Did the Orlando attack just hand the presidency to Trump

[ftw]

I've just watched a Trump speech. Oh dear God; no nation building in the ME, no immigrants from certain countries, American Muslims must turn in the bad ones, he's going to protect all the law abiding Americans etc etc

I fear it's going to play well.

To be honest the first photo I saw of him I though he was gay and it looks like I was right.

Did the Orlando attack just hand the Prrsidency to Trump?
I think so.

But Trump's still shouting about radical terrorists from Syria

Because he's an opportunistic liar, and because he thinks it takes the heat off pressure for gun control which he doesn't want. The reality is that he cares not one single jot about the appalling gun-related death rate in the US.

Hey LaserShark, I carry a gun with me at all times for protection. Maybe I can give my own opinion. You seem to be coming at this discussion from the viewpoint that gun control MUST happen and it's a case of "how many more shootings before we change it". In my own opinion, there's not a limit, because law abiding citizens shouldn't be denied the right to protect themselves. I also don't think that gun control would magically stop shootings from happening either, so you'd be asking me to give up my only means of protection based on a promise that somehow if I gave up my gun, bad people willing to kill would be willing to give up theirs too. I don't believe that for one second.

Let me ask you another question, "how many more shootings" do you need to have in England before you change your gun laws to allow people to defend themselves again? Do you see why talking about it as if it's a running tally and a change in law is inevitable, and the only talking point is how many more deaths before it happens?

My point was that gun control isn't inevitable - I would have thought if the tide was going to turn then it would have done. So my point was more that gun control won't happen, or at least won't happen in the foreseeable future - due to precisely the argument you have put forward. It's a point of view which I think is very difficult to understand in a country where guns are largely banned because the very idea of owning a gun is so alien to me. If you live in a country where owning a gun is normal then I understand that your feelings would be completely different. What I was trying to say is that to me, the safest thing is to have no guns but I can see that there is a strong opinion amongst gun owners that having a gun makes you much safer. So I can't see how gun control could happen because for so many people that would mean surrendering their means of protection, exactly as you have argued. So I can't imagine gun control being an inevitable thing at all.

Since January 2016 there have been 23,000+ shooting incidents , 5,965 deaths, 12,000 injuries and 1,044 accidental shootings in America. Over the same period approximately 700+ people have been killed world wide by/or linked to ISIS terrorist attacks.

What precisely is there in those statistics that would lead anyone to think it would be right to allow guns to be carried in the UK? And do they maybe suggest that any president might need to think a bit about gun control?

President Obama has no right to lecture about gun control when he, his wife, and their daughters are protected round the clock by the highest concentration of armed guards possibly on the planet. If guns put us in more danger, surely he doesn't want his wife and kids to be close to them? A man who feels he has to be protected by a group of armed guards everywhere he goes has no legitimacy to tell others they don't need a gun. His office is more prominent and he is more of a target than I am of course, but we are all human beings so either we all deserve the right to protect ourselves or none of us do.

Hey Laser, you are correct that the safest thing is no guns, but that's like saying we should just have no crime to be even safer. Of course that would be the safest option but you literally cannot just abolish crime, or make it impossible for people to get a gun. Look at this from my point of view, I carry because if I ever get attacked I want to have a good chance of fighting back and surviving. My President says that I shouldn't have the right to carry a gun to do that, but he says that from the safety of the most highly defended house on the planet, and never moves without a escort of dozens of armed guards. For him to say that no one needs a weapon for protection, while being protected by weapons himself, makes him look like a complete fool, and hypocrite. Either he should accept that wanting a gun for protection is legitimate and justifiable and that's why he and his family are protected by them, or he really does feel that guns just put people in danger, in which case he is knowingly putting his wife and kids lives in grave danger every day from being so close to guns.

That's a ridiculous argument, chilledwarmth. Unless and until Obama can get guns properly under control, of course he and his family need armed guards. There are far too many idiots running around America with guns who would be only too pleased to use them on the President.

As for the suggestion that you would have a chance of fighting back if you were attacked: no, you wouldn't. Think about the school shooting cases, for instance - if there had been armed people running around with guns, children would have been shot in the crossfire, innocent people would have shot at each other due to the fact that they would have had no idea which people with guns were the original assailants and which the defenders, and the assailants would probably have been able to kill even more people in the general chaos.

Yes there are many idiots running around America who would be happy to use a gun on the President. There's also idiots who would be happy to use a gun on you, or me, or a random stranger sometimes. Until you can guarantee me that those people won't ever try to hurt me, I need a gun for protection in case it ever happens.

Can I ask what you are basing your second paragraph on? You say that innocent people would have shot at each other due simply because they wouldn't know if a guy with a gun was legit or not. I don't think you realize but that comes across as rather offensive towards gun owners. You suggest we would shoot each other in confusion. To clarify here I definitely don't think you meant to be offensive, you seem to really believe that's what gun owners get trained to do, but that's not how it works. I've practiced with guns for years and have been trained in how to respond in an active shooter situation. Killing everyone who I see with a gun just so I can be sure I got the bad guy is not something I'd be doing.

As for suggesting the bad guys would have been able to kill even more people in the chaos, that contradicts your initial claim. If you feel that law abiding people having guns would lead to more deaths in that situation, you can't assert that the assailants would miraculously escape that increased crossfire just to make it fit your argument.

It's a numbers thing, chilledwarmth. We're able to see how many gun deaths as a proportion of population occur in any given country.

USA has 10.54 gun homicides per 100,000 people.

UK: 0.23

There really is nothing more to say about gun control. Except it works.

You can't argue with gun people. It's like asking them to give up their firstborn. Christ knows why.

Some of my relatives in the states have guns but they are either currently in or ex services. So no macho dirty Harry crap, unlike my sisters ex who we were genuinely worried about when he bought some shotguns.

Hey originalmavis. Don't feel that you can't argue with us, you can. If I don't come round to your way of thinking it doesn't mean that I am ignoring you, or haven't thought about what you have to say. It just means I've considered your thoughts and disagree with your argument. Greenwood you really can't make that comparison as "the USA" does not have uniform gun legislation. Why should states like New York, which pretty much have a complete ban on carrying a gun, have their gun crime statistics used in an argument AGAINST gun control? A better comparison is delving deeper to look at the places where shootings happen, and see if there is a pattern and quite often there is. It goes like this.

Places in America that don't allow you to carry = more gun crime
Places in America that do allow you to carry = less gun crime.

I know which part I'd rather live in.

mavis I appreciate what you are saying. Some people do have guns because of insecurities and wanting to feel tough, like having the gun as a status symbol. That's a wrong reason to have one, but the main reason at least from what I've seen is that people just want to be able to protect themselves if shit happens. I don't see that as being macho, I just see it as parents wanting to protect their children, or a person not wanting to die unnecessarily.

Chilled, it's splendid that you have been trained with guns. Do you contend that every gun owner in the US has received the same level of training that you have? If so, the horrendous number of gun-related injuries in the US does rather suggest that it's not working.

Are you really incapable of seeing the illogic of your argument about protection? In a country where you are allowed to have a gun to "protect" yourself, your risk of gun-related homicide or injury is massively greater than the risk in a country where there is gun control. If you were genuinely concerned about that risk you would be desperate for gun control.

If you feel that law abiding people having guns would lead to more deaths in that situation, you can't assert that the assailants would miraculously escape that increased crossfire just to make it fit your argument.

So increased crossfire is fine because with any luck the original assailant will get caught in it? And, by the way, I didn't make that assertion. My point was that the chaos and confusion caused by having more people running around with guns is likely as a minimum to increase the time available to an assailant to carry on shooting. If you're a cop who turns up at a shooting incident and you can see four people with guns, how do you know which one is a defender and which an attacker?

Places in America that don't allow you to carry = more gun crime
Places in America that do allow you to carry = less gun crime.

Places in Europe that don't allow you to carry = MUCH less gun crime.

Places in America that don't allow you to carry = more gun crime
Places in America that do allow you to carry = less gun crime.

I'm not even sure that's true - I think it's garbage put out by the (horrific) NRA.

There is research shows the opposite.

But no US states have as strict gun control as UK and Australia - who have so few shootings that the evidence on proper gun control and stopping people killing each other with guns = irrefutable.

I could learn how to fire a gun at a bogey man target, but reacting in a situation where someone is firing at me, people are screaming and running, maybe its night and there's a lot of confusion, or maybe I'm racist and assume the black guy who also has his gun out is the terrorist and blow his head off in panic. Hell, i might even have had a few gins and be during wildly like Duke nukem. There's training and there's training.

Many of the school shootings have been carried out by 'nice boys' who have used guns taken from home? How many vigilantes gave actually stopped a murder, not to mention shooting a black kid who happened to be walking down the 'wrong' street to pick up some sweets for his sibling?

There are some estimates of fire-arm use to prevent violent crime. The data suggests that in reality, guns are very rarely used in self-defence. They are far more likely to be used to commit unprovoked violence, to commit suicide, or accidentally.

www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable16.pdf

The argument about Obama there was ridiculous.

Gun control is about preventing civilians from having access to firearms, just as we don't let civilians set up their own prisons or courts of law.

Obama is protected by armed state employees, just as most countries have at least some armed police and military personnel. I expect there to be armed personnel in some very high risk scenarios to protect politicians and the public.

That doesn't mean non specialist police officers, security guards or members of the public should be trusted to carry guns when they haven't been through higher level psychological training.

And people should not have the right to defend themselves if doing so puts other innocent people at great risk, which it demonstrably does.

Nope that argument was fine. The average person doesn't need to set up their own prison or court, but they do need to be able to defend themselves if they are in danger. My threat model is not the same as Obama, but that doesn't mean that I don't deserve to be allowed to protect myself.

You say that you "expect" armed personnel to protect you. Can I ask why you expect them to do that when you aren't willing to protect yourself? Maybe it's a cultural difference but I just don't understand this dependency you seem to have on your government to do everything for you. I don't rely on other people to protect me, EVER. I do it myself. If I need backup and someone else can provide it then I'll be happy to accept it, but I would never ask them to do something I'm not prepared to do myself. I could not ask someone to put themselves in danger to protect me if I wasn't willing to be right next to them doing the same thing. I feel pretty strongly about that.

The point is that you're not protected, Chilled, if you live in the US. Because you live in a country without gun control, your risk of gun related injury is demonstrably much higher than it would be in somewhere like the UK.

I'm thinking of an old neighbour who liked a drink.

Oh the times we had the fire brigade out because he fancied a bacon sandwich at way past booze oclock. He was not a very nice man and had a temper. No, I'd not be happy knowing that old soak had a gun and a temper.

But at least we are in the UK not the US, so luckily our firefighters don't have wankers regularly shoot at them, as my niece in the US does.

So the answer is get a gun too? No thanks. The answer is not to let every soul have a bloody lethal weapon.

Shooting someone really is like no other act - it's simple, and it's distant. It can be done in the blink of an eye. No other method is like it.

If Oscar Pistorius hadn't had a gun, Reeva Steenkamp would be alive today. That goes for numerous other victims - people shot in the blink of an eye, in a fit of temper, in a mistaken, trigger-fingered moment.

chilledwarmth - your feeling of 'protection' is an illusion, just that. It's not real - more guns in circulation, more likely to get shot. Everything is nonsense rhetoric. You're statistically more likely to use that gun on yourself than on an assailant.

*everything else

Maybe you guys just feel differently about this kind of thing but I just don't get how you can expect other people like cops to protect you if you aren't willing to protect yourself. I'm not saying that you shouldn't accept assistance if it's needed because of course you should do that, but to not do anything about your own safety, while expecting others to do everything up to and including risking their lives to save yours, it doesn't feel right to me. I do not and would not ever expect a police officer to do anything I wasn't willing to do either. I can't expect anyone to protect me unless I at least try and protect myself. The one thing I agree with you Greenwood is that if bad people didn't have guns, good people would still be alive. And as I've said in the past if you can come up with a way to guarantee to me that no bad guy is ever going to get a weapon, I'll hand mine over on the spot without hesitation.

mavis I'm curious why you think that the local problem neighbors would be certain to escalate to using their guns if they owned them. It's kinda cute the way the British seem to oppose guns on a national level with "my neighbor who doesn't like me would just shoot me". Well, if you really fear your neighbor that much then why do you not want to arm yourself just in case your fears turn out to be true? There was one guy who can at best be described as a total douche who lived close to me a few years ago and I knew he carried a gun. We didn't get on and at one point had a heated argument in the middle of the street, at no stage was I worried that he'd use his gun on me. Why do you seem determined that arguments between neighbors would escalate if they owned guns, it's paranoid, and it's basically saying that you think humanity as a species is incapable of dealing with confrontation without killing each other. On a grand scale that may be true given the number of wars we have but on a much smaller level, gun owners have heated arguments every day and no one worries that it will blow over into something worse.

I just don't get how you can expect other people like cops to protect you if you aren't willing to protect yourself.

Because that is vigilantism.