skytek

Cars are not designed to kill or injure people and animals. Guns are designed specifically to kill or injure life. Having more guns does not make for a safer, more peaceful, less aggressive society. If there's a problem with people drinking too much alcohol, giving everyone more alcohol does not fix the problem.

Also, all cars are designed to go faster than the speed limit, not just sports cars.

The USA makes guns freely available to its citizens and that country has more gun related crimes per capita than countries with extremely strict gun policies. They also have to have an extremely large and well equipped police force to attempt to keep all the gun crime under control. If the police were not so well equipped, gun crime would be even greater.

Even in Canada I find the people too trigger happy. Police are too keen to pop a cap or two into your garden when there's a wounded raccoon. They can't wait to pull their guns out and let some rounds off any chance they get.

The USA government want to take guns away from its citizens and while I think as a stand alone principle that's a great idea, the reason it wants to do so is not for the betterment of the public. Taking guns away from the public but keeping guns themselves, and in fact increasing their fire power and ammunition reserves, is a bad thing. Getting rid of guns only works if the guns are removed from everyone's hands. The government already has vastly more firepower than the public and tipping the balance further in their favour is very dangerous.

But this ultra basic red-neck pro-gun philosophy people are jumping onto now does not work. The calculation that guns = bad but more guns = good is stupid thinking. If he has a gun I'll just get a bigger gun and then I win. No, that does not work. Nobody wins.

Now, regularly, there's a mass shooting in the USA. Kids shooting their classmates, gunmen running rampage in the streets, at malls, in cinemas. You don't see much of that going on in countries like Japan, where gun crime is almost non-existent by comparison and crime in general is extremely low.

Greenhill

Bourque trying to lure police into ambush as he was captured, officer says

Steve_

I never quite get this argument, "oh guns are designed to kill" - last I checked human beings started out as a hunter/gatherer species so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that a sizable chunk of society still wants to possess implements designed to kill.

There's nothing wrong with killing per se - it's murdering that we're worried about.

This is a statement people keep making - if it were that simple then criminologists would be in general agreement about what should be done - they aren't.

Just the correlation between gun laws and gun crime is hotly disputed and a correlation in and of itself doesn't prove anything, once you've got the correlation you've got to make the connection.

Even inside the US it's not entirely clear, because there are jurisdictions in the US that have really restrictive gun laws, some have low rates of armed crime some have high rates. Some places that have unrestrictive gun laws have high rates, some have low rates.

I saw that someone had attempted to make a list of every "mass shooting" in the US in an attempt to scare Congress into action - if you look at the list, a large number of them occurred in places like DC, California and so on which have far tougher gun laws.

Generally what happens is that the places with lots of armed crime pass ever tougher gun laws, like Chicago, DC, California, etc. and the places that never really had much of a problem like Vermont have virtually no State gun laws at all.

I suspect if you plotted populations on a map, you would find the majority of the US population actually lives in jurisdictions with pretty tough gun laws.

Yes but why - because there are a hell of a lot more differences than just the gun laws. Japan has a much lower crime rate across the board, with or without guns - but most firearm-related deaths in the US are suicides, and Japan has a much higher suicide rate than the US does - without guns. The Japanese criminal justice system for example is far more authoritarian than anything in the US or Canada.

If someone started handing out guns in Japan would they all suddenly go crazy and start shooting each other? I don't think they would and the reason why is the culture is very different.

Sally Redux

It's not about 'all going crazy'. But easy access to guns comes with the price tag of shootings. I think more guns in Japan would lead to more shootings. The question is, what ratio is acceptable.

Steve_

Yes have a good look at that list and look at the countries with really high rates of firearm-related homicide... Anguilla, St Kitts, Jamaica, Belize, Guyana, The Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa...

All countries with gun laws either imposed by the UK, or based on UK gun laws originally.

Steve_

Well no ratio is acceptable, that's the point - the rate of firearm-related homicide in the US is 2.97/ 100,000 according to that list, which is pretty low compared to a wide variety of other countries, but here we all are complaining about how bad it is.

I think it is to a large degree to do with culture, someone gets shot in some particularly bad crime in Canada, Ireland or the UK or wherever and the first thing you see in the press is "oh no we'll become like the US!" No-one says, we'll become like Brazil, etc. where the situation is far worse.

The whole reason the shootings in Moncton are so shocking are because it so rarely happens. If it happened everyday, no-one would mention it.

Sally Redux

Well 2.97/100,000 (plus all the non-fatal injuries) obviously is acceptable, because people want to keep things as they are.

I think it could probably at least double here without a big outcry. Maybe it would have to be 50/50 or something that your kids' school would be affected before people took notice.

JamesM

Yes but comfortably higher than any other "Developed" country on the list.

The gun crime rate in the US looks good when compared to poor countries or countries in civil war.

rae

What an absolutely ridiculous assertion. This may be your opinion, and that's fine, but it is not fact.

The only figures I have instantly to hand, first 6 months of 2012, EPS fired a firearm once in May when force was required. Comparatively communication techniques-verbal commands, were used 855 times effectively.
I have been here 7yrs and am only personally aware of around a dozen animals being dispatched, two of which were dangerous dogs attacking people. I personally had to put down a deer and found it extremely difficult, I know of no-one who enjoys or is keen to do this type of thing.
I am aware of lots more instances when fish and wildlife officers have tranquilized animals and removed them from the city limits, this is the norm, euthanasia is a last resort when the animal is injured.

scootb

I see that Australia despite its firearms ban is experiencing an all time high in firearms related crime!
I guess gun control really does work after all.

rivingtonpike

Well said. It's far too easy to sensationalize this sort of observation/ comment.

chanceUK

My other half is applying for the police. He went On a ride along with the opp for the day a few months ago. During the ride along, A report came in of a raccoon that was hanging around in the middle of a road. The officer had him make sure no one was around and then shot it. He said they always specified a reason (I can't remember what) that reduced the associated paperwork.

rae

Well all I can say is that I am surprised and more than a little shocked. Firstly what reason would you have, other then being a knob showing off obviously. Secondly I would have thought someone would have at least heard the shot and reported it, or maybe no-one cares out there, who knows??

What will be interesting is when your other half makes his/her declaration and polygraph in which this may well come up. Technically he is aware of several possible criminal code offences surrounding the discharge and careless use of a firearm that he has not declared.

JamesM

Yeah lifting the firearms ban would clear that up and no doubt reduce fire arm use.

Your logic is absolute genius.

More guns less shootings. I see it now.

JamesM

Yeah lifting the firearms ban would clear that up and no doubt reduce fire arm use.

Your logic is absolute genius.

More guns less shootings. I see it now.