Seaward wrote:
Yes, if we turned ourselves, culturally, into Norway, we could stop this sort of stuff. Or maybe not.

 Sturmtruppen wrote:
I find your argument very narrow minded. It's like you're trying to say "Well, if you can't stop absolutely everybody going on a killing spree, why bother trying at all?"

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

Quark wrote:
The studies done disagree with you, by the way.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

 d-usa wrote:
Going to have to unfriend some people on Facebook. Tired of reading crap about how the government is able to feed autistic kids psychotropic medications to make him comply and then has black ops agents shoot all the kids and make the autistic kid shoot himself so that the government can disarm us and send the UN troops to America blah blah blah...

 Seaward wrote:

Quark wrote:
The studies done disagree with you, by the way.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

They don't, actually.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
They do, actually. See, I can claim stuff without backing it up one jot too!

 Sturmtruppen wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Yes, if we turned ourselves, culturally, into Norway, we could stop this sort of stuff. Or maybe not.

I find your argument very narrow minded. It's like you're trying to say "Well, if you can't stop absolutely everybody going on a killing spree, why bother trying at all?"

Just to put things into perspective for you, here's a list of massacres in the USA in reverse chronological order

Sandy Hook, 12.14.2012
Colorado Movie Theatre, 7.20.2012
Tucson supermarket, 8.1.2011
Virginia Tech, 4.16.2007
Capitol Hill, 3.25.2006
Columbine High School, 4.20.1999
Brown's Chicken, 8.1.1993
Luby's, 10.16.1991
San Ysidro McDonald's, 7.18.1984
University of Texas, 8.1.1966

And that's narrowing the criteria down to massacres performed by individuals against Joe Public. Compare to the amount of similar massacres in Norway:

Utoya, 7.22.2011

Do the math.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Then why are there more shootings in your country than in any other?

I haven't heard of a single one in the country I live in (the UAE) or in Singapore, where I used to live. Both countries are gun-free. It seems to work in those places, why can't it work somewhere else? Also bear in mind that on the UAE newspaper's front pages there are many gory images of the dead in Syria nearly every day!

Guns don't kill people, people kill people? That is, to put it bluntly, poppycock. Try committing an act like this with a kitchen knife. It's a lot harder (I would imagine, I haven't actually tried this myself)!

 d-usa wrote:
Pro-gun folks have to acknowledge that the "evil people will do what they want, if they have no gun they will murder with something else" argument is bogus.

If it were real then you wouldn't need a gun to defend yourself, because you could just defend yourself with something else.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Then why are there more shootings in your country than in any other?

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Pro-gun folks have to acknowledge that the "evil people will do what they want, if they have no gun they will murder with something else" argument is bogus.

If it were real then you wouldn't need a gun to defend yourself, because you could just defend yourself with something else.

There's some truth to that... sure. But, you can't bundle that up nicely.

There are numerous cases where legal gun owners defended themselves against attack.

So... I'm kinda confuse where you're coming from... (and I only have a SKB shotgun at home)

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

But i dont hear anything from the right except how we should arm all the teachers in schools with assault rifles.

Also, Im keep hearing this from other people. Why do i need to be a parent to find this sad and understand it?

 d-usa wrote:
If guns don't make killing people easier, then we wouldn't need guns to make it easier to defend ourselves. That is where I am coming from. It's silly for people to argue that guns have nothing to do with the crime.

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Pro-gun folks have to acknowledge that the "evil people will do what they want, if they have no gun they will murder with something else" argument is bogus.

If it were real then you wouldn't need a gun to defend yourself, because you could just defend yourself with something else.

There's some truth to that... sure. But, you can't bundle that up nicely.

There are numerous cases where legal gun owners defended themselves against attack.

So... I'm kinda confuse where you're coming from... (and I only have a SKB shotgun at home)

If guns don't make killing people easier, then we wouldn't need guns to make it easier to defend ourselves. That is where I am coming from. It's silly for people to argue that guns have nothing to do with the crime.

 Seaward wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
If guns don't make killing people easier, then we wouldn't need guns to make it easier to defend ourselves. That is where I am coming from. It's silly for people to argue that guns have nothing to do with the crime.

Guns make killing people easier. It's what they were invented for.

My argument's never been based on the notion that they don't. It's based on the notion that they're not going anywhere.

 d-usa wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
If guns don't make killing people easier, then we wouldn't need guns to make it easier to defend ourselves. That is where I am coming from. It's silly for people to argue that guns have nothing to do with the crime.

Guns make killing people easier. It's what they were invented for.

My argument's never been based on the notion that they don't. It's based on the notion that they're not going anywhere.

I know you haven't argued it, just talking about the general "guns don't kill people, having guns has nothing to do with any I this!!!" talk that is coming from many people.

I also realize that even if I wanted a utopian gun free society we would never be able to reverse course now after 200+ years of letting everybody have them and even pretend that we could get rid of all of them.

Pretending guns are completely safe and that they dont make violent crimes easier is silly. Pretending we could just get rid of guns is equally silly. Both sides need to take a step back from the rhetoric and try to take some real steps to fix the problem.

 Seaward wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Then why are there more shootings in your country than in any other?

Possibly because we have a lot of people?

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
If that's the case, then why doesn't a country like India have many shootings? They are allowed to own guns (and they seem to have similar laws to the USA) yet there aren't as many shootings like this. Sure, the murder rate is probably higher, but there are not as many massacres like the ones that happen in the good ol' US of A.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Then why are there more shootings in your country than in any other?

Possibly because we have a lot of people?

If that's the case, then why doesn't a country like India have many shootings? They are allowed to own guns (and they seem to have similar laws to the USA) yet there aren't as many shootings like this. Sure, the murder rate is probably higher, but there are not as many massacres like the ones that happen in the good ol' US of A.

 whembly wrote:
the isreali do arm their teachers, however... but, not too keen on that idea).
.

TEL AVIV (JTA) -- First-time visitors to Israel might be taken aback to see groups of armed teenagers walking through a city plaza on a weeknight, or surprised to walk into a public bathroom and see an M-16 laying across the sinks as a soldier washes his face.

But guns are ubiquitous in Israel, where most 18-year-olds are drafted into the army after high school.

However, once those soldiers finish their service two or three years later, they are subject to civilian gun control regulations that are much stricter than American laws.

In fact, it’s pretty much impossible for civilians who live in Israel to acquire an arsenal of weaponry of the sort used by the alleged shooter in last week’s massacre in Aurora, Colo. James E. Holmes, who is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 in the Aurora movie theater, legally bought the firearms he used, according to reports, including a semiautomatic rifle, a semiautomatic pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun. Leading up to the shooting, Holmes had bought thousands of bullets online.

In Israel, assault rifles are banned except for special circumstances, such as communal self-defense in areas deemed to be a security risk. And while political violence in Israel is all too common and gun violence is a growing problem, random shootings of strangers – like the Aurora massacre -- are virtually unheard-of here.

Unlike in the United States, where the right to bear arms is guaranteed in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, Israel’s department of public security considers gun ownership a privilege, not a right. Gun owners in Israel are limited to owning one pistol, and must undergo extensive mental and physical tests before they can receive a weapon, and gun owners are limited to 50 rounds of ammunition per year.

Not all Israelis, however, may own guns. In order to own a pistol, an Israeli must for two years have been either a captain in the army or a former lieutenant colonel. Israelis with an equivalent rank in other security organizations may also own a pistol.

In addition, residents of West Bank settlements, and those who work there, may own pistols for self-defense.

Other groups of Israelis, such as professional hunters and sharpshooters, or people transporting dangerous goods, may also own firearms. And Israelis may keep unloaded guns they inherited or received as a gift.

Lior Nedivi, a former police officer, said that despite Israel’s militarized society, neither soldiers nor veterans engage in extensive gun violence because 18-year-olds are tested for mental and physical fitness before being drafted.

In 2008, 143 people in Israel died from firearms, according to the website gunpolicy.org.

“They don’t recruit everyone,” said Nedivi, who runs a company called Advanced Forensic Science Services. “If you are a person with a record of violence, you will be discharged.”

Nedivi favors allowing private gun ownership with tight regulations, noting that armed civilians have used their guns to stop terrorists during attacks.

He said that gun massacres don’t occur in Israel because gun owners here undergo more comprehensive psychological screenings than do U.S. gun owners.

“It’s not guns that kill, it’s people that kill,” Nedivi said. “If this person in Colorado will be screened now, they will say he has mental problems. In Israel, most people like this don’t get a chance to get a gun.”

Gun violence does still occur in Israel, though gun control is not a sensitive political issue.

“We think the society is over-armed,” said Smadar Ben-Natan, a lawyer who co-heads Gun-Free Kitchen Tables, an Israeli coalition to end domestic gun violence. “There are too many weapons going around. There is no justification that these weapons go home and are present in civilian surroundings.”

Rather than lobbying for new laws, Gun-Free Kitchen Tables is pushing for the enforcement of current regulations, which require security guards to leave their weapons in their workplace. Ben-Natan said private security companies often do not abide by the law.

“The private police companies offer an illusion of security,” Ben-Natan said. “They’re not accountable in terms of the public interest. They don’t bear the cost of the precautions that need to be in place. The people that pay this price are the women and family members who get shot.”

For soldiers who take their weapons home on weekends and off-nights, the rule is they must be on their person at all times or under double-locks if left at home.

 Seaward wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
If that's the case, then why doesn't a country like India have many shootings? They are allowed to own guns (and they seem to have similar laws to the USA) yet there aren't as many shootings like this. Sure, the murder rate is probably higher, but there are not as many massacres like the ones that happen in the good ol' US of A.

I don't know. I don't know enough about Indian crime to even hazard a guess. Do they have a fairly massive drug market that's largely controlled in their urbanized areas by gangs standing in opposition to one another with easy access to firearms?