Random Thoughts

[StinkyBoHoon]

Top 10 Things You Should Never Discuss Online - Listverse

Gun Control at #5. -_-

#11 - murali v warne

this is sort of besides the point but I was trying to think of what beliefs people in the UK held without much rational basis. the best I came up with was our obsession with having everyone speak English. I think people here realise how much of a good thing they've got speaking english, we're too wee to exert massive influence over the world now but we're lucky because everyone else speaks it. you even have lefties like ed miliband going on about making everyone speak english in this country.

I mean, belgium, switzerland, spain, ukraine, india, basically every country in africa etc etc all seem to manage having a vastly multi-lingual society but we freak out as soon as we walk into a shop and can't ask for something in a regional accent.

 

[barmyarmy]

Whatever your views on this I'd like people to try to avoid making it personal please. This probably belongs in the Issues Forum (or whatever we renamed it to) rather than Random Thoughts.

 

[Biggy]

I find the whole bare arms things a bit laughable. Man 1 buys gun to defend himself, so does man 2. Man 2 loses it and tries to kill Man 1 with his Amendment gun, Man 1 has to defend himself with his Amendment gun, someone dies. Just seems like the amendment creates a problem with a poor solution all under the same law.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Wow you guys are all crazy. It's like you want to government to control what you do.

Anyways, luckily for me this incident won't change anything, the 2nd amendment is more important than 20 random people, sounds harsh but it's the truth.

=

Let a random person from your close ones die, luckily that incident wont change anything in my life too then. Sounds harsh but its the truth

 

[CG123]

All of Tom's posts have just made complete sense.

 

[Sedition]

And mean that in the 15 years since, the biggest 'massacre' involved 3 people's deaths.

I'd gladly stop your sport shooting to achieve that.

I'm sure many people that have little to no interest in something have no problem restricting the freedom of others. That's basically my point, politicians sitting behind a desk in the city making gun laws they really have no idea about.

More powerful weapons than the ones they banned exist anyway, and semi-automatic pistols are still legal. Not to mention all the unregistered and illegal firearms are still in the hands of the people not doing the right thing before 1996 anyway. The real restrictions were placed on those who were fully licenced, registered their firearms and acted in accordance with the law already.

If someone's messed up in the head enough to want to go out murdering people, I don't see how a few gun laws are going to stop them.

Starting from 1984, since there's hardly any gun related mass murders before, I'm not seeing how the 1996 laws could have prevented these.

- Milperra: Two biker gangs engage in a shootout leaving 7 dead. Hardly the most reputable group of people here, will get their hands on weapons regardless of the laws.

- Joseph Schwab: German tourist who murdered 5 people over a period of a few days. Didn't really need a firearm if he was that tweaked in the head, and was most likely obtained illegally being a tourist.

- Hoddle street: 19 year old former army cadet kills 7. So we train some guy who develops a mental issue, goes and gets drunk and starts a rampage. All the non-drinkers would probably be glad to ban alcohol after this too, it seems to be the cause of many crimes afterall.

- Queen street: 9 people dead, including the gunman. Used a sawn-off rifle, which was already illegal anyway.

- Strathfield: Gun and knife used to kill 7 people. The guy's house was filled with violent literature and was clearly disturbed, whether he could get his hands on a firearm or not probably didn't matter.

- Central coast: Emotionally fueled rampage targeting specific people. Police had already searched his house and confiscated his weapons prior.

This is the only guy mentioned to have actually had a firearms licence of all these people, which led to the immediate seizure of his weapons when he started harassing one of his victims in the weeks before. It didn't stop him from illegally obtaining another weapon and carrying out his disturbed mission though.

All the city dwellers who've probably never seen a gun before and just buy into the media hype, politicians pushing their own agenda and christian mothers club types will continue to spew ignorant bs every time one of these incidents involving someone who's clearly braindead comes up though.

 

[thedon5]

As much as I oppose almost everything Mark has been saying on this issue, he absolutely has a point on one thing, this is a mental health issue and not an issue relating to guns.

Like Sedition says, t's very naive of the people here to think that owning a gun alone is going to make someone want to go and shoot up a school. If the intent is there in the person's brain, they'll find a way. Does it sound like everyone who owns a gun will want to shoot their own mother and a bunch of children?

People need to actually think.

 

[barmyarmy]

It's about accessibility though. If someone in the UK with mental health issues wants to do this they can't get hold of a gun to do so. Certainly not as easily as looking in mum/dad's gun cabinet.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

and in a double whammy, although our health service isn't perfect, it's also easier to get appropriate care and attention in the UK if you have mental health issues. but americans don't want that either.

 

[thedon5]

It's about accessibility though. If someone in the UK with mental health issues wants to do this they can't get hold of a gun to do so. Certainly not as easily as looking in mum/dad's gun cabinet.

Guns aren't the only weapons in the world, that's the point. There can still be significant loss of life with a knife as we saw in China, hell you could even do significant damage with a baseball/cricket bat.

Regardless, guns will still be accessible to some no matter what is done, what's stopping a hunter with a license from shooting up a public place?

Having guns so easily accessible is definitely still a problem, but the fact remains, this incident is due to mental health issues and not solely on guns being too easily accessible.

 

[barmyarmy]

If I had to choose what someone who was going to go on a rampage was armed with I'd take the knife and cricket bat every time over the automatic weapons.
Guns are just too easy to kill with and do too much damage.

 

[thedon5]

I don't disagree with that at all.

However, the problem is, it seems people believe that putting in stricter gun laws alone will magically stop this sort of thing from happening again. That isn't the case. If someone tried hard enough, they could still get their hands on a gun. Even if they couldn't, they could still massacre a school somehow. The underlying problem is clearly the mental health of these shooters, that is what motivates them. These people aren't thinking "Oh, there's a gun in daddy's cupboard, I'd better go try it out at the school", no, they are sick people that will find a way to kill people whatever way they can.

 

[Auwais]

There's an estimated over 240 million firearms in the hands of civilians in the US.

The reality is, there's very little chance of gun control even in the unlikely case the US government go down that route.

 

[Cricketman]

It's not going to happen no matter how much we talk about it. Lobbying groups like the NRA etc are just too powerful.

Like I said, for some reason guns are deeply ingrained in [conservative] American culture. I don't see any radical change happening for at least 50-100 years in this country. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that incidents like we had in Newton and the one in Colorado a few months ago will stay to a minimum.

 

[MattW]

I don't see how a few gun laws are going to stop them.

With the absence of a parallel universe where we didn't pass the laws you can't know for sure, but I certainly wouldn't consider it a coincidence,

Research published in 2010 in the American Journal of Law and Economics found that firearm homicides, in Australia, dropped 59 per cent between 1995 and 2006. There was no offsetting increase in non-firearm-related murders. Researchers at Harvard University in 2011 revealed that in the 18 years prior to the 1996 Australian laws, there were 13 gun massacres (four or more fatalities) in Australia, resulting in 102 deaths. There have been none in that category since the Port Arthur laws.

From a piece by John Howard after a previous mass shooting in the US discussing the policy outcomes we've achieved.

The laws work. They did stop them. Perhaps, some time down the track, there might be another major incident - but the perpetrator would have to go to far greater lengths to get a weapon, which means far more chances of detection and far more chances of prevention.