BIG MOUTH with a microphone!

we lost our right to have legal handguns 15 years ago now due to over-zealous anti-gun campaigners and knee-jerk reactions by Polititicions .

The end result was all the legally held licenced firearms were taken away leaving all the illegal and undisclosed firearms still out there in the community by gangsters, drug dealers and other low-lifes.

Net result ? gun crime has increased over the past 15 years and the action achieved nothing. Now in the UK we have children as young as 10 owning illegal handguns going around on bicycles shooting innocent people in the shopping malls .!:yikes:

Horrific as the shooting was if it is looked at in context of the number of such events a year compared with the huge percentage of US citizens owning firearms which have never been illegally used, the actual percentage of such events is probably a fraction of 1% and a lot less than the number of children that are killed each year from boating accidents or accidents in the home etc.

The perp was clearly mad and you cannot legislate against people who are mentally deranged or high on drugs etc . If he hadn't access to a gun he would in all likelihood made a bomb or chosen some other way to kill and maim people.

It goes without saying that I am horrified at the news and my heartfelt condolances go out to the family and friends of the victims and anyone who has been effected by this awfull shooting.
 
I think that you are correct. "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" Look at Mexico. I would add that tyranny is the rule rather than the exception throughout history and an unarmed populace is cheaper to oppress.

I'm thinking about the real "death tax" on guns and it goes like this:

A dollar value (positive pr negative) can be assigned to every human being.
Let’s call the value of the average human a “buck”

And let’s call the cost of something measured in the number of bucks lost in the process of obtaining it a “death tax”. Note that killing negative value humans (sick, old, unskilled etc.) essentially earns a tax rebate.

So, when we look at the death tax for nicotine addiction, the automobile centered transportation system, endless war, etc. as reference points, the death of a few hundred children for the right to bear arms is virtually a tax bargain.
 
I think that you are correct. "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" Look at Mexico. I would add that tyranny is the rule rather than the exception throughout history and an unarmed populace is cheaper to oppress.

I'm thinking about the real "death tax" on guns and it goes like this:

A dollar value (positive pr negative) can be assigned to every human being.
Let's call the value of the average human a "buck"

And let's call the cost of something measured in the number of bucks lost in the process of obtaining it a "death tax". Note that killing negative value humans (sick, old, unskilled etc.) essentially earns a tax rebate.

So, when we look at the death tax for nicotine addiction, the automobile centered transportation system, endless war, etc. as reference points, the death of a few hundred children for the right to bear arms is virtually a tax bargain.

Context is everything my friend.
 
Something to think about

The United States has a well known "gun culture," but this culture has changed noticeably in recent years. Dr David Smith looks at the paramilitary turn in American gun culture.

When Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, sales of guns dramatically increased.

This was because many Americans believed Obama was planning to implement far-reaching gun control.

As it turns out, their fears were completely misplaced; Obama has never shown any stomach for increasing gun control, even after six mass shootings in the space of a year. Like every Democrat since the 2000 election, Obama appears to be terrified of the gun lobby.

But that doesn't stop the National Rifle Association from constantly warning gun owners that the federal government is plotting to take their weapons away. It is an effective sales pitch, one that generates billions of dollars per year for the arms industry that the gun lobby represents. After Obama's re-election this year, nearly two million Americans attempted to buy guns in the month of November.

Here is another well-known sales pitch: after every mass shooting, the first response from the gun lobby is that if only everyone was armed, mass shootings could be prevented. Today, gun advocate John Lott is reported as saying that gun-free zones in schools are "a magnet for deranged killers," and the solution is to arm teachers. To anyone not awash in the fantasies of the gun industry, this argument is repellent. Most people do not want to turn schools, or other public spaces, into armed camps. The prospect of untrained but vigilant citizens shooting down mass killers is the stuff of movies, not reality. Law enforcement officers, who know how difficult it is to hit the right target in a firefight, explicitly warn against it. We should recognise this argument for what it actually is - advertising for guns.

The United States has a well known "gun culture," but this culture has changed noticeably in recent years. The number of Americans who own guns is decreasing, but the number of guns in circulation is rising. About 60 per cent of gun owners have at least one semi-automatic weapon. Semi-automatics, also known as "assault weapons," are designed to kill large numbers of people in battle. They are not traditional hunting weapons, though hunters are using them more and more. They are not the most practical weapons for self-defence. After the Port Arthur massacre John Howard acted to ban semi-automatics, backed by a public consensus in Australia that nobody needed such a thing in civilian life. But in the increasingly paramilitary American gun culture, ownership of assault weapons has become so pervasive that any Australian-style buyback scheme would be practically impossible.

Many Americans also equip their home arsenals with enlarged magazines, allowing them to fire more rounds without reloading, and protective clothing that resembles riot gear. This trend mirrors the militarisation of local policing in the United States. Even small towns now have tactical response units that use armoured vehicles, battering rams, stun grenades and sniper rifles. These units, originally developed for counter-terrorism and hostage crises, have little to do in most American cities. Police departments end up using them for small-time drug arrests, sometimes with disastrous consequences. It is not surprising that some ordinary citizens feel the need to arm themselves to the teeth when the local police look like they are about to confront an invading army.

The six mass shootings we have seen this year are a predictable consequence of the paramilitary turn in American gun culture. Nearly all of the massacres this year have featured multiple assault weapons, usually with enlarged cartridges enabling the killers to fire dozens of rounds before reloading. In some cases the perpetrators have bought the guns themselves, but sometimes they have taken them from a friend or relative's collection. It appears that the Connecticut gunman got his weapons from his mother's extensive cache. She was his first victim. Primary schools are not "magnets for deranged killers," but arsenals of high-powered weapons certainly are.

The paramilitary culture with its combat weaponry is not an inevitable outgrowth of hunting, self-defence, or even the constitutional right to bear arms. It is the result of a deliberate marketing strategy by the firearms industry and the gun lobby, its political wing. It feeds on paranoia and a domestic arms race between law enforcers and hobbyists. A mass shooting every few months or weeks is the price Americans pay for the rights of gun enthusiasts to stock their private fortresses. The NRA and its allies will ensure that they keep paying that price.

Dr David Smith is lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. View his full profile here.
 
Semi-automatics, also known as "assault weapons," are designed to kill large numbers of people in battle. They are not traditional hunting weapons, though hunters are using them more and more.

The author made a beginner's mistake in the first sentence there, either that or he's purposely misstated it for his own ends. Either way it means you can't trust this author.

You have to live here. Everyone I know up here who's a native owns several guns, probably most of them the semi-automatic variety. It's not a "gun culture". The culture isn't centered around guns like that phrase implies. They're regular people. They hunt coyotes for fun. And you can actually get good money for the pelts, which surprised me. So you have to be objective and be immersed in it to have an accurate understanding of the culture.

The assault weapons "look" is the result of very good functional design and so that look follows function when that function carries over to civilian weapons. That function includes weight, accuracy, modular design, and so on. There's no reason to use 30 year old technology unless you're an xs650 rider ...


Also - besides the nra machine, there's another machine, the opposite, which exploits this kind of tragedy for gain. That's what the Prez hasn't done up to this point. He has no choice really. But members of congress and etc. don't have to show that good taste.
 
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Nobody proposes un-trained citizens carrying guns in schools. That's bullshit. Virtually every state in the union with CHL legislation requires the applicant to complete a shooting test, showing competence with the weapon, in order to have a licence issued. I can't envision a lessor standard being applied. It's folly to belive that such would be the case. Got any idea what the Armed Pilot training program consists of? It's a bitch! As to all these "trained" police officers with high cap weapons of every kind, look around and you will find instances of up to hundreds of rounds being fired by police without a single hit to a perp, so I'm not convinced on the "trained professional" front.

Here's an example from April: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/it_raining_lead_in_harlem_ISB87yqtPOQzqrT6ekPdGI

As to "hunting", the Second Amendment is not about hunting! It's about tyranny from wtihin! It's not about "Red Dawn", or the National Guard, It's the ultimate check and balance to our OWN corruption. Before anyone starts, I don't listen to talk radio, watch Fox news, have a bunker, or an NRA membership card. I'm just Joe normal. No amount of legislation or the elimination of firearms from a society will prevent mass killings by people who have gone fucking nuts for reasons we may never understand. 4 people were set on fire in Colorado on Saturday, I think, but we ain't banning matches and gas cans! I would have rather had one of those teachers head toward that goon with a weapon, and good intentions, rather than merely the latter.
Get to the root of why so many of these young people feel the need to do this, not how they do it.
 
The author made a beginner's mistake in the first sentence there, either that or he's purposely misstated it for his own ends. Either way it means you can't trust this author.

You have to live here. Everyone I know up here who's a native owns several guns, probably most of them the semi-automatic variety. It's not a "gun culture". The culture isn't centered around guns like that phrase implies. They're regular people. They hunt coyotes for fun. And you can actually get good money for the pelts, which surprised me. So you have to be objective and be immersed in it to have an accurate understanding of the culture.

The assault weapons "look" is the result of very good functional design and so that look follows function when that function carries over to civilian weapons. That function includes weight, accuracy, modular design, and so on. There's no reason to use 30 year old technology unless you're an xs650 rider ...
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I wouldn't be too quick to assign malice to the simple mistake of calling semi-automatic firearms "assault weapons". That term applies to a type of fully-automatic military weapon that requires a federal licence. Their look-alike cousins have been nutered for the civilian market. The fact that ownership of fully-automatic weapons is restricted shows that gun ownership is controlled to some degree.


And Skull said "The United States has a well known 'gun culture' " Which is not the same as saying the whole culture centers around guns.

I'm from Texas and - for sure, for sure - there is a "gun culture" with both urban and rural components in the Lone Star State. I'd guess that is probably true where you live too.

I do not think that you are being fully forthright when you suggest that the popularity of military styled weapons is purely technologically based. You can buy a kit to convert your kid's 10/22 to that look.


It is pretty clear to me that the national culture has grown increasingly military. I'm an Army brat and was raised in the military world. Both of my parents were officers. I have respect for that world and the people in it.

And I respect everyone who serves.

But it stikes me as odd that everybody seems compelled to salute evrybody who ever went through bootcamp with "thank you for your service" . Nobody says that to the garbage collectors or the mailmen. They serve too.

Military service people are making career and job choices for the same reasons everyone else does. Most of the ones I know are a bit put off by the constant "thanks for your service" they get and will reply :"I'm only doing my job".

And of course war has become the center of the culture. This country spends as much on its military as all of the countries in the the world combined spend for theirs. For pretty much the entire lives of most of the people now living the United States has been at war someplace. And every cause - from poverty to drugs ' is called a "war on ___________"

We kill civilians in other countries by the thousands without raising an eye brow.
Is it surprising that we kill here too?

As a country we accept the "death tax" for keeping our personal weapons - let's just not be hypocrits about it
 
Damn the river of thought runs deep in this thread and THANKS for keeping it civil so it can go on.
 
Hey Burns, I feel the divide on the "Thanks for your service" falls somewhere in the death rate for your job. The military is either a momentary (relatively speaking) voluntary (nowadays) sacrifice of one's time, body, mind, and possibly your life, or a career choice that embodies all of that to some degree. Can the garbage man, or a fireman, or a police officer, or even one of my co-workers in aviation lose thier lives doing thier job? Sure, but I don't equate what I do with a soldier's job, having done my time, I understand it's a good bit different. Guns are big business in the US, and they have become much more glamorized over the last 30 years or so than they were when I was a kid, and they were just implements that were used for certain jobs, be it killing a stray dog with the mange, groundhogs in the garden, or defending (thank God, overwhelmingly by presence alone) truckloads of coal from wildcat strikers, attempting to hijack trucks and dump the coal in the roads. Tools. Not objects of worship. I suppose I would disagree with you some on this if what was emerging was a warrior culture, but what it is, is a bunch of spineless geeks that see a firearm as instant power, from street thugs to a hayseed kid in rural Iowa that gets picked on every day at school, and comes home and plays Halo for 6 friggin hours, and never talks to anyone, least of all his parents, about the pressures in his life, or his decisions. Ivery nearly fucked my own life up because I was more afraid of my parents than I was of a particular threat that emerged my sophmore year. Luckily, there was no lasting stigma associated with the event, but let's just say, running for public office above the county level is probably out of the question!
We love our guns, yes. That might be a small part of the problem, but a huge part of it is the fact that we don't love our children, and invest the time into making them responsible people that we should. It's left to behavior altering drugs and our teachers to do so. I do not universally praise teachers, because they are not created equally, and should not be praised for that which they do not do, but the DUTY of teaching morality is that of the parents, and if you do not, have not, or did not, don't be suprised by how your kids turn out.
 
I'm pretty much on the same page of music as you JD but I would note that military service is a lot less dangerous on average than logging or fishing or a bunch of other occupations. I'd also add that it is a path out of poverty for many. But the reality is that the business of the military (any military) is dominance by killing or the threat of killing. In a word it is violence and the goals of those using military force are rarely noble.

But, if you don't have a strong military you will be ruled by someone who does.

My general approach to things is to avoid destortions of reality as much as I can. Romanticizing is destortion. Perhaps if we romanticized violence less we would have less of it.
 
Nobody proposes un-trained citizens carrying guns in schools. That's bullshit.

Quote from an interview HERE and it took me 5 min to find it.

Newsmax: Would it be a good idea to have teachers who have concealed carry permits in the schools, to better protect kids?

I'm all for that. I've been a teacher most of my life. I've been an academic. I have kids in college still, and kids below that. It's not something that I take lightly. But it's hard to see what the argument would be against it.
 
I would say the goals of those using military force are overwhelmingly political, so we kinda agree on all points. More dangerous occupational choices exist, for sure. On the subject of respect for service, although the cause that may lead one into conflict in service may not be noble, the intent of serving to begin with may be viewed as such by friends, family, and the individual themselves. Romanticized? Maybe some, call me guilty, but I will always respect those who go forth in the name of the Republic and serve. I speak to the situation on an adult level, and maybe that's trivial, but war and service are adult subjects to me. Perhaps that is where we disagree, in the differing level of respect, but that's no biggie.
As to wholesale romanticism of violence, It is a bit sick that we do so, and I believe in the concept of desensitization. It all starts WAY deep in our society I feel. The cheapening of the value of human life has been going backward for a really long time. I'll say this at the risk of starting another fire, but arguably, industrialists had cheapened the lives of people below that of a beast of burden during the industrial revolution, and unionization broke that over the other way, and was eventually eclipsed by the labor laws passed for the country as a whole to abide by. Now lives are cheapened culturally, with thousands of violent games, rampant abortions, the whole inner city 'gangsta" culture, where if you ain't "hard" yous a bitch, UFC, wrestling, and a bunch of bullshit. Nothing is taboo. Everything is acceptable. Barely is good enough. We strive for mediocrity and cuss anything above it as greed or showboating. Whatever happened to just being a good man? A good Father? A good worker? A good provider? It's all gone to shit. The decline of western civilization is well under way, with nobody to blame but ourselves and our selfish wants. Our whole culture sucks. Ask anybody. We are reaping what has been sown.
 
Quote from an interview HERE and it took me 5 min to find it.

Newsmax: Would it be a good idea to have teachers who have concealed carry permits in the schools, to better protect kids?

I’m all for that. I’ve been a teacher most of my life. I’ve been an academic. I have kids in college still, and kids below that. It’s not something that I take lightly. But it’s hard to see what the argument would be against it.

CHL holders are arguably as "trained" as some police officers in most states. Not all, of course, but I'm sure this is what professor Lott has in mind in his statement.

He didn't say give "bubba" a gun and send him to school.

Perhaps our definition of "trained" varies, since the police in the US miss the perp more often than legally armed civilian reacters.
 
CHL holders are arguably as "trained" as some police officers in most states. Not all, of course, but I'm sure this is what professor Lott has in mind in his statement.

He didn't say give "bubba" a gun and send him to school.

Perhaps our definition of "trained" varies, since the police in the US miss the perp more often than legally armed civilian reacters.

No where has it been suggested that children should be armed and allowed to carry guns to school.

I was replying to your statment,
Nobody proposes un-trained citizens carrying guns in schools. That's bullshit.
The interviewer asked a leading question and Lott is reported as saying "Im all for that"
 
I grew up in a rural town of 2500 people in a dairy farming community, somthing we did regulary on a friday night was to drive around with 3,4,5 people with torches and .22 rifles, some belonging to the owner and some borrowed, we would go possum shooting. some times the possum ran up a power or telephone pole and we didn't have to even get out of the car to shoot it.

It was accepted, although illegal, and we felt it was a normal thing to do, Drive around with guns and shoot animals from the side of the road. Guns were carried inside the vehicle at times and unless property was damaged or someone was hurt or a complaint then the police weren't interested.

That at the time would be classed as a gun culture, absolutely, it is an accepted practice and treated as normal to have and carry guns. To state the US is not a gun culture country is turning a blind eye to the truth.

I loved watching European movies when growing up because they had a realism to the boredom of everyday life and the violence usually was confined to arguments, a fight and sometimes a murder and at worst a single gun shot, brandishing or firing of guns was rare. I can count on both hands seeing an American movie without a gun being used and invariably US movies have to have a shoot out with a spray of bullets for the climax. This has led to other countries doing the same because it is felt the only way to compete with the US movie is to emulate it and that requires the use of guns.
 
Burns -- he said "Semi-automatics, also known as "assault weapons," are designed to kill large numbers of people in battle."

That's like saying "Automobiles, also known as 'Bradley Fighting Vehicles'...."

I'm not going to describe the difference - it's out there plenty. In fact we're beyond that confusion for the most part.

You know, guns have a certain look. It's unavoidable. One current trend is black and plastic. Plastic fittings are more accurate than wood, all else equal because wood moves. So what color should we make the plastic...hmmm...basic black, and beginning at that point it looks like a weapon of war to somebody.

Here's a lovely pic of a very typical use of a so-called "assault weapon".
 

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No where has it been suggested that children should be armed and allowed to carry guns to school.

I was replying to your statment,
Nobody proposes un-trained citizens carrying guns in schools. That's bullshit.
The interviewer asked a leading question and Lott is reported as saying "Im all for that"

CHL stands for Concealed Handgun License. I was stating that those who posess a CHL in MOST states cannot be considered un-trained or un-schooled, so the assertion is bullshit. Classes on the law, deadly force and the law, shooting, and a practical shooting test are required in MOST states. That was my point. I'm sure in extended remarks professor Lott would agree. Aside from that, Professor Lott is not a representative, so he can't propose anything in a meaningful environment. Governor Rick Perry of Texas today stated that Licensed carriers of concealed handguns should be able to carry them unrestricted. I agree. The anti-gun crowd predicted the wild west ressurected with all the CHL laws that have been passed over the past 10-12 years, and it's just flat-out NOT HAPPENING. CHL holders get into mostly the same kind of trouble as everyone else, but at less than half the rate per capita of a non-CHL holder. People screw up sometimes, but the overwhelming majority of the time, civilians carrying guns get it right, not like in New York, where the police hit 9 bystanders trying to stop a gunman.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/25/nypd-we-hit-bystanders-in-empire-state-building-shooting/
Nice shooting by the trained professionals who have carried a gun for 15 years! :wtf:
 
The anti-gun crowd predicted the wild west ressurected

Peoples' aversion to guns correlates to how dangerous that person would be if he had a gun. Experiments using shoot/don't shoot scenarios showed that people with an aversion to guns would often blast away at everything when don't shoot was the correct choice. We see the world through personal filters :) Cannot blame those people for not wanting anybody to have guns!

And by the same token, it's hard to imagine someone who had successfully completed gun training standing in opposition to guns...
 
Burns -- he said "Semi-automatics, also known as "assault weapons," are designed to kill large numbers of people in battle."

That's like saying "Automobiles, also known as 'Bradley Fighting Vehicles'...."

I'm not going to describe the difference - it's out there plenty. In fact we're beyond that confusion for the most part.

You know, guns have a certain look. It's unavoidable. One current trend is black and plastic. Plastic fittings are more accurate than wood, all else equal because wood moves. So what color should we make the plastic...hmmm...basic black, and beginning at that point it looks like a weapon of war to somebody.

Here's a lovely pic of a very typical use of a so-called "assault weapon".

Sure, he got it wrong (even wronger than you are saying, since assault weapons are fully automatic) but I'd take it as an honest mistake rather than an attempt to fudge his argument.

I see a "fashion trend" in the military look. If you don't, well we just see things differently.
 
Sure, he got it wrong (even wronger than you are saying, since assault weapons are fully automatic) but I'd take it as an honest mistake rather than an attempt to fudge his argument.

I see a "fashion trend" in the military look. If you don't, well we just see things differently.

It's fashionable alright.

There ain't no Airsoft model 700 with a Monte Carlo walnut stock.
 
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