Why can't we have a law banning stupidity ?

I think we might have such a law. Hard to know. They have so many. Surely the Germans have a law for that.

I thought the US had a pro-stupidity law called every child kept behind

We could but that would mean imposing a new restriction on about 2/3 of the world

The Germans have a law for everything and a near blindness for absolute obedience. One of the various reasons why they lost WW2

They lost WW2 ? You have been listening to Allied propaganda again. Go and have a look at Germany.

A massive infusion of money and other aid from the US under the post war Marshall Plan plus the presence of a couple of million US and NATO troops for the best part of 50 years kept west Germany from being swallowed up like a guppy being swallowed by the Soviet whale.

Give credit to the Germans themselves, They have many admirable qualities including hard work but it's also relevant to remember how it all came about.

Maybe i'm old fashioned and well behind the times but I'm glad I don't live in a EU country which seems to be falling more and more under the domination of Germany and Angela Merkel

It isn't just Merkel. She is amongst the most clever of the pack, but the only reason Germany holds the face cards is the economic power.

No, the goal has always been to create a federal republic of Europe, and Germany has the lead in pre-and post- leadership of it. It's well underway. Plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise, but even 5 years ago, EU leadership was quite "insignificant" compared to its status today, and Germany holds a pretty impressive hand in that game.

Progress? You can bank on it. With every "crisis" the EU obtains a little more authority, and member (well, eurozone) states end up with a bit less autonomy.

Those already in the eurozone are captive. Hotel California. If you don't live by EU rules, then we can hurt you economically, and you already know what that means for you politically (see Greece).

There is a good reason why the UK is questioning their role in the EU. The UK is not a captive of Euro-politics. It exhibits a very different economy, politics, and culture, doesn't really consider itself "European" like most other members, and frankly, unlike other members, doesn't have the same *need*, nor does it enjoy the same benefits nor influence that the eurozone's big players do. And until Britain adopts the euro and becomes truly [captively] "European", it never will.

In order to be influential in that club, Britain will ultimately need to hand London's financial services over to Frankfurt, and become effectively, another dependent "province" of the "Federal Republic of Europe". For that, it will finally gain some influence in the club.

Being the EU's relative inexperience in large-scale, wholesale governance, I for one don't see the UK ever truly submitting to becoming such a dependent, regardless of whether it votes to stay in at this juncture. The next referendum, a move to "adopt the euro" will be the final in/out referendum, because if the UK doesn't, it will effectively be choosing to leave. And I for one, think it's inevitable anyway.

You certainly don't get this in the UK, America's first? multiple homicide of 2016

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/california...165852452.html

Well, a good guy with a gun solved that problem.

Different method same result

Man arrested on suspicion of murder after death at Bournemouth flat | UK news | The Guardian

This is a bigger difference

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/us-p...-last-5-years/

One paragraph caught my eyes in the above link...

The 54-year-old father was a heavy drinker with a large gun collection, according to authorities. The mother and brother of the 27-year-old who was killed told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune his name was Ernesto Calzadilla and that he had an eight-month-old daughter.

Bold was my doing but what a good combination - or not in this case.

this is just up the road from me and made a Saturday afternoon interesting. Shots were fired, no one was injured but there was still a full armed police reaction and mentions in the headlines of all the national news agencies. That should tell you all you need to know about the relative frequency of gun crime in the UK, and the fact that it is relatively rare says to me that the UK's gun laws are doing ok.

Not really. Military and police personnel will only be issued firearms when deployed or during training. Most farmers will hold a shotgun licence and there are many sporting rifle clubs. My uncle was and is a keen shooter although he had to hand in his pistols after Dunblane. Handguns are now illegal and hard to get hold of for even hardened criminals.

Living in small town / rural areas in both USA and England, there is much more frequent and close- by sound of gunfire here in Norfolk than there ever is in northern New York State. Must be shooting peasants or partridges or something? Here I've actually been afraid of being inadvertently shot while on a public footpath and that never happens in the U.S. It sounds like the Amritsar Massacre here.