The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Jenks,
That is true, but equally the same could be said of anything that is used in a crime, be it a knife, a car etc. We (in the UK) seem to be intent on focusing on the tool/s used to commit the crime rather than the criminal and the crime itself.

You could even go so far as to argue that if there was less atractive consumer goods and less money then there would be less crime - a silly position, I know, but one that could be shown to be true.

Until relatively recently, carrying something for self defence in the UK would not have been seen as unusual and even legal. As Chuck has pointed out, this shooting happen in California where they have firearms laws that seem to rival ours?

It seems to be America all of the time because there are so many guns, but if then mathematically it is bound to be the case. Just the same as in the UK with knife crime, or ant other country with extremes of ownership.

I don't believe less guns equals less crime, but at the same I don't think having more guns will always means less crime either.

What will make a difference is allowing people the right to defend themselves against those who choose to operate outside the law.

These spree shootings are like plane crashes. They get a lot of media attention and they shock us, but they're unimportant. Although it might seem like they happen a lot, remember the size of the populations we're dealing with. Remember that two people are murdered every day in Britain, but you rarely hear about any of them. Spree shootings are so rare they really don't contribute significantly to the US murder rate, they are dwarfed by gang shootings. And of course, spree killings happen everywhere. There's more correlation between suicide rates and spree shootings than there is between gun ownership or gun laws. Those who commit them frequently defraud the gun control system to get hold of guns illegally but through legal channels (Virginia Tech), import or manufacture them illegally (Toulouse, Dunblane, Cologne), buy them on the black market (Columbine, Rio de Janeiro), or steal them (Westroads Mall, Winnenden). Utah is the only state in the union that gives students the right to carry guns on campus. Utah has never had a university shooting. One of the only universities in the union to voluntarily allow guns on campus is the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. When one student attempted to commit a mass shooting, two armed students stopped him before anyone could be killed. But again, the important thing really is that these things are just shocking headline material, they don't significantly impact how safe a place is - in the same way that terrible plane crashes don't change the fact their jetliners are the safest way to travel.

The states and cities with the strictest gun control have the highest rate of murder. The states with the least gun control have the lowest rate of murder. Washington DC, for example, with a near total ban on firearms is the murder capital of the US. Just a few miles away, the similarly sized city of Virginia Beach where you can carry a gun openly on your hip without any need for a license, or concealed if you get a license (which must be issued to you on request, by law) has a murder rate one seventh as high, comparable to London. El Paso Texas, also with easy and common concealed carry, also of a similar size, has a murder rate half that of London. Of course just looking at the figures isn't particularly helpful because there may be other differences besides the level of gun control that influence murder rates, but a multitude of regression analyses (which essentially 'even out' all of the other differences between cities or states and show what murder rates would look like in difference places if the levels of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, poverty, etc were the same everywhere) have found that increased gun rights have a downward effect on crime, murder in particular.

It is also interesting to note that if you are white, hispanic, native American or Asian in America, your murder rate is the same as that in France. But if you are black in America, your murder rate would, if it were for a country, be the highest in the world - twelve times that of everyone else. This is the case both for the rate of being murdered, and the rate of being a murderer - so we know it's not that white people kill a lot of black people, it's that black people kill a lot of people, most of them black. This is a useful bit of information because we know a lot about black people as a demographic. They are poorer than other races, live in lower quality housing, live in higher population densities, are unemployed at a higher rate, come from broken homes at a higher rate, and so on. We also know that black people own guns at an extraordinarily low rate compared to other races, and more frequently live in cities and states with strict gun control. Yet they, the people who don't own guns, are the ones getting murdered. And they, the ones living under the strictest gun control, are the people committing most of the murders. Whites and Asians and hispanics own a lot of guns, and don't get killed very often. They live under liberal gun laws, and don't commit a lot of murders. This should tell us something about just what causes and prevents murder.

If the Oakland shooting should tell us anything it is that even the People's Republic of Kalifornia cannot stop people committing mass murder against an unarmed people (for all intents and purposes, it is illegal to carry a gun in CA). Gun control can't stop murderers. But Smith and Wesson can.

Porcupine well said that man, what you say is pretty much how that book describes it.

I have only heard of this type of thing happening once in Switzerland, a country which has many more guns per head of population than the USA.
Fred

Porcupine.....Excellent post....I've saved a copy to My Documents for future use.

Porcupine wrote:These spree shootings are like plane crashes. They get a lot of media attention and they shock us, but they're unimportant. Although it might seem like they happen a lot, remember the size of the populations we're dealing with. Remember that two people are murdered every day in Britain, but you rarely hear about any of them. Spree shootings are so rare they really don't contribute significantly to the US murder rate, they are dwarfed by gang shootings. And of course, spree killings happen everywhere. There's more correlation between suicide rates and spree shootings than there is between gun ownership or gun laws. Those who commit them frequently defraud the gun control system to get hold of guns illegally but through legal channels (Virginia Tech), import or manufacture them illegally (Toulouse, Dunblane, Cologne), buy them on the black market (Columbine, Rio de Janeiro), or steal them (Westroads Mall, Winnenden). Utah is the only state in the union that gives students the right to carry guns on campus. Utah has never had a university shooting. One of the only universities in the union to voluntarily allow guns on campus is the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. When one student attempted to commit a mass shooting, two armed students stopped him before anyone could be killed. But again, the important thing really is that these things are just shocking headline material, they don't significantly impact how safe a place is - in the same way that terrible plane crashes don't change the fact their jetliners are the safest way to travel.

The states and cities with the strictest gun control have the highest rate of murder. The states with the least gun control have the lowest rate of murder. Washington DC, for example, with a near total ban on firearms is the murder capital of the US. Just a few miles away, the similarly sized city of Virginia Beach where you can carry a gun openly on your hip without any need for a license, or concealed if you get a license (which must be issued to you on request, by law) has a murder rate one seventh as high, comparable to London. El Paso Texas, also with easy and common concealed carry, also of a similar size, has a murder rate half that of London. Of course just looking at the figures isn't particularly helpful because there may be other differences besides the level of gun control that influence murder rates, but a multitude of regression analyses (which essentially 'even out' all of the other differences between cities or states and show what murder rates would look like in difference places if the levels of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, poverty, etc were the same everywhere) have found that increased gun rights have a downward effect on crime, murder in particular.

It is also interesting to note that if you are white, hispanic, native American or Asian in America, your murder rate is the same as that in France. But if you are black in America, your murder rate would, if it were for a country, be the highest in the world - twelve times that of everyone else. This is the case both for the rate of being murdered, and the rate of being a murderer - so we know it's not that white people kill a lot of black people, it's that black people kill a lot of people, most of them black. This is a useful bit of information because we know a lot about black people as a demographic. They are poorer than other races, live in lower quality housing, live in higher population densities, are unemployed at a higher rate, come from broken homes at a higher rate, and so on. We also know that black people own guns at an extraordinarily low rate compared to other races, and more frequently live in cities and states with strict gun control. Yet they, the people who don't own guns, are the ones getting murdered. And they, the ones living under the strictest gun control, are the people committing most of the murders. Whites and Asians and hispanics own a lot of guns, and don't get killed very often. They live under liberal gun laws, and don't commit a lot of murders. This should tell us something about just what causes and prevents murder.

If the Oakland shooting should tell us anything it is that even the People's Republic of Kalifornia cannot stop people committing mass murder against an unarmed people (for all intents and purposes, it is illegal to carry a gun in CA). Gun control can't stop murderers. But Smith and Wesson can.

Porcupine..

These spree shootings are like plane crashes. They get a lot of media attention and they shock us, but they're unimportant.

Unimportant!! unless it is one of your family or friends that is the victim.

Those who commit them frequently defraud the gun control system to get hold of guns illegally

Much easier in a society that has so many legal and many, many more illegal firearms.

Utah is the only state in the union that gives students the right to carry guns on campus. Utah has never had a university shooting. One of the only universities in the union to voluntarily allow guns on campus is the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. When one student attempted to commit a mass shooting, two armed students stopped him before anyone could be killed.

Well hurrah for Utah!! Am I the only one who thinks that a society where for students to feel safe when attending a class at a university of college it is necessary for them to carry a gun Is a truly sad state of affairs.

For the record I had my first air rifle at the age of ten. At eleven years old I fired Lee Enfiends Number 4 and Number 5 Carbine and 303 Bren Light Machine Gun. Shortly before my sixteenth birthday I Joined up as an Army Apprentice (Armourer) Goodness knows how many rounds of ammunition I fired in my Army service. After leaving the Service I continued to shoot, Both stalking and targets. I still own and shoot a number of Rifles and Shotguns. I mention this just in case anyone thinks because of my opinions as stated here and on several other occasions. That I am anti Gun I am Not What I am anti is the casual attitude to gun ownership that appears to be the norm in the USA. And of course the ease with which a citizen law abiding or more importantly criminal can obtain a firearm.

Jenks

Jenks, have you actually been to the USA to a State that allows concealed carry?
An armed society is a polite society to quote Heinlein.
I am just back from the USA mixing with guys who carry all the time; a nicer and more polite bunch I couldn't ask for. BUT they WILL defend themselves.
God save us from bleeding heart liberals!

dodgyrog wrote:Jenks, have you actually been to the USA to a State that allows concealed carry?
An armed society is a polite society to quote Heinlein.
I am just back from the USA mixing with guys who carry all the time; a nicer and more polite bunch I couldn't ask for. BUT they WILL defend themselves.
God save us from bleeding heart liberals!

D/Rog..

have you actually been to the USA to a State that allows concealed carry?

Yes I have, Florida. The day I was shooting, in another part of town on a similar range a mother shot her son in the head! We were there for two weeks during which the daily TV news seemed to report on a shooting related incident every day. So much so that Family members who were with me and do not shoot commented on it.

God save us from bleeding heart liberals!

That is as stupid as calling every yank who carries a gun a 'Redneck'

Look, I really don't care what the Americans do regarding their firearms laws. I just don't want them here. I don't think it appropriate to label someone who hold a different view to you as a 'Bleeding heart Liberal' I am certainly not.

Jenks

What I've always wondered is; if it's access to firearms that causes trouble in societies, there why aren't the streets of Switzerland running red?

When you hit 16, you're in the army and you get yourself a SiG, select-fire assault rifle that you keep at home, then when you hit 34, I think, you're in the reserves, but you still get a rifle to keep and store at home.

Every male in the country owns a rifle, and some very purdy lasses too, so, with all this casual access to firearms, how is there not a killing spree every week?

Hell, take Luxembourg, you can legally own a machine gun there. Let me say that again. You can legally own a machine gun there, a prober belt fed one too. Yet I cannot remember the last killing spree in Luxembourg.

Could it be, that it's not the possession of firearms, but the attitude of a given society and individual who causes these "mass-killings"

Also, the line of thought of "do you really want to live in a society where you need to carry to feel safe?" is a good point. I certainly don't want to live in a place where I "need" to carry, but if CCW were legal here would I?

Hell yes.

I don't feel the "need" to, I feel fairly safe on the streets, but I only have one life. Why would you not want to protect it?

Would that mean I would be drawing down on anyone that looked at me funny? Hell no. I commute by train, I get looked at funny all the damn time, but would I prefer to have a handgun on my person if approached by 3 blokes, all built like brick doo-doo houses, or a mobile phone so I can dial 999, I gonna go and say, the handgun.

The key fact about Switzerland is that the population is taught how to use forearms safely: the USA has a lot of accidents because "Freedom to bear arms" allows idiots to do so and well meaning people who have no training in safe gun handling.
Fred