Oregon college shooting

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Icey

Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34419802

These situations're becoming more and more common. What a horrible piece of news. I can't understand the mentality of folk who kill indiscriminately like this. :sad:
tomsk
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by tomsk »

it's the bloody gun law...........unbeleivable...shocking again..
Icey

Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

Well it certainly contributes, doesn't it? But ... you know .... killing young people who're trying to make something of their lives .... awful.
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yogi
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by yogi »

There can be no gun laws that will stop insane people from going on killing rampages.
Icey

Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

True, Yogi, but I personally feel that it WOULD make a difference if the laws were tightened. I understand that it's the 45th college shooting this year, with 994 mass gun attacks in the US in three years? I know you have a big country, but dear god, it's some going, and it DOES make you wonder why?

In the UK, there've been just 3 serious incidents since 1986. In 1996 or 7, 16 children between the ages of 5 and 6, plus 1 teacher, were killed when 700 rounds of ammunition were fired at them in Dunblane, Scotland, and I believe there's been one more. All these murders were appalling, but over almost 30 years, it's only been a mere handful in comparison - although even one's bad enough.

Although I'm not sure about the population in the US, I think it's somewhere in the region of 320 million. The puny UK had 63,926,081 by last year, and it's increased by at least half a million since then, but although you have a bigger population that we do, the percentage of these dreadful occurrences is far higher, and yes, I DO think this's partly due to your gun laws.

I appreciate that this is part of your way of life and written into the constitution if you take it literally, but no matter how many people with mental issues we both have, allowing gun ownership with relative ease sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
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yogi
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by yogi »

You would not have any friends in the NRA (National Rifle Association) in this country as long as you maintain the attitude you have. That's not to say any of them are worthy of being anybody's friend, but still, they represent a HUGE sector of thought. There are numerous arguments on both sides of the issue, and I'm not here to defend one or the other. The truth is we have guns and feel it's a god given right (for the most part). Restricting that "right" after it's been in place for a few hundred years is political suicide if not actually an invitation to homicide. What we are witnessing is a dilemma of epic proportions, and nobody has a good answer. So, apparently, more innocents have to die before anyone feels motivated to do anything.

I'm very impressed that you would tell us there have been a few and very limited cases of mass murder in England. Isn't that the country where private ownership of guns is nearly banned and those who have them subject to unannounced police inspections? I hear that only highly trained special units of the police have them, otherwise they are unknown as part of your law enforcement. Besides the laws, there is an attitude pervasive that guns are not needed to conduct routine affairs of daily living. England has all those controls, restrictions, and taboos ... and STILL experiences mass shootings. That just proves my point that you cannot legislate sanity into a general population and it's pointless to try.
Icey

Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

Hmm, I take your points, but you made a very good one where you said: "more innocents have to die before anyone feels motivated to do anything". Yes, and that's the trouble. While people sweep the issue under the carpet, it soon numbs folk to the horror of these incidents.

You're pretty much right about gun ownership in England, except that private ownership isn't nearly banned. We have some of the toughest laws in the world on owning and using weapons, and that's why the procedure isn't pursued by a lot of would-be owners. Anyone can apply for a shotgun licence, for instance, but hand guns aren't allowed. After stringent police checks, and looking at the length and calibre of the rifle/s you want to use and more to the point - WHERE, and the safety of where they're kept (i.e. in a locked cabinet) - then providing you have no criminal record, licences are usually given. Low-powered air rifles don't need to be licenced though. If you're a member of a gun club and then pass away, weapons have to be surrendered. Even if someone holds an antique weapon, it has to be licenced. If you're found to've given a gun away, it can mean a jail sentence.

So over here, owning a gun's a privilege, not a right, but naturally, some people with evil intentions get hold of them, as they can anywhere. A strict eye's being kept on the manufacture of 3D (printed) weapons and their parts.

Some of our police can carry guns, but only when alerted to crimes such as hostages being taken, armed robberies, etc., and only specialist units can use them. Thankfully, we hear of relatively few shootings, and mass ones're only once in a blue moon, but we do have a problem with knife crime. Because these're more accessible, we have gangs and individuals carrying them not only for protection but because they intend to use them, and they can be concealed and disposed of far more easily than a gun can.

As you say, you can't legalise sanity into a population, but don't you think that the more people who're allowed to obtain guns, the more chance of one being used?

I go shooting; less often than I used to, but I'd still go along to an organised game shoot, as it's not for the fun of killing birds, but to provide food, and all of it is. Friends within shooting circles have no qualms with those who aren't, or those who say it should all be banned. Each to their own opinion and all that. If gun clubs were closed down, obviously there'd be some moans of outrage from the members who simply go there to shoot at static targets, clay pigeons etc., but it'd be reluctantly accepted, just as fox hunting with hounds was.

In the US, I appreciate that your stance on gun ownership's different to over here. I'm not criticising beliefs or laws, but find it incomprehensible as to why you've had so many mass shootings? Even Barack Obama's said to have questioned why the proportion of them's much higher in the US than in 10 other modern countries. If you look at China, with a population of almost a billion and a half people, they've had NO mass shooting fatalities per 100,000 people in over a decade of study. You're always going to get some unstable person commit these acts, but the US unfortunately seems to have them with more regularity than many other places.

Over the decade and a half studied, researchers found 23 incidents of mass shootings in the other 10 countries, resulting in 200 dead and 231 wounded. In the United States over the same period, there were 133 incidents that left 487 dead and 505 wounded. I think that Norway's behind you statistically.

I can see that over there, people who believe it's OK to carry guns'd be more than peeved if their rights were taken away, but rather than think of it in terms of dictating what they could and couldn't do, plus businesses making a lot of money out of it, common sense should reign. It's pretty obvious that the more people who have these weapons, the more chance of someone cracking and using them.

It's a dilemma.
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pilvikki
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by pilvikki »

I think I read that the constitution has been liberally misquoted as saying everybody has a right to own gun(s), rather skipping over the 'and form a militia in case of an uprising' part.

besides, comparing the US and UK statsstill shows the US way, way out of line, no matter what laws we're talking about:

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

just look at the 1411 accidental shootings....
Icey

Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

No idea why though. It seems peculiar.
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yogi
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by yogi »

pilvikki wrote:
I think I read that the constitution has been liberally misquoted as saying everybody has a right to own gun(s), rather skipping over the 'and form a militia in case of an uprising' part.

besides, comparing the US and UK statsstill shows the US way, way out of line, no matter what laws we're talking about:

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

just look at the 1411 accidental shootings....
It's hard to believe that anything as old as the Constitution of the United States of America can still be relevant in the year 2015. Some people do indeed want to update it. The Constitution is also erroneously thought of as a body of laws, but it is no such thing. The Constitution is a list of guidelines upon which laws are enacted. Keep in mind that the original document was written by people who were sick and tired of the tyranny that drove them to this New World in the first place. They were paranoid and suspicions of government in general, much the same as are the immigrants flooding Europe today. They wanted out of a bad situation and wrote a bunch of guidelines for their new life. Thus, owning guns for protection from abusive regimes, or forming militias to rout out oppression, was a given. There was no question about the need for such things.

I must remind you that correlation does not prove causation. That means the fact that we may all own guns in this country does not cause people to shoot each other. To think so would be like saying automobiles cause accidents because so many recorded crashes involve automobiles. I don't know what the normal distribution of shootings is for gun owners, but I'd not be surprised to learn it's the same in America as it is in any other country. The difference being the number of guns owned here would naturally increase the absolute number of opportunities and incidents of accidents and deliberate shootings. There are not a lot of shootings in England because they don't have a lot of guns. I fail to see anything remarkable about that. What is remarkable is that we have the freedom to own weapons. You don't see that in a lot of countries these days.
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pilvikki
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by pilvikki »

not so from what I've read. i'll look it up again...

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... world-list

i'll look t it later.... zzz...
Icey

Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

Well I don't know, but in today's news, we were told that Hilary Clinton's been going on about wanting to change the law regarding gun ownership/use?

And then of course .....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34450841

:sad: This is too sad. Yogi's right. There's little you can do to curb a sudden rush of emotion, and mental instability, but if guns weren't able to be obtained so easily, a lot of these tragedies'd never happen.

As for the 11 year old in Ohio who shot his brother, I appreciate that they were with 2 adults with them when they were target shooting, but what sort of person leaves a loaded weapon on a picnic table when youngsters're around??? One could've been accidentally triggered if someone'd stumbled against the table or knocked the gun off it, let alone the fact that the boy was able to reach it.

We have stringent safety laws over here regarding the handling of shotguns. If not in use, or when being carried or passed over to someone, the gun mustn't be loaded. If put down when not being used, the chamber has to be visibly open as proof that there's no ammunition in it. This's surely just common sense.
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yogi
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by yogi »

pilvikki wrote:
not so from what I've read. i'll look it up again...

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... world-list

i'll look t it later.... zzz...

Interesting as the statistics are, they don't show what I think is an important number. All the fatalities documented are indeed cause by firearms, but it's left to the reader to intuit how many firearms are not causing fatalities.
Looking at the numbers for the United States we see 270,000,000 firearms owned causing 9,146 homicides or <.004%.
Looking at the numbers for Mexico we see 15,500,000 firearms owned causing 11,309 homicides or >.07%.
Mexico gun owners are 7 times more likely to commit a homicide than United States gun owners.

So much for statistics. :rolleyes:
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pilvikki
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by pilvikki »

I don't see your point. to me it's like saying 'look how many cars don't go off the road and crash into trees'...

and from what I've read, the amigos down south aren't exactly whom i'd want to draw an example from. any more than colombia, argentina et al.
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yogi
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by yogi »

The statistics are from the chart you provided to point out how violent gun owners in America are. My point is that using those statistics I can cite several examples of other countries where the ratio of gun ownership to homicides is worse than ours. I'm also suggesting the publicity we get in Europe, and the statistics you provided, are biased. The fact that you don't favor Mexico does not change the reality.

To put it another way for every 1000 guns owned in the USA, 4 are used to commit homicide.
For every 1000 guns owned in Mexico, 70 are used to commit homicide.
I'm guessing The Guardian doesn't think that's important.
Icey

Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

In June of this year, NBC News declared that 1 in 3 Americans own guns. More studies're being carried out to try and substantiate those claims, but even that figure's a lot. The Pediatrics Academy highlighted a report last year that showed 500 American children and teenagers die in hospitals every year from gunshot wounds, and other studies show suicide rates go up with access to guns. It's obvious. The more guns you have, the more accidents, murders and suicides you're going to have.

On saying that, my argument against them's lame . If the law allows people to own guns as common-place items, and those people believe they have the right to keep and use them if necessary, I doubt much's going to change their minds, and gun murders'll just increase as more and more folk arm themselves. At least if the laws were tightened up regarding having a weapon in the first place, then even if someone DID "crack", the incidents wouldn't be so commonplace.
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yogi
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by yogi »

My answer to that line of logic is in the numbers. If every citizen in America was forced to own a gun the absolute number of homicides would increase. However, the proportion would remain at 4 out of every 1000, meaning that people would not become any more unstable than they are already just because guns are widespread. Suggesting that curtailing ownership would decrease the number of homicides is flawed. If only 1000 people here owned guns, there STILL would be 4 homicides. The criticisms I'm seeing seems to imply there is something intrinsically wrong with the American population and their obsession with gun ownership. Then again, most of that criticism is coming from people who do not have the liberty to own guns freely. The rest of it is coming from natives who are paranoid about guns in general.
Icey

Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by Icey »

I understand your points Yogi, and I'm not criticising the differences between, say, the UK and there. It's just that I can't understand the need for so many people to own guns. If you're going to have shooting clubs, or own one to fend off pests from your livestock or land, then fine, but for every-day use, it gives the impression that everyone feels the need to have access to defending themselves. Whether someone breaks into your house and has a gun (burglars very rarely carry them over here), or you use one to keep people off your property, the result appears to be the same; either someone's going to get shot, or you intend using that weapon.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the American population in general. The same as anywhere else, you get good and bad, but even the good ones're arming themselves "just in case". Why, I can't really fathom out. We also have folk who're mentally unstable or who can't control their emotions and might crack, but we aren't all looking over our shoulders and believing that being armed's the answer, because although we have murders, etc., just the same as you do, we basically feel secure. If you're faced with an intruder who's unarmed, you have the same chance of overpowering that person as he/she does with you, but when someone points a gun at you, they have an advantage. If you respond like for like, someone's bound to get injured - or both parties.

Our relatives who live over in the States don't own guns. They've now lived there for years and for all intents and purposes, they're American now. Whether they still hold onto the same ideas as most of us in Blighty do, I don't know, but they're also against gun ownership unless it's for controlled sporting pastimes or for fending off pests.

I imagine that most of the population who legally hold guns'll never have to use them - or want to - and I can understand that the legality of them makes them seem attractive, or even mandatory depending on how the individual sees it, but it still doesn't really answer my question of WHY so many people own them if they basically feel safe. If they don't, THAT'S when the problem arises. If not, why not?
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yogi
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by yogi »

This just in ...

It looks as if the right to own guns is on the line again. This time it's in a suburb of Chicago. The North Shore Chicago suburb of Highland Park, an upper class neighborhood, has an ordinance restricting the kind of guns residents may own - rapid fire assault weapons are out, for example. The argument is that there should be no restrictions and that it is necessary for the self-defense of home owners to own whatever they wish. So far the ordinance has withstood all the court appeals to date.

Now the Supreme Court is being asked to make a ruling. This is important because the higher court can determine if restrictions can indeed be placed on gun ownership everywhere in the country. It will be a silent assent with the lower courts if the Supreme Court does not take up the case. If they do hear arguments, then they are admitting restricting rights is questionable. Stay tuned for further details.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sup ... story.html
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Re: Oregon college shooting

Post by brandtrn »

Every single time one hears of a school shooting, a theatre shooting, or whatever kind of shooting, the media goes crazy with it and the nutcases call for more "gun control." REALLY?? A firearm is an inanimate object. It, all by itself, is incapable of killing anybody. The problem lies with the people behind them. But trust me...if one intends to do violence, one will find a way of doing so. Look at Timothy McVeigh. He managed to kill 168 people and injure 600 more, but somehow, one can still buy fertilizer and can still rent moving trucks and vans with minimal difficulty. By making guns more difficult to buy (or by taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens), we'd be left to the mercy of our government (which will ALWAYS have guns!) and the criminals (who will ALWAYS manage to get them illegally, even if WE can't buy them legally!). With the recent home invasions in our area, THAT scenario is not at all appealing to me. The only "regulation" which I support regarding gun ownership is a mandatory criminal background check for anyone wishing to purchase a firearm. That's IT! No, we should NOT be required to "register" our guns (if the government knows who has the guns, if it chooses to disarm the populace, it'll know EXACTLY where to go), nor should we be required to apply for a "permit" to transport our gun from one place to another...but we gun owners are used to that kind of red tape, and really wouldn't appreciate any having more "rules" being imposed upon us by a hysterical populace.
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