27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[devogue]

Population of England and Wales: Approx 54 million

Population of USA: Approx 311 million (roughly six times larger than England and Wales)

Gun ownership in England and Wales: 6.2 for every 100 people

Gun ownership in the USA: 88.8 for every 100 people

Murders by firearm in latest year in England and Wales: 41

Murders by firearm in latest year in USA: 9146 (223 times more than in England and Wales)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... icides-map


I think that the Americans should do a really big copy and paste of UK gun legislation, and get gun ownership down to 6.2 for every 100 people, or less.

The figures quite clearly suggest they are far too trigger happy and that is causing untold misery.

Of course, this would obviously be very disappointing for people who enjoy owning guns so they can shoot and knock things over, so a nationwide construction programme of coconut shys and wet sponge stands could be put in place to help alleviate their withdrawal symptoms. Not only would all this building reinvigorate the American economy, but the wet sponge stands could include targets like children and teachers, who would no doubt enjoy being splashed with soft watery sponges by freedom loving ...er, not marksmen...."spongebobs" exercising their right to aim at stuff.

[sandinista]

in other news...

In an extensive analysis of open-source documents, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that 2,292 people had been killed by US missiles, including as many as 775 civilians.

The strikes, which began under President George W Bush but have since accelerated during the presidency of Barack Obama, are hated in Pakistan, where families live in fear of the bright specks that appear to hover in the sky overhead.

In just a single attack on a madrassah in 2006 up to 69 children lost their lives.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... paign.html

[cronus]

According to this article the police are trying to put a smashed hard-drive back together to retrieve data. Always use proper software to delete data beyond hardware recovery. A bullet hole will only destroy a sector not the entire thing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... paign=1490

[Rum]

Population of England and Wales: Approx 54 million

Population of USA: Approx 311 million (roughly six times larger than England and Wales)

Gun ownership in England and Wales: 6.2 for every 100 people

Gun ownership in the USA: 88.8 for every 100 people

Murders by firearm in latest year in England and Wales: 41

Murders by firearm in latest year in USA: 9146 (223 times more than in England and Wales)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... icides-map


I think that the Americans should do a really big copy and paste of UK gun legislation, and get gun ownership down to 6.2 for every 100 people, or less.

The figures quite clearly suggest they are far too trigger happy and that is causing untold misery.

Of course, this would obviously be very disappointing for people who enjoy owning guns so they can shoot and knock things over, so a nationwide construction programme of coconut shys and wet sponge stands could be put in place to help alleviate their withdrawal symptoms. Not only would all this building reinvigorate the American economy, but the wet sponge stands could include targets like children and teachers, who would no doubt enjoy being splashed with soft watery sponges by freedom loving ...er, not marksmen...."spongebobs" exercising their right to aim at stuff.

Sadly the issue does not appear to be amenable to the application of logic in America (or here to a great extent).

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm with Făkünamę wrt amending the Constitution and tightening licensing, but there are still millions of unregistered, unregisterable firearms already out there. Not many owners of those are going to voluntarily hand them over. It'd take a gestapo-style, house-by-house search to find them, and that would start more shootouts. In addition to the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism, we'd have a War on Guns to pay for.

Which is why tightening regulations cannot possibly go from what we have now direct to a massive overhaul of the whole 2nd amendment. Fortunately, there already are laws against owning and using an illegal firearm. A step in the right direction would make it a crime (or at least a heavy fine) to possess any firearm bought without a background check, or to sell to anyone who fails one. I'd be in some trouble if the cops found out I was driving a car without a license, right? And the seller would risk the law by selling me one after I couldn't produce a license. Sellers of guns, whether licensed or not, should be worried about seeling to anyone not meeting a thorough background check. Annual registration fees and required liability insurance would also be fine with me.

I wonder if any of the guns were Adam Lanza's guns, anyway. Apparently, his mother was a gun aficionado. If he just took his mom's guns, how would any licensing and registration scheme have prevented this?

Don't get me wrong -- I have no problem with reasonable regulations on guns. I'm just trying to think it through.

[FBM]

I agree, CES, licensing and registration in themselves wouldn't prevent anything. Education, hands-on training and strict storage prerequisites may. I think it should be required that the owner of any firearm do whatever necessary to make sure that no one else but the owner can get their hands on any firearm without consent. I think even random inspections would be reasonable under the current circumstances.

[Tero]

To ban any type of gun is a tough battle. To ban say all handguns...probably the bulk of murders... Would take an amendment. Not happening our lifetimes, 2/3 of states support NRA.

[mozg]

I think it should be required that the owner of any firearm do whatever necessary to make sure that no one else but the owner can get their hands on any firearm without consent. I think even random inspections would be reasonable under the current circumstances.

How would you enforce this?

What kind of penalties would there be against someone who was burglarized and had their firearms stolen?

How would you get the 'random inspections' past Constitutional scrutiny?

[Tero]

How about we bundle abortion and guns together. You want free access to guns? Then the gubment is going to pay for abortion for girls any age. If they want them, no parent involved.

[mozg]

How about we bundle abortion and guns together. You want free access to guns? Then the gubment is going to pay for abortion for girls any age. If they want them, no parent involved.

I'm quite OK with that. In fact, I think the government should be paying for abortions out of Medicaid funds just like it pays for other medical procedures.

[FBM]

I think it should be required that the owner of any firearm do whatever necessary to make sure that no one else but the owner can get their hands on any firearm without consent. I think even random inspections would be reasonable under the current circumstances.

How would you enforce this?

What kind of penalties would there be against someone who was burglarized and had their firearms stolen?

How would you get the 'random inspections' past Constitutional scrutiny?

Hell if I know. It'd be a nightmare to administer. Glad it wouldn't be my job. Fuck.

[Seth]

I found this interesting.
http://samuel-warde.com/2012/12/open-le ... americans/

What's interesting about it? It's typical hoplophobe liberal nitwit strawman red herring fallacy-filled claptrap.

Here's an example:

To me, the problem seems to be a lack of clarity and vision by the gun lobby and other gun proponents. They consistently see things in terms of black and white. “I want my guns unfettered or restrained by any government regulation or oversight. You can pry my dead fingers off the trigger if you try in implement any control whatsoever.”

This attitude is contrasted by those of us on the other side of the fence who are interested in discussing solutions and compromise. Most on the left aren’t interested in outlawing guns or going into people’s homes and taking away their firearms. To the contrary, the vast number of Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — firmly support the Second Amendment. But there is a need for a meaningful look at laws and regulations in light of the overwhelming evidence that current legislation is simply not working.

Let me dissect this bit of bilge.

First, "gun proponents" do not see things in terms of black and white, they observe the practices of gun-banners and see the constant stream of lies and dissembling they use to forward their incremental gun ban agenda. Nor is the putative quote anything other than a complete mischaracterization of gun owner's opinions on firearms regulations. Firearms are perhaps the most closely regulated consumer product on the market. They are the only devices (other than prescription drugs) that require that the manufacturer be licensed by the federal government, and that every original sale requires a federal background check of the buyer.

There are tens of thousands of individual laws regarding the purchase, transfer, possession, carrying and use of firearms all across the nation and they vary widely in what is allowed and what is prohibited, from Illinois complete ban on the possession of handguns (which has never been shown to be effective in reducing gun violence, Chicago being one of the most violent cities in the US) in public to Vermont's right to carry concealed without so much as a background check (which has not been shown to contribute to more gun violence in Vermont).

Gun owners are not irresponsible jerks who object to ANY regulation, they merely see the lies, obfuscations and dissembling of the gun banners for what it really is, and incremental program of "death of a thousand cuts" complete gun ban.

Gun owners have conceded much ground in the regulation of firearms and every single time the gun banners have promised this would be the end, it's not. In New Jersey the legislature enacted an "assault weapons registration" law that required people to register their rifles. The law was passed on the solemn promise by the Governor and the legislature that the list of registered rifles would NEVER be used to facilitate the seizure of the weapons, but was only so that crime guns could be tracked.

Just a few years later, however, the legislature entirely banned the possession of these firearms and guess what happened? Yep, you got it, the Governor sent out the New Jersey State Police armed with the list of registered rifles and began confiscating those weapons.

That's why gun owners take a dim view of gun registration, because it's always and inevitably the first step in gun confiscations. We've seen it happen in Australia, Canada, New Jersey, Germany, Italy, France and quite literally everywhere the people have permitted the government to register firearms in a central database.

We know full well that the intent of a registration scheme has nothing to do with making sure criminals don't get their hands on firearms (which they do mostly by theft), it's to create lists of names, addresses and firearms so that the jackbooted thugs can go out and collect all the firearms once the next step in the gun ban agenda has been taken.

Given the fact that our right to keep and bear arms is fundamental, and individual, we know that the path to tyranny is the disarming of the public and that gun registration schemes do absolutely NOTHING to reduce crime or make guns less available to criminals. Their only intent and purpose is to facilitate the eventual seizure of arms by the government, and we are not willing to give the government the information it needs to accomplish that goal.

And when a hoplophobe says he wants "reasonable" gun regulation, we know full well that what he wants is a framework for the banning and seizure of all firearms erected to make the next step, outright bans, feasible. We know they are lying and we understand the danger, so we refuse to cooperate with that agenda.

If you propose a truly "reasonable" regulation, of which there are already tens of thousands on the books, we might be able to discuss the matter, but so far every single suggestion by hoplophobes for "reasonable" gun regulation is nothing more than a transparent pathway to complete bans and government tyranny.

The rest of the letter is likewise filled with lies, hyperbole, falsehoods, innuendo and unreason, so much so that I'm not going to bother to dissect the entire thing.

[Kristie]

tl;dr

Exactly what we expected.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

Most US gun owners are paranoid.

As Charlton Heston said:-

"You can take my gun when you can take my delusions from my cold wet dream".

[laklak]

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you.