All-Purpose Shooting Thread

Another stupid jagoff kills his own kid with a gun.

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A 10-month-old boy was shot and killed by his father Thursday in an apparent accident at a Nashville, Tenn., hotel, local media reported.

Two police detectives from the Hermitage Precinct were close to the hotel when the call went out and made it to the scene within about three minutes but were unable to resuscitate the child, NBC affiliate WSMV-TV Channel 4 reported.

The child's mother Jacquelin Bass, 28, and the couple's other sons, aged 3 and 2, were in the room when the gun went off, the station said.

The baby was shot once in the chest as his father, Larry Bass, 30, handled the semi-automatic handgun, the Nashville Tennessean reported.

I was going to post it in its own thread, but this happens so much in the US that it's really not remarkable enough for that.

Clearly, if the man didn't have one of these evil, evil guns this 10 month old could have defended himself well enough to save his life.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Clearly, if the man didn't have one of these evil, evil guns this 10 month old could have defended himself well enough to save his life.

If the father hadn't had the gun, he couldn't have accidentally shot the 10-month-old.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Clearly, if the man didn't have one of these evil, evil guns this 10 month old could have defended himself well enough to save his life.

This just in: Babies are stupid

V3N0M wrote:

gun control leads to more murders

This sort of discussion is always pointless and no one will ever change his mind I guess, but I am still curious what makes you believe this. Do you know that the annual number of murders per capita is about five times as high in the US as it is in the average first world country with strict gun control, such as western European countries and Japan? How do you explain that?

I wouldn't take anything V3N0M says seriously, but the argument would probably be based on the rise in crimes when the level of gun ownership in parts of the US goes down. When there is a significant reduction in gun ownership, crime levels rise in the short term. In the same way, a significant increase in gun ownership results in a short term reduction in crime levels.

None of it has anything to do with the actual number of guns in the area, but people who are that strongly in favour of gun ownership don't let small things like reality stand in their way.

spork wrote:

V3N0M wrote:

gun control leads to more murders

This sort of discussion is always pointless and no one will ever change his mind I guess, but I am still curious what makes you believe this. Do you know that the annual number of murders per capita is about five times as high in the US as it is in the average first world country with strict gun control, such as western European countries and Japan? How do you explain that?

And yet Switzerland, a nation of roughly 8 million people, reports less than a hundred homicides a year, and nearly everyone's got an honest-to-God assault rifle in their closet. In short: Not relevant. There are a shitload of other factors to consider between countries, and gun control or lack thereof is not a... well, smoking gun when it comes to murder rates. Within the US, however, the areas with the worst murder rates tend to coincide with having the most gun control.

As much as I hate to side with the obvitroll on anything, though, we can see a trend in countries like Great Britain and Australia where relatively recent introduction of heavy regulation of guns was followed by, yes, fewer gun crimes, but a rise in virtually all other violent crime, and invasive property crime.

Simply put, when you reduce the risk factor for undesirable behavior, more people will engage in it.

Anon wrote:

None of it has anything to do with the actual number of guns in the area, but people who are that strongly in favour of gun ownership don't let small things like reality stand in their way.

Most criminals don't look up statistics. Common knowledge, e.g. "My victim probably isn't armed because that would be illegal," is enough.

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And yet Switzerland, a nation of roughly 8 million people, reports less than a hundred homicides a year, and nearly everyone's got an honest-to-God assault rifle in their closet.

From the Wikipedia article (not an authoritative source for academia, but bear with me):

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Gun politics in Switzerland are unique in Europe. Switzerland does not have a standing army, instead opting for a people's militia for its national defense. The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations; Switzerland thus has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world.[1]

So the Swiss are basically doing what the US's founing fathers envisioned when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. We're not.

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Prior to 2007 members of the Swiss Militia were supplied with 50 rounds of ammunition for their military weapon in a sealed ammo box that was regularly audited by the government. This was so that, in the case of an emergency, the militia could respond quickly. However, since 2007 this practice has been discontinued. Only 2,000 specialist militia members (who protect airports and other sites of particular sensitivity) are permitted to keep their military-issued ammunition at home. The rest of the militia get their ammunition from their military armory in the event of an emergency.[11]

If the US had these restrictions (mandatory training + strict control of ammunition), we'd have as low a gun crime rate as the Swiss do. However, do you see any of the freedom-loving NRA-supporting Americans putting up with these restrictions for a split second? Nearly all the rest of the Swiss gun laws would be odious to to them as well.

rachel wrote:

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And yet Switzerland, a nation of roughly 8 million people, reports less than a hundred homicides a year, and nearly everyone's got an honest-to-God assault rifle in their closet.

From the Wikipedia article (not an authoritative source for academia, but bear with me):

Whatevs, that's where I got my stats.

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So the Swiss are basically doing what the US's founing fathers envisioned when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. We're not.

Actually, they're so not. The founding fathers were explicitly worried about a standing army. The "well-regulated militia" was a well-equipped body of citizens ready to go when needed. There was no assumption that everyone would be conscripted and then freed in order to earn their place in society. If you doubt this, look up the relevant parts of the US Code.

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If the US had these restrictions (mandatory training + strict control of ammunition), we'd have as low a gun crime rate as the Swiss do. However, do you see any of the freedom-loving NRA-supporting Americans putting up with these restrictions for a split second? Nearly all the rest of the Swiss gun laws would be odious to to them as well.

No we wouldn't. Once again, you're making assumptions based on very limited information. The GOVERNMENT-ISSUED AMMO was limited to 50 rounds. The idea was that this would be enough ammo for the citizen to fight his way to a proper ammo cache/regular unit. It doesn't mean that those were the only rounds available to him, or that his rifle itself could only be used when the government ammo was used with it. You're also assuming that there is literally anything besides principle stopping someone from opening that can of ammo and going to town if they so desire, or that this will be the only gun and ammo available to the average Swiss.

What it all boils down to is that gun ownership of what the ATF calls "machine guns" is very high in Switzerland, and yet violent crime is very low.

Penguin wrote:

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So the Swiss are basically doing what the US's founing fathers envisioned when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. We're not.

Actually, they're so not.

Actually, they so are.

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The founding fathers were explicitly worried about a standing army.

Did you miss the part of the quote that states that Switzerland doesn't have a standing army? Meanwhile, we do.

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The "well-regulated militia" was a well-equipped body of citizens ready to go when needed. There was no assumption that everyone would be conscripted and then freed in order to earn their place in society. If you doubt this, look up the relevant parts of the US Code.

You mean this?

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The second Act, passed May 8, 1792, provided for the organization of the state militias. It conscripted every "free able-bodied white male citizen" between the ages of 18 and 45 into a local militia company.

(These are the guys Washington dragged off to fight in The Whiskey Rebellion.)

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If the US had these restrictions (mandatory training + strict control of ammunition), we'd have as low a gun crime rate as the Swiss do. However, do you see any of the freedom-loving NRA-supporting Americans putting up with these restrictions for a split second? Nearly all the rest of the Swiss gun laws would be odious to to them as well.

No we wouldn't. Once again, you're making assumptions based on very limited information. The GOVERNMENT-ISSUED AMMO was limited to 50 rounds. The idea was that this would be enough ammo for the citizen to fight his way to a proper ammo cache/regular unit. It doesn't mean that those were the only rounds available to him, or that his rifle itself could only be used when the government ammo was used with it. You're also assuming that there is literally anything besides principle stopping someone from opening that can of ammo and going to town if they so desire, or that this will be the only gun and ammo available to the average Swiss.

You're partly right. See this from the link I posted:

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Most types of ammunition are available for commercial sale, including full metal jacket bullet calibres for military-issue weapons; hollow point rounds are only permitted for hunters. Ammunition sales are registered only at the point of sale by recording the buyer's name in a bound book.

Whereas in the US, it is possible to buy any kind of ammunition you want--up to and including hollow points--without having any record of it anywhere. Of course, this depends on the local regulations. But if you don't like those regulations, it's perfectly legal to find a venue without them and stock up!

The NRA and other gun-nutter groups would blow a gasket if legislators proposed that we instituted a tenth of the regulations that the Swiss operate under.

Penguin wrote:

And yet Switzerland, a nation of roughly 8 million people, reports less than a hundred homicides a year, and nearly everyone's got an honest-to-God assault rifle in their closet. In short: Not relevant.

Their gun control laws are so strict nowadays that you're not even allowed to have any ammunition stored at home. Making those closet rifles completely harmless. Now this is only a recent law, but even before there were very strict regulations, not comparable to the US.

Penguin wrote:

As much as I hate to side with the obvitroll on anything, though, we can see a trend in countries like Great Britain and Australia where relatively recent introduction of heavy regulation of guns was followed by, yes, fewer gun crimes, but a rise in virtually all other violent crime, and invasive property crime.

Simply put, when you reduce the risk factor for undesirable behaviour, more people will engage in it.

I'd need to see the figures for that. The number of Britians who have guns on their property/person is tiny, and many of them would be criminals to begin with. It could be that people who would have committed gun crime switched to other types of crime. Also, see earlier comments about short term effects of relative increases or decreases in the number of firearms.

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Anon wrote:

None of it has anything to do with the actual number of guns in the area, but people who are that strongly in favour of gun ownership don't let small things like reality stand in their way.

Most criminals don't look up statistics. Common knowledge, e.g. "My victim probably isn't armed because that would be illegal," is enough.

It's not even that. If they think their victim is more likely to be armed then they will eventually just change their behaviour to compensate. It's the knowledge that "My victim is more likely to be armed than I'm used to" or "My victim is less likely to be armed than I'm used to" that makes the difference.

Another thing that should probably be mentioned is that gun control laws seek to reduce death rates, not crime rates. Even if other types of violent crime rise, if the death rate from crime drops, the laws have been a success.

rachel wrote:

Penguin wrote:

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So the Swiss are basically doing what the US's founing fathers envisioned when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. We're not.

Actually, they're so not.

Actually, they so are.

Only in Bizarro World.

rachel wrote:

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The founding fathers were explicitly worried about a standing army.

Did you miss the part of the quote that states that Switzerland doesn't have a standing army? Meanwhile, we do.

The quote that's explicitly wrong? In theory, they don't, in practice, they totally do. Otherwise there wouldn't be anything to routinely conscript men into.

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(These are the guys Washington dragged off to fight in The Whiskey Rebellion.)

Apples and oranges. Drafting conscripts into an army is not the same thing as a citizens' militia.

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You're partly right. See this from the link I posted:

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Most types of ammunition are available for commercial sale, including full metal jacket bullet calibres for military-issue weapons; hollow point rounds are only permitted for hunters. Ammunition sales are registered only at the point of sale by recording the buyer's name in a bound book.

Which, again, does precisely fuck and all to stop someone from obtaining ammunition for his government-issue weapon.

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Whereas in the US, it is possible to buy any kind of ammunition you want--up to and including hollow points--without having any record of it anywhere. Of course, this depends on the local regulations. But if you don't like those regulations, it's perfectly legal to find a venue without them and stock up!

Actually, it's not. If you live in a place with an absurd ban on the sale of hollowpoints, you can buy them elsewhere legally, but you can't legally bring them into that area. Notice this pattern of assuming criminals follow laws?

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The NRA and other gun-nutter groups would blow a gasket if legislators proposed that we instituted a tenth of the regulations that the Swiss operate under.

And rightly so. The point is, though, access to truly military-grade weapons and ammo is very high in Switzerland, and yet, the Swiss kill each other a lot less often than we do. It's clearly not gun control that can take the credit for it.

spork wrote:

Penguin wrote:

And yet Switzerland, a nation of roughly 8 million people, reports less than a hundred homicides a year, and nearly everyone's got an honest-to-God assault rifle in their closet. In short: Not relevant.

Their gun control laws are so strict nowadays that you're not even allowed to have any ammunition stored at home. Making those closet rifles completely harmless. Now this is only a recent law, but even before there were very strict regulations, not comparable to the US.

And that had absolutely no measurable impact on their homicide rates, because for some reason, despite these widely available assault rifles and ammo, they just didn't get used to kill people.

Anon wrote:

I'd need to see the figures for that. The number of Britians who have guns on their property/person is tiny, and many of them would be criminals to begin with. It could be that people who would have committed gun crime switched to other types of crime. Also, see earlier comments about short term effects of relative increases or decreases in the number of firearms.

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It's not even that. If they think their victim is more likely to be armed then they will eventually just change their behaviour to compensate. It's the knowledge that "My victim is more likely to be armed than I'm used to" or "My victim is less likely to be armed than I'm used to" that makes the difference.

Sort of. The more time and effort required by mitigating increased danger of victimizing someone, it becomes less less worth it to even try. They call criminals "predators" for a reason; they usually don't go after the obviously dangerous targets.

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Another thing that should probably be mentioned is that gun control laws seek to reduce death rates, not crime rates. Even if other types of violent crime rise, if the death rate from crime drops, the laws have been a success.

It's a demonstrably foolish way to pursue that goal.

Penguin wrote:

Stuff that shows he doesn't know what the word "militia" means.

Here, let me help you out with that:

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A militia (pron.: /mɨˈlɪʃə/),[1] generally refers to an army or other fighting force that is composed of non-professional fighters; citizens of a nation or subjects of a state or government that can be called upon to enter a combat situation, as opposed to a professional force of regular soldiers or, historically, members of the fighting nobility.

You should notice that none of that says that militias are necesarily composed of volunteers. Sure they were in the US after the Revolutionary War, but it turned out that relying on untrained men who show up to fight because of a fit of enthusiasm was a bad idea. As George Washington put it:

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"To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows...if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter."

That's why when the Contitution was written:

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Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia,"

and the Militia Act of 1792 (which I have already quoted) clearly shows that Congress did not plan to rely on volunteers.

Now, as to the ammunition:

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You're partly right. See this from the link I posted:

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Most types of ammunition are available for commercial sale, including full metal jacket bullet calibres for military-issue weapons; hollow point rounds are only permitted for hunters. Ammunition sales are registered only at the point of sale by recording the buyer's name in a bound book.

Which, again, does precisely fuck and all to stop someone from obtaining ammunition for his government-issue weapon.

No, it doesn't stop them from buying the ammunition, but it lets them know that there is a record of what they have bought and that if any crimes are comitted with their purchase, the cops are going to come looking for them PDQ.

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Whereas in the US, it is possible to buy any kind of ammunition you want--up to and including hollow points--without having any record of it anywhere. Of course, this depends on the local regulations. But if you don't like those regulations, it's perfectly legal to find a venue without them and stock up!

Actually, it's not. If you live in a place with an absurd ban on the sale of hollowpoints, you can buy them elsewhere legally, but you can't legally bring them into that area. Notice this pattern of assuming criminals follow laws?

I notice that you're comparing a regulation that covers a whole country to a patchwork of regulations that don't. Also, I doubt that you're right that these laws forbid you from bringing your legally purchased goods with you as long as you don't sell them in the area where they are illegal. I think you're just wrong there.

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The NRA and other gun-nutter groups would blow a gasket if legislators proposed that we instituted a tenth of the regulations that the Swiss operate under.

And rightly so.

And yet you seem to think that low gun crime in (highly-regulated) Switzerland is a reason for why we shouldn't have (Swiss-style) regulations here.

(Edited for typos)

Penguin wrote:

Anon wrote:

I'd need to see the figures for that. The number of Britians who have guns on their property/person is tiny, and many of them would be criminals to begin with. It could be that people who would have committed gun crime switched to other types of crime. Also, see earlier comments about short term effects of relative increases or decreases in the number of firearms.

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See, this is the issue I have with blaming crime figures on gun control. The number of licensed firearms, as in the number legally owned by the general population, fell from roughly 425 to closer to 300. Those numbers are minuscule fractions of the population, far too small to have affected the threat posed by the average member of the population. Criminals wouldn't have expected most people to have had guns anyway.

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It's not even that. If they think their victim is more likely to be armed then they will eventually just change their behaviour to compensate. It's the knowledge that "My victim is more likely to be armed than I'm used to" or "My victim is less likely to be armed than I'm used to" that makes the difference.

Sort of. The more time and effort required by mitigating increased danger of victimizing someone, it becomes less less worth it to even try. They call criminals "predators" for a reason; they usually don't go after the obviously dangerous targets.

They will avoid the more dangerous targets, but when the average target becomes more dangerous they up their game. The fear of getting caught has a much larger, and more lasting, impact on crime than the risk of getting hurt while committing one.

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Another thing that should probably be mentioned is that gun control laws seek to reduce death rates, not crime rates. Even if other types of violent crime rise, if the death rate from crime drops, the laws have been a success.

It's a demonstrably foolish way to pursue that goal.

Not if there are almost no guns to begin with. In this case, making weapons harder to obtain can cause a switch to less dangerous forms of weaponry. This significantly decreases the risk of being killed. A risk that would not necessarily have decreased if you flooded the country with firearms.

Anon wrote:

See, this is the issue I have with blaming crime figures on gun control. The number of licensed firearms, as in the number legally owned by the general population, fell from roughly 425 to closer to 300. Those numbers are minuscule fractions of the population, far too small to have affected the threat posed by the average member of the population. Criminals wouldn't have expected most people to have had guns anyway.

Stretched out over a longer timeline, crime rates continued to climb high into the 2000s before taking a sharp dip. Politicians are quick to claim credit for a violent crime rate the lowest it's been since the 80s... when the UK had looser gun control.

My point is, as ever, that gun control has very little impact one way or the other.

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They will avoid the more dangerous targets, but when the average target becomes more dangerous they up their game.

Only when the reward is worth the risk. Armored car drivers wouldn't be armed if they were driving bread around.

Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet it has a horrific violent crime rate. Nobody cares. This fact about minorities murdered in "onesy-twosies" in Chicago makes page D8, but two dozen white kids in Connecticut get shot up all at once, it makes national news and mustachioed columnists around the country tearfully pen, "isn't it time we had a Meaningful Dialogue(tm) about guns?"

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The fear of getting caught has a much larger, and more lasting, impact on crime than the risk of getting hurt while committing one.

If that was true, capital punishment would be worth a goddamn thing.

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Not if there are almost no guns to begin with. In this case, making weapons harder to obtain can cause a switch to less dangerous forms of weaponry. This significantly decreases the risk of being killed. A risk that would not necessarily have decreased if you flooded the country with firearms.

Sure, and as soon as you can wave your magic wand and make all 270 million privately-owned guns in the US disappear, and ensure that the borders and ports are secured so that no guns can enter the country. At that point, that'll be a worthwhile consideration. Oh, and stop sending arms and funds to Mexico to fight the war on drugs, where both promptly walk to the cartels and back over the border.

"Less dangerous" is subjective anyway. Guns are used far more often in the US to PREVENT crimes than commit them. If wounded, you are far more likely to die of a knife wound than a gunshot. Sure, it's easier to carry out a spree attack with a gun, but shooting sprees, despite their media coverage, are rare as hell. It makes less sense to demand gun control in the wake of shooting sprees/mass killings than it does to demand thorough background checks for vehicle purchases after a 100-car pileup in the fog.

Ooooh, what's in here?
...
Okay, nevermind, I'm out of this thread.
*leaves*

ScytheK wrote:

Ooooh, what's in here?
...
Okay, nevermind, I'm out of this thread.
*leaves*

THANK YOU FOR THIS BOUNTEOUS CONTRIBUTION TO THIS THREAD

YOUR USEFUL INPUT HAS BEEN NOTED

LIVES HAVE BEEN CHANGED

I AM NOT BEING SARCASTIC

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Penguin wrote:

Anon wrote:

See, this is the issue I have with blaming crime figures on gun control. The number of licensed firearms, as in the number legally owned by the general population, fell from roughly 425 to closer to 300. Those numbers are minuscule fractions of the population, far too small to have affected the threat posed by the average member of the population. Criminals wouldn't have expected most people to have had guns anyway.

Stretched out over a longer timeline, crime rates continued to climb high into the 2000s before taking a sharp dip. Politicians are quick to claim credit for a violent crime rate the lowest it's been since the 80s... when the UK had looser gun control.

My point is, as ever, that gun control has very little impact one way or the other.

This much is true, but the same is true for gun ownership. It has little effect on crime levels, with changes in the level of it making only a short term difference.

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They will avoid the more dangerous targets, but when the average target becomes more dangerous they up their game.

Only when the reward is worth the risk. Armored car drivers wouldn't be armed if they were driving bread around.

Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet it has a horrific violent crime rate. Nobody cares. This fact about minorities murdered in "onesy-twosies" in Chicago makes page D8, but two dozen white kids in Connecticut get shot up all at once, it makes national news and mustachioed columnists around the country tearfully pen, "isn't it time we had a Meaningful Dialogue(tm) about guns?"

You mean only when they think the reward is worth the risk. Different people will assess that differently and they will likely get bolder as they grow used to a certain level of risk.

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The fear of getting caught has a much larger, and more lasting, impact on crime than the risk of getting hurt while committing one.

If that was true, capital punishment would be worth a goddamn thing.

I said getting caught, not being punished. If people think they will get away with it, they'll commit a crime regardless of the punishment.

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Not if there are almost no guns to begin with. In this case, making weapons harder to obtain can cause a switch to less dangerous forms of weaponry. This significantly decreases the risk of being killed. A risk that would not necessarily have decreased if you flooded the country with firearms.

Sure, and as soon as you can wave your magic wand and make all 270 million privately-owned guns in the US disappear, and ensure that the borders and ports are secured so that no guns can enter the country. At that point, that'll be a worthwhile consideration. Oh, and stop sending arms and funds to Mexico to fight the war on drugs, where both promptly walk to the cartels and back over the border.

The situation in the US is different. You have very large numbers of guns there, and they are much easier to obtain. UK style gun control there is unlikely to be much more effective than prohibition.

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"Less dangerous" is subjective anyway. Guns are used far more often in the US to PREVENT crimes than commit them. If wounded, you are far more likely to die of a knife wound than a gunshot. Sure, it's easier to carry out a spree attack with a gun, but shooting sprees, despite their media coverage, are rare as hell. It makes less sense to demand gun control in the wake of shooting sprees/mass killings than it does to demand thorough background checks for vehicle purchases after a 100-car pileup in the fog.

I'm not sure what the answer is in the US. They could take a few precautions that might make things more difficult for things like this to happen, but I don't think they can do much beyond that. As for mass shootings being very rare, depending on how you define mass shootings, the reports vary from an average of 2 to 3 times a year to 20 times a year.

Anon wrote:

I'm not sure what the answer is in the US. They could take a few precautions that might make things more difficult for things like this to happen, but I don't think they can do much beyond that. As for mass shootings being very rare, mass shootings in the US has, on average, twenty of them a year. In the UK, I can only find records of four incidents since 1986.

The US is very, very big. the UK is very very small. Also gun culture in both countries is vastly different. Even prior to gun control the vast majority of gun owners were farmers and/or groundskeepers/fans of pheasant or clay pigeon shooting. Guns are, basically, tools in the UK, not defence aids, so owning a gun for home or personal defence in the UK was extremely rare.

The rise in gun crime is also affected by the increasing availability of guns, legitimate or not. (It's also worth noting that "Firearm crime" in the table Penguin put up post gun control most likely also includes the crime of "owning a gun".)

I've said before that I don't like wading into gunchat because I'm pretty ignorant of it, am from a culture that is pretty staunchly anti-gun, and I have my own wimpy pacifist notions in the background to boot. Most gunchat revolves around the US and the country, mindset, availability, and, well, everything to do with guns is an utterly alien area for me.

I would like to ask one opinion though - I saw a comparison of owning guns to owning cars. With one person stating that if we treated guns like we treated cars then this would mean that everyone should complete a training course, and face regular checkups, along with having specific laws over the maintenance and general ownership of guns. This idea was presented as preposterous and unworkable. I want to know why.

From my ignorant little corner, trying to peek in on an area that I know little of, the idea of mandatory classes and a test to qualify for a gun licence seems like a good idea. A lot of the stories I hear (utterly anecdotal, I'll admit) of accidental shootings and the like seem to suggest that better education and a focus on the proper handling of guns seems pretty sensible, and a farley workable compromise.

The person who dismissed the "gun education" idea out of hand never explained why he was so opposed, but this seemed to be a pretty firm and entrenched opinion of his. Any ideas/comments in this?

[edit] Alternatively there's the Chris Rock solution:

WD40 wrote:

Anon wrote:

I'm not sure what the answer is in the US. They could take a few precautions that might make things more difficult for things like this to happen, but I don't think they can do much beyond that. As for mass shootings being very rare, mass shootings in the US has, on average, twenty of them a year. In the UK, I can only find records of four incidents since 1986.

The US is very, very big. the UK is very very small. Also gun culture in both countries is vastly different. Even prior to gun control the vast majority of gun owners were farmers and/or groundskeepers/fans of pheasant or clay pigeon shooting. Guns are, basically, tools in the UK, not defence aids, so owning a gun for home or personal defence in the UK was extremely rare.

The rise in gun crime is also affected by the increasing availability of guns, legitimate or not. (It's also worth noting that "Firearm crime" in the table Penguin put up post gun control most likely also includes the crime of "owning a gun".)

I've said before that I don't like wading into gunchat because I'm pretty ignorant of it, am from a culture that is pretty staunchly anti-gun, and I have my own wimpy pacifist notions in the background to boot. Most gunchat revolves around the US and the country, mindset, availability, and, well, everything to do with guns is an utterly alien area for me.

I would like to ask one opinion though - I saw a comparison of owning guns to owning cars. With one person stating that if we treated guns like we treated cars then this would mean that everyone should complete a training course, and face regular checkups, along with having specific laws over the maintenance and general ownership of guns. This idea was presented as preposterous and unworkable. I want to know why.

From my ignorant little corner, trying to peek in on an area that I know little of, the idea of mandatory classes and a test to qualify for a gun licence seems like a good idea. A lot of the stories I hear (utterly anecdotal, I'll admit) of accidental shootings and the like seem to suggest that better education and a focus on the proper handling of guns seems pretty sensible, and a farley workable compromise.

The person who dismissed the "gun education" idea out of hand never explained why he was so opposed, but this seemed to be a pretty firm and entrenched opinion of his. Any ideas/comments in this?

I've no idea who dismissed the gun education idea. I can tell you that in a lot of rural America, gun safety programs are a matter of course. It's just something you take. You go through a few tests, sit through about a dozen lectures, and go out to the shooting range a few times. I did that in the 8th grade. (Maybe it was 7th, I dunno, middle school) It wasn't a big deal. The NRA is big on gun safety, and offer courses as well (where they can/have a large population of NRA members). I would have no problem with required courses. However, it's not necessarily guns per se, but rather the American mindset of "You can't tell me what to do" and "I'll <fill in the blank> if I god damn well want to!", with a side dish of "FREEDOM!". I can't speak for Americans in urban environments, but in the country, there's still a very much "frontier" mindset in place. Does it make sense? Not really, but it's there all the same.

I personally think people should have to have parenting licenses before they can have kids. After all, it's not just your life, but this kid's life, and I think it would be the responsible thing to do to have a certification to say, "Yes, I know at least the basics of parenting." Yet, I express my opinion of that to the average American and the idea is met with horror. Mandatory anything in redneckville is met with the same horror, whether it's under the label of gun control, Obamacare, etc.

*shrug*

WD40 wrote:

Guns are, basically, tools in the UK, not defence aids, so owning a gun for home or personal defence in the UK was extremely rare.

Maxy wrote:

I can't speak for Americans in urban environments, but in the country, there's still a very much "frontier" mindset in place.

I think the cities are fairly similar to the rest of America when it comes to gun culture. In America, guns aren't just tools, they're kind of seen as totems of power and respect. At least in Philly, owning a gun is a part of a lifestyle. When you're packing you're harder and you feel like no one can fuck with you.

For both urban and rural environments, having a gun isn't just about protecting your home or hunting. Just simply having a gun is also a way of exerting control over your world, or at least believing you are. Which is why gun debate in the United States always gets caught up with ideas that owning a gun is somehow necessary for an average civilian, which I'm not entirely sure happens in, at least, Europe.

Maximilia wrote:

I personally think people should have to have parenting licenses before they can have kids. After all, it's not just your life, but this kid's life, and I think it would be the responsible thing to do to have a certification to say, "Yes, I know at least the basics of parenting." Yet, I express my opinion of that to the average American and the idea is met with horror. Mandatory anything in redneckville is met with the same horror, whether it's under the label of gun control, Obamacare, etc.

*shrug*

Nice sentiment, but completely unenforceable. Also, subject to cheating and abuse, not to mention that it would be caught in the middle of the never-ending tug-of-war between the political parties as to what constituted abuse (i.e. some people feel that raising children in a secular environment is abusive). Also, how would one go about enforcing state-required birth control onto people who failed the test? Good fucking luck trying to get anything like that implemented.

Ninety-nine thousandth verse, same as the first.

Quote :

The Robeson County Sheriff's Office is investigating a shooting that killed a 10-year-old Fairmont boy.

Christopher Stanlane, Sr., 34, was wiping his gun down at his home on Gaddy Road in Fairmont, Sunday afternoon, according to Captain Anthony Thompson.

His ten-year-old son, Christopher Stanlane, Jr., was watching television in front of him when the gun went off, Thompson says, and a bullet hit the boy in the back of the head.