Slip wrote:White Swallow wrote:But let's not pretend that the mentally ill can't go on a killing spree if they don't have access to a gun
I think the point is that it's easier for people to go on mass killing sprees. The knife incident you mentioned is 5 compared to the 12 and dozens injured.
I acknowledged that. I said guns are more effective weapons. But my point I went on to make is that Mak is ignoring all the benefits gained from guns in order to argue that we need to get rid of guns to make society safer; he argued that it would reduce the numbers of people killed when somebody goes on a killing spree: a point, I should add, that ignores all the deaths and injuries that never took place because a CCW member of the public gunned down a shooter at the beginning of the killing spree.
How strict are you wanting to go with your gun legislation, Slip love? Currently we in England have the strictest legislation in the world, but a crazed gunman was still able to kill 12 and injure 25 with licensed .22 rifles and a shotgun, dear.
Slip wrote:White Swallow wrote:Fabulous. Did you know that in Vermont you can carry a firearm without the requirement of a permit? And did you know that Vermont has one of the lowest murder rates in the USA; a murder rate comparable to Europe's? But still the anti-gun lobby blame gun ownership, when the problem appears to be down to social and cultural factors
Heh, I was about to respond with, "That probably has more to do with Vermont being super liberal" but you beat me to the punch.
I guess the question is: which is easier/faster? Taking away the guns in conservative areas (or at least their automatic weapons), or converting them to a liberal way of thinking?
Well I've made my position clear on how to easily enhance public safety: I'm in favour of CCW, hun.
This is an interesting article which makes the point that CCW lowers violent crime (Assuming it is faithfully making use of the FBI figures it cites.)
Slip wrote:I completely agree that the real problems are things like a lack of understanding of the mentally ill, bullying, a lack of health care, capital punishment & vengeful policies, and a bunch of other crap I'm forgetting/missing, but holy crap, those issues will take much longer to address and in the mean time, we're stuck living in a nation with a crazy amount of gun violence.
Absolutely. But even in the mean time, the answer to that violence doesn't appear to be the kind of legislation we've adopted here in England; that was my other argument. The amount of guns your citizens privately own isn't the problem. Allow your citizens to arm themselves in public to reduce the violent crime a fair bit more (the crime rate is already going down), and then over the long-term, work towards the liberal, enlightened sociopolitical policies and change in cultural attitudes that you mentioned above. Vermont demonstrates that you can have a safe, liberal society with lax gun-ownership laws; that's something many people here in England and parts of Europe can't seem to get their heads around.
Slip wrote:And again, what good are automatic weapons for?
I'm talking about handguns, hunting rifles and shotguns. I'm led to believe that automatic weapons are already heavily regulated; difficult to get hold of. But to answer your question: Automatic and semi-automatics are good for hunting and sport. They can be highly accurate. But ban those and you're still left with powerful weapons that can do serious damage; as the 2010 Cumbria massacre here demonstrate, hun.
Magazine capacity is probably something that could be looked at. For self-defence, I wouldn't need a pistol that can hold 30-40 rounds, which some of these Glock pistols apparently hold. If the shooter can only fire off 6-10 rounds before having to switch pistol or reload, this creates a window for victims to escape, tackle the shooter or fire back; or a bit more of a window than if he has another 30 rounds available to pump out, anyhoo.
Slip wrote:Oh yeah, I also think it's weird that you're appealing to the safety of Vermont by comparing it with European nations, but in the same argument, claiming European nations aren't safe enough to justify not having guns.
I think you've taken me the wrong way there. My appeal to Vermont was in support of my argument that a high gun ownership in a population doesn't always correlate with high homicide rates. I compared its low
homicide rate with parts of Europe that has low gun ownership. Many myopic people here in England are of the view that your nation's high homicide rate is simply down to your high gun ownership, "end of story," you see, love?
As for my desire to carry a gun, dear: Whilst England's homicide rate is reasonably low,
violent crime here is high: comparable to America's (or worse than America's, depending on some reports). This makes carrying a handgun for self-defence desirable to me, sweetie.
EuroStat: Violent Crime Figures
