Guns don't kill people ....

[henry quirk]

HA!

No, not 'obtuse', but 'sophist'.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Nirvana

Really ? counter attack?

Yes, as in defense.

[ZenGum]

For every anecdote like that, we can find another one where some idiot uses a gun to murder their spouse/neighbour/step child/random passing stranger for no acceptable reason.

And if my understanding of the statistics is correct, the "genuine legal defense" cases are badly outnumbered by the "criminal killing" cases.

And further, the suicides outnumber both.

[BigV]

Inflammatory?

defense is as inflammatory as offense, they're complementary, right? attack is neutral. it is the same word in both directions.

I've said nothing about her choice of weapons, I'm saying she attacked him with a gun, after he threatened her. Could you say she defended him with the gun? she didn't do anything to her kids with the gun. she didn't offend or defend or attack her kid. what she DID do with the gun was attack the guy coming at her.

sounds like it was justified, sounds like it was a good idea, sounds like it was successful. she "defended" herself by attacking him with the gun, an offensive action.

[Nirvana]

Obtuse thy name is Big V

[piercehawkeye45]

Lets all cherry pick anecdotal evidence to back our pro or anti-gun views!

[Nirvana]

and really how else is a debate done?

[Happy Monkey]

It depends on the implementation, but most of those look substantive to me. Except stuff like "national dialogues" or "national campaigns", which are the "feel good" side.

[classicman]

"Pearl High School in Mississippi; Sullivan Central High School in Tennessee; Appalachian School of Law in Virginia; a middle school dance in Edinboro, Pa.; Players Bar and Grill in Nevada; a Shoney's restaurant in Alabama; Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City; New Life Church in Colorado; Clackamas Mall in Oregon (three days before Sandy Hook); Mayan Palace Theater in San Antonio (three days after Sandy Hook).

There's a reason that you never heard much about the places on the second list. The number of innocent people killed was much smaller — sometimes, none. In each of them, the "active shooter" or potential shooter was confronted by an armed defender who happened to be at the scene when the attack commenced; the bad guy wasn't able to just keep going about his deadly business, as at Sandy Hook.

Sometimes the hero was an armed school guard (Sullivan Central High). Sometimes it was an off-duty police officer or mall security guard (Trolley Square, Mayan Theater, Clackamas Mall and the Appalachian Law School, where two law students, one of them a police officer and the other a former sheriff's deputy, had guns in their cars). Or a restaurant owner (Edinboro). Or a church volunteer guard with a concealed carry permit (Colorado). Or a diner with a concealed carry permit (Alabama and Nevada). At Pearl High School, it was the vice principal who had a gun in his car and stopped a 16-year-old, who had killed his mother and two students, before he could drive away, perhaps headed for the junior high."

[Big Sarge]

I hear you! My thoughts exactly

[footfootfoot]

Absolutely. We are very hygienic at our house. Not helpful in the event of intruders, but we don't get too many out here.

[DanaC]

Maybe if the NRA hadn't effectively declawed the ATF and made it impossible to track dealers' inventories, we'd have a better idea.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Maybe if the NRA hadn't effectively declawed the ATF and made it impossible to track dealers' inventories, we'd have a better idea.

Someone watched the Daily Show...

[henry quirk]

But, Dana, you Brits did have a better idea.

As I point out several times up-thread: while it would be a long, expensive, bloody endeavor (with no guarantee of success), confiscation is the ticket.

If 'gun' is the problem, then remove the problem, yes?

*Isn't this what you folks did on the Great Isle?

As law, hasn't confiscation worked there?









*not exactly confiscation, I know, but as close to it as possible...strict controls on what is allowed and who is allowed to own and use, with severe penalties for illegal possession and use

[DanaC]

Sort of yeah. The rules were tightened up and made very restrictive, at the same time there have been intermittent amnesties on firearms.

It's been a few years since the last time they did an amnesty. But it is amazing how many guns they bring in with those.

It hasn't solved gun crime in this country. There have been several gang related shootings in recent years and a few incidents involving children. But the numbers are very low nationwide, and comparatively low even in our hotspot areas.

But, the UK is a very different proposition on something like this. Guns weren't so ubiquitous to begin with. The number of guns in the country at any one time, even when ownership wasn't so regulated, just wasn't on the same level per capita as it seems to be in the States. The cultural associations are very different. Not to say there aren't/weren't any such associations, but they are a much smaller part of the national psyche.

The opposition to gun control was there, and it was vocal and heated at times, but the ban on hunting foxes with hounds caused more popular debate and passion.

We're also a pretty small island. And we only have 2 or 3 legislative and jurisdictional areas to come to agreement in order to take action. On a purely logistical level the idea of removing all guns from all but a qualified few, in a country as large and legislatively fragmented as the US seems an exercise in futility.