Mass shooting in my state

[Terramirabilis]

Another mass shooting in the US and this one is close to home. Local media are saying 13 students dead and 20+ injured. When are people going to see sense on gun control. I just don't understand this.

twitter.com/hashtag/UCCShooting?src=hash

Not sure how I put it into words, but I feel that whatever you chose on gun legislation, you can't ever prevent all shootings. So the aim should be to stop as many as possible, if we manage to stop them all then great but if we can't the next best thing is to prevent as many as possible. And I just don't think gun control does that

Evidence suggests it does, you're just refusing to listen to it.

No the evidence says that gun crime is lower in states with liberal gun control than it is in states with strict gun control. So if the aim is to save as much lives as possible the it would make sense to have a liberal approach to gun ownership.

It does. Substantive evidence suggests that a proliferation of gun ownership - ie more Americans being freely able to buy guns - means more guns in criminal hands.

Add to that far more reliable studies/stats than not (eg. NCVS, Harvard) show that offensive gun use far outweighs defensive gun use, and you begin to get the picture.

No the evidence says that gun crime is lower in states with liberal gun control than it is in states with strict gun control

And I've already shown you evidence that this isn't the case - you just ignored it.

I haven't ignored it but I am questioning it's accuracy. I can't support something that I feel endangers lives, I don't think there is one easy solution to preventing guy crime. It happens with or without gun control and if they can't use guns they use a stick or a rock, objects that we cannot realistically ban. And we can speculate on whether someone might be able to escape such an attack by that's all that it is, speculation.

Gun crime not guy crime

Donthave
if they can't use guns they use a stick or a rock, objects that we cannot realistically ban
Toddlers don't accidentally kill each other with sticks.
Anyway who cares what you think. Opinions like yours are as other posters have pointed out sociopathic and rare. Here in the UK we're unlikely ever to have laxer gun controls, because public opinion massively supported law change after Dunblane and Hungerford.
Again our response to this should be gratitude at the lucky way history panned out- we never had vast swathes of cattle country to manage and the possibility of invasion at a time when we didn't have an organised army. But heh, keep smirking.

Donthave you are being deliberately obtuse.

The theme running through your posts is that US gun control should be more lax. More people should be able to own guns whether that be semi automatics or just plain handguns. We are trying to point out to you that our tight gun control means that mass shootings are so rare in the UK, they stick in the mind and we talk about them for decades. They never get forgotten.

I can remember every incident in my lifetime, where I was, the name of the aggressor and the aftermath. It's such a huge awful tragedy, the nation is shocked to its core and no one forgets. Hungerford was the one that sticks in my mind - after that happened, this then happened.

The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 was passed in the wake of the massacre, which bans the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles and restricts the use of shotguns with a capacity of more than three cartridges.

Nothing happens in the US, except a lot of rhetoric and shouting and people like you advocating more guns and less gun control. Massacres are a way of life in the US. There are so many that people are somewhat immune to them, (except the poor victirms families) I won't quote you figures but it's more or less a daily occurrence.

Yet you are still here arguing that your way is best and that there should be no strict gun control areas and not only that, you would like all this madness brought over here!

Yeah right... you are prepared to sacrifice the lives of children so that people like you can be tooled up to shoot and ask questions later if someone should dare to pickpocket you or try and take anything you own. You need to have a long hard look at your priorities.

We have always had a whole different culture with regard to guns in the UK - yes Dunblane/Hungerford brought in stricter gun legislation - but we never had the same attitude to guns as the US before that, we've never had the "right to bear arms" mentality.

It was not known for UK households did not keep handguns in their bedside tables, for example. Our police aren't armed - except specialised armed units. Even now, I think more US households don't have guns than do - but I haven't looked that up, so maybe wrong. I believe it's about 30%.

The gun lobby is a powerful thing, though, with a lot of $ to affect policy in the US.

Plus the disparity of the murder rate between the US and the UK should tell us all we need to know about whether sticks, stones or even knives, can take life so readily and easily as a gun.

*It was not known for UK households to keep handguns in their bedside tables

And please drop the rock, stick and pen as a weapon argument. There are not mass killings from these.

Also ... semi automatic weapons were banned in the US for 10 years, during that time mass shootings went down. Then the ban expired in 2004 and the Democrats tried to renew it to no avail. Since then massacres have almost doubled.

Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun legislation. And there are studies that prove that more guns means more murders. This is FACT taken from studies in the US.

Accept you are wrong Donthave.

"Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun legislation. And there are studies that prove that more guns means more murders. This is FACT taken from studies in the US."

Official Department of Justice figures show that the states with liberal gun control have a lower violent crime rate than those with strict gun control. Someone went over the figures and compared the violent crime rate from the 8 states which didn't allow open carry of firearms, and the 42 others that did.

www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/oct/09/matt-gaetz/violent-crime-lower-states-open-carry/ from there "The remaining 42 states had a violent crime rate of about 352 per 100,000. That means states with open carry laws did have a 23 percent lower violent crime rate that year".

We should be aiming to prevent as much violent crime as possible, and the figures show that stricter gun controls does not work, but allowing open carry does.

What's your source for " mass shootings went down. Then the ban expired in 2004 and.......since then massacres have almost doubled"?

States with lower gun controls have enormous rates of accidental deaths. As you don't live in the states I fail to understand your delight in proposing laxer controls. As I say it smacks of schoolyard debating and is pretty distasteful.

The statistics are here:
www.factcheck.org/2015/10/gun-laws-deaths-and-crimes/
Again, for someone who doesn't live in the states to be so invested in laxer laws is bizarre.

DontHave, did you read the conclusions to that article you linked to? Because they do not support your claims.

"Since the expiration of the gun ban in 2004, the number of shootings per year has doubled, and the number of victims per year has nearly tripled. Three of the bloodiest four years shown here occurred since the expiration."

I suggest you read this You can't dispute the facts.

I'm not really proposing laxer laws or much change at all for the states though, minor details yes but I feel they pretty much have the right balance. I would like us to implement same laws as them, as the saying goes an armed society is a polite society.

"I would like us to implement same laws as them"

That is never going to happen. Thank god.

armed society is a polite society.

I think quite the opposite is true. For a start, only a small minority of Americans are armed, and secondly, I can't imagine why anyone would want to walk about openly carrying a gun - that is, unless they have an unhealthy fixation with John Wayne.

Plus I don't know if 'polite' is quite the right phrase for a country that has so many mass-murders of school children and still won't do anything about the easy availability of guns.

Donthave You contradict yourself repeatedly. You have advocated more availability for guns and less gun control in the US.

I'm not really proposing laxer laws or much change at all for the states though, minor details yes but I feel they pretty much have the right balance. I would like us to implement same laws as them, as the saying goes an armed society is a polite society.
What a great balance they have - mass shootings every day, I won't bore you with the indisputable facts and figures again, yet you say that is what you want for the UK? You really are a GF aren't you.... I'm inclined to think you are just having a pop at posters on here because you're a bit bored with your latest shoot 'em up games.

I don't want to live in an armed society even if it is polite and thank the Lord you are a lone voice on this thread. I think you need to read the whole thread back and reset your values and your respect for human life. Stupid comment from me because if you are legit, there is no hope.

donthave
I would like us to implement same laws as them, as the saying goes an armed society is a polite society.
Hahahahaha
Manners are so important

Well it's true that I'm in complete disagreement with everyone else in this topic it seems, but I have no intention of having a pop at anyone.

"I think you need to read the whole thread back and reset your values and your respect for human life."

I said that I would try to avoid taking a life if I could, that's because I have a respect for human life.