CT school shooting - Horrible

[Greenday]

As what's been said before in both here and in other discussions, America is the only first world nation where it is easier to legally get a gun than it is to legally drive a car or get mental (or even physical) health care. What's sad about that is that there are people in he country that think that it is a good thing.

Like hell it is. YOU try getting a gun legally in New Jersey. Getting my license and getting mental health care was easy as hell.

[TheHuckster]

i posted a list on possible ways to controls guns. age limits, levels of licencing similar to driving, mandatory training for each type of firearm, and limits on numbers of guns able to be owned by one person. (say, 3 handguns, 2 shotguns, 3 rifles, NO machineguns or etc unless previously trained on handling them through work ie: military or police)

I can't think of any way a limit on the number of guns would have any effect unless you think every mass shooting involves a Matrix-esque trenchcoat-filled-with-30-gun shootout with techno music in the background.

I think increasing the licensing requirements and training might help, but at least where I live they're already quite restrictive in that sense, and I can't think of any reasonable way to make it more restrictive to prevent what happened in CT.

[AdminAssistant]

getting mental health care was easy as hell.

That is unbelievably rare. My husband had to go to the ER and say, "I'm suicidal" before anyone would take his depression and anxiety seriously. He had to take an ambulance to the nearest psych ward with a bed and spend one night on lockdown in PICU and another night under observation before he could come home with a prescription and appointments for a therapist (that he couldn't get in to see for a month) and a psychiatrist (that he couldn't get in to see for 3 months). The costs from the visit along with all the missed work will probably put us in bankruptcy. I STILL don't know how January rent is going to get paid.

Getting mental health care is not easy, and pretending that it's not a severe problem is ridiculous at best.

[Jetfire]

I suspect the biggest help might be to get a set of realistic and consistant regulations applied across the countries. Some jurisdictions may need or want more; but there should be a minimum of regulations and standards that should apply before you can own or possess a firearm.

Of course the States especially are notorious for not easily getting nationwide standards enacted (especially with such a touchy subject as this) so it probably won't ever happen; but it should be something to work towards.

[wolfie]

"If regulating our rights away..." therein lies part of the problem. People get so hung up on putting ANY sort of reasonable controls on guns, that they won't even start a proper discussion. You have limits and controls on driving a car. Even more limits and controls on driving buses, trains, planes, ships, etc.... But raise the hint of putting a limit on weapons, and the Star Spangled Banner drowns out any possible discussion.

One thing that gets conveniently overlooked is that, back in the 1700s, it was assumed that all citizens were trained in how to safely handle and use the weapons of the day. Why not have something along the lines of a drivers' license - and note that someone who just passed their test for a regular car isn't qualified to pull a B-train full of gasoline. Have the "base" license be for one-shot-per-barrel long guns (rather than single-shot - a double-barrelled shotgun is still pretty basic). Have endorsements for magazine weapons, for pistols, for single-action revolvers (anyone who doesn't know why they need a category of their own shouldn't be handling one), for loose powder/black powder, etc. When someone joins the military, have a separate license for weapons they learn "on the job" - and on honourable discharge, merge the 2 licenses.

i posted a list on possible ways to controls guns. age limits, levels of licencing similar to driving, mandatory training for each type of firearm, and limits on numbers of guns able to be owned by one person. (say, 3 handguns, 2 shotguns, 3 rifles, NO machineguns or etc unless previously trained on handling them through work ie: military or police)

The problem with limits is that there are legitimate reasons to own multiple guns (for example, collectors). Someone's got a Colt Paterson, a "transition era" Colt with the front-loading cartridges (a "dodge" to get around the patent on the through-bored cylinder, only produced for 3 years before the patent expired), and a Peacemaker - should they be banned from buying a zig-zag revolver, a Schofield, or a Webley-Foserby? Or they've got a Baker rifle (flintlock single-shot from Napoleonic era), a Dreyse, and a Chassepot (both needle-fire breechloaders taking paper cartridges - on opposite sides of the Franco-Prussian war). Should they be banned from owning a Martini-Henry (first widely issued British breechloader using metallic cartridges, used in the Zulu wars), a Lee Metford and a Lee Enfield ("bridging the gap" from black to smokeless powder), or a matched pair of Mausers made between 1933 and 1939 (from the Nazis getting in until the outbreak of war, at which point they no longer cared, they evaded Treaty of Versailles regulations on the number of rifles they could have for the army by duplicating serial numbers). In all cases, I've picked historically-significant guns that a collector would love to get their hands on.

[Ginger Tea]

I've picked historically-significant guns that a collector would love to get their hands on.

It's not just historical guns someone may have a legitimate collection of, a weapons prop man (gun wrangler?) would need to have a small arsenal for actors to use, I do not know how real these guns are nowadays, ie real guns fake bullets (blanks) or if they now can get replicas that work mechanically, I used to have a replica colt 45 and my brother had a Magnum, that atleast spun the barrel each click, mine was 'static' even though save for the filled barrel it was a working gun.

[AdminAssistant]

It's not just historical guns someone may have a legitimate collection of, a weapons prop man (gun wrangler?) would need to have a small arsenal for actors to use, I do not know how real these guns are nowadays, ie real guns fake bullets (blanks) or if they now can get replicas that work mechanically,

I believe that it's a mix of both, and I know that safety and security measures increased dramatically after Brandon Lee's death. I did a show in undergrad that had one character shoot another with a handgun. The local police came to a rehearsal, watched the set-up procedures, the scene, and the prop so that we could get permission for it. I believe, although memory is failing me here, that it was a prop weapon with a pop cap type thing, and not a blank. (Noise, but no smoke.) Similar to how the fire marshall has to do an inspection if you want to have fire on stage (even just a lit match for a cigarette).

[Ginger Tea]

I forgot this goes to last page not last post read, so I had some catching up to do, remember the guy from Hostel who was originally just going to shoot his purchace (this was in the changing room where he didn't know who he would get), then opted for a more hands on aproach.

Well guns vs knives or blunt objects and the detachment involved.
Guns as stated being ranged weaponry you don't feel anything save for the kickback, bludgening someone to death, you have to work your whole body, you have to mentaly and physically be willing/able to beat someone to death and there are more options for bystanders/potential next victims to stop you.
Someone with a rifle and multiple high vantage points to potentially be hiding in doesn't have to worry about that, an archer could have a killing spree from a bell tower or roof top, but without a scope they would have to be well skilled, I guess that and the guns are cool factor are why mass archery deaths are low.

Yes we in the UK have higher gun control ever since our own school based incident (Rambo was also blamed for Hungerford another street based attack, but the guy had never seen the film, nor did the two who killed Jamie Buldger actually see any of the Childs play movies, just the Sun said they did), so joe average could not buy a gun as easily and I have no idea how easy 'easily' was, my dad bought our replicas in the early 80's long before both incidents and even purchacing 'fake' guns became hard as all they were were real guns with solid barrels that could easily be changed with 'parts' from a small ad in guns and ammo.

Hunting knives, those I have not seen sold in Army Surplus for some time, too many 'odd balls' who just grunt and point at the biggest one on display kind of took them off the shelves even if they may still be legal to buy (this I am not sure on) stores chose to NOT stock due to their clientel being a bit on the shady side.
Tesco basics dinner set is restricted to 16/18 whatever the knife age is, even though the knife in question bearly cuts meat, but it's a knife so it falls under the same laws that any bladed weapon does (although some might incur a time penalty I am not sure, havn't gone machette hunting)

Edit:
Months ago, 6ish I guess, the guy upstairs got stabbed by some random school aged kid, he didnt even know he was stabbed till he got home as what ever was used wasn't long enough to get through clothes and his bit of a gut in the time it took him to 'bump into him'.
He might have seen a knife if one was in use, but chances are it was either a really small knife or one of those pointy bits on swiss army knives and if they are like mine they are in the middle and have to be held right to avoid them falling in on themselves when used at the wrong angle.
I used to walk partway home with mine open in my fist (in my pocket) but the point barely past my knuckles, so if I had punched someone it might not make more than a scratch although a punch to the eye could cause blindness.

[Andara Bledin]

Age limits: Check. Actually, I would be shocked if there are already age restrictions on gun ownership.

Licensing levels: Great idea. How would it work in practice? Are the police going to go door to door to make sure the people don't own guns without being licensed? Most people who have guns aren't known to the general public to be gun owners. There's not a database, and there shouldn't be.

Mandatory training: See above.

Limits on number of weapons: Honestly, pointless. (and machine guns are already heavily regulated - those regulations are working great, aren't they?) Most psychos who shoot up random locations only use 2-3 guns already, so limiting them to only half a dozen is a waste of resources. And the stockpilers usually have enough other people with no guns at all to have as many as they want as long as they owners on paper include their entire group.

The problem with the cry for "more regulations" is that the vast majority of the regulations that might be put into place are either so repressive as to be unconstitutional (we have a Constitutional right to have guns, there is no right to drive a car, which is why licenses are a thing, and despite cars being big and obvious, we still have problems with people driving while unlicensed) or they require invasions of privacy (also prohibited) to function, or they are redundant or so resource-intensive that they would cause more problems than they would solve.

Once you honestly weigh the feasibility against the potential for gain, most new regulations aren't worth the paper it would take to write then out on.

That isn't to say that there might not be ways to make things safer for the general public without trampling all over the rights of the innocent. I just don't know what they might be.

And there are other solutions in other areas that would yield massively higher returns on the investment spent to make them happen. You know, such as making it so that people could seek out mental health solutions that don't require threatening (or attempting, in some cases) suicide before being taken seriously.

^-.-^

[Nyoibo]

I thought I might throw this out there for everyone saying "Gon control won't work" "Banning guns does nothing" "If you ban guns crime will rise"

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/201...provide_a.html

If you're going to do what most people do and skip the article I'll post some pertinent facts from it.

At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia. The country’s new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners, and required that gun buyers present a “genuine reason” for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.)

homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent.

Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes.

In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.

the rate of decrease in gun-related deaths more than doubled following the gun buyback, and that states with the highest buyback rates showed the steepest declines.

[Andara Bledin]

That's great for the way Australia is set up. But Australia is not America. And America is not an island nation.

What works for one is unlikely to work for the other just geographically speaking, and that's before you even get started with the differences in political foundations.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

I'm always wary when the likely effects of a law, regulation, etc. don't match the reasons claimed for having it.

[Hyena Dandy]

I'm very impressed by the fact that we managed to five days before someone claimed this was a conspiracy by Obama to take away people's guns...

[siead_lietrathua]

That's great for the way Australia is set up. But Australia is not America. And America is not an island nation.

i see this alot too, and this isn't directed to you andara, but more the concept you bring up here.
i see (here and other forums) a request for evidence that gun restrictions will have any effect. someone posts an example like the uk or australia. and then the response is usually along the lines quoted here or put elsewhere in this thread. well, the us is bigger. or different politically. or well those countries just have more knife killings.
so to me, it looks like "show me examples" and then turned around with "well those examples are irrelevant, show me different ones". which makes an effective stalemate to any further discussion.
i could toss out an example of countries where military service is mandatory to own personal firearms. or countries where guns are easy to get, but ammo if regulated to a small number of rounds. or even up here in canada, where we have fairly loose gun control but significantly less firearm owning/ murders per year than the states. but it's pointless to list anything because the comparative countries are too small, less populated, too un-democratic, or have other types of murder so it's totally "irrelevant".
it makes discussing any sensible solutions to the gun problem, and it IS a problem, in the states near-impossible. just because other countries are not identical to the US doesn't mean that their working solutions couldn't be a starting point for the US to modify.


on a sidenote, ran into this this morning. upworthy is decent in their fact-checking so i'm not gonna link other sources too.
http://www.upworthy.com/10-terrifyin...guns-in-the-us


edit: also relevant
http://www.upworthy.com/the-most-rat...ight-now?c=fea

edit: tangent, but just got uploaded today, and relevant to the idea of more armed civilians stopping mass shootings being BS
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...mass-shootings

[Andara Bledin]

Those facts in the first link are interesting: But some of them are examples of "big scary numbers." I suspect that a few, when given more context (you know, such as how many of the world's guns [not owned by military and police] are in which nations) would be far less "OMG!" and a little more, "Oh, well, yeah, that would make sense."

The second is a matter of effective use of resources. The shoe thing at the airport is trivial on a case by case basis (plus, someone was making money on the TSA having the power it has, so politics played a huge role in that as well). If you could solve the gun problem by something that simple, it wouldn't have been a problem all this time.

As for the third: I find their distinctions a bit petty. Although I do agree that arming schools (or more of the populace) is not really the answer to the problem, either. Although reducing the "OMG Guns! " fear reaction through greater education might be useful over the long-term.

^-.-^