Virginia Tech massacre

Here I was referring to handgun crime before the 1997 ban - seriously, I think you've either not read or just failed to comprehend my words.

 

Yes, I'm afraid you just need to re-read what I've written, you have spectacularly failed to grasp the point.

Try again:

We've had strict gun licensing laws for nearly 100 years, guns were restricted long before gun crime ever became a problem, it's not as simple as demonstrating that a gun ban reduced the murder rate over any given period since we never had a gun crime problem to begin with. The attempt to make simplistic points about the efficacity of the ban on handguns as a crime reduction measure by means of murder rate figures indicates that you don't understand the UK situation as regards gun culture - basically we don't have one, because gun ownership was severely restricted following WWI. What you can say is that severely restricted access to guns throughout our history has almost certainly played a part in stopping Britain from ever developing a significant gun culture and the consequent absence of gun crimes and low murder rate.

 

Countries with restrictive gun licensing and which lack a gun culture have lower murder rates because guns cause far more deaths than other weapons. The instances of violent crime are probably fairly similar - it's the murder rate which differs, due to the types of weapons typically used. Guns cause more harm, more deaths, more injuries, more accidents and harm far more passersby than, say, knives.

 

Probably true; you would need to have a culture both of guns and of violent crime for gun crime to have the effect on murder rates we observe in the USA.

The UK has the violent crime trend, but not the gun culture - hence lower murder rates.

 

Uh, if criminals found it more difficult to get hold of guns, if there were fewer guns in circulation, how would they be able to cause the numbers of deaths by shooting we observe in the USA? It follows necessarily and obviously that fewer guns in the hands of criminals leads inevitably to fewer gun deaths.

 

Are you serious? Clearly the number of deaths and injuries caused by knives are far less than those caused by guns. Anything which reduces the amount of death and physical harm is a good thing, even where the number of instances of crime are the same.

 

Your hypothetical country X is absolute nonsense. Where are you getting these figures from? What exactly are you trying to prove? You can invent figures and hypothetical scenarios all you like but that's just really not helping...

It is not anything like a valid or an accurate or a meaningful representation of the UK figures before and after the 1997 ban on handguns, which as I have demonstrated perfectly clearly is actually quite irrelevant to the point.

For the same number of crimes committed, those involving guns will cause more deaths and injuries than those involving any other weapon. Obviously I'm not including explosives, which don't tend to be used in violent crimes against the person.

 

Less people were killed by guns...obviously.

 

And a load of those people were killed by that nutter Harold Shipman (I think that was his name.)

Lithium knows what he's talking about, anyway.

 

Nobody can go on a rampage though a college campus armed only with a knife & claim 32 lives.Easy availability of guns is central to all this.The 2nd Amendment: 'The right to bear arms',the NRA:-American Rifle Association & their powerful supporters/lobby in Washington etc.

Guns empower the weak & cowardly with super-human strength.

 

but they were still killed..........

 

No, it shows that gun crime was a minor problem before 1997 and continued to be a minor problem after 1997.

Yeah, here's a reference to study which demonstrated that robberies with knives and three times less likely to end in a fatality than those with guns.
http://timlambert.org/category/guns/knives/

 

That is true.Nonetheless 'Guns' are central to this whole tragedy.The availability to buy a gun -& the easy way it can be taken onto a campus.

Guns empower weak & cowardly people & give them super-human strength.

 

on the flip side
protection was quite unavailible due to the inability to legally have a gun on campus.

 

By the same token, guns empower the abusive, oppressive, corrupt governments.

 

I'd like to say that in my country we have strict gun laws and strong control over those who lawfully own them, but we also have a lot of murders and armed felons who feed on black market of weapons coming from the east block. also we never had mass shootings though it is perfectly feasible to get a gun license and buy so much ammo to kill a regiment, unless you are a nuthead (gun licenses are issued after thorough control in mental health centers) Only you have to denounce all your guns and the exact amount and gauge of every single ammo round . And police controls happen.
Although guns are available, we saw such rampant use of firearms only in crime or terrorism facts, but never as a result of the solitary act of a crazy gunman. Still i dont think that your nutcases are nastier than ours.
my humble opinion is that what triggers those reactions is not the availability of guns by itself but a culture pivoting around the cult of violence and the criminal carelessness of the authorities (see Katrina) . some times ago i read some titles of books available in the us... surrealistic titles like "true stories of AMERICAN VIOLENCE" and the like . Who the fuck publishes or buys such kind of books?
Not to mention that ridiculous, "catch" "wrestling" which always is regarded as a major proof to italian eyes that americans are really nuts. sorry guys, it is the raw truth about what many of us think about you here. That kind of show is nothing but the theatral exaltation of violence, and violence of utter poor taste too. And you bring children to those events. What the fuck do you expect then? Bring them to the ballet instead.
I am glad to say that here in Italy you can find lots of pornography beautifully exposed to the public in nearly every newspaper kiosk but not that kind of books. Those who buy booklets about serial murderers are regarded as idiots or criminologists or both .
Immorality generates immorality, as Michael Moore said about the Columbine facts. I suspect that when the institutions behave like mass murderers this cant but influence the consciences, like parents giving their sons bad examples.

sorry again if i've been naive or possibly offensive, but i am in good faith. feedback greatly appreciated.

 

Couldn't agree with you more. But I think gun control in any form is not the answer. The way the pro-gun control folks talk, you'd think that crime didn't exist prior to the invention of gunpowder.

Anyway, you mentioned that you wish you could help in some way...I suggest you become a responsible gun owner, get your Concealed Carry Permit, so that at least in the future, you may be able to prevent such a crime.

 

And allow the feeble, the weak, and the opressed to be on equal ground with those who would do them harm. Guns are not evil, they are a tool which has served both good and evil. Thank God we can get them.

 

perhaps the perp just misunderstood his professor who said "hey, would you shoot over to the German Department and get me someone who understands German"

 

Centinent you are one antieAmerican comuinionist secret agent spy but even I find that funny. Shoot over to the Girman deepartment. Shoot. Oh boy.