, who was making his escape after having killed his former boss.
More guns will not result in fewer shootings.
Throbbing Member
Exactly, it's nonsense. I also like to remind people who chime in with the old "but it's a constitutional right" bit that when the second was written, the arms people owned had firepower equivalent to a fork.Originally Posted by Leviathant
Stubby Member
Any time a tragedy like this occurs, the left overreacts and says "all guns need to be removed from ever" and the NRApublicans say "I need an AK-47 to defend my home and hunt ducks". The truth is, neither is right. Does there need to be stronger gun laws, and longer waiting periods + comprehensive background checks before purchasing a gun? Yes. Do you need an assault rifle to defend your home? No. Does removing firearms completely guarantee the psychos and criminals won't have them? No. Would removing guns completely ensure that the same criminals whom obtain them illegally right now would continue to do so, and theoretically, be the only non-law enforcement individuals without guns? Absolutely.
Giving everyone a CCW is not going to solve anything, nor is taking guns away from everyone.
Administrator
Here's a suggestion: how about cops not shoot innocent bystanders.
Active Member
" Mr. Johnson was killed and nine bystanders were wounded, perhaps all by police bullets." Wow...
Active Member
Can someone please explain to me why police aren't instructed to take down a peril with one or two well-aimed bullets rather than blasting a person who is eight feet away with 16 fucking bullets?
Also I am bothered by this: "when he pulled out his gun, they opened fire, shooting a total of 16 rounds." So there was no attempt to negotiate with him or talk him into putting his gun down? Just immediate shooting. I ask out of curiosity.
Hairy Member
It might have been because he already shot someone and killed them. But it is a crowded NY street in a tourist area. I don't know what the rules are. On the news here they are saying the injuries were caused by ricochet bullets (NYC is essentially a concrete block) but who knows until there is an investigation.
Last edited by Bluegirl; 08-25-2012 at 02:44 PM.
Active Member
Aggroculture-
I would imagine shooting someone is similar to getting in a fight in that once you get hit, your plan goes out the window. I would also think that shooting people isn't something cops do often, i hope. And being people I'm sure they freak out a little when in a situation like this. Now one would thing that their training would prepare them for something like this but it's hard to say how people are going to react in a given situation. As i recall from other cop shootings that many seem to just empty their clips and often don't remember doing so.
Throbbing Member
3 dead in shooting at New Jersey Pathmark Store.
I'm pretty sure the second amendment didn't anticipate AK-47s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/ny...es-3-dead.html
Last edited by DF118; 08-31-2012 at 02:59 PM.
Active Member
Survival instinct. If you were holding a gun and knew how to use it, and someone who had just shot another man turned his gun on you...your mind doesn't go "I should talk to him". Your mind goes "shit, I'm about to die if I don't take action".
Note: I am not a gun advocate. I think they may be one of the single most pointless inventions in the history of mankind. But whatever. It's out constitutional privilege.
Active Member
Why do pro gun people usually ignore the FACT that gun control in the UK has resulted in fewer shootings?
"if you make them hard to get, only crims will have them" - crystal ball or assumption? Not many criminals have guns over here. And those that do tend to use them for settling scores with each other rather than intimidating or murdering members of the public.
You can say you have that border with Mexico... One word - Israel. Israel has tight gun laws, and they have a pretty low rate of firearms crime, and they are surrounded by dodgy places
I like guns and rifles... I have owned them in the past, but I don't kid myself that I need them or that owning them is particularly sensible. I think a lot of people need to be more honest with themselves, just because you like guns doesn't mean owning them is rational or the right thing to do. Not being able to admit you have tastes that aren't 100% right on is odd
Last edited by Sutekh; 09-12-2012 at 03:11 AM.
Throbbing Member
I'm all for allowing people to own guns and I freely acknowledge that UK-style gun control would likely reduce the number of shootings. Granted, the cultural attitude toward guns is very different here in the United States, so—at least at first—we'd still have higher homicide rates, plus the number of guns in circulation is so high as to render ineffective a number of measures that might be taken to control them, but obviously the United States would not turn into some kind of Wild West where only criminals have guns and they're using them for criminal-type stuff any more than they would otherwise. However, attitudes might change over time, and with the slow phasing out of our national obsession with guns we'd realize modest reductions in gun violence. Probably.
As for how "sensible" or "rational" it is to own guns, I leave that up to each gun owner. If I collect firearms because I like the design of various models, or because I go hunting, or because I just like to shoot targets at the range, how does this affect the rationality of my decision? Is it somehow supposed to be less sensible to own guns if I am a safe and responsible gun owner but do not require them to kill for my safety? Who are you to say that my tastes "aren't 100% right on", and what does that even mean?
And let's not even get started on the Second Amendment and our core American values of individual responsibility and liberty, etc. And let's doubly not get started on the discussion about what happens when 3-D printing becomes ubiquitous and a lot of gun regulations on the books become obsolete.
You can see how it goes. The point is, the gun argument is hardly that cut-and-dry, which is why we're still having the gun argument, and will continue for all the foreseeable future. The more important thing to do is to address the cultural aspect: change the way people feel about guns by altering the way they're presented in our cultural narrative, in our media, our stories about ourselves.
Culture is why the murder rates in the UK were very low even prior to the enhanced regulations.
Last edited by Corvus T. Cosmonaut; 09-12-2012 at 04:26 AM.
Throbbing Member
Australia too.
Bite me
I thought I read somewhere that there are way more guns in Canada than in the U.S. but there are rarely any violent gun crimes (relative to the U.S.)? Not sure if it's really true but the violent culture thing is kinda what Cosmonaut was talking about.
I don't think people outside the U.S. realize how BIG this country is, and how populated, and how impossible it would be to enforce sudden strict national gun control laws. That horse left the barn 200 years ago.
Chicago cops can't even manage to stop gangs from shooting 80 people per week.
http://www.wbez.org/blogs/bez/2012-0...micide-numbers
Last edited by allegro; 09-12-2012 at 07:43 AM.
Throbbing Member
Perhaps it would be difficult to enforce a sudden change, but as generations pass gun control, or illegality, would be considered more the social norm, and gun ownership would become more and more demonised. A generation who can't remember having access to guns wouldn't suddenly miss their guns. One of the advantages of having a constitution that isn't immutable.
A bit of sketchy comparison, but smoking bans demonstrate this. 10 years ago in the UK everybody was smoking everywhere. Now it's so stigmatised I can't imagine anyone smoking in a public place. Same principle over a longer timescale.
Last edited by DF118; 09-12-2012 at 10:00 AM.
Active Member
^^^^^
This this this. Make it a 20-year plan. Think long and big about this. Do it gradually in small steps. 30000 Americans killed every year by guns = a small town. Every year a small town is wiped off the map.
Bite me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_i...g_demographics
http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-...ce/welcome.htmThere were at least 30,000 gangs and 800,000 gang members active across the USA in 2007, up from 731,500 in 2002 and 750,000 in 2004.
Who Has Illegal Guns and How Are They Acquired?
National Institute of Justice's earliest firearms studies uncovered who owns legal and illegal guns and how illegal gun trafficking is tied to juvenile gun violence and other crimes such as drug dealing and gang crime. Highlights of these studies:
Many juveniles and young adults can easily obtain illegal guns; most claim to carry them for self-defense.
A study of persons arrested for a wide range of crimes showed that a higher percentage of arrestees than regular citizens own firearms. Arrestees are also more likely to be injured or killed by gun violence. Within a community, this amounts to an identifiable group of "career" offenders.
Surveys of offenders have found that they prefer newer, high-quality guns and may steal or borrow them; most, however, acquire guns "off the street" through the illicit gun market.
Last edited by allegro; 09-12-2012 at 01:14 PM.
Bite me
That sounds lovely, but did you READ the article I just linked in #15, above?
http://www.wbez.org/blogs/bez/2012-0...micide-numbers
70,000 gang members in the city of Chicago? All fighting each other over selling drugs? All of which fighting involves handguns and assault weapons?
I don't think you guys have this shit in London. #300 gets yer ass capped.
Up until a few years ago, all guns were banned in the City of Chicago. That didn't work so well, did it? 70,000 people in Chicago, alone, who think they're fucking Scarface. Using guns that came in from the streets via Colombia or Mexico. Does this ring any bells?According to the Department of Defense and FBI data, 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. During that same period of time, more than 5,000 Chicagoans were killed.
Smoking is banned in public places, here, too. And, cigarettes cost an average of $8.00 per pack. But people still smoke, here. A lot. If we banned ALL cigarettes tomorrow, there would instantly be an underground network for illegal cigarettes (just like the days of Prohibition in this country, when Al Capone and his like were running things, very violently). Unless we develop a total police state, where SWAT teams smash down all doors to collect the guns, it will be impossible to collect all the guns. Or even 1/100 of the guns. Or stop people from getting illegal guns.
Banned drugs, here, is a LOT of reason for all of the gun violence.
Better step in decreasing violence: Legalize drugs. Now. Tax the living shit out of them, regulate them, but legalize them.
Last edited by allegro; 09-12-2012 at 09:22 PM.
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