Can we make this the serious bit of the thread?
Was asking a yank friend of mine few years back about gun control and he explained that because you have so many guns in the system banning them would achieve a massively armed criminal population and defenseless civilian one.
In other to have the power to disarm the U.S and keep it disarmed would demand one of two things.
A complete cultural shift away from gun ownership affecting not only civilians but criminals.
Or a hugely powerful police state.
The gun genies well and truly out of the bottle there I think.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:20,
Reply)
Reckon that that's a fair point, actually.
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:28,
Reply)
We could start a rumour
that GUN originally stood for Gay Uniformed Nazi, and let nature take its course.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:29, Reply)
Hmmm.....I think you need to seriously rethink
your opinion of right-wing nutjobs.
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:34,
Reply)
Hmm, you're right, they'd probably be quite proud...
(I couldn't work out how to get a commie implication in to the acronym)
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:35, Reply)
Which reminds me....
...I loved your recent outfit, MrOli.
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:41,
Reply)
Did you indeed?
You should have come over, offered me a drink. I might have kept those adorable little shoes on for you.
Urgh.
You'll keep, Tabby, you'll keep...
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:44, Reply)
I did wonder this the other day,
gunpowder was presumably invented before guns, so what does the word "gun" actually mean? Why isn't it called "bangpowder" or something?
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:47,
Reply)
Looks like it might have originally been imaginatively called "black powder"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:51, Reply)
it says known as "black powder" since the late 19th century
apparently the word "gun" originally referred to any projectile-hurling weapon
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gun
and we got it from the Chinese who had already invented guns as well, which I didn't know.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:58,
Reply)
Ah, it's simple then
We tell them guns are Chinese and therefore unpatriotic - job done :-)
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:01, Reply)
if guns were chinesed only the chinese would have guns
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:02,
Reply)
Gun control in the UK
A friend of mine who works in a gun store (UK - rural area) was telling me that following the Dunblane massacre the knee jerk reaction to gun control actually made the situation worse.
Don't get me wrong it wasn't that all regulation was bad and we should all be armed - just that once guns are out there it's bloody hard to make changes.
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Ten U Us results once we've taken all the cocks out, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:33,
Reply)
Maybe,
but it has happened. There was little-to-no gun control in the UK until the start of the 20th century.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:48,
Reply)
Yeah
A slightly scary mate of my dads when I was growing up had a lot of guns. Did he get rid of them all when the legislation banning handguns came in after Dunblane? Did he fuck. I haven't seen him since he got banned from the local pub for flashing a .357 Magnum. The sort of people who generally want to own guns are the sort of people you don't really want to have them, and the sort who are very unlikely to agree to give them up.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:25, Reply)
you wouldnt have to ban all guns outright immediately.
You could phase in gun control over a number of years - introduce licenses, prohibit sale to sections of the populace, ban the sale of automatic weapons, draconian sentences for gun runners etc.
That said, long term policy making is not a strength of the American political system. Or the British one for that matter.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:36, Reply)
Don't all those controls already exist?
At least in certain states.
You need a license
I'm pretty sure full automatic is illegal (though you can buy conversion kits)
And a quick google search for the penalty for smuggling guns is 20 years and $1million dollars.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:44,
Reply)
in some states, yes, in others no.
Mandatory gun licences are certainly not country wide.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:14, Reply)
but it's illegally owned guns that are the problem.
making them any more illegal isn't going to make them disappear.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:50,
Reply)
Trouble is, guns last for a very long time
they don't often need replacing.
All this would do would create a trade in illegal weapons where there currently doesn't need to be much, so make gangsters wealthier and gangs more violent, just like any kind of prohibition has over the years.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 10:54, Reply)
so mass murderers never go on the rampage with legally held weapons?
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:08, Reply)
I don't have the statistics for that,
but I suspect gangland killings and armed robberies are by far the bigger problem.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:12,
Reply)
take this guy, for instance,
he's killed 15 people and it's got on the news and it's shocked everybody.
US-wide there are on average about 35 deaths by shooting a day.
(12,632 in 2007 according to Wikipedia)
EDIT: homicides only, not including accidents or suicide
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:17,
Reply)
Assuming that most gangland killings and armed robberies are carried out with illegal weapons?
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:25, Reply)
see if you can find out
www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/163496.pdf
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:30,
Reply)
I'm not entirely sure what your point is.
That it's easy to obtain a gun illegally in America?
Yes, I agree.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:08, Reply)
my point is that probably most crime is committed with illegally acquired guns.
I can't prove it, but it seems likely to me. Why bother complying with the law to get a gun if you're only going to break the law with it anyway, and it's that easy?
Secondly, it doesn't really matter that much how the criminal gangs got the guns, if gun ownership were made totally illegal, they would still have the guns. Only law-abiding citizens would hand their guns in.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:12,
Reply)
my exhaustive scholarly research watching episodes of CSI bears this out
legally bought guns would be much easier to trace through ballistic examinaion, so only stupid criminals would buy one through normal channels.
Obviously this doesn't stop crimes of passion, but as I've commented elsewhere, I doubt the lack of a firearm would stop someone who really wants to kill someone.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:48, Reply)
the law should really concentrate on solving the kind of problems that happen all the time,
not the occasional one-offs that get in the news.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:57,
Reply)
international statistics here
www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html
I think the Michael Moore film Bowling for Columbine cites these numbers, and the weak correlation internationally with gun crime statistics to gun ownership percentages.
His thesis ends up being that its not gun ownership that is the problem, but a culture of fear, in particular racial fear.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:31, Reply)
also here
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
what's interesting is that while Northern Ireland has a higher gun homicide rate, the US has a far higher suicide/accident rate.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:34,
Reply)
That is one of the sloppiest use of statistics i've ever seen.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 11:45,
Reply)
It's a sloppy page of statistics crowbared together.
It's comparing figures from random 1 year samples over the course of 2 decades from surveys with different types of data sets.
There's a column for self defence yet not filled in.
Either nobody shot in self defence in the various years it was made or the author thought up the lists before reading data.
The U.S data is from 2004-2006 yet it says 1 year.
There's more holes to poke in it but I can't be bothered.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:08,
Reply)
I'm not about to write an academic paper on it,
it's surely good enough a rough guide for a casual internet debate.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:17,
Reply)
Quite right.
It wouldn't be an Internet debate if the opinions were informed and useful ! ;-)
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JamTallons, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:23,
Reply)
Not really. Why use a flawed set of figures as a basis for a discussion?
Especially where there's many other source options that are current.
www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_hom_wit_fir-crime-gun-violence-homicides-firearms
Fill yer boots.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:28,
Reply)
great.
It cites Wikipedia as its source.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:33,
Reply)
Did you look at the source page?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence
Lunch now, you can have the last word on this i've got salad to eat.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:40,
Reply)
Have you noticed that always having the last word
seems far more important to her than consistency or actual informed, intelligent argument?
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:58,
Reply)
I'm more surprised at your lack of comment about me eating salad.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 13:04,
Reply)
Why my good man I have the reputation for being a fat ginger Cornishman.
Despite being just over fourteen and a half stone and just a little bit of ginger in my beard.
I am however Cornish.
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Cerebus Sticky! Sticky! Stick! Stick!, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 14:07,
Reply)
on this one i'm not seeing the gun ownership %age
I'm trying to have a look at getting a good graph together, but on my limited version of excel I'm not about to label the scatter points properly.
Unfortunately the GunCite table also mixes years for the different countries statistics, so its not the best source. However, the general thrust is still interesting: while the USA has both the highest gun ownership and gun homicide rates, the next 6 down the list by ownership (in descending order: Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Finland, France and New Zealand) all have over 20% gun ownership and less that 1 gun homicide per 100,000 population, with no particular relationship between the two datasets.
Its worth noting that this is not an exhaustive list, many violent countries do not have statistics available on gun ownership, but perhaps that's to the good as it means we are comparing countries with governments stable enough to collect such data.
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:03, Reply)
no I mentioned that list
because it has total gun deaths broken down into homicides, suicides and accidents.
I was surprised to see N.I. higher than the U.S. because I was sure it was the opposite, but it's because the total gun deaths is higher in the U.S.
Also curious is the suicide rate in Switzerland... I wonder if gun ownership correlates to suicide by shooting. Not that I'm saying gun ownership causes suicides, but I guess if you've got one it seems like an obvious way to do it.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:09,
Reply)
well that is the interesting point isn't it? its not that you need a gun to kill someone or yourself
the South Africa statistic is intersting, in that it has a very high total homicide rate, 2/3rds of which are non-firearm.
Were I of the homicidal inclination, I'd have a wealth of creative options: bare hands, a kicking on the floor, kitchen knife, rock/brick/pool ball in a sock, garden tools, heavy household ornaments, the whole content of my tool box (except perhaps the tape measure), rat poison, and several plants growing in my garden including deadly nightshade, hemlock and in a few weeks the classic fly agaric mushroom.
Personally I'm of the opinion that prohibition is a sticking plaster measure at the best of times, we have to look to the cause of murder, not the tool used. Why are people angry enough to kill?
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:21, Reply)
absolutely,
often it's just a PR exercise so that the politicians can be seen to be doing something. After Dunblane, for instance, who got penalised? Legitimate gun sports clubs. They didn't do anything whatsoever to address the actual cause of the incident.
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Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 12:26,
Reply)
Australia radically changed its firearms laws following a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996 (The Port Arthur Massacre)
The below link is to a paper recently done by the Australian Institute of Criminology:
www.aic.gov.au/documents/7/D/5/%7B7D52BA73-81EC-42F7-8246-468FB222FB4B%7Drpp116.pdf
By suddenly restricting ownership of large swathes of previously legitimately held firearms, you end with a 'grey market' - I quote:
"The grey market consists of all long-arms that were not registered, or surrendered as required during the gun buybacks, following the National Firearms Agreement (1996). Grey market firearms are not owned, used or
conveyed for criminal purposes but may end up in the illicit market."
(, Fri 20 Jul 2012, 15:05, Reply)