Legislation of Firearms
 

Following the recent school shooting in Connecticut, gun legislation (or otherwise) is once again being discussed. Share your opinions here.

When discussing this, please try to bear in mind the vast differences in culture and history between different nations, just because something works in one country, does not automatically mean it can be applied in another.

(If you feel you need support for the issue of school shootings or similar, please post in this thread in General Support & Advice.)

I really don't see any reasons for allowing laymen access to firearms. I imagine there are some and I'm just not aware of them? In which case someone please enlighten me!

Well....its in their constitution as they have a right to bear arms which means its their right to, Im not sure why that was originally though. I think its seen as a human right in America like free speech and I think it would be very very difficult to change that.

Im not in America so I may be ignorant on the subject but I do find it very worrying that people who are mentally unstable and actually anyone who has fits of rage and so on are able to have access to such a dangerous object and its so easy to get a hold of.

But as I understand there are lots of amendments, so couldn't they just make another one? Although I'm not sure how 'drastic' previous amendments were!

I think it would be interesting to know the actual gun crime statistics, like per capita. There's some 'raw data' going round tumblr at the moment (like, Japan has x gun crimes, UK has y, USA has z), but whilst well-meaning, it's incredibly pointless from a statistical perspective and kind of annoying >.<

Is there maybe an argument that when people can legally acquire firearms, it can be more regulated? Like, with licenses and such, people can know who has what and crimes when they do happen are easier to solve?

I dunno, just my random thoughts, I don't actually know anything!

The 'right to bear arms' was an amendment in itself. The second one, I believe.

My understanding (and it probably varies from state-to-state) is that in the USA guns are registered to owners (although unregistered guns are rife), and these owners are vetted to an extent. There are laws regarding gun keeping as well.

However, a gun is a tool. It is the person behind the tool that makes it dangerous or not. Guns exist in Britain (my understanding is that gun ownership is not legislated as stringently in Northern Ireland?) for those with the proper licences for them, and among the criminal fraternity, who obviously don't have permits.

In the US the place with the most gun laws have the highest crime rate. All the law abiding people become defenseless and he criminal get guns anyway. Mexico has strict gun laws and over 50k people have been killed the last few years.

Alcohol is involved in thousands of deaths and and accidents and nobody wants to ban alcohol because they know it wont work. Yet it would be the same with guns.

The Columbine shooters actually intended a bombing. They would have killed hundreds if the bombs had worked (as they did in tests). They went on shooting rampage room by room after bombs failed. I have an elementary school a few blocks from here. The way they line up someone could drive a car into them and kill just as many.

They way I see it its crazy to have so many kids in one place and no protection. In Israel they dont have this because teachers know how to use guns and keep them at school. Passing laws that criminals ignore anyway hasn't worked and won't.

The Constitution does not allow guns because of hunting but because the citizen is "sovereign" meaning they are the ultimate power. The gov. and the army are secondary and citizens with guns is meant to keep them that way.

In Switzerland males between 20-30 keep assault rifles at home by law. Nobody runs around shooting each other. US had guns for almost 200 years before nuts started shooting places. Fact is a deteriorating society with broken families and sham culture is producing too many messed-up people. Minority crime is also allowed to stay sky high because its not PC to address it. Little black kids get shot up every day in cities with gangs allowed to get out of control. Now that a bunch of little white kids got shot its a crisis. If Bloods or Crips had shot these kids the story would be over already

But in the UK we have bigger classes with no protection apart from a good security system and theres very rarely any school crimes like this so i dont think thats the issue

I did see statistics somewhere. It was something like 8 kill by gun crime in GB in a year, 10 in China, 37 in Russia and 10,000 in America. (Those aren't the exact numbers - I can't remember off by heart. I'll find them when I go on my laptop but you get the idea.)

^But the USA is bigger. We need percentages for it to be meaningful.

That's the thing that was making me scowl on tumblr! Raw data is meaningless.

I could just stop whining and divide by the population of the respective countries. But even then it depends on the things like the age of the population etc. If you torture the data long enough it will confess and all that.

It probably was - I saw it on Facebook. It would be interesting to see the exact figures though.

I think it's ridiculous to allow pretty much anyone to own a gun. It's no wonder there are so many gun crimes in the US imo.

I saw in one documentary a bank in America gives people a gun, in store from behind the counter, when they open a certain type of account with them.

First off gun violence in the US is down a lot over the years since changes in policing. A lot of the remaining gun violence in America is among minority urban populations. There are around 5-6000 deaths of black males alone a year. These deaths take place in areas with very strict gun control. The shooters don't care about gun laws and the black market for guns is healthy.

On the other hand US violent crimes of all kinds is low

"there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.

Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.

By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population.

France recorded 324,765 violent crimes in 2007 – a 67 per cent increase in the past decade – at a rate of 504 per 100,000 population"

UK is violent crime capital of Europe
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...of-Europe.html

Are all of those crimes violence related?

Want to initially state my slight ignorance to the topic as I'm not in America and I don't fully understand the laws surrounding guns etc.

Just as a point of interest, do you think it's worth targeting the fact that because many citizens legally own guns and have them locked away with the ammunition a certain distance away in a separate container, it gives ample opportunity for anyone to plan something like this to such an extent that hundreds will be killed?

The fact that you can literally walk up to a cabinet, unlock it, and take the gun out, is surely kind of derivative from the fact that it was legally allowed to be there in the first place? It's all an 'innocent' right to bear arms but in turn one bad motivation and boom, there's your disaster.

This kid was the son of a teacher at the school, right? Does anyone know where the gun actually came from?

I'd be interested to see % gun crim in USA, UK and elsewhere. Anyone got the stats?

the way I see it is, how many more innocent people, children or otherwise, have to die as a result of gun crime?

The vast majority of it can be avoided, which is the saddest thing really.

^
1. Statistics show acts of mass violence haven't actually increased.
2. It's easy to blame gun control at these times, but what is that really going to do? If someone is mentally unstable enough to want to kill a crowd of people, they're going to do it with or without guns. We should be looking at anything from home upbringing to bullying to mental health support.


Here's something I read that I agreed with. This is Morgan Freeman's take on the shooting:

Yes I agree with you on that respect, however, the use of firearms makes such a massacre easier. The guy had killed 20 people in a couple of mins.

I believe it was already brought up that crimes of this nature often time could have ended up a lot worse if the perpetrator chose to use something besides a firearm (ex. car, chemicals, fire, etc.). It's also been mentioned that the majority of gun related crimes, regardless of country, are done using illegally obtained firearms. In the US, the right to keep and bear arms is protected by the second amendment to the constitution. Its probably worth pointing out that the first 10 amendments to the constitution are known as the bill of rights, and were added pretty much around the time the constitution written so that it would be clear what rights citizens had. (sorry about that being kind of awkwardly worded). The second amendment is in there to, among other reasons, pretty much allow citizens to keep the government in check. Which, of course, is why it's grouped with amendments regarding freedom of speech and assembly, search and seizure, having a right to a fair trial and having troops quartered in your home. All of these amendments are there to help prevent the government from overstepping its bounds. Of course, they do it anyways, but the fact still stands that the right to own guns is a fairly large aspect of the US.

I think what they should be looking at is how mentally ill people can get hold of guns, and potentially start saying that mentally ill people should not be allowed to own a gun.

^I thought that was a given?

But what about people who develop MH problems after purchase, or who have never been diagnosed. Psych checks?

How many innocent people die as a result of careless driving? Or alcohol-related violence?

Lots. Too many. They are all equally horrible and all should be dealt with. But this incident could be the potential for something to be done. Yes, all of the above should be dealt with but I guess it will happen one at a time. It's just awful that such a tragic incident(s) have to happen before something is done.

There are laws against both careless driving and violence, but legislation alone isn't enough to stop things from happening. There needs to be much more than simply a legal statute drawn up by the government of the day. There would need to be a huge culture change, which doesn't happen overnight. It wasn't really that long ago that guns were legal in this country.

You can ban guns but you can't ban violence or ill mental health. I do feel as though mental health is an area where there isn't as much support/depth of support that people need, at least in the UK and that although we try not to do it, there's still an awful lot of stigma attached. As soon as something like this happens, the perpetrator is labeled as 'crazy' or 'mad' or something/someone else is blamed, there is no 'well, we could have done more'. I do agree, it is the people, not the guns.

Correct. The second amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It was put into place after the revolution as a way to insure that the county could never fall into tyranny because the people had the tools to protect themselves from the government.

This is a large part of the culture of the interior of the county. When you visit the USA you, most likely, did not venture from the urban and suburban areas. If you entered the nation's heartland you would come across a group of people who would do this if any part of the government would come to collect the firearms there.

In some states it it illegal for the state government to have a database of gun owners. Most other states only have lists of people who own hand guns. Shotguns and, non-automatic, rifles are mostly unregulated. NRA type groups like flashing a quote from Lenin when this topic comes up, "A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie." Many argue that lists would lead to people confiscating people's legal firearms.

No its not. My family owns several rifles and shotguns; all of them are for hunting or sport shooting. In my area it is common to have 10+ firearms in the house. Passing on firearms is a big deal in the culture of my, fairly rural, area. One of the biggest holidays of the year is the first day that you can hunt deer with a modern rifle. There are many reasons to own guns.

That is already in place but there are loopholes behind background checks

Exactly

I dont blame gun ownership for what happened but I think that the ability to access guns so freely makes massacres like this that much easier and more likely to occur and I find that unsettling.

They were his mother's - she was shot with her own rifle.
She had the semi-auto and a couple of handguns too I believe.

That's something I think a lot of people don't understand. The majority of the people here are British. Gun ownership is a huge cultural difference between the US and the UK that I think is hard for people to comprehend from either side.

Hunting is a huge sport, as mentioned. Also, many people want to have guns to feel protected. I personally know how to use a gun and might someday if I have children consider keeping one in my home, well secured, to feel that I could protect them if need be. More kids die in the home from swimming pool accidents than gun ownership.

I don't think that the man who shot those children would have cared if having a gun was legal. People find a way to do things, when they really want to. After all, murder is also illegal.

I think it's a cultural thing.
Coming from NZ I have a different view to the UK - I shoot rifles and many of my family own rifles for hunting and/or farming purposes.
However, we don't have this problem. Shootings like this don't happen, whereas they seriously seem to happen in the US every couple of years.
Therefore, it must be something wrong with Americans that they have no respect for firearms and just think it's acceptable to go totally crazy and shoot a load of stangers just because they are upset.
They are obviously not mature enough to handle such easy access to firearms - therefore I think the law must change to take away the right to bear arms, since the general public cannot be trusted with it.
I know I'm going to be attacked for this generalisation, but you can't have one rule for one and one rule for others and this kind of thing just cannot keep happening.

Think about the size of the US vs. the size of NZ.

That's incredibly offensive. "Something wrong with Americans"? You're judging a population of millions of people by a handful.

WHOA. Hold on a minute. Most of the population is fine and totally okay with owning guns. The guns themselves are not the problem. Most people here who have lots of guns use them for hunting purposes.

What is the problem is the help available for mentally ill people. In NZ and the UK and Aus and Canada, if I'm not mistaken, they have universal health care. The US does not. This means that in any of those countries, if someone is ill, they can get help.

In the US, no matter how ill you are, oftentimes you go without help. Unless you are very, VERY lucky. This means that feelings and problems are allowed to fester. And, since it's far easier to get a gun than it is to get therapy, one might use a gun to solve their problem given that they have no option of getting help. None.

Yes, shootings are a problem. Yeah, guns are pretty easy to get. But the underlying problem is what causes these people to go out and shoot people. What would be a better solution is to solve the underlying problems. Why do people feel this is their only option? How can we give these people other options?

What Ama said.

This is the point I was making I think. Would he have still been able to cause such damage if he didn't have access to the gun? No. That's not to say he wouldn't have found another way of killing dozens of innocent people, but at the same time, his ideologies may have developed because he had always had such easy access to guns.

Because I don't know how to quote more than once in one post. Just as a general question, do people think we can completely narrow these shootings (referring to previous incidents also) down to the mental health of the person? Obviously, the psychology of the person is a hugely important thing to try and unravel so we can build a bigger picture, and allow ourselves to try and understand what was going on. But, what of those who go off and randomly shoot innocent citizens, who haven't previously had any mental health problems? I completely agree that treatment for mental health is of ample importance, and if there's any way of finding out someone's plans before they happen, then of course it's extremely important we intervene how we can. But what if this wasn't planned as a result of trying to rectify a psychological issue? In other words, what about the murderers who don't get off under mitigated circumstances because they were deemed mentally well enough to be completely aware of what they were doing?

Just some thinking out loud.

With most of the school shootings the kids have a history of therapy, meds, criminal activity etc. Many were also regarded as "bright". The Columbine shooters were smart kids - too smart for their own good in ways because they were able to make bombs before they even had drivers permit.

I will add most of these kids also come from financially secure backgrounds. They had health insurance and care. The shooter from this week had a mom getting 350,000 a year in alimony payments. She didn't even need to work.

She also knew she was "losing" the kid. He got bitter after a divorce. He was burning himself on the ankles. He stopped working and going to school. The media is now calling him a "goth" which is an oft misused term in this cases. It got misused in Columbine as well

Personally I think some kids are just kind of rotten and challenging circumstances bring it out. A problem with mental health people is that they all see people that make them nervous but there isn't much that can be done until they do something illegal.

An interesting book to read is a best seller called "Columbine" (2009 by Dave Cullen). It shows how one kid was just plain rotten and the other kid was just a tool.

She had some badass guns. I just believe for more often than not, its the parents being involved in the kids life. Some of you hide cutting yourself. Some people hide plots of shooting sprees. Discipline I believe feeds into it, or the lack of it .

Guns are as available as anything. You don't keep your $hit locked up proper obviously someones going to get into them. What's done is done, should just be dropped. You can goto a gunstore if you're legit get a gun by the end of the day. Backround checks etc. You pass, you're armed. You uk peeps seem to think their as easy to get from a store as candy. Now if you outlaw them , you cannot defend yourself. And the guy who still is doing the shooting ca still get them. You're naive if you think otherwise. A few 20 dollar bills in any city , if for even that much you could obtain a stolen gun.

I was raised by columbine, so I'm kind of desensitized I guess.

Just picking up on this, I would like to know why it should be dropped?Sweeping everything under the carpet isnt going to help anything and Im sure if it was your child who was gunned down you wouldnt be saying 'whats done is done.'

You've just said yourself they basically are as easy to get from a "store" as "candy" so I don't really see the point of this sentence?

Not in NZ, not the same way. If I want counselling I have to find a therapist and pay them around $120 an hour. The GP costs $46 per 15min appt. The hospital is free if you go through the public system - with waiting lists of 6 months minimum for something "urgent" - although A&E is free, yes (again with very long waiting times, sometimes days and if I went there with a mental health issue they'd tell me to get counselling - again with the $120 upwards an hour, as if I can afford that).
I know the US has a ****ed up system I'm just pointing out that it's not all rosy here either, yet you never see shootings like this and they happen in the US fairly often, and the argument about population size isn't valid especially as you don't take into account the proportion of the population who own a firearm etc.

Anyway like someone just said, most of these people are not poor, they come from relatively wealthy and financially stable backgrounds.

Exactly.

That's the bit I was referring to.

By the end of the day, backround check. Isn't "in & out". Idiot read.

whoa whoa whoa... you can get a gun in A DAY???? I though tthere was like a waiting period and stuff for the checked and things!!! I thought it tool at least as long as a CRB if not longer

It pretty much is in and out, especially when comparing it to the UK. And I am not overly impressed by you calling someone an idiot, nor will most people be.

See I think that is the problem. Fair enough if people want to have guns for leisure and protection and stuff but the checks should take a lot longer than a day! And safety cabinets and stuff should be mandatory.

None of that stuff would neccessarily have prevented the recent tragedy but I guess if the US as a country think access to guns is really important (which I personally do not understand fully), its about finding ways to make that as safe as possible. Think interfering health and safety person- if you must do that, find the safest way possible to do it!

EXCLUSIVE: Fear of being committed may have caused Connecticut gunman to snap

The gunman who slaughtered 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school may have snapped because his mother was planning to commit him to a psychiatric facility, according to a lifelong resident of the area who was familiar with the killer’s family and several of the victims’ families.

Adam Lanza, 20, targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown after killing his mother early Friday because he believed she loved the school “more than she loved him,” said Joshua Flashman, 25, who grew up not far from where the shooting took place. Flashman, a U.S. Marine, is the son of a pastor at an area church where many of the victims' families worship.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/18...#ixzz2FTBc30tT

Yeah thanks for that. I can actually read, even though I will concede that most of your posts are quite difficult due to lack of grammar, punctuation and normal sentence structure.
I think that most people would consider within a day to be pretty much in and out, to be honest.

Relevant.