This line that people kill people not guns is just an excuse. We need to treat mental health disorders much more proactively, yes, but let's not conflate gun incidents with mental health issues. They don't always coincide.

Let me put it another way to you, and in the context of the awful scenes from Moncton tonight: if it's people killing people why is this 24 year old NOT running amok with a carving knife?

He could have manufactured a nail bomb and killed many more had he not had a gun or maybe used a baseball bat and killed less. Who knows?

There's always a field of them close to highway 15 on the way to Ottawa.

I see them from time to time where we are and will advise of the location come Autumn in case you want to go and look. Be careful though not to come in a jacked up truck with camo paint, a Browning logo and a license plate holder from a dealer in Mississauga, as the locals may let your tyres down.

I think we all know that he wouldn't have killed multiple policemen with a baseball bat. I think it's fair enough to say that the liberty of the public to have guns is worth the lives of a few policemen and bystanders now and then. That's a compromise the Canadians have chosen. It's nonsense however to suggest that, in the absence of the guns, there would be dead policemen, in this instance, or dead bystanders, in the usual case.

I suppose if he ate them it'd all be fine.

I would place bets that this man in Moncton (when the whole story finally unravels) has been surrounded by guns all his life, trained to shoot as a child - hunting with crossbows, and generally been told that it's people that kill people, not guns. :roll eyes:

It's great that he can run around small city with assault rifles. That's such a useful skill to have, and its nice that he has the freedom to do this.

How do the anti gun lobby propose to gather up all the existing guns out there?

If you intend to go killing people then Id say the thought of having to break the law to obtain any of the millions of guns already out there to do so is hardly much of a deterrent.

People that have been around guns all their life fully understand the danger and safety aspects of handling weapons. Its hardly glamourous to have that drilled into you every time you go to the range.

The bottom line is normal sane people dont go on killing sprees. In a country/ continent with millions of guns its unrealistic to hope you can legislate them back out of the wild, it simply will not happen, so the deranged and disturbed are sometimes going to be able to get weapons either legally or illegal. So along side sensible laws regarding gun acquisition and the types of weapon legally available for sale is the need to ensure that damaged people that feel for whatever reason they need to do this are a top priority for healthcare interventions and not at the back of the queue because as a society we find mental illness a taboo subject.

Agreed. People who surround their kids with weapons are very naïve to think that their child would never do such a thing

Statistically speaking, what percentage of the population goes on killing sprees? On in 100million , one in 10million maybe?


I think I am not too far out on a limb to suggest that 99.999999% of parents who expose their kids to firearms are pretty safe to think that their kid would never do such a thing, even ignoring the fact that at least some of the mass murderers no doubt came to guns of their own volition.

My kids exposure to guns on the couple of ocassions that they have gone to the range has been all about the safety aspects of handling and storing them. If your havent actually experienced that I dont know how you could make such a sweeping statement.

He was also on Facebook saying he was hating on cops and no one did nowt !!!!!

If he said he hate N*****s he would have been arrested or at least questioned, and none of this would be happening, society has it all arse about face in my opinion. The N word gets more press than a guy with guns wanting to kill cops wtf

Hard to say. It depends on the country and the amount of time. It's not a question of the % of pop that goes on killing sprees, it's the % of children that have guns that go on killing sprees.

Not sure how many children there are in Canada, say 10 million, and say 10% have guns, so 1 million population. If over a decade there are 5 killing sprees, then the incidence is 99.999% or 1 in 200,000. Sounds a more realistic figure than what you are suggesting.

I don't find mental illness to be a taboo subject. I'm accustomed to living with a person who is mentally ill and with a gun in the house. But I think mental illness is a red herring here.

People get ill tempered, they develop grudges, some act on their temper or their grudge. Most do so in socially acceptable ways, they rant at their bartender, some in less acceptable ways such as punching the source of irritation. These people need not be "mentally ill", they're just having a bad day. If you take these same people and give them serious firepower, some will use it. It doesn't make them ill, it's just human nature.

Since we can't change human nature we just have to decide to what extent dead humans are a reasonable price for the ability to kill our own animals. In the UK we're not keen on random death. In the US and in South Africa, they're comfortable with it. Canada's somewhere inbetween. As immigrants we should be attempting to civilise the country, not supporting the natives' tendency to barbarianism.

So you would summarize your position as "the problem is too difficult. Let's not even try to address it."

You continue to conflate gun crime with mental health. While it's absurdly obvious that going on a killing spree is hardly the action of a well-adjusted person, there are difficulties with your conflation in both directions: not all mentally ill people go on killing sprees; not all mass-killing perpetrators have an identified/diagnosed mental health issue. You make a valid point that there is a strong need for better/earlier diagnosis, treatment and support of the mentally ill, but that need does not absolve society from trying to limit access to firearms.

Except that, as you likely know, assault rifles are not permitted, outside of military/law enforcement, in Canada.

May I point you in the direction of the Jonesboro massacre. Two young boys aged 12 & 14 from good families one grew up around guns & taught about safety etc, stole weapons & ammunition from a family member then opened fire on their school mates killing 4 & 1 teacher.

Also, Adam Lanza was someone whose mother saw fit to bring up around guns.

I'm sure there's many more & many more to come. Just because this sort of thing is rare & the majority of people with guns or gun access don't go on a rampage doesn't mean that it couldn't be your child one day.