I'm pretty sure chicken rearing is legal in the UK. Shooting people less so.
Aww, shoot. Let's bang on about guns. Try to stay on target. Page 6
Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 16th February 2018, 5:56 PMI'm pretty sure chicken rearing is legal in the UK. Shooting people less so.
Cock-a-doodle-do,
Shooting people is illegal here, too. 
Quote: DaButt @ 16th February 2018, 7:56 PMCock-a-doodle-do,
Shooting people is illegal here, too.
I suspect many of us are astounded by these words.
Quote: DaButt @ 16th February 2018, 7:56 PMCock-a-doodle-do,
Shooting people is illegal here, too.
Which raises an interesting point. One of the reasons put forward that ordinary citizens should be entitled to obtain guns and licence to carry them, is that such persons ought to be able to stop wild persons on a shooting spree.
It doesn't seem to happen!
How often have licenced gun carriers stopped shooting sprees in the USA instead of waiting for the cops to come & deal with the situation?
The majority of gun carriers who carry a gun for non-sporting reasons surely do so for their own protection rather than assisting others in danger. The few that may be prepared and capable to assist in a dire situation like a shooting spree are unlikely to be in the right place when needed.
You probably can't stop criminals and mentally unstable people from obtaining guns illegally, but you can try and prevent them doing so legally.
Are the existing gun control laws working effectively?
It seems to me that both sides of the argument say they aren't.
Well, what do you do then?
Give up trying OR review and amend the laws?
Make the laws softer or tougher?
Enforce the laws more weakly or more strongly?
Without the USA's strong gun industry the 2nd World War would either have gone Hitler's way or more probably have gone on for another few years. So it HAS done some good. Also it was the new Springfield rifle which only the Union had which is said to have won the American civil war, stopping the legal slave trade of black people, just to tie in the other hot topic thread on here. It's not a facile argument Kenneth because military gun use was not unconnected from civil gun use in America.
The BAR and the tommy gun the latter of which was used widely by the British in their most successful WW2 campaigns in Africa and their legendary commando raids like St. Nazaire. Both commissioned into military use years after being general sale weapons so if the gun laws had been different then the Allies would have been without two of the most potent front line personal weapons in WW2.
But does a strong and open gun culture make citizens blasé to the destruction they cause? IMO yes, it appears to be almost accepted that some nutter will go on a killing spree every now and again over there. That should be worrying.
And does the gun culture promote trigger happy law enforcers and soldiers? Most definitely it does, the US military are notorious for their friendly fire incidents. So too their police officers, often shooting the wrong people or even the victims. They are way too quick to pull the trigger as a first resort, whereas our lot use it as a last resort, usually. A gun is a very powerful tool of persuasion, it doesn't have to be fired to get a result. As bank robbers will tell you. The cops should take a leaf out of their book.
Quote: billwill @ 16th February 2018, 11:36 PMWhich raises an interesting point. One of the reasons put forward that ordinary citizens should be entitled to obtain guns and licence to carry them, is that such persons ought to be able to stop wild persons on a shooting spree.
It doesn't seem to happen!
Because the majority of these situations take place in what are known as gun-free zones, where carrying a concealed weapon is illegal -- even if licensed. You can't carry in schools, churches or bars, and those are the places which have been the scene of horrible shootings.
Add in the fact that the shooters are often heavily armed, wearing body armor and have planned their assaults for months and it's almost hopeless, although I'm sure most of the people who encountered shooters would have wanted to have a gun of their own at the time.
Concealable pistols have a short barrel, thus making them accurate to a few dozen feet at best. A rifle has a long barrel and is easily accurate to a few hundred meters. If you have a pistol and find yourself confronted by a shooter with a rifle, escaping and hiding are your best bet. Shooting back is a last resort.
Quote: billwill @ 16th February 2018, 11:36 PMHow often have licenced gun carriers stopped shooting sprees in the USA instead of waiting for the cops to come & deal with the situation?
It happens, but spree shootings are relatively rare and so are interventions by armed citizens. The church shooting a few miles from here ended when an armed civilian grabbed his own rifle and shot and chased the suspect.
Quote: Frankie Mildly Perturbed @ 17th February 2018, 7:22 AMThe majority of gun carriers who carry a gun for non-sporting reasons surely do so for their own protection rather than assisting others in danger. The few that may be prepared and capable to assist in a dire situation like a shooting spree are unlikely to be in the right place when needed.
Correct.
Quote: Frankie Mildly Perturbed @ 17th February 2018, 7:22 AMAre the existing gun control laws working effectively?
It seems to me that both sides of the argument say they aren't.
Well, what do you do then?
Give up trying OR review and amend the laws?
Make the laws softer or tougher?
Enforce the laws more weakly or more strongly?
Stronger enforcement is the only solution, although as I've mentioned elsewhere, it has a racial and political element to it that makes it unpalatable to many.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 17th February 2018, 9:58 AMBut does a strong and open gun culture make citizens blasé to the destruction they cause? IMO yes, it appears to be almost accepted that some nutter will go on a killing spree every now and again over there. That should be worrying.
It's not so much as blasé as it is being resigned to knowing that bad people will always do bad things no matter how hard we try. There are a million tragic events and circumstances both home and abroad and I could spend my life fretting about them, but after a certain point it gets in the way of living my life.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 17th February 2018, 9:58 AMAnd does the gun culture promote trigger happy law enforcers and soldiers? Most definitely it does, the US military are notorious for their friendly fire incidents. So too their police officers, often shooting the wrong people or even the victims.
Neither of those things happen as frequently as you might think. Friendly fire incidents are almost never a case of being trigger happy, while they're almost always a case mistaken identity. Tale a look at this Wikipedia entry and you'll see that British troops also have a long history of friendly fire. The fog of war and all that...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_friendly_fire_incidents
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 17th February 2018, 9:58 AMA gun is a very powerful tool of persuasion, it doesn't have to be fired to get a result.
A large number of police shootings are cases of "suicide by cop" where someone essentially forces the officer to shoot them. They want to be shot.
Police shootings are either a case of an instantaneous kill-or-be-killed decision, or the result of a person refusing to comply with an officer's command to drop their weapon. YouTube is full of videos of police shootings where a friendly traffic stop suddenly erupts in shooting. You'd think a man with a knife would be no threat to an officer with a gun, but this video from a few weeks ago shows how close a cop came to getting stabbed before he could shoot the man.
Looks like their Northern neighbours are also having a dispute about the right to bare arms.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/former-canadian-prime-minister-sparks-12022734
Schools are safer than they were in the 90s, and school shootings are not more common than they used to be, researchers say
A newly released university study of school shootings in the United States makes the following findings:
Schools are safer than they were in the 90s, and school shootings are not more common than they used to be.
But while certain policies may help decrease gun violence in general, it's unlikely that any of them will prevent mass school shootings, according to James Alan Fox, the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern.
Since 1996, there have been 14 multiple victim shootings in schools, or incidents involving 4 or more victims and at least 2 deaths by firearms, excluding the assailant.
Of these, 7 are mass shootings, or incidents involving 4 or more deaths, excluding the assailant.
"This is not an epidemic"
Mass school shootings are incredibly rare events. In research publishing later this year, Fox and doctoral student Emma Fridel found that on average, mass murders occur between 20 and 30 times per year, and about one of those incidents on average takes place at a school.
Shooting incidents involving students have been declining since the 1990s.
Four times the number of children were killed in schools in the early 1990s than today.
Fox said, however, some policy changes aimed at decreasing school shootings and gun violence in general certainly have merit. Banning bump stocks and raising the age of purchase for assault rifles from 18 to 21 are good ideas, and may lead to a decrease in overall gun violence, he said. But he doesn't believe these measures will prevent school shootings. "The thing to remember is that these are extremely rare events, and no matter what you can come up with to prevent it, the shooter will have a workaround," Fox said, adding that over the past 35 years, there have been only five cases in which someone ages 18 to 20 used an assault rifle in a mass shooting.
Why do you post this shit?
Somehow intimating things are getting better
A lesser number of innocent children being shot dead in school than there used to be is not anything to crow about.
It's almost obscene.
Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 27th February 2018, 9:30 PMWhy do you post this shit?
Somehow intimating things are getting better
Because it's a scholarly study that disproves the common misperception that such incidents are common and happening more frequently?
Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 27th February 2018, 9:30 PMA lesser number of innocent children being shot dead in school than there used to be is not anything to crow about.
But it is a good trend, right?
Quote: DaButt @ 27th February 2018, 9:36 PMBecause it's a scholarly study that disproves the common misperception that such incidents are common and happening more frequently?
But it is a good trend, right?
Typical post from a selfish, callous gun obsessive.
I don't think the rest of us will ever understand the Americans and their guns.
I wonder what the teachers think of Trump's plan for arming them?
Guess who's going to be first in line when some nutter breaks in ??
Quote: Briosaid @ 27th February 2018, 11:29 PMTypical post from a selfish, callous gun obsessive.
Don't shoot the messenger just because he brings news that you don't like. 