h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yet another massacre of innocent children by a crazed suicidal gunman in the US.

Isn't it time that people realized the right of children to live free of fear and the threat of this sort of insanity supercedes the archaic vaguely phrased "right to bear arms"?

Beat me to it.

Can a President's tears and a stated determination to change the gun laws regardless of the politics succeed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aZPsLG3vYY

We have this conversation with depressing regularity. That alone makes me doubt anything will change.

None of these were enough to change anything, after all.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html

Some of us USAians would love to have the opportunity to live free of it, too.

I live in Chicago, a beautiful city which was one of the last bastions of firearm bans. Not just CCW (the legal right to carry a concealed weapon), but an outright ban on ownership of possession of firearms within city limits (i.e., it was not possible to obtain a permit for a weapon).

Admittedly, criminals still obtain and use them. I personally would like to think it would be more difficult for them to do so if they were not legal and easily accessible right across state lines. I am well aware that this might not be the case.

Sadly, Chicago's handgun ban was ruled unconstitutional in 2010 (McDonald V. Chicago) and subsequently was struck down by the Court of Appeals. It hasn't yet been repealed. I regularly send polite letters to our Attorney General asking her to appeal this decision.

Criminals are scary (and plentiful) enough. And, clearly background checks are not stopping mentally ill or depressed people from obtaining firearms. Making CCW legal is even scarier - any random, drunken bar brawl has the potential to turn into a gunfight. Not to mention how many kids are killed as a result of getting hands on a weapon.

And yes, I have been the victim of a violent crime. No, carrying a concealed firearm would not have prevented it. It most likely would have gotten me killed.

I've noticed the gun conversation shift slightly over the last several shooting, but given that its just reaching level of being able to have a conversation I don't think we're anywhere close. Looking at the numbers http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx gun control (as of this year but before several of the shootings) isn't a hugely popular proposition. Furthermore, in my experience pro-gun people lobby better and are closer to being single issue voters than anti-gun people. Also, the rules as written, I mean the letter of the constitution, is pretty firmly on the pro-gun side. Thus, I expect that a simple majority wouldn't be enough to tighten gun laws.

Comedy and comedians can often cut to the chase of important issues. Eddie Izzard nails it here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsN0FCXw914

FB

"I mean the letter of the constitution, is pretty firmly on the pro-gun side"

Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that the section on the right to bear arms is poorly phrased and grammatically incorrect so that it is not clear whether universal gun ownership was intended or just the arming of State sponsored militias.

What seems clear is that the intension was that States should be able to stand up to the Federal Government and the indivuals should be able to stand up to tyranny.

In the case of the former the result of was the bloodiest war in US history and as regard to indivuals standing up to the state by force of arms that may have been plausible when everyone was armed with smooth bore muskets but it's hardly plausible that a bunch of hicks armed with hunting rifles are going to take on a government that has invested billions in helicopter gunships, tanks and drones - given that will the NRA be campaigning to have IED making lessons in every high school? If you can't trust in democracy and think the state needs to be challenged then perhaps it's time to replace the right to bear arms with right to hack computers and lessons on Gandhi's tactics.

I thought the paramount rights that US citizens had were those of "life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness", even so given that half of all states, the federal government and the military still practice capital punishment and the US has one of the highest per capita prison populations in the world it would seem there is a consensus is US society that there are circumstances when those rights can be suspended for certain indivuals who are deemed a threat to society. Perhaps it is time to suspend the right to bear arms for those who pose a potential threat to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of their fellow citizens

Read this:-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/

FB

There are more guns than people in the United States. Personally, I don't see any reason for an ordinary citizen to own a gun. The difficult task in implementing gun control is to determine how to take those guns out of the hands of private owners.

In America, we can take away rights through due process. So we do have laws that bar convicted felons from buying or possessing firearms. There are some restrictions on people who've been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital from purchasing firearms.

These sorts of events appear to be very hard to predict. One of the biggest problems is getting people to report when there may be a problem so that schools or other bodies can do a proper threat assessment. Without people reporting suspicions, how do we suspend the rights of someone who poses a danger?

The private ownership of firearms is fundamental in America. They helped us win our independence. They are a potential check on a government. They allow citizens to protect themselves rather than being dependant on the government.

I hope we don't over react as a result of this tragedy.

I don't think you could get the guns out of private hands. I would never report any of my firearms to the government. Well, I might report the pistol I carry every day since it's possible for a law enforcement officer to detect it.

Fortunately, I don't think there is a way that we would legally confiscate everyone's guns in America.

Good to see you back two-bit.

I think you're utterly wrong but it's good to see you back

"They helped us win our independence."

It was possible to resist a government armed with smooth bore muskets by using smooth bore muskets, but ultimately Britain was defeated by the most high tech weapons of the time French ships of the line.
It could also be argued that the cycle of events that led to calls for independence was started by the heavy handed response of the British Government to American settlers using their guns to take land from native Americans who were allied to the French, and as a consequence plunging Britain into what was essentailly a world war

"They are a potential check on a government."

Well that is very doubtful in the modern world unless you think the right to bear arms includes fighter bombers, main battle tanks, surface to air missiles etc. There are far more effective ways of holding government in check that don't involve mass slaughter.

They allow citizens to protect themselves rather than being dependant on the government.

Recent tragic events prove otherwise

I hope we don't over react as a result of this tragedy.

I hope people in the United States react in a measured thoughtful way and put the rights of the innocent ahead of the rights of those who dogmatically cling to the needs of 18th Century frontiersmen.

I would personally be in favour of limiting the ownership of firearms to .22 rifles in the hands of licenced hunters. (See today's QotD. ) And no, I don't own a gun. I've only fired one once. I hit the tin can. Then I said, 'Okay, that's me for guns.' I leave this to people who can see, and who own a freezer large enough to hold a deer carcase.

I think even in frontier days, they used to make people check their weapons at the city limits, and this needs to happen again.

On the evening before the mass killing happened in Connecticut, a teenager in West Philadelphia took a handgun on the El - that's the Tube for Philly - and shot a visitor from Chicago in an argument over a basketball game. We saw the video online. This shooting took place a few blocks from where we used to live.

Gun control's part of the debate, sure. So is the urgent need for:

- Better education.
- Better treatment for mental illness.

If we don't realise we ARE our brothers' keepers, this is just going to keep happening.

Well said DG

There is also a world of difference between 18th and early 19th Century weapons and modern guns.
A smooth bore musket was far less effective than a bow and arrow and a "six-shooter" was little better.
Now there are unhinged citizens with weapons that can punch through brickwork, kill at a mile and fire tens of rounds in the time it would take a well trained man to load a musket.

So perhaps there be should a right to bear flintlocks - they' are what the founding fathers were talking about, make hunting more of a sporting challenge, pose less of a threat to others than modern weapons and are no less effective against Abrams tanks, Apache gunships and F16s should paranoid delusions about the secret agenda of government come true.

Amen. I watched my uncle load and fire a Civil War-era muzzle-loading rifle. He was very careful with his antique.

By the time he got it loaded, his target - a ground hog down in the holler - had ambled off. Much to my relief.

Let's slow 'em down.

No time to read all of the above ...

But also "time for knife control" in all countries ... (the other horror news story of the day, other side of the world)

This one, you mean?


http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html

Interesting you bring it up. The striking thing about that, unlike Connecticut - nobody died.

Full disclosure: I am a gun owner.

That said, I'm not a rabid NRA member, cold dead hands type gun owner.
For anyone that cares, here are the guns I own.
- an antique/heirloom 100 year old .22LR rifle.
- a bolt action single shot target pistol with interchangeable barrels.
- a shotgun for home defense with two non-lethal shells loaded ahead of lethal shells.

I would not want to turn in my guns, but I think some stricter regulations would be proper. However, realistically, I think there is Rockall's chance of any significant changes being made. As has been mentioned, the pro-gun lobby is very strong in this country and the culture itself is still that of a frontier society. It is political suicide to advocate for gun control. (However, as the article linked above points out, specific regulations are palatable.)

One thing I think that deserves more attention is the arms makers and how much of a strangle hold they have on our political system, especially conservative politics. Almost everyone would agree that shipping guns made here in the US to drug cartels in Mexico, terrorists in the middle East, or warlords in Africa should be illegal, but the gun manufacturers and the NRA adamantly oppose any such restrictions. If we can't even stop such arms dealing, what chance does significant gun control here have?

I think knife-wielding raises the trigger threshold for violence. There's something to be said for that, I expect.

I once heard an historian who explained that in the Middle Ages, everybody was armed - with knives. Everybody owned one as an all-purpose utility tool. Violent altercations were hand-to-hand. And I've spent part of my week watching interviews with Waodani hunter-gatherers in Ecuador who explained that their society - which had the highest murder rate in the world before the missionaries got there - was based on attacking each other with spears and machetes.

I'm old enough to remember when the worry at high schools wasn't guns - it was knives. If your pocket-knife was a switchblade, you were in deep trouble with the office.