bombadil wrote:Man, now I wish I hadn't gone to bed so early last night.  

I had a feeling this discussion was brewing.  Seems simple enough to me.  Getting rid of handguns can't make it any EASIER to kill people.

I agree. But it will never happen, just as a repeal of the 2nd admendment will never happen, and a door to door seach and seizure of firearms in every single house in America will never happen if guns were outlawed tomorrow. Which is why as a nation, insitead of trying to push completely unworkable and unrealistic solutions, we have to look at what we do have....a nation of millions of guns, and gun owners....and find a workable solution. I don't know what that is, but neither do any of the talking heads on TV I've seen in the last couple of days....
 
Mike B .

Badmike wrote:For every guy screaming that all guns should be destroyed, there is another idiot screaming he needs a full auto M16 for home protection.  Like most things, the truth is in the middle.  As a society, we have to compromise to reach that truth.

Mike B.

Obviously there will never be a perfect solution in curbing gun violence.  But consider just how simple it is to buy a handgun in this country.  Buying a rifle or shotgun is even simpler.  I don't have a problem with people owning guns and I don't think that banning guns is the answer.  As Mike stated before, it will be just like prohibition all over again if that happened.  But why not make it even more difficult to purchase a gun?  They obviously don't do enough background checks.  If the typical first time gun purchaser had to go through as much paperwork and red tape that it takes to purchase a house they might think to themselves that it really isn't worth the hassle.  And to discourage people further, how about mandatory psychological testing?  And I'm not talking just about your run-of-the-mill multiple choice tests.  Add to them the anxiety/stress tests that they use to weed out the astronauts.  Put people in a round room with flashing lights and strange noises for 12 hours and see how they handle it.  

Most people don't consider the responsibility necessary to own a gun.  They just think "cool, I own a gun".  I have had several friends like this and it is a sickening thought that they think of a gun as little more than a toy.  You could use a similar argument for car owners and being parents.  Probably half the population of the planet doesnt deserve to have children or drive cars because they aren't responsible people.  That is my opinion anyway....odd as it might be.  

Badmike wrote:Just to blow your mind:  Your chances of a child drowning to death in a a neighborhood swimming pool is 1 in 11,000 (about 550 each year).  Your chances of a child being shot with a gun is 1 in 1 million (about 175 each year). Both are tragedies, but because pool drowning deaths don't make good coverage on the evening news, we don't hear about them.  Yet when a kid is killed playing with his father's gun, or two kids playing with a gun shoot one or the other, it's plastered all over the news along with dire predictions and finger shaking warnings and solemn faced vultures yakking about the "lawlessness" of society now.  

The media and the government want you to be scared...it's a control mechanism.  That way they can focus you on the issues THEY want and not the important issues (which is why spending on fighting terrorism is millions of times more well funded than fighting heart disease, while terrorism kills an infintesimal amount of people each year versus those of us eating artery clogging fast food...the #1 cause of death in the world, btw)  "Terrorist acts lie beyond our control; french fries do not."  You could change that to "Lunatics with handguns lie beyond our control; fill in the blank does not".  The thought of someone with the power to end our lives in such an arbitray way as that dude Cho did is frightening; meanwhile, I'll pound down another Big Mac and vanilla shake while watching it on the TV....

The point is that when a plane goes down and 136 people die, it's a tragedy. The media pounces on the story ad naseum and subjects the public to story after story about who or what is to blame, was the pilot at fault, etc etc.  Meanwhile, about 800 people EACH WEEK die on our nation's highways, and it's an ignored stat. It's simply not interesting enough for us to focus on.

A lot of this though has to do with with a couple of factors:  Opportunity and Intent.  For instance the statistic you site about childrens death by being shot and by drwoning in pools only really tells half the story.  

For one thing, childrens death by gun does not account for all of the people killed by guns in this country.  It only accounts for a small portion of which of those are least likely to be in a situation where a gun is invloved. As sick and twisted as alot of people are, it still seams like for the most part children are off limits to most. On top of that, the mortality rate of children drowning in swimming pools is likely to be high, especially when compared with adults as children are less likely to know how to swim.  Additioanlly, they are also less likely to recognize the danger that they would be in if they aren't not able to swim by being near a pool and also they are most certainly more likley to have more opportunity to fall into a pool then they are to being shot by a gun.  I'd like to see the statistcs for all people who die by gun violence versus all people who drwon in swimming pools every year.  I'll bet its not even close and I'll also bet that that its not the swimming pools with the higher numbers.  

Statistics need to be taken into context when being used in a debate. For instance comparing gun deaths amongst children and deaths by drowning in a swimming pool kind of reminds about a statistic about I heard about 10 or so years ago.  Some genius did a "study" that said over 50% of all automobile accidents people were involved in happened within 1 mile of that persons home.  On the surface, its sounds really impressive and really kind of staggering.  That is, until you actually start to look at the facts behind the statistic.  Of course a majority of car accidents happen within 1 mile of your home, thats were almost everyone spends most of their time driving.  Everytime you leave your house and everytime that you return home you are going to be within 1 mile of your house.  Even when you leave the 1 mile radius everytrip that you make includes time within that 1 mile radius from your home.  Therefore the opportunity for having an acident is considerably higher for you to be in an accident within 1 mile of your home.

Now the other thing that I mentions is intent, whcih is also an important factor in how things are and should be treated.  Again using the swimming pool/gun statistical example the fact is no one ever buolt a swimming pool with the intention of killing someone.  Now I am not saying that everyone who owns a gun has the intention of killing someone, but when you compare the numbers when those who intented to kill people when purchasing a gun and those who intented to kill people when purchasing a pool, I once again don't think that the numbers will match up favorably for the gun purchasers.

Another fact that seems to get buried in the avalanche of the gun lobby is the fact whether or not the guns used in crimes are purchased legally or not, I'd be willing to bet that a substantial portion of guns used in those crimes were manufactured and sold right here in the US of A legally at some point in time.  The NRA as I noted in my other post absolutely loves to point out that a lot of times guns used in crimes are obtained illegally, however that hides the fact that at some point in times those weapons that were used in crimes were legally obtained. That is unless of course I am missing the weekly headlines of all the large weapons factories break-ins and all the foreign weapons smugglers supplying our streets with guns to help denegrate the US streets with crime and killings.

You also point out about automobiles accidents and death rates per, which is true about the numbers and the lack of media attention, but once again a lot of that has to do with opportunity and intent.  Using automobiles as an example to show just how screwed up things are around here is the fact that in order to get a licence to drive an automobile you must pass two tests, one written and one skill test. That outnumbers the number of tests required to own a gun of any sort by two. Why?  

Another example is firworks.  The are laws in most states in this country that regulate how much and of what types of fireworks an individual can purchase and for highly dangerous ones, one must in fact be a certified professional to buy and use them.   On the other hand, in those exact same states that have strict laws regulating fireworks, they also have little to any regulatory laws in the purchasing of firearms.  It just doesn't make any sense.

Now despite what it may seem, I am not totally anti-gun, I'm really not.    The fact remains though that it is far to easy to buy guns.  I mean, the only requirements in this country to have and own a gun are:

A) You have not commited any felony crimes, yet

B) You meet a certain age requirement.  I believe that its 16 for rifles and 18 for handguns.

Do I think that we should do away with all guns no, but we sure and hell need to make it more difficult to get them then we do right now.  Its so easy to buy a gun right now, its beyond scary.  The fact is that there is a reason why most murders in this country are commited with firearms and most of it lies in both the ease of use and the ease of obtaining them.   

The fact that the supposedly "Non-profit" NRA fights everday to make it easier for folks to purchase any and all guns makes it even worse.  There has yet to be a gun ban or restriction law put into place that the NRA has liked.  Its ridiculous.

Something has got to change.

jasonw1239 wrote:It should also be noted that many groups will be circling like sharks to find a way to use this tragedy for their own agenda.

One example was an American group called Answers in Genesis (Anti-evolution teaching group) who less than 24 hours after the shootings made the following statement:

"We live in an era when public high schools and colleges have all but banned God from science classes. In these classrooms, students are taught that the whole universe, including plants and animals — and humans — arose by natural processes. Naturalism (in essence, atheism) has become the religion of the day and has become the foundation of the education system (and Western culture as a whole). The more such a philosophy permeates the culture, the more we would expect to see a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness that pervades people's thinking. In fact, the more a culture allows the killing of the unborn, the more we will see people treating life in general as ‘cheap.'"

They are trying to double their usage of this event by tying it into the religion in schools issue and abortion.  

Not surprising in the least.  The Christian right is enough to gag a maggot(and this is coming from a Irish Catholic kid   ).  They are another group who never seems to let a national tragedy stand in the way of an excellent opportunity to push their agenda.  

<extremely heavy sarcasm> Aside from the fact that we all know that there was no crime commited back when there weren't so many of these damn immoral scientists running around, but I am sure that South Korean kid came from a familiy that their church veiwed as something other than Pagan.  Yeah, lack of Christian values in this country had something to do with that shooting. </extremely heavy sarcasm>

bclarkie wrote:
A lot of this though has to do with with a couple of factors:  Opportunity and Intent.  For instance the statistic you site about childrens death by being shot and by drwoning in pools only really tells half the story.  

The fact is it's a stat, and can be spun like any other stat to fit any notion one wants.

 I'd like to see the statistcs for all people who die by gun violence versus all people who drwon in swimming pools every year.  I'll bet its not even close and I'll also bet that that its not the swimming pools with the higher numbers.

 Actually, about 3000 people a year of all ages die by drowning; in contrast around 11,000 die each year in gun related homicides.  Ironically, there are almost that many gun related suicides a year....almost any give year half the gun deaths in the US are people killing themselves.  

Statistics need to be taken into context when being used in a debate.

Except that statistics can be spun, spindled, mutilated, etc to support any side.  And each side says that "their" stats are the most accurate.
But the fact is far more children die each year in swimming pools than gun related accidents or homicides.  Yet the lead news story on any given night will be the gun related homicide, hands down.  My point was to show exactly what fearmongering among the media is...a focus on the visceral vs the realistic.  Let's face it, a live shot by the news crew in front of the gun shop is a lot more visual than the empty backyard with a pool...

Something has got to change.

Yet no one has come up with a workable solution.  If they banned all gun sales in the US tomorrow, what about the millions already sold in owners hands? Then comes the inevitable tragedy when a gun owner jumps through all the hoops (say, a extensive background check, a 6 month waiting period, only one gun purchased a year, etc) and still commits a horrible crime. Or a gun obtained illegally (as the Columbine kids did, if I remember) is used.  What then?
 Unfortunately too many solutions are based on unrealistic expectations or solutions, and not rooted in a reality that this is a nation of millions of gun owners.  Until I see a solution that is not rhetoric on both sides, I can't see an end in sight.
  Do you think people like Milt Romney suddenly loved guns so much he joined the NRA (lifetime membership, at that) because he believed all their rhetoric?  Hell no. Probably had some big donor that supported the NRA.  Just the way there are tons of anti-gun advocates that own their own piece...I mean, they are talking about all the "other" people, not them, THEY are responsible....There is a lot of self-seving speeches on both sides.  The main problem, I've said time and again, is that each side KNOWS they are right, and they refuse to compromise.  NRA members refuse to allow any restriction at all.  Anti gun advocates refuse to settle for anything less than total ban on gun ownership in the US. There is no middle ground, and it's costing us.

Mike B.

FormCritic wrote:  Anyway, be glad you live in Canada or Britain, where strict gun laws mean that there are no violent crimes at all.

Mark  

Wow Mark I am surprised at you.  This may be the most disingenuous statement that I have ever seen you post here.   The fact remains that the crimes rates in both of those countries, particularly gun related crimes are significantly lower that they are here in the US.  Are you saying that is somehow a coincidence???  You can try and spin that all you want, but there is no spin to it, its the facts.

Additionally the lots of reasons that the Democrats lost hold of the House and Senate in 1994 was not solely because of the gun restrictions that they put into place and to say so is also disingenous.  The fact remains after all those guns restictions were put into place, gun related crime went down, its a fact.  Is that just more coincidence?  I have said it before, but I really do not like my coincidences so coincidental.   Even if that really was the case though, since when does majority opinion always=Right?  I mean these are the same people who put our current president back into office 10 years later despite the fact that he has consistantly lied to everyone throughout his first 4 years and effectively had run the country into the ground for the first 4 years. Yet despite those facts, somehow these same people believed him when he said things would be different the next four years and now have the stones to act surprised that it hasn't.  Yeah, that worked out pretty well.  

As far as the VT shooter goes, you are right he didn't an assault rifle to kill all of those people, doesn't that make it worse more than it makes it better?  To me, the fact that he walked into a sporting goods store, waited all of 60 seconds to legally purchase those weapons he used in the shootings, makes it worse that we don't have more gun restrictions, not better.

FormCritic wrote:
   Well, you have hit your head square on the nail, Jason.

    The reason it seems strange that guns fall under federal jurisdiction is because they don't.

    The ATF is an organization of a few thousand people detailed to enforce laws on Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms...all three of which are legal.  I don't even know why they exist.

    There are some federal firearms laws.  They have little impact on most gun owners.

    American states are sovereign...and a good thing, too.  They are completely unlike...for instance...the governing authority of Wales, which has roughly the same level of authority as an American town council (a bit less, possibly).

    And...to add to the discussion...the American right to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with hunting, target shooting or collecting.  The Constitution specifically acknowledges the right to own weapons for the specific purpose of killing people.

    The issue at Virginia Tech had little to do with psychological tests or the availability of handguns.  The shooter did not need 87 million handguns...he needed two handguns (extremely common handguns, by the way).  He didn't need an assault rifle or a bazooka or evolution in schools.  All he needed was about $2000, a chain, a lock and the will to shoot people.  Since he was willing to die, the only thing that could have stopped him was the will and means to kill him.

    If we were to accept the premise that the handguns themselves were dangerous, then we would expect each one of them to kill someone...and half the nation would be dead.  The problem in America is not guns...it is us.  To be more specific...it is a very few of us.

    All of the anti-gun talk is just the way Americans do politics.  I think it is unlikely that the new Democrat Congress is likely to pass sweeping gun bans.  First, they are Americans.  Second, they know full well what happened to them in 1994 after they tried the same load of crap.  (For those of you who can't remember...outrage inspired in part by gun control laws created a political tsunami that broke the Democrats' multi-generation grip on power in America.)

    And, as for statistics....the gun debate is brimming with made-up and ridiculous statistics.  For instance, there is the assertion that 500,000 kids bring guns to school every day.  Assuming that is remotely true, these kids have an incredible safety record!  

    180 school days + 500K of guns = A buttload of man hours with guns in the hands of America's most unstable minors...and almost no shootings!  And that counts accidents as well as deliberate shootings!  Any law enforcement agency would love to have such a safety record...if the whole statistic weren't a made-up load of crap to start with.

    Anyway, be glad you live in Canada or Britain, where strict gun laws mean that there are no violent crimes at all.

Mark  

Beautifully put. Don't know how I could add to it.  Except for:

The ATF should have been disbanded after the fiasco in Waco.  What a screw up.

The few feakos will always mess it all up for the many ordinary folk

Funny stats remind me of the bogus "Children Missing/abducted" stats some organizations threw around trying to get more money for their causes.  Finally, someone sat down and looked at the stats (20/20? Dateline? 60 Minutes?) and found that for most of the stats to be accurate, one out of every three children inthe US would have to be missing at some time.  At this point, the organizations in question sheepishly admitted they were including all stats of all children missing for any length of time, even if they had run away for an hour, or were staying at a friends house for the afternoon, or had arrived five minutes late from one custodial parent to another.  They never included that about 95% of these supposedly missing kids were FOUND within 24 hours of their "abductions".  They justified the bogus stats as "making everyone aware of the problem".  Sheesh. Beware the scary big number stat....

Mark is so right. Politics is what it is....it serves some individuals to have highly emotional situations like this thrown to the forefront, so each agenda can be pushed, and supporters on both sides can be mollified by their leadership as they are "doing something."

Mike B.

I am a Virginia Tech alumnus. I do not personally know any of the victims, or anyone who knows any of the victims. However, as you might imagine, I am deeply shocked and saddened by this senseless tragedy.  

I know that many here are readers of fantasy/sci-fi. Today I learned that one of the victims was Jamie Bishop, a 35-year old German instructor at Tech. He was the son of sci-fi author Michael Bishop.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/me ... ishop.html

I am not familiar with Michael Bishop's work, but he has published many books and won a Nebula award for No Enemy But Time (1982):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bi ... 8author%29

with regards to "cracking down" and things like that. well i blame the justice system in pretty much most countries. ppl can get away with things with very little comeback on them.

example: not so long back now (locally), a guy had been banned for drink-driving. while banned, he continued to drive and actually hit NINE people in that period of time. THIS was after the first one that he actually killed and got away with! how the hell does that one work? it was only on the 9th knock down, that the judge actually gave him SIX MONTHS in prison.

now you go and work the justice out in that.

personally, i think you need to do away with all this death-row bollocks and these last minute reprieves.

if he is guilty of murder, you should be made an example of. an iron stance on things. out the back and bullet in the head and then cremate the body. save the country a fortune and get rid of one problem society doesnt need.

eventually ppl will get the point that you aint gonna put up with shit no more and it WILL have an effect. i pray for the day this will happen but realistically i know it never will, as nobody official has the balls to do it.

i keep hoping that someone will though.

anyway.

Al