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

it would just shift those deaths onto others,

So why hasn't that happened in the UK? We have a much lower murder rate.

You haven't answered.

In the UK when we spot a gunman we send armed police to the scene.

And isn't it nice that that's such a rarity? If we were comparable to the the US we would have had nearly 200 mass shootings so far in the US. We have had none. How do you explain that?

The police that have guns are trained to used guns, that's why we let them do the job. We're civilians, not a militia.

If we were comparable to the the US we would have had nearly 200 mass shootings so far in the US.* We have had none. How do you explain that?

And that's just in 2015 btw.

I would not like to see the figures for the last 30 years. It proves guns don't make you safer. And you're kidding yourself if you think civilians with guns have the same level of training as the armed police.

Bloody hell, try again:

If we were comparable to the the US we would have had nearly 200 mass shootings so far in the UK.* We have had none. How do you explain that?

So you are advocating anyone in the UK being able to have a gun and everyone being trained up to have that weapon. Why do we need it? Why change something that works? And why don't you answer UndertheGreenwoodtrees question.

but they would have allowed there to be a level playing field, instead of the advantage the armed criminal always has in the UK: The knowledge that their victim is unarmed. Guns are the most effective force equalizer
Errr... why do we need a 'force equalizer'? It's not as if we are beset with armed criminals. It is a rare occurrence. You don't seem to get that. You talk as if we all live on the mean streets of Detroit (over 400 gun deaths in 2013 with a population of 700,000). Why don't you accept that what we do works compared with the US? You cannot argue facts and figures because doing so just makes you look stupid.

You seem to feel it is wrong for the Police to do their work (by the way, they are more likely to go the way of tasers than guns if at all possible). You are coming across as a vigilante. I would dread to think what your views are on other subjects.

This is an amazing infographic showing gun homicides in the US and UK compared to terrorism deaths

It just shows the scale of the problem.

Amazing was the wrong word. Shocking would be the right word.

Don't is also constantly saying that all gun controls would do is swap one life for another, but based on the stats that is just not true is it? The amount of innocents killed added to those accidents etc far outweighs those whose who were saved by having a firearm so the pure statistics of it all just doesn't add up.

"Errr... why do we need a 'force equalizer'? It's not as if we are beset with armed criminals. It is a rare occurrence. You don't seem to get that. You talk as if we all live on the mean streets of Detroit (over 400 gun deaths in 2013 with a population of 700,000). Why don't you accept that what we do works compared with the US? You cannot argue facts and figures because doing so just makes you look stupid. "

A force equalizer levels the playing field somewhat. In confrontations it's quite often the case that the stronger person holds all the cards, guns go some way to addressing that imbalance. A gun gives a physically weak female pensioner a better chance to protect herself from a muscle bound powerlifter than she would if she had no weapon. As I've pointed out, there are times when pulling out a gun has stopped an unarmed attack, whereas if there was no gun, the victim may have been beaten up anyway after handing over his things, or may have chosen to fight the attacker and injured either the attacker, himself, or both. The production of that gun resolved the situation peacefully, with neither party injured other than the pride of the would-be attacker being a bit dashed when he was forced to leave.

"And you're kidding yourself if you think civilians with guns have the same level of training as the armed police."

Surely that depends on how much training that civilian decides to invest in. They get a choice on how frequently and how thoroughly to train, so some may not be as skilled as armed officers, but there are courses available to civilians, taught by qualified police instructors, so to have a blanket assumption that no civilian will have the same level of training is quite wrong.

Can't quite believe this thread is still going.

Very glad to see however that Donthave is a lone voice of insanity. to the rest of you.

I don't think that wanting to prevent violent crime is insanity though. There are far too many things that can be used as a lethal weapon that simply can't be banned, rocks, pens, baseball bats. People who say that you can't do massacres with them are simply wrong, as the massacre in China by a knifeman proved. It's all very good to talk about being able to overpower someone with a knife, it is true that you can but it completely ignores that most people caught up in a situation like that won't be thinking rationally about overpowering the person, they will be in a state of shock. Otherwise every shooter on a spree would be overpowered, his victims far outnumber him and if they all rushed him he couldn't get them all. In theory it's true but just like the case with other weapons, most people in a spree aren't going to think of running TOWARDS the attacker. I want to prevent violent crime, I want shooting sprees to be a thing of the past, but I don't think that gun control is the way to get that. Plus I think that the law abiding person has a right to own a weapon for protection, not just at home but also when out in public, and I think gun control would be an unacceptable level of intrusion into their rights.

Pretty soon, you'll just be banging random words on the keyboard, I think, Donthave. Pens! What about pens!! Or lamps! You can kill someone with a lamp!!!

When pens or rocks are responsible for approx 11,000 homicides in the US per year, plus many more accidents - then perhaps it would be time to look at pen control too.

Still waiting on the response about the numbers not adding up.

No it wouldn't, even if they were responsible for that number of homicides it still wouldn't be appropriate to ban them. Because what you'd find is you'd still get a similar level of homicides the next year but there would be a different weapon of choice. So year in year, doing things the way you propose, you'd be doing nothing to address the murder rate, and you'd have a farce of a country because you weren't trusting your own citizens to even own pens which would cause many issues.still just be treating the symptoms.

Otheeusername, the numbers aren't the same because the UK murder rate and violent crime rate has never been as high as high as the US. But this has been a consistent pattern from a time before we had strict gun laws. It's clearly incorrect to attribute our low rate to the gun laws, because then how do you explain the low rate before those laws you say are responsible?

Wow...Just wow.

How paranoid are you?

I'd hate to live inside your head afraid all the time of imaginary gun toting criminals coming to burgle and shoot you. The fact is, in the UK you are more likely to be hit by lightening than shot by a gun and yet you seem to be advocating that we set up lightening rods and encourage all, children, householders and anyone who owns anything of worth to stand under them, wait for a storm and hold on tight.

That's not the numbers I am talking about - you have stated consistently through this thread that all you would be doing by stopping access to guns for "law abiding" citizens is to exchange their life for the saving of a life of someone who is shot in a mass shooting. This is all in the US

There have been statistics given in various different ways in the thread that have shown that there are far more incidences of unlawful shootings plus accidental killings plus suicides etc. than can be attributed on your counter part of the scale where someone has shot someone in order to save themselves.

So, I'm not buying the "life for a life" argument in that it seems to be much more like a life for 100 lives (haven't referred back to the stats as I am aware that I am just wasting my time here).

You could apply the same argument to things like wearing a seat belt - I think there have been a few cases where wearing a seat belt contributed to someone's death or injury but that is far outweighed by the number of people saved, so would you advocate the removal of seatbelts in order to save the few on the basis that you are exchanging a life for a life?

Seatbelts are an excellent demonstration of why carrying a weapon is not paranoid.
I drive all the time, but drive safely. I don't take unnecessary risks and I feel quite safe while driving. But car accidents still happen, and even though Im not paranoid about being in one, I acknowledge that the possibility of being in one still exists. So I'll put the unthinkable to the back of my mind and hope I never need to rely on my seatbelt but I'll still wear it because there is the possibility I may one day need it. I'd rather wear one all my life and never need it, then never wear one and one day discover I need it. I'm not paranoid about being in a situation where I need a weapon but I acknowledge that those situations do exist. I'm happy to rely on the statistics for the most part, the fact that I'm unlikely to need one, but just like a seatbelt is my fallback plan in case I get unlucky, a gun would be my fallback plan if im unlucky enough to end up needing one.

Seatbelts are not an analogy for owning a gun. Your kid won't get hold of your seatbelt and kill you/another kid with it. Nobody can use a seatbelt for mass murder.

But yeah - seatbelts now!

The correct analogy would be banning seatbelts as the similarity to banning guns. The chances of needing your seatbelt are so small that you must be paranoid to consider wearing one. And yes seatbelts can kill if used as a weapon by a bad person, or even by accident through choking. It can and does happen sometimes, as does deliberate and accidental gun deaths, so let's ban both?

Ha ha, I knew even when I posted that that you would twist and turn it all....however I am still waiting for an answer.....

It's not a life for a life is it? Not even near a life for a life. You just want to exchange the many many lives lost for your own personal comfort. For every person being saved by carrying a gun, many many more are dying from the proliferation of guns that were "bought for protection".

If you ban guns because you probably won't need them and because they can end up killing people then seriously what about seatbelts? You probably won't need them and sometimes people have died because of them, through being trapped or whatever. I see both as safety devices, that are better to have and not need than need and not have

No that is not a correct analogy, that is grasping at straws and not comparing like with like - because seatbelts can't be used as an assault weapon.

Like I said, just banging out words now.

No, I want to save as many lives as possible. Gun control does not do that imo.