Oslo Blast Gun Derail

[Eriku]

This is almost enough to make me wonder whether some of our US posters might be right...

If there was an "armed citizen" or two around, maybe they could have got the arsehole and reduced the death toll...

Firstly, I reckon it would be completely inappropriate to be armed at a youth summer camp.

Why? When I was at youth summer camp, marksmanship was one of the skills they taught at the camp. I gained my NRA Expert Marksman certification at summer camp. Moreover, there is a very good reason for at least some counselors to be armed at youth summer camps: the potential for deranged killers or kidnappers. Such camps are "in loco parentis" and have a duty to provide for the safety and security of their charges. And then there's wild animals... it's criminally negligent in my opinion for camp counselors NOT to be armed against bears and mountain lions around here. Don't know about Norway, but I believe they have bears there too.

Secondly, having a weapon and knowing how to use it doesn't necessarily translate to him sorting this one out. The man was wearing kevlar and had a machine gun and several handguns, according to reports.

Nobody said it was easy or guaranteed that an armed citizen will be effective, but it beats the alternative by a long shot. Sometimes you die, but I choose to die with bullets entering from the front as I return fire rather than in the back of the head or with my hands up pleading for my life.

Thirdly, we know plenty about guns being subject to tragic incidents in the home and whatnot, due to stupid or just plain tragic incidents, involving children, booze and whatever else that might trigger senseless play with or use of guns.

An incident like this alone should not be enough to abandon our general approach in this matter.

If an incident like this doesn't convince someone of the desirability of an armed citizenry, they are just terminally stupid and deserve to be slaughtered like sheep.

Doing a quick search I find a Guardian article from 09 stating that per 100,000 citizens in Norway we have 0.8 murders a year. The US, on the same list, has 5.9. Of course a shitload of things enter into that sort of thing, and we are a small country, but suggesting that another few guns would've sorted this situation out and would be advisable in order to make Norway safer in general is definitely not a suggestion that I would embrace.

Then quit fucking complaining about the death toll, nut-up and accept the murders as the acceptable collateral damage for your public policy position of a disarmed citizenry, because that's exactly what you're saying; that those children were acceptable casualties in your quest for moral superiority through disarmament. That's what your government, and virtually every government in Europe does. They decide that in the interests of appearing to be "civilized" they are willing to accept that individuals will be rendered helpless and will be murdered, but so long as the statistics are "acceptable," the lives and rights of those individuals are to be disregarded and disrespected and their murders are to be classified as politically expedient. Fucking morons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... urder-data

edit: I have to add that I'm proud of how Norway seems to be coping. People seem to have been taking responsibility in saving themselves and others, locals came with boats to help pick people up from the waters, none of our significant news outlets have jumped at and embraced the terrorist angle with certain, and our Prime minister and others have championed our approach to politics and diversity, and has insisted that his intent to have us fearing our present should be foiled by our reluctance to give in to cheap and tawdry attacks on unsuspecting civilians. I've harboured many fears about the general tone in this country, our media and how we handled things like the Muhammed cartoons, but in this significant and visceral incident we've refused to be reactionary.

All I can say is get used to it, because it's not over. You can expect copycat incidents as well.

Your pettiness in this thread is astounding. I've tried to argue as best as I can for the continued Norwegian mode of thinking in matters like these, and have pointed to stats that tell us that Norway is in no-way being generally overrun by people with guns preying on those without. All I get back is "morons", and how we're "ignorant" and that I'm stupid and deserve to be slaughtered like a sheep.

You really need to sort your hateful self out.

[Seth]

The UK was NOT successful. There were nearly 13000 firearms offenses in 2009/10 and 40 firearms homicides.

And in 2009 there were 9,146 firearm homicides in the US. The UK population is about 20% of the USA's, so an "unsuccessful" firearm homicide rate would be about 1,800 - but there were only 40.

Hmmm.

And there were as many as 2.5 million people in the US who were NOT the victims of violent crime because they were armed. The same cannot be said for the UK.

The point being that claims that gun bans prevent gun crimes is specious and false. You can bandy statistics about all day, but for the 40 people who were murdered by firearms, who were all disarmed and rendered helpless by their government, and for the other thousands upon thousands who were victimized, injured and killed by criminals armed with OTHER deadly weapons like knives and bludgeons, the government's policy of prohibiting them from carrying effective defensive armament, even so much as OC spray or tear gas, is a very real violation of their individual right to life.

The statistical argument is a bogus one because it reduces those who are killed and victimized to the status of numbers and it fails to acknowledge their individual right to decide for themselves what level of self-defense armament is necessary or desirable.

And the right of the individual to effectively defend himself against violent crime is absolute, and may not morally be interfered with by anyone, including government. To do so is one of the worst acts of tyranny imaginable, and is right up there with government-sponsored genocide. Any government that does so is illegitimate and needs to be taken down and replaced with one that honors and respects the rights of the individual over abstract social policy.

If the UK had gun laws like those in the USA there would not have been 40 people killed by firearms - there would have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, gunned down.

Unfounded assumption.

The statistical argument is not bogus, it is absolutely key.

It's completely bogus.

40 firearm deaths in a population of 60 million is incredibly low - translate that to the USA and you would have an annual death toll of 200 people - yes, 200 poor sods would be murdered, but would you prefer an "abstract social policy" that saves almost 10,000 lives or are you going to stick by your "right to decide". In 2006, three children were murdered with a firearm in Britain - in America the figure in 2007 was 1520 - that's 100 times more than the translated British figure.

How about all the OTHER people who were killed using everything from beer glasses to knives, and all those who were victimized by criminals with impunity because they were disarmed and have been indoctrinated into helpless victimhood? Don't give a fuck about them, do you? The statistical argument is bogus because firearms crime does happen in the UK, despite draconian gun control laws, which proves that such laws are worthless. It's also bogus because the statistical argument doesn't take into consideration all the crimes that would not have happened or would have been thwarted by armed citizens. But most of all it's bogus because the statistical argument reduces actual living human beings to an abstract philosophical argument and a statistic. Those 40 people who died were denied their right to be armed in self-defense. That's immoral. Government policies that disarm law-abiding citizens and DO NOT disarm criminals disrespect the INDIVIDUAL right to self-defense in the name of collective statistics, and that's repugnant. I will not allow my government to disarm me under any circumstances, because refuse to be reduced to a number on a police blotter. I'm a human being and I have rights, prime among which is the right to effective self-defense, whether or not the availability of the tools of self-defense to criminals increases my risks or not.

Imagine if a particular type of criminal decided that using a pet lion to attack victims was a good idea - what do you do? Ban private ownership of lions or advocate that every fucker can keep a pet lion to act as a deterrent?

No, I'd advocate that every fucker carry a large-caliber handgun and shoot any lion, and every criminal with a lion, that they see. Soon enough the lion problem will go away as the criminals come to realize that they will be shot dead unexpectedly by their victims and they decide to take up other lines of work.

That's exactly what happens here in the US in EVERY PLACE where concealed carry is lawful. Violent crime drops 8 to 15 percent very quickly, and almost always continues to go down the more that law-abiding citizens decide to carry legally. And, there is NO companion increase in accidental gun injuries or deaths. When Handgun Control tried to find instances of lawful concealed carry permitees committing crimes with their guns, out of MILLIONS of permittees nationwide, they came up with about 165 potential examples. That's an incredibly small number. In fact, permittees are much LESS likely to be involved in any sort of crime than your average citizen is, which utterly debunks the notion that guns in the hands of law abiding citizens create more danger to the public.

That's a lie. A flat-out lie. Your presumption is based on that lie, which makes your presumption just so much bullshit, and that's a fact.

[Seth]

I see no personal attack whatsoever. I see descriptives of behavior.

You wouldn't, but it's clearly a personal attack. If I call you an antisocial fuckwit, I think you'd agree that it's a personal attack, right?

The fuckwit part would be. Opining that we have antisocial people here, and that what you've said about this subject and about others who have responded to you constitutes such behavior, is not - it's a descrition of behavior. It's no more a personal attack than saying Gawd is anti-Semitic.

Which is a personal attack...duh.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I see no personal attack whatsoever. I see descriptives of behavior.

You wouldn't, but it's clearly a personal attack. If I call you an antisocial fuckwit, I think you'd agree that it's a personal attack, right?

The fuckwit part would be. Opining that we have antisocial people here, and that what you've said about this subject and about others who have responded to you constitutes such behavior, is not - it's a descrition of behavior. It's no more a personal attack than saying Gawd is anti-Semitic.

Which is a personal attack...duh.

Stating a fact is an attack? Good luck with that.

[Seth]

This is almost enough to make me wonder whether some of our US posters might be right...

If there was an "armed citizen" or two around, maybe they could have got the arsehole and reduced the death toll...

Firstly, I reckon it would be completely inappropriate to be armed at a youth summer camp.

Why? When I was at youth summer camp, marksmanship was one of the skills they taught at the camp. I gained my NRA Expert Marksman certification at summer camp. Moreover, there is a very good reason for at least some counselors to be armed at youth summer camps: the potential for deranged killers or kidnappers. Such camps are "in loco parentis" and have a duty to provide for the safety and security of their charges. And then there's wild animals... it's criminally negligent in my opinion for camp counselors NOT to be armed against bears and mountain lions around here. Don't know about Norway, but I believe they have bears there too.

Secondly, having a weapon and knowing how to use it doesn't necessarily translate to him sorting this one out. The man was wearing kevlar and had a machine gun and several handguns, according to reports.

Nobody said it was easy or guaranteed that an armed citizen will be effective, but it beats the alternative by a long shot. Sometimes you die, but I choose to die with bullets entering from the front as I return fire rather than in the back of the head or with my hands up pleading for my life.

Thirdly, we know plenty about guns being subject to tragic incidents in the home and whatnot, due to stupid or just plain tragic incidents, involving children, booze and whatever else that might trigger senseless play with or use of guns.

An incident like this alone should not be enough to abandon our general approach in this matter.

If an incident like this doesn't convince someone of the desirability of an armed citizenry, they are just terminally stupid and deserve to be slaughtered like sheep.

Doing a quick search I find a Guardian article from 09 stating that per 100,000 citizens in Norway we have 0.8 murders a year. The US, on the same list, has 5.9. Of course a shitload of things enter into that sort of thing, and we are a small country, but suggesting that another few guns would've sorted this situation out and would be advisable in order to make Norway safer in general is definitely not a suggestion that I would embrace.

Then quit fucking complaining about the death toll, nut-up and accept the murders as the acceptable collateral damage for your public policy position of a disarmed citizenry, because that's exactly what you're saying; that those children were acceptable casualties in your quest for moral superiority through disarmament. That's what your government, and virtually every government in Europe does. They decide that in the interests of appearing to be "civilized" they are willing to accept that individuals will be rendered helpless and will be murdered, but so long as the statistics are "acceptable," the lives and rights of those individuals are to be disregarded and disrespected and their murders are to be classified as politically expedient. Fucking morons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... urder-data

edit: I have to add that I'm proud of how Norway seems to be coping. People seem to have been taking responsibility in saving themselves and others, locals came with boats to help pick people up from the waters, none of our significant news outlets have jumped at and embraced the terrorist angle with certain, and our Prime minister and others have championed our approach to politics and diversity, and has insisted that his intent to have us fearing our present should be foiled by our reluctance to give in to cheap and tawdry attacks on unsuspecting civilians. I've harboured many fears about the general tone in this country, our media and how we handled things like the Muhammed cartoons, but in this significant and visceral incident we've refused to be reactionary.

All I can say is get used to it, because it's not over. You can expect copycat incidents as well.

Your pettiness in this thread is astounding. I've tried to argue as best as I can for the continued Norwegian mode of thinking in matters like these, and have pointed to stats that tell us that Norway is in no-way being generally overrun by people with guns preying on those without. All I get back is "morons", and how we're "ignorant" and that I'm stupid and deserve to be slaughtered like a sheep.

You really need to sort your hateful self out.

And yet Norway has just suffered the worst mass-shooting in history. This demonstrates that the "Norwegian mode of thinking in matters like these" is faulty. I refuse to apologize for pointing this fact out because OTHER people's lives depend on changing anti-gun government policies. Nothing can be done for the helpless, disarmed victims of this horrible tragedy, but something can be done to reduce the future potential for such an incident, but evidently Norwegians are too blind to see what that is. I want the people of Norway to be safe, at the individual level, just as I want all people to be free and safe. But you don't get individual safety in a world that contains guns by disarming law-abiding citizens. That's just stupidity made manifest, and I have no compunctions about stating and defending that fact because to not do so is to accede to the immoral government policies that helped to facilitate the present slaughter.

And if you maintain that you don't need a gun, fine, it's YOUR life. But when someone advocates that OTHER PEOPLE be disarmed so that they are rendered helpless, like those poor children and counselors, it's evil, repugnant and immoral and I'll say so loud and clear each and every time without any shame or apology, and I don't care who they are.

This isn't because I don't care, it's because I DO care, deeply, but I care most about the living, who deserve to have their right to defend themselves effectively respected and supported.

[Coito ergo sum]

This is almost enough to make me wonder whether some of our US posters might be right...

If there was an "armed citizen" or two around, maybe they could have got the arsehole and reduced the death toll...

Or, maybe the Swiss. Maybe they're right. Nobody likes to say Americans are right, but it's easy to say the Swiss might be right.

[Atheist-Lite]

This is almost enough to make me wonder whether some of our US posters might be right...

If there was an "armed citizen" or two around, maybe they could have got the arsehole and reduced the death toll...

Or, maybe the Swiss. Maybe they're right. Nobody likes to say Americans are right, but it's easy to say the Swiss might be right.

No idea about that one?

[Pensioner]

I see no personal attack whatsoever. I see descriptives of behavior.

You wouldn't, but it's clearly a personal attack. If I call you an antisocial fuckwit, I think you'd agree that it's a personal attack, right?

The fuckwit part would be. Opining that we have antisocial people here, and that what you've said about this subject and about others who have responded to you constitutes such behavior, is not - it's a descrition of behavior. It's no more a personal attack than saying Gawd is anti-Semitic.

Which is a personal attack...duh.

Fuck off arsole is a personal attack seth, I'm not allowed to post such a comment but I can think you are one.

[Coito ergo sum]

Gun culture and the fetishisation of firearms in this country nauseates and embarrasses me - I do hope that I am able to move away, someday...

I haven't noticed that other than among a few folks. I hardly ever see a gun in daily life, and I don't own one, and most people in the US don't own one. Of those that I know that do own guns, I have not known one to have committed a crime more than a traffic offense. The hunters I've known have been the most environmentallly conscious and the most concerned about animal conservation. I have heard folks that fetishize guns too, but mostly its a few folks on the internet. I'm pretty sure 98% of folks are very level-headed about it.

I view it in a compromise fashion. The right to own guns doesn't mean the right to own any gun, or carry any gun anywhere anytime anyhow any way. We have rules about entering, say, federal courthouses with guns. The judge is not going to allow litigants to come to court packing. We have rules about fully automatic weapons, and things like rocket launchers and whatnot. Every state has licensing and registration rules, and we mostly wind up just fine.

The gun murder rate in the US is higher than in Europe, but we had this discussion before, that the overall murder rate as comparing Europe and the US is about the same. So, in Europe, the murder rate with guns is lower, but they're apparently killing each other just as quickly with other means. Now, there are some countries in Europe with very low overall murder rates, but by the same token there are some states in the US with very low overall murder rates. I'm not going to repost the links for this - there's another thread on it, and I don't wan to derail this one. I just want to put some perspective on guns in the US.

For those who have never been to the US, it's not the wild west. Some of what you hear about the US and guns is overblown propaganda.

While I agree, Bella, that people should not fetishize guns, it is also just as unhealthy to irrationally fear them. They are a tool. Some people have guns - people who live in the country hunt for their food, and use guns on farms and ranches, and that sort of thing. Some folks use them for self-defense. There are appropriate uses for them.

[devogue]

That's why I speak out so strongly against the idiocy of disarmament of law-abiding citizens

Your solution to gun crime is to arm everybody rather than disarm everybody. That's fucking hilarious.

Here's an idea: shut down the gun making companies. Every last fucking one of them. Ban every last gun except those held by the military. The general public is not allowed to handle radioactive material or keep rare animals for ethical and safety reasons, so let's make the same principle apply to guns.

If anyone is then found with a gun and live, viable ammo they are locked up for life with no parole - hell, I'll even gift you the death penalty on this one - and remember they don't even have to fire the gun, they just have to be in possession. What's that I hear you say? Oh, the "rights of the individual" ... well, since we're chucking abstract social policies in the bin and statistics don't matter, let's just cut to the chase and solve this problem once and for all.

If guns become so incredibly rare and hot on the mean streets of America, it might just put one kid off the effort of trying to get one, and it might just save one life - and if we're talking about the individual level, that's worth destroying every gun in the world for, right?

[Coito ergo sum]

Gun culture and the fetishisation of firearms in this country nauseates and embarrasses me - I do hope that I am able to move away, someday...

Why don't you move to Oslo, I hear it's real safe over there?

Oh, wait....

It's safer than it is here, Seth, and you know it.

Oslo is a nice city. Very expensive compared to where I live in the US, but very nice. It's a big cloudy for my taste, and Norwegian winters are not something I would willingly move to. But, Oslo is very cool, and I highly recommend anyone who hasn't been there to visit. It feels safe, and the Norwegians have lost their viking mojo, so armed or not armed, I think the city would be safe. Crackpots like this can happen anywhere, and maybe Seth is right and if someone had a gun there on the Island, some lives would have been saved. We don't know for sure. But, that's the way it goes - Norway made a policy decision probably thinking they would save more lives overall by strict gun laws. Let's be honest, though - this guy had guns legally, apparently. I read an article that he had like a Glock and some other guns that were registered in Norway. Has anyone suggested this guy had illegal guns? I really don't know the answer to that. And, was it illegal in Norway for the camp operators to have guns available? Maybe they even did, but weren't carrying them at the time? I wouldn't expect kids at camp to be running around with side-arms anyway.

[Coito ergo sum]

Seth makes me puke. 87 kids are dead and he makes it an opportunity to spew his libertarian bullshit. He should be ashamed of himself.

That's a bit of an overreaction, isn't it? He's suggesting what he thinks would have saved lives. The fact that his opinion on that differs makes you "puke?"

[Coito ergo sum]

The UK was NOT successful. There were nearly 13000 firearms offenses in 2009/10 and 40 firearms homicides.

And in 2009 there were 9,146 firearm homicides in the US. The UK population is about 20% of the USA's, so an "unsuccessful" firearm homicide rate would be about 1,800 - but there were only 40.

Hmmm.

And there were as many as 2.5 million people in the US who were NOT the victims of violent crime because they were armed. The same cannot be said for the UK.

The point being that claims that gun bans prevent gun crimes is specious and false. You can bandy statistics about all day, but for the 40 people who were murdered by firearms, who were all disarmed and rendered helpless by their government, and for the other thousands upon thousands who were victimized, injured and killed by criminals armed with OTHER deadly weapons like knives and bludgeons, the government's policy of prohibiting them from carrying effective defensive armament, even so much as OC spray or tear gas, is a very real violation of their individual right to life.

The statistical argument is a bogus one because it reduces those who are killed and victimized to the status of numbers and it fails to acknowledge their individual right to decide for themselves what level of self-defense armament is necessary or desirable.

And the right of the individual to effectively defend himself against violent crime is absolute, and may not morally be interfered with by anyone, including government. To do so is one of the worst acts of tyranny imaginable, and is right up there with government-sponsored genocide. Any government that does so is illegitimate and needs to be taken down and replaced with one that honors and respects the rights of the individual over abstract social policy.

If the UK had gun laws like those in the USA there would not have been 40 people killed by firearms - there would have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, gunned down. The statistical argument is not bogus, it is absolutely key. 40 firearm deaths in a population of 60 million is incredibly low - translate that to the USA and you would have an annual death toll of 200 people - yes, 200 poor sods would be murdered, but would you prefer an "abstract social policy" that saves almost 10,000 lives or are you going to stick by your "right to decide". In 2006, three children were murdered with a firearm in Britain - in America the figure in 2007 was 1520 - that's 100 times more than the translated British figure.

Imagine if a particular type of criminal decided that using a pet lion to attack victims was a good idea - what do you do? Ban private ownership of lions or advocate that every fucker can keep a pet lion to act as a deterrent?

Well, one could argue that the overall murder or overall violent crime rates are what count. If all we're doing is shifting the means used to effect the murder, for example, but the overall murder rate remains the same, then one can certainly take the position that the same number of people being murdered by a means other than a gun isn't something to brag about. I did the research on this before, and if you take comparable areas - Europe vs. the United States or North America as a whole, you get comparable murder rates overall. Some states in the US have higher murder rates, and some have extraordinarily low murder rates, just like some countries in Europe have high murder rates and others very low murder rates. Overall, though, the murder rates comparing Europe to the US is about the same. The US has actually a lower intentional homicide rate than Europe as a whole -- North America gets an uptick as a whole because of Mexico, El Salvador, and some other countries south of the Rio Grande.

[Rum]

Seth makes me puke. 87 kids are dead and he makes it an opportunity to spew his libertarian bullshit. He should be ashamed of himself.

That's a bit of an overreaction, isn't it? He's suggesting what he thinks would have saved lives. The fact that his opinion on that differs makes you "puke?"

OK I didn't actually puke. Maybe a little sick in my mouth..?

Actually not even that.

[Coito ergo sum]

That's why I speak out so strongly against the idiocy of disarmament of law-abiding citizens

Your solution to gun crime is to arm everybody rather than disarm everybody. That's fucking hilarious.

Here's an idea: shut down the gun making companies. Every last fucking one of them. Ban every last gun except those held by the military. The general public is not allowed to handle radioactive material or keep rare animals for ethical and safety reasons, so let's make the same principle apply to guns.

If anyone is then found with a gun and live, viable ammo they are locked up for life with no parole - hell, I'll even gift you the death penalty on this one - and remember they don't even have to fire the gun, they just have to be in possession. What's that I hear you say? Oh, the "rights of the individual" ... well, since we're chucking abstract social policies in the bin and statistics don't matter, let's just cut to the chase and solve this problem once and for all.

If guns become so incredibly rare and hot on the mean streets of America, it might just put one kid off the effort of trying to get one, and it might just save one life - and if we're talking about the individual level, that's worth destroying every gun in the world for, right?

That, to me, sounds ludicrous. I don't own a gun, or need one, but not everybody lives like you and me. Farmers need guns - people who live out in the country, they need guns. Some people hunt their own food, and they don't just go to the store and the fast food restaurant where someone else killed it for them.

I am all for good gun regulations, but to ban possession of all guns, except by the military? That sounds, well, let's just say - ill-thought-out.