Gun ban solution to mass murders?

It seems to have gone down from previous years. I wonder why.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc.../crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls

Ok, keep the rifles and ban the handguns...

 

Honestly, handguns would be the logical thing for anti-gun nuts to go after. Why do you think that's not the case?

 

broony

Not my fault...

The term assault rifle is a translation of the German word Sturmgewehr (literally "storm rifle", "storm" as in "military attack"). The name was coined by Adolf Hitler as a new name for the Maschinenpistole 43,[nb 1] subsequently known as the Sturmgewehr 44, the firearm generally considered the first assault rifle that served to popularise the concept and form the basis for today's modern assault rifles.
The translation assault rifle gradually became the common term for similar firearms sharing the same technical definition as the StG 44.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle#Definition

Gun manufacturers use the term too.

 

Odon just shut up on gun control and gun info.

I aint clicking on your media wiki links.

You are pretty damn clueless on this topic, because it seems you have no real-life experience with these guns.

 

I don't know of any 'anti-gun nuts'. I know plenty of 'gun control nuts'. I think they don't go after hand-guns because they want to keep their hand-guns.

 

You don't have to.

 

Don't take offense to my posts, im just tired of people mainly from the UK talking about gun-control. This site has been filled with these topics and every forum that its discussed is filled with so much ignorance its no wonder the public is freaked.

Everyone gives MEDIA links to show their knowledge, which makes those who have real-life experience with these guns just more frustrated.

Just stop. And tell everyone in the UK, you can keep you anit gun laws because everyone knows your not being suppressed at all....

 

broony

I didn't take offence. Picking up on 'assault rifles' is fairly strange - that's all.

 

I don't like guns.

I don't know where this leaves me on the issue of gun control. I think that both sides of the gun control debate are to a certain extent reacting out of fear. Pro-gun people fear their guns will be taken away. Anti-gun people fear that guns will hurt them or people they love. I feel the fear working on me in a very visceral way; I get an odd feeling in my gut everytime I think about the gun debate.

I keep coming back to this: I respect the right to own a gun, but do others respect the fact that people like me see a gun as nothing more than a tool to kill? And killing is not something I want to be reminded of on a daily basis.

I can't help but feel like this "right" to bear arms has been shoved in my face recently. I don't like guns and I think due to their very purpose and nature they should be owned quietly and respectfully, but gun enthusiasts have turned out to be a loud bunch.

At the heart of the matter I truly believe there lies a deep rot in our culture. The fact that such a large percentage of the population believes they must own a gun, a killing machine, to protect their family is a symptom of the problem. The pharmeceutical industry certainly plays a role in the matter. The structure of family and society, the education system, political environment, violence in video games, the increase in time spent playing video games and decrease in time spent with family or friends, these are all symptoms that combine to form a festering black rot.

My problem with guns is that yes, guns are just a tool, but they can prove to be a very easy tool to use when someone snaps. And people have proven throughout history to be a very volatile species.

But like I said, I don't know where this leaves me. I know a lot of people that own guns and I respect the fact that they like or feel a need to own a gun.

I'm getting the feeling that its not really that we're coming up with the wrong answers, but that we're asking the wrong questions.

 

ROFL. I got the Marvin Monroe quote. Nice job. :2thumbsup:

 

Ban bare hands now. Arm yourself!

 

Meliai,

Great post. I tried to +1 ya but apparently I need to spread the love around first.

I obviously don't agree with everything you said, but I found your post to be very insightful. I wish that more people could put aside their personal feelings in order to look at the big picture. That includes me.

 

Thank you. I think both sides of the debate need to make some concessions and put their personal feelings aside. There is clearly a problem with gun violence and a violent culture in general in this country and everyone is going to have to figure out a way to work together to overcome it.

 

Neither. You probably also missed the correlation between the drugs and the fact that the murderers tend to be off their medication at the time of their killing spree.

 

which leaves the question, did the come off their meds in the proper manner or just stop cold turkey and alone?

 

Another week another gun thread

And the problem is that the same old arguments come up again and again.

Here are a couple of comments

I've just been researching violence in history and I've come across a startling fact. There was violence in the past well before guns were invented.

Almost twice the amount of people are killed every year by bare hands, than by all types of rifles combined. Just sayin.

Even the OP’s assertion that it’s down to drugs not guns seems part of what I term as the natural born killers argument.

Here is something I wrote on that subject a while ago -

This is the view of many Americans of their fellow citizens - that they’re so violent and murderous that they just want to kill, kill, kill. That its not guns that count for the high level of murders but the murderous nature of Americans, that the same amount of carnage would go on because Americans are so bloodthirsty that they would use anything to kill, kill, kill.

When you think your fellow citizens are like that it is no wonder that so many Americans are so frightened.

But why do they think that is it true?

Are Americans truly that different than other people, so much more violent and murderous?

Now if things are looked at in those terms (that Americans are murderous savages that are just waiting to kill people) then when crime figures are looked at they seem to back up that view.

For example

I live in London it has a population of around 7.5 million and it only had 175 homicides between Apr-2005 to Apr-2006. In fact in 2009 there were only 651 murders in the whole of England and Wales with a population of around 55 million.

But let us take an American city - Philadelphia – it I believe has a population of around 6.1 million yet it had 406 homicides in that same year. So two Philadelphia’s with only 12.2 million people would create 812 murders, more than what is produced by 55 million Brits.

But if you take out gun related homicides from the US crime figures they are not that much different from those of many European countries that have gun restrictions (although it is incredible difficult to compare any crime statistics other than homicide).

So the question is are Americans more murderous or is it just that Americans have easier access to much more lethal weapons.

**

So here we get its not easy access to guns but bad drugs, its not easy access to guns because violence went on before guns were invented, its not easy access to guns because people could use their bare hands etc….

 

Meliai

Bingo

This is what I’ve been arguing for years – US gun culture is a symptom of a much greater sickness within US culture as a whole.

Here is an theory I put forward some time ago -

My theory is that there is a general attitude among many Americans that accepts threat of violence, intimidation and suppression as legitimate means of societal control and this mindset gets in the way of them actually working toward solutions to their social and political problems.

This is because that attitude colours the way they think about and view the world from personal interaction to how they see other countries.

They can come to see the world as threatening, they can feel intimidated and fear that they are or could be the victim of criminal or political suppression.

This attitude can lead to a near paranoid outlook were everything and everyone is seen as a potential threat that is just waiting to attack or repress them. This taints the way they see the government, how criminality can be dealt with, how they see their fellow citizens, differing social classes, differing ethnic groups, and even differing political philosophies or ideas.

Within the framework of such a worldview guns seem attractive as a means of ‘equalising’ the individual against what they perceive as threats, it makes them feel that they are also ‘powerful’ and intimidating and that they too, if needs be, can deal with, in other words suppress the threatening.

The problem is that such attitudes can build up an irrational barrier between reality and myth, between what they see as prudent and sensible and what actually is prudent and sensible.

 

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

 

Isn't your posts 'the same old arguments'
-
America is a violent society/has a violent culture

Access to weapons

I also think: 'This is the view of many Americans of their fellow citizens - that they’re so violent and murderous that they just want to kill, kill, kill. That its not guns that count for the high level of murders but the murderous nature of Americans, that the same amount of carnage would go on because Americans are so bloodthirsty that they would use anything to kill, kill, kill.' ...might be a little OTT.


The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world — by far. And it has the highest rate of homicides among advanced countries. And yet, gun crime has been declining in the U.S. Firearm murders are down, as is overall gun violence – even as gun ownership increases.

- factcheck.org

From what I have seen, there seems to be certain states where murder is very high, but in many it isn't. Perhaps similar to there being higher crime in the bigger cities.

 

OdonII

I’m not denying that I’ve put forward my arguments before (I even say so) – but what I’d also point out is that pro-gunners still don’t seem to be addressing my old arguments which where criticisms of their old arguments.

Is my theory ‘over the top’ – as I’ve pointed out many times a lot of pro-gunners seem to display fear and some even seem to be promoting fear as a means of selling guns. In past thread pro-gunners have talked of wives and children being hurt or killed. They’ve draw images of mass murder - of children being raped - of loved ones being tortured. They’ve suggested that ‘psychos’ and drug addicted killers are at any time ready to pounce and will at any moment break down peoples doors and commence the killing.

And they seem to put forward that the only alternative to having to watch you wife and child being raped and murdered before your very eyes - is to get a gun.

I’m asking why are so many frightened and wouldn’t it be better to try and work toward having a society that they were not afraid to live in?

Can you say why?

As I’ve pointed out more than once crime rates are usually lower in low density areas (rural and suburban) and areas with populations that are economically more comfortable and with high levels of employment

As the British Crime Survey (police recorded crime 2009/10) points out -

The police recorded crime series also show disparities between urban and rural areas, with higher population density tending to be associated with higher crime levels