Oslo Blast Gun Derail

[Azathoth]

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?

Almost every household in Switzerland has a gun or guns. The government sponsors training with rifles and shooting in competitions for interested adolescents, both male and female. The sale of ammunition – including Gw Pat.90 rounds for army-issue assault rifles – is subsidized by the Swiss government and made available at the many shooting ranges patronized by both private citizens and members of the militia. The total number of firearms in private homes is estimated minimally at 1.2 million to 3 million. Their population is about 7 million. With that, the Swiss have a very low intentional homicide rate overall and very low gun crime rate.

They do have a nasty habit of shooting themselves and their whole family if they lose their jobs though

[Seth]

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.

It's not in the least bit hilarious. It's not even mildly amusing. It's deadly serious.

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.

Let's not.

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.

Those who try to implement such a policy will not survive very long in the United States I believe.

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?

Nope. Not even close. The "do it for the children" argument is as asinine as it gets. Your plan would get many more children, and adults, killed and victimized because it's impossible to effectuate. There's no putting the gun genie back in the bottle I'm afraid, not anywhere on the planet. The only sane alternative is to allow law-abiding individuals to arm themselves to defend against criminal predation, because criminals don't obey gun ban laws, even when they have draconian penalties attached, as we can see from the Oslo event, so your plan is utterly worthless and just gets more people killed.

[Seth]

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.

Er, that's why they call it "concealed carry." You almost never see a gun in daily life except on a police officer's hip because those who legally AND illegally carry handguns hide them from you. You have absolutely no way of knowing who around you is armed, legally or illegally. And that's rather the point of concealed carry permits...neither do the criminals, who are factually and provably deterred by the knowledge that where concealed carry is lawful, the chances that they will try to victimize someone who is prepared to shoot them dead are much higher than in a "gun free zone" where lawful concealed carry is forbidden. This is why deranged killers CHOOSE venues like a resort island in Norway or a college campus in Virgina or a high school in Colorado, all of which are places where the lawful private carrying of concealed firearms is forbidden. Criminals, you see, don't obey such laws, but they depend on the fact that law-abiding citizens DO obey such laws, and they use that factor in planning their crimes. You don't often see such killers attacking police headquarters or the NRA annual convention, now do you?

And while it is true that "most" people do not own a gun, more than one-third do. That's something more than 110 million households according to federal estimates, and even the government admits that they have no real idea how many people own guns. They also estimate that there is about one gun for every one of the 300 million citizens in the US, somewhere near 250 million and rising.

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.

More like 99.999 percent. The majority of gun crime is by criminals or is gang-on-gang shootings. That's where the vast majority of the "children" killed by guns are actually killed, which is a specious and mendacious factoid often quoted by gun-banners who call 24 year old's "children" in order to pad the statistics. The number of children injured or killed in accidental non-gang related gun incidents doesn't even make the top 15 causes of death in the US. Five gallon plastic buckets, swimming pools and bathtubs are far more dangerous to children than guns, and automobiles are hundreds of times, if not thousands of times more dangerous. This rather remarkable safety record is the direct result of the NRA and it's gun safety education programs like the Eddie Eagle program, which has reduced the number of gun accidents in all categories by more than 75 percent in the last century. Most non-criminal gun deaths are either suicides or are the result of deficient, nonexistent or negligent gun safety training of both adults and children.

The solution to the problem of accidental gun injuries and deaths is universal, mandatory public school education in gun safety and marksmanship beginning in the first grade and continuing every year with age-appropriate safety and gun handling and marksmanship training all the way through high school graduation, where graduates with no criminal record should receive a concealed carry permit and a rifle and pistol from the Civilian Marksmanship Program government stockpiles, which are to be kept by the graduate and used to maintain proficiency from age 18 to age 45, during the time when the graduate is a member of the Unorganized Militia and is subject to being called to duty by Congress. At age 45, after a lifetime of good conduct, the weapons would become the personal property of the individual as thanks for their service to the nation.

A similar program works quite well for Switzerland.

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.

Well put.

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.

Almost all of it is deliberately overblown propaganda generated by hoplophobes and anti-gun activists.

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.

Yup. And the experiment with lawful concealed carry is over, and the specious and false claims of gun-banners have been conclusively proven to be utter and complete shit. The demonstrable fact is that permit holders are vanishingly unlikely to misuse their weapons, and no bloodbaths in the streets have resulted from the widespread (more than 40 states) granting of concealed carry permits. What has occurred is a significant and causal drop in violent crime wherever concealed carry has been made lawful.

[Seth]

They are all law abiding citizens till they shoot someone, or a couple of dozen.

Not really. The number of "law abiding citizens" who go on deranged rampages is infinitesimally small. That's because to obtain a gun and transport it with the intent to unlawfully kill or injure another person is a crime, which means that some deranged nutter who plans such an attack is not a "law abiding citizen" from the moment he forms the intent and obtains a gun to the moment he executes it.

Your statement is typical mendacious rubbish implying that owning a gun somehow causes people to go suddenly and unpredictably insane and start killing people. This is simply a lie.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Most fatal injuries involve shootings.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Most from shooting their mouth off in long, preachy, obfuscating posts.

[Warren Dew]

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.

Seth is discussing a practical way to reduce the body count of incidents like this. Everyone else is just wringing their hands and doing nothing.

I guess I'm just griping that we have some decidedly antisocial people here, and they won't leave.

You are free to leave whenever you want to, you know.

[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.

Seth is discussing a practical way to reduce the body count of incidents like this. Everyone else is just wringing their hands and doing nothing.

Unfortunately his arguments are full of shit and based on ideology, not practicality or for that matter common sense.

Five dead in Texas after a family argument 'escalated from a private family dispute'' for example..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14265952

[Warren Dew]

Unfortunately his arguments are full of shit and based on ideology, not practicality or for that matter common sense.

Seth gave a number of examples where shooting sprees like this were cut short in the U.S. by someone shooting the spree killer. That's a factual, if anecdotal, basis for his belief.

Five dead in Texas after a family argument 'escalated from a private family dispute'' for example..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14265952

So make a counterargument that it's worth having an occasional big shooting spree in order to prevent more common limited incidents. Ideally, provide data showing why you think that's a good tradeoff in Norway. Personally, I'm unconvinced that relaxation of gun laws would be sufficient to turn Norway into Texas.

[Gallstones]

Seth isn't spewing Libertarian bullshit.
Just because Seth says it does not mean it is Libertarian.

He spewed a lot of compassion as well.

[Gallstones]

The headline to one of the news articles I read went like this, "Norway police arrive 90 minutes after firing began."

An hour and a half.

A person can kill a lot of people in an hour and a half.

The police can not save you. They just investigate the aftermath.

[FBM]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... lent-crime

Have Great Britain's restrictive gun laws contributed to the rise in violent crime?

November 5, 2004

Dear Cecil:

I read an article claiming that as weapon-control laws in England become ever tighter, the crime rate is increasing--that over the past 80 or so years the British government has enacted policies making it harder for individuals to carry any kind of weapon for self-defense, with the result, it was claimed, that you are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York. In addition, you can receive a stiff sentence for defending yourself even if a burglar has invaded your home. One case cited was that of Tony Martin, who lived alone in a rural area. He had been robbed six times before. Mr. Martin's home was broken into again, and he shot and killed one burglar and wounded the other. He was jailed for harming the burglars and later was denied parole because he posed a danger to burglars. Given that the author was an American, and the article in a somewhat conservative periodical, I wondered how much spin had been put on the facts. Is England indeed becoming a haven for burglars while aged pensioners cower in their cottages?

— ZCamelopardalis, via e-mail

Complicated topic. We proceed in our usual methodical manner:

(1) No doubt about it, crimewise the UK has pretty much gone to the dogs. Violent crime jumped by two-thirds between 1998 and 2003. Crime is higher in the UK than the U.S. in every category except rape and murder.

(2) Some say Britain's increase in crime is a result of disarming the populace. One advocate of this view is U.S. history professor Joyce Lee Malcolm, author of the article you saw as well as the book Guns and Violence: The English Experience (2002). Malcolm claims the British government has virtually eliminated the right to self-defense.

(3) Whatever Malcolm may think, there's no direct correlation between weapons restrictions and crime. As she points out, the UK began requiring gun permits in 1920 and in 1953 prohibited the carrying of concealed weapons, even things like Mace. While a slow rise in the UK crime rate began in the mid-1950s, the rate didn't increase sharply until the 80s. Handguns were banned altogether in 1997.

(4) The Tony Martin case, a cause celebre in Britain, may not be as clear-cut as some claim, but it's still pretty outrageous. The eccentric Martin lived in a dilapidated Norfolk farmhouse with only three rottweilers for company. One night in 1999 the place was broken into by Brendan Fearon, 29, and Fred Barras, 16, both of whom had long criminal records. Martin claims he heard a noise, grabbed a shotgun, headed downstairs, had a flashlight shone in his face, and began shooting. The following afternoon Barras was found dead in the garden; the wounded Fearon was arrested nearby. Martin was convicted of murder and given a mandatory life sentence, but an appeals court reduced the charge to manslaughter on grounds of mental illness. Martin was denied parole, in part because probation officers feared he would shoot additional burglars; he's out now. Fearon, who did time for burglary, was granted legal-aid funding to sue Martin, although the suit failed. OK, the burglars weren't armed, Martin had previously expressed a hatred of Gypsies (Barras was one), and Barras was shot in the back, but many Americans would say: Come on--it was dark and they were in the guy's house.

(5) Although it's an exaggeration to say there's no right to self-defense in Britain, the law there is more restrictive and, in contrast to typical U.S. practice, cuts you no slack if you're defending your home. UK householders who injure a home invader are often hauled up on charges (although they may be acquitted), whereas in the U.S. more commonly you'll get a pass. Malcolm claims that because UK crooks don't fear disarmed householders, half of burglaries there take place while someone is home, a much larger fraction than in the U.S. Not so--close analysis of the data suggests "hot" burglary rates in the two countries aren't dramatically different.

(6) Rising crime in Britain surely has a lot to do with the lousy economy. From 1974 to 1999 the UK unemployment rate averaged more than 10 percent. It's lower now, but a lot of antisocial behavior became entrenched during that time. Soccer hooliganism is one example; I'd say crime in general is another.

(7) A case can be made that folks in the UK are too nice for their own good. In reading parliamentary transcripts and such you're struck by how exasperatingly fair-minded and decent everyone is--not just the lefties, either. One detects little appetite for the draconian measures that some believe have reduced crime in the U.S., notably the harsh sentencing laws that have given us one of the highest imprisonment rates in the world. If present trends continue, though, no doubt the Brits will learn to be assholes just like us.

— Cecil Adams

[Svartalf]

The headline to one of the news articles I read went like this, "Norway police arrive 90 minutes after firing began."

An hour and a half.

A person can kill a lot of people in an hour and a half.

The police can not save you. They just investigate the aftermath.

Which is why I fully agree with the libertarian bulldrek as well as generally to all arguments propounded by firearms proponents.
Given that the police simply cannot protect the citizenry from violent crime, it is criminal on the part of the state to deny its citizens the right and means wherewith to defend themselves.

[MrJonno]

If someone like Seth and armed (not Seth of course as that would be a personal attack) had been on that island then those kids would have been murdered twice as fast.

Hopefully there will be a very strong crackdown on these right wing patriotic/anti-marxist/paranoid lunatics

[FBM]

Sorry to disagree, MrJonno, but if someone like Seth had been there, the shooter would've been killed after the first couple of shots.

[MrJonno]

Sorry to disagree, MrJonno, but if someone like Seth had been there, the shooter would've been killed after the first couple of shots.

Guess we will have to agree to disagree on that, someone like Seth was there