When are you guys going to leave America alone about her guns? When will some of you realize the bad guys will always possess them?
People are the problem! Get it?! It will be a bloody day when they try to confiscate our guns.
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SW-User
I'm in the UK so I don't tell Americans what to do about their guns. It's not for me to decide. America is a democratic nation and you get to choose via democracy. If you want guns then have guns.
We have illegal guns here, obviously, and we do have some legal guns although those are mainly in the hands of farmers for killing invasive animal species or they are antiques in the hands of collectors. Sometimes I feel like having a gun here wouldn't be a bad thing, particularly considering all the budget cuts that the police have suffered and the likelihood that if you are attacked you will be very much in your own. Then I consider that if guns were legal then more of the bad guys would have them too, so it would not really make things safer. This is from the standpoint of a country that doesn't have legal gun ownership for the masses. America is obviously different.
You have legal gun ownership. To try and reverse that would be a herculean task that would probably result in carnage. It's not like you simply knock on millions of doors and they'll all give you the guns willingly and this is before you even get to the resource required to do the knocking. Of course, you could ask people to drop their guns off at local collection points but then you could equally ask people to put a pineapple up their butt and you might get a similar uptake.
I think that America has guns and will have guns and needs to learn to live with them. A real difficulty with guns is their portability and size. You can kill tens of people with a truck, as was seen in Nice (France) but it's harder to drive a truck into a school. Bombs are harder to make effectively and without ending up on the radar of the security services. Legal guns are ideally suited for mass killings in indoor environments. That's a problem to be considered. I agree with the point made by @Dainbramadge in his post, that putting these stories in the news actually helps perpetuate the problem. It raises awareness, perhaps, but it also feeds the copycat phenomenon and makes antiheroes of the perpetrators. It would likely be better if mass shootings were not given air time. Terrorists always want as much attention as possible in order to spread as much fear as possible. They want that infamy too.
Poor mental health is very often behind these shootings, that is undeniable. Often, after a shooting has occurred, you will hear people talk about how the shooter demonstrated strange behaviour. Spotting the early warning signs is clearly important. Equally important is proactive mental health care as opposed to the reactive care that so many people receive. It's amazing how often it is that people literally have to try and kill themselves or someone else before there will be any real intervention. Keeping guns of the hands of those people who demonstrate any kind of unstable or disturbingly antisocial behaviour is key. As is making sure that complicity, through intent or negligence, is heavily penalised. If you are parents whose child is able to access your guns and kill people with them then you need to be heavily punished for that. It needs to be known that you will be and known that you will never again be allowed to own guns.
Those are just some of my thoughts on the issue. Again, this isn't my issue or my country so I'm not telling anyone to do anything. It's for you guys to decide.
We have illegal guns here, obviously, and we do have some legal guns although those are mainly in the hands of farmers for killing invasive animal species or they are antiques in the hands of collectors. Sometimes I feel like having a gun here wouldn't be a bad thing, particularly considering all the budget cuts that the police have suffered and the likelihood that if you are attacked you will be very much in your own. Then I consider that if guns were legal then more of the bad guys would have them too, so it would not really make things safer. This is from the standpoint of a country that doesn't have legal gun ownership for the masses. America is obviously different.
You have legal gun ownership. To try and reverse that would be a herculean task that would probably result in carnage. It's not like you simply knock on millions of doors and they'll all give you the guns willingly and this is before you even get to the resource required to do the knocking. Of course, you could ask people to drop their guns off at local collection points but then you could equally ask people to put a pineapple up their butt and you might get a similar uptake.
I think that America has guns and will have guns and needs to learn to live with them. A real difficulty with guns is their portability and size. You can kill tens of people with a truck, as was seen in Nice (France) but it's harder to drive a truck into a school. Bombs are harder to make effectively and without ending up on the radar of the security services. Legal guns are ideally suited for mass killings in indoor environments. That's a problem to be considered. I agree with the point made by @Dainbramadge in his post, that putting these stories in the news actually helps perpetuate the problem. It raises awareness, perhaps, but it also feeds the copycat phenomenon and makes antiheroes of the perpetrators. It would likely be better if mass shootings were not given air time. Terrorists always want as much attention as possible in order to spread as much fear as possible. They want that infamy too.
Poor mental health is very often behind these shootings, that is undeniable. Often, after a shooting has occurred, you will hear people talk about how the shooter demonstrated strange behaviour. Spotting the early warning signs is clearly important. Equally important is proactive mental health care as opposed to the reactive care that so many people receive. It's amazing how often it is that people literally have to try and kill themselves or someone else before there will be any real intervention. Keeping guns of the hands of those people who demonstrate any kind of unstable or disturbingly antisocial behaviour is key. As is making sure that complicity, through intent or negligence, is heavily penalised. If you are parents whose child is able to access your guns and kill people with them then you need to be heavily punished for that. It needs to be known that you will be and known that you will never again be allowed to own guns.
Those are just some of my thoughts on the issue. Again, this isn't my issue or my country so I'm not telling anyone to do anything. It's for you guys to decide.
Dainbramadge · 56-60, M
@SW-User Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was one hell of a concise and well rounded answer. Please feel free to school all the Americans you want on this topic. LOL
I have a close friend here who is also a Brit. Hope that isn't derogatory cause he lets me call him that but he is also real nice. LOL
But you guys really have your heads oh firm and square.
Tons of common sense which seems to be in short supply here.
I think we should trade you and my other friend for two of these freedom hating , so called, Americans that want to be owned by big brother.
Also I am extremely jealous that you guys get more accurate news on what goes on over here than we can get.
Ok..... I got all gushy reading your comment and completely forgot what I wanted to address. LOL
As you were. :-)
That was one hell of a concise and well rounded answer. Please feel free to school all the Americans you want on this topic. LOL
I have a close friend here who is also a Brit. Hope that isn't derogatory cause he lets me call him that but he is also real nice. LOL
But you guys really have your heads oh firm and square.
Tons of common sense which seems to be in short supply here.
I think we should trade you and my other friend for two of these freedom hating , so called, Americans that want to be owned by big brother.
Also I am extremely jealous that you guys get more accurate news on what goes on over here than we can get.
Ok..... I got all gushy reading your comment and completely forgot what I wanted to address. LOL
As you were. :-)
wildbill83 · 41-45, M
If someone's sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible, we should consider it fortunate that most of them are deranged lunatics that use a handgun or low caliber/short ranged rifle; to which, in any armed society, their killing spree doesn't last long
Someone intelligent/disciplined on the other hand would actually plan it out and use a long rifle/high powered rifle (the charles whitman method...), or explosives (Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, etc.). In other words, use a means that's less regulated/less traceable, and carry out their attack from afar.
And as we've seen in events like the Uvalde shooting, many police are just too incompetent or too cowardly to stop a mass shooting, and oftentimes either wait until the ordeal is over and the shooter has killed himself to move in, or wait until a citizen dispatches the perp themselves, then take credit for it...
The North Hollywood shootout in '97 is another good example; the police were overwhelmed and scared shitless, and had to acquire civilian AR's from a local gun store to give them a fighting chance; an event that would likely have never happened if residents were armed and not limited by silly restrictions on firearms (which didn't stop the shooters from robbing a bank with illegal bought AK's and Type56's converted to full auto; they were felons, and thus unable to legally purchase them)
The point is, as long as there are malevolent people in the world, there will always be a need for weapons in the hands of their potential victims. Anyone relinquishes that right, and puts their safety in the hands of law enforcement will likely end up like those teachers and kids in Uvalde...
Someone intelligent/disciplined on the other hand would actually plan it out and use a long rifle/high powered rifle (the charles whitman method...), or explosives (Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, etc.). In other words, use a means that's less regulated/less traceable, and carry out their attack from afar.
And as we've seen in events like the Uvalde shooting, many police are just too incompetent or too cowardly to stop a mass shooting, and oftentimes either wait until the ordeal is over and the shooter has killed himself to move in, or wait until a citizen dispatches the perp themselves, then take credit for it...
The North Hollywood shootout in '97 is another good example; the police were overwhelmed and scared shitless, and had to acquire civilian AR's from a local gun store to give them a fighting chance; an event that would likely have never happened if residents were armed and not limited by silly restrictions on firearms (which didn't stop the shooters from robbing a bank with illegal bought AK's and Type56's converted to full auto; they were felons, and thus unable to legally purchase them)
The point is, as long as there are malevolent people in the world, there will always be a need for weapons in the hands of their potential victims. Anyone relinquishes that right, and puts their safety in the hands of law enforcement will likely end up like those teachers and kids in Uvalde...
Dainbramadge · 56-60, M
@wildbill83 Well stated.
NoGamesTolerated · F
wildbill83 · 41-45, M
@SW-User
actually, they're pretty easy to make; and crude explosives only require basic household chemicals and/or ingredients easily sourced from any hardware store
with a bit of time, patience, and basic chemistry knowledge, many of those same chemicals can be formulated into high explosives like RDX, PETN, nitrocellulose, etc.
Bombs are harder to make effectively and without ending up on the radar of the security services.
actually, they're pretty easy to make; and crude explosives only require basic household chemicals and/or ingredients easily sourced from any hardware store
with a bit of time, patience, and basic chemistry knowledge, many of those same chemicals can be formulated into high explosives like RDX, PETN, nitrocellulose, etc.