Jenks wrote:Unimportant!! unless it is one of your family or friends that is the victim.
Congratulations on missing the point entirely
Jenks wrote:Much easier in a society that has so many legal and many, many more illegal firearms.
Cho got around gun control laws that banned him from owning guns by lying to the gun store owner and to the FBI. To get around gun control laws in this country you just have to lie to the police. The police can only ask your doctor about your medical history if they have reason to believe that something there might prove you are dangerous, but if, like Cho, you tell them you are not mentally ill they'll have no idea. Even if they got some inkling you might be a psycho, your doctor can only tell them what he or she knows. If you don't tell your doctor you're full of hate and feeling violent urges and have no empathy for others then she can't tell the cops anything. The idea that you can keep guns out of the hands of bad people has been proven wrong over and over again - and that's just the (would be) legal guns! There's nothing to stop people making their own guns or bringing them back from abroad in bits or buying them on the black market.
Jenks wrote: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.
That's not the case. Nobody feels afraid or unsafe just because they're unarmed, any more than you feel terrified when the smoke alarm battery runs out or you can't find the seatbelt in a dark taxi. None the less, it makes good sense to carry a gun, have a working smoke alarm, and wear a seat belt. Doing these things doesn't mean you live in a world where you're in constant and extreme danger of being shot, burnt to death or hit by a car.
Again, you're missing the point. Schools and universities across the world are victimized in mass shootings regardless of gun control - but allowing people to protect themselves and others in places of learning prevents mass shootings from occurring and lessens their impact when they do happen. If you think that's a sad state of affairs then my heart bleeds for you but it's just irrational.
Jenks wrote: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.
The US does have a lot more gun murders than Britain. But a lot of these are not extra murders, they're just extra murders with guns. Familiar murder, one of the most common kinds of murder, is pretty stable across the developed world. Husbands kill their wives, sons their fathers etc, just as often in the UK as in the USA. But where as in the UK they beat them to death, stab them, strangle them or set the house on fire, in the US they shoot them. That doesn't make them any worse.
But also there
are quite a few
extra murders - and again a lot of these involve guns. As I've explained though, this higher rate of murder has nothing to do with gun laws. Where gun laws are liberal, there are few murders, and where gun control is tight, there are many murders. In communities with no guns there are many murders, in communities with many guns there are few murders. The fact is that you are just as safe from murder in the US as you are in France. If you live in the ghetto, though, then yes you do face a very high risk of being murdered but that's because of the existence of ghettos, not guns.
FredB wrote: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.
There are about 600 accidental gun deaths in the US every year. That's about 0.3% of all accidental deaths - which include 2,000 drownings, 2,500 chokings, 2,700 fire deaths, 25,000 falls, 32,000 poisonings, and 42,000 automobile deaths. Accidental gun deaths pale in comparison to the downward effect that gun ownership has on murder.
Switzerland has a rate of accidental gun death about two thirds as high as the USA, so Switzerland's gun owners do have lethal accidents a fair bit less frequently. In neither country are accidental gun deaths a significant problem, but is Switzerland's lower rate because of better training? Probably to some extent. But a third of accidental gun deaths in the USA are hunting related. Hunting in Switzerland is uncommon and centered around its mountain slopes and open meadows. While a lot of hunting in the USA is similar, a lot is also performed in densely wooded areas, claustrophobic swamps and thick brush. In Europe, most hunting is undertaken by formal, organized shoots, or individuals or small groups with permission from the landowner - a function of the scarcity of game and land suitable for hunting. In the USA, hunting is frequently done in informal groups or with lone hunters on public land or private land without specific permission but where it's known locally that the owner doesn't mind people hunting there. Hunting is also a lot more popular. This leads to a high density of hunters in the best areas who don't know that other people are around or where they might be. The nature of the terrain and the fast shots required at close range inevitably lead to more accidents than what you find in Switzerland. Another factor is the demographics. In Europe, hunters are quite often educated people not short of money who you would expect to be pretty safe. In the USA hunters are often the rural poor; rednecks.
It's not just the nature of hunting though. Although Switzerland has more target shootings than a lot of European countries, most Swiss gun owners stick their rifle in a closet and only ever take it out a couple of times a year for military duty. This means that while Swiss gun ownership is comparable to that in America, Swiss gun
use is much lower. You would expect, therefore, for there to be fewer accidents.
Interestingly, France actually has more accidental gun deaths per gun owner than the USA, while Australia comes equal. Britain is on a par with Switzerland, as is Canada.
Jenks wrote:Well there's the rub as they say. Because if as you say CCW were to be legal here in the UK, you would carry a firearm. Well almost certainly so would I!! and the reason I would, is because of all the 'loony tunes and wannabees' walking around tooled up. Over the years I have had some (what I consider)pretty unsuitable people ask me how they could own a gun. Once I explain the hoops they would have to jump through before being granted a FAC they soon lose interest.
The same predictions were made when concealed carry was introduced in the USA, that every thug and incompetent would be packing heat and there'd be blood in the streets. But it never materialized. In fact murder rates and violent crime in general has fallen. There have only ever been a handful of incidents of CCW holders committing crimes with their guns in the 25 odd years of CCW. Many states paired the introduction of CCW licenses with a system of tracking the crimes of CCW holders so they'd know if the permits were being misused. After a few years they scrapped the system because they had no data to input since permit holders weren't committing any crimes. Permits are easy to get, but you might think that the hassle of having to get a background check and pay a feemight be responsible for gun owners' good behaviour - keeping the ruffians and idiots out of the club. But it isn't. Take Vermont - you don't need a permit to carry a gun. Open or concealed, you just buy one and walk out the door with it on your hip or under your jacket. Yet Vermont has a lower murder rate than the UK (which is already one of the lowest in the world). Just a few miles away in Connecticut, where carrying a gun is illegal for all intents and purposes, the rate is three times as high.
...Where mass killings in universities is almost a regular occurance.
Regular occurrence?? There have been three in the past ten years. School shootings are just as common elsewhere in the world and
don't matter. They sound horrific on the news but they are so infrequent that they do not affect your personal safety in any meaningful way. If you are a student or work in higher education your chance of being killed in a mass shooting at college is 1 in 2 million. Compare to a 1 in 10,000 chance of accidentally poisoning yourself. So ban rat poison and bleach before you ban guns, m'kay.