To wonder when they will ban guns in USA

[sannaville]

Those poor children at Conneticut school :( They mustve been absolutely petrified. When will the USA learn from these horrific shootings and out a ban on guns

There are more guns than people in the US. It's sick and totally fucked up. Statistically you're far more likely to shoot a loved one than a criminal that just might break into your house.

The NRA spouts its bullshit that 'guns don't kill - people do'. But if there weren't guns there in the first place then it would be a little harder to massacre 22 kindergarten children.

Hungerford and Dunblane prompted changes in English gun laws. Yes, there might be criminal gang members that carry illegal weapons; but most 21 year old drug dealers don't target five year old children, do they? The fact that anyone in America can 'flip' and murder scores of people in seconds and no-one there thinks it might be time for some gun control...beggars belief.

Prayers for those poor families and children.

And the whole "if we make it illegal, we make a load of people criminals" argument...

So because of that, it's ok to take the risk that classrooms full of children will die?

Legalising guns normalises guns and means people don't think properly about the societal impact this has.

So are knives. Chopped potatoes for dinner with one this very evening.

I grew up in a gun owning household and I would never have had the opportunity to get my hands in my fathers guns without his knowledge, because he was a responsible gun owner. Even after he started taking me to his pistol club to have a go at shooting them, I wasn't allowed the code for the gun safe.

There have been quite a few cases, have they not, of legitimate gunowners shooting close relatives, sometimes small children, because they have mistaken them for burglars?

Your, sorry!

'increasing gun control will do the square root of fuck all to stop these incidents'

With all due respect that is absolute bullshit. I'd rather take my chances with a crazed lunatic holding a knife than one holding a gun.

Lack of gun control is exactly why these incidents are repeated with depressing regularity in the US.

Perhaps the security of the schools needs to be reviewed?

the shooting of kayla rolland

That story is even worse than I remembered.

Knives have another purpose. You cannot put a bread knife in the same category.

People didn't invent guns for cooking or any other useful purpose. They are weapons first.

Guns are there to hurt and kill. Shooting a target is just demonstrating you have the skill to take someone's head off.

"Perhaps the security of the schools needs to be reviewed? "

Oh no you don't. You don't get to lay this on the school for having horrible security.

Schools should not be practising lock down or require sign in, for fuck sake. They are places to learn and have fun. Not places to be scared and have armed fucking guards.

I live in Northern Ireland. I know from fully secure schools. I fucking hate that my son spends his days behind a locked door.

If you have a gun with the idea of protecting yourself against a burglar, then there is always an increased risk that you will end up killing somebody who turned out not to have been a burglar: your small daughter hiding in a cupboard to surprise you or the lady next door walking round the back because she couldn't get you to hear her knock on the front door.

Yes, since the handgun ban, gun crime in the UK has DOUBLED. It has made a huge impact.

And fwiw I have been in the situation of being alone in the house when two burglars entered the room I was in. And I can confidently assure you that the idea that passed through my head was not "oh, I do wish we were all fully armed!".

Gun crime has been falling in England and Wales for the last 7 years.

No one believes the daily fail... Go to the stats reports

squoosh what I meant was you can have some of the strictest gun laws in the world (like the UK) and still, absolute nutters will get hold of guns and kill people. Like Raoul Moat as I said in that post.

I do, however believe that is no reason not to have gun control. I cannot get my head around the 'guns don't kill people, people do'

There is absolutely no reason on earth for an automatic weapon other than to kill people. None.

Stats please Welsh

With regard to school security. How much more can they do? Let's say you're a parent of a child attending the US school down the street from my house. There's an assembly that day and your child is getting an award. You must park in a separate lot, enter at the office, produce either a driver's license or a state ID, have that ID entered into the system, then a sticker with your name and photo is generated and you have to wear it at all times while on the school grounds. If you do not leave quickly enough after the assembly is over, you will be tracked down and interrogated.

If you wish to actually volunteer, say help with a class party or am event you will need to do all of the above AND have a background check.

Iggly,the stats are for BB guns causing "slight" injuries. They rose between 96 and 06 ish.

There is a sharp decline in gun fatalities and gun crime overall is declining.

I think the reference for welsh is a sensationalist article from 2009 in the daily fail...

Ok well that renders it bullshit then if it's in the DM

Raoul Moat killed 2 people, separately, over a period of time and they were targeted. He did not take out an entire class of 5 year olds in a matter of minutes, indiscriminatley. This is because in the UK you could possible kill people with shotguns or handguns. Not assault rifles and semi-automatics.

Google for yourself iggly. Post ban, gun crime continued to rise, reaching double the pre ban figures.
Even though they're now falling, the last figures available, 2011 I believe, are the first year where figures have fallen below pre ban levels, fourteen years on. That can be attributed to a lot of things, but don't demonstrate the efficacy of banning regulated handgun ownership at all. If a ban was effective, that would have been immediately reflected in gun crime stats.

Those figures, incidentally, do not include air guns.

If they banned guns in the US tomorrow, there would still be millions of guns in the US tomorrow.

Nothing can fix this. Nothing ever will.

MrsBW yes there will from time to time be shooting tragedies such as Raoul Moat and the Cumbrian shooter, Derrick Bird but as maxmillie says shotguns and handguns are very different beasts to semi automatics. No one needs to own one of those.

How many mass shootings have there been in America in the last few years? So many that they all kind of merge into one.

Yes, they do welsh. And handgun crime specifically is lower.