Good to see my country outside of the top 100 (#109 to be exact).
Strangely, even though I don’t have a gun I feel safer at night on the subway in the Netherlands traveling with my kids than I did last year while traveling in the early afternoon with a couple of co-workers on the subway in the US after I saw a big guy in the subway train carrying an obvious gun standing next to a “hidden weapons are prohibited” sign.
I think it’s all a matter of perspective. People who prefer to live without a lot of guns in their immediate area will undoubtably feel safer in countries where very few people outside of the police are allowed to carry guns in public, while people who want to exercise their right to bear guns will feel safer in countries where they are free to carry their guns in public.
As long as the NRA has the influence it currently has no gun law in the US is going to change. Period. The fact that those gun laws (the second amendment) date back to the 18th century (december 1791), and the fact that that right to bear arms was intended to provide US citizens the possibility to defend themselves against Brittish invaders (i.e. IMHO those laws are hopelessly outdated (but that’s just my opinion!)) is completely irrelevant to the NRA (as well as to people who want to bear guns).
[spoiler]After all, Brittain could invade again any time now. Or maybe Canada, I hear they have lots of guns too…
First, I’d like to say that this is a foolish request. People don’t need to have personal or direct involvement with any mass shootings or gun deaths to have important & valid opinions on those issues.
But I live in Eugene, OR. A few miles from Thurston high school, where there was a mass shooting in 1998. My younger brother was in class that day. The Umpqua community college shooting that happened 9 months ago was in Roseburg, less than an hour from here. I know several people who did and still do live there. And three very close friends of mine have died from gunshot wounds, including Conor Fahey who died with an infant daughter that will never remember him.
[quote=“RiverSong, post:101, topic:8322, full:true”]I don’t know of a single one of these tragedies that would have been prevented by stricter gun laws.
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Except that in dozens of countries (Australia, Portugal, Argentina…) they have demonstrated that stricter gun laws DO reduce the number of mass shootings.
The heritage of America is that we change and improve - not that we remain frozen in time. Heritage is about honoring the past - not stubbornly adhering to it.
@Gouki: Gun deaths only rival car deaths if you include gun suicides. See this page: FastStats - Injuries. Notice the gun death stat includes ALL gun deaths and reaches about 33k, roughly the same as vehicle deaths. Now check this page: FastStats - Suicide and Self-Inflicted Injury. Gun suicides are 21k! That’s almost 2/3! And this is a government statistic, by the way, so I’m not cherry picking my data from some pro-gun source.
As for cars, they’re not highly regulated at all. If I show that I’m capable of driving under the speed limit without leaving my lane and obeying traffic signs, I get a license. With guns I have to also pass a background check that shows I’m not a convicted felon, crazy, etc. What if habitual drunk drivers couldn’t get a license the same way felons can’t buy guns? Furthermore, no one wants to limit the engine size, gas tank size, horsepower, or other aspects of a vehicle the way magazine sizes and some cosmetic/convenience features (e.g. adjustable stocks) are regulated in some states (and some want to do on a national level). There’s simply no comparison between how guns and cars are regulated. Not even close.
I’m more speaking to the hypocrisy. The morning news wants to demonize the “gun-obsessed” masses while simultaneously providing hours of hyper-violent prime time programming in prime time.
It wasn’t a taunt, it was a request for information. As far as I can tell from this thread, you are the only other person who has described how gun violence has affected you personally, and that’s what I was asking for. Thank you for sharing your experience.
I tried to find some statistics on this occurring in America and couldn’t really find much. I live in America and I don’t really have any fear of this happening either, there are a few reason for this;
That just not a common gun violence scenario in America at all.
The number one cause of gun violence in America is suicide. A gun owner is more likely to kill themselves than to harm another person with their weapon. Suicides are 65% of all gun deaths in the USA.
Almost all gun violence in the US is linked to drugs. The mass majority of gun deaths (after suicides) are gang or drug trafficking related. Most of the of popularized spree killings involved recreational or psychiatric drugs too.
Many American homes have guns in them and if someone breaks into your home, you can shoot them without committing a crime. It’s automatically considered self defense.
I did manage to find that most home break-in the burglar is not armed himself.
Spree killing and terrorism is world wide phenomena and they don’t require guns. The worst attacks involve explosives. In China, school assaults are fairly common; having strict gun control, the assailant will use fire or melee weapons to kill people. Using a vehicle as an assault weapon is also not uncommon including cars and planes.
The violent crime rates in America have been steadily going down from the 1990s. The murder rate is actually half of what it was in the 1990s now. I blame video game and internet for that personally.
So despite the media which largely published gun violence events to forward a gun control agenda and push viewer ratings, American’s are twice as safe now as they were in 30 years ago and back then no one was talking about gun control.
Seriously now? Why stop there though. How about everyone stop talking about gun control as long as they have armed soldiers protecting their country? Oh, the hypocrisy.
Gun control does not mean that nobody ever gets to touch a gun. People who need a gun to do their job can still have one as long as they pass the appropriate background checks and training, and the people who support gun control are still allowed to be protected by these people, directly or indirectly (be it the army, the police, security guards or personal bodyguards). So no, I don’t see the hypocrisy.
Hehe, was not attacking you. I just googled it myself and found out that information. You can take any one of those point i mentioned and Google them and find the information.
This is subject I researched a few years back, so I already had an idea about it.
That is a very good point, and i violently agree, and i believe anyone with some critical thinking does agree regardless where they stand on the issue of gun ownership itself.
Disturbed made a great song about the role American media plays in all of this, it is called Legion of monsters, so if you like that kind of music, go listen to it.
I am sure other musicians have produced some critical toned songs regarding this very issue as well, so feel free to share.
First off, Wikipedia is no place to research from.
Second, Canada has more guns than reported, we don’t have a national gun registry.
Laws don’t fix problems. They are made by politicians, who often have little experience in most areas, because they don’t know how to actually solve an issue. Laws are made to be broken. Police departments literally budget how much ticket/fine revenue they will make well in advance. The whole system works exactly how the government wants, otherwise there would have been change a long time ago.
An encyclopedia that anyone can edit. That means that unless you have checked the sources for everything that is posted on wikipedia, and those sources are not linked to something that also has sources then the information may not actually be correct.
