Gun Stats

[john12ax7]

Actually criminals do make some of their own guns. There is a whole network of underground guns that are made in remote jungles which eventually make their way to the streets.

And counter examples of rape and insider trading are non sensical. These are actions, whereas a gun is an object. Rape is a despicable act that has no acceptable opposite action. Whereas a gun can be used both criminally and in legitimate ways.

 

[kambo]

Actually criminals do make some of their own guns.

it would be very interesting to c a person making his/her own assault rifle....

 

[Sammas]

US Gun deaths 2014                        12,570
UK Gun deaths 2014                                30

Nothing to add

Sorry, I have to nuance :
If you look more closely to the stats, you will see that more than 60% of the US deaths are suicides.
If you take into account all murders, not only firearms, then the number of killed in US is "only" 3.8 times more than in UK.
Switzerland has almost 2 times less deaths by firearms than UK when it has 1 gun for 2 residents.
So the correlation is not so obvious.

The correlation is incredibly obvious if you ask me.

Australia introduced gun control in 1996 and has since experienced a year on year decline in ALL suicides by 1.5% a year. Not just gun related suicides. All suicides. That is a 64% drop in between 1996 and 2014,  a rate of decline more than double the 15 years prior to implementing gun control laws.

Only 25% of Switzerland actually own the guns. They also have mandatory military conscription and rather strict gun laws as well.

Seems like pretty strong statistics to support gun control laws.

 

[Gene Pink]

Saying that laws don't solve problems because criminals by definition don't follow laws is just silly. You can say the same about rapists. Why make rape illegal since rapists don't follow the law anyway? Or insider trading?.....

I usually stay out of these debates, but by your logic, the solution to rape, would be to outlaw the male sex organ.

What's next, confiscation? I would paraphrase Charlton Heston here, but that would be just wrong, on many levels.

Gene

 

[kambo]

Australia introduced gun control in 1996 and has since experienced a year on year decline in ALL suicides by 1.5% a year. Not just gun related suicides. All suicides. That is a 64% drop in between 1996 and 2014,  a rate of decline more than double the 15 years prior to implementing gun control laws.

Only 25% of Switzerland actually own the guns. They also have mandatory military conscription and rather strict gun laws as well.

Seems like pretty strong statistics to support gun control laws.

1+

i am trying to get the logic about defending gun law in US, dated back to
19th century
with minor  changes up to date... 

 

[Sammas]

Saying that laws don't solve problems because criminals by definition don't follow laws is just silly. You can say the same about rapists. Why make rape illegal since rapists don't follow the law anyway? Or insider trading?.....

I usually stay out of these debates, but by your logic, the solution to rape, would be to outlaw the male sex organ.

What's next, confiscation? I would paraphrase Charlton Heston here, but that would be just wrong, on many levels.

Gene

Only gun nuts fail to grasp the finer points of what gun control actually means. One solution to rape is the legal requirement to run vigorous background checks for certain lines of employment. You evidently seem to have just proven mattiasNYC very point.

You can even still buy a gun in Australia. Fancy that.

 

[kambo]

I usually stay out of these debates, but by your logic, the solution to rape, would be to outlaw the male sex organ.
Gene

gun shoot is a momentary action... most people are in jail for killing/shooting are sorry for what they did...

rape is a different issue...
" outlaw the male sex organ"  or 1million years in prison sentence would not significantly lower the
numbers.... they are usually sick in mind people. and they will defend them self, as she/he encouraged them to have sex with, either with their outfit, or talk or whatever.... there is always a reason....
especially if the raper  is from well known university  ! ur rape case will be under the thick rug...

 

[Matt Nolan]

I will never understand this gun fetish. I'm kinda 50/50 on shooting animals in the wild for nature husbandry reasons and for food, shooting for pleasure / sport is pretty sick in my opinion, but shooting a person - any person, even a despicable criminal - is utterly, utterly vile. That someone commits suicide with a gun is tragic. The Australian statistics showing the suicide rate drop post gun control laws cannot be argued against.

 

[ppa]

Here in Sicily, just on these weeks Italian State Police, after a street control, found a grenade inside a scooter. There was a person who drives it  around urban streets with this bomb inside the scooter top box. He drives the scooter normally.
Just for precision the grenade is not an old item, it's actually used by Italian Army. 
Just on these weeks a marshal of Italian Military Police (Carabinieri) has been killed during a control because he founded a marijuana plantation here in Sicily. Criminals shot him behind. He was patrolling this plant with another Carabiniere.
In Italy there are from several decades laws that limit a lot weapons to the people. Getting a gun in Sicily is not easy and only a few  people have them legally but, in the past, Police, Military Police, Italian Army and Finance Guard found  candidally  mafia's arsenals. Normally (I repeat normally) these arsenals were made of military automatic rifles. They have found also grenades and antitank missiles.
I should precise that italian Gov controls Sicily with teams that are made with both policemen and soldiers. 


 

 

[bruno2000]

, shooting for pleasure / sport is pretty sick in my opinion,

I enjoy shooting for pleasure / sport.  I can ring a gong fairly consistently at 600 yards.  I don't shoot at live targets, ever.  It's a skill you can develop, just like hitting a ball with a bat, or being able to kick a ball into a net, but opinions are line noses, everybody has one.........
Best,
Bruno2000

 

[JohnRoberts]

The house passed a mental health reform act , but the lack of a huge media storm suggests they glossed over some of the privacy issues that have been sticking points.

I surely don't think crazy people should have guns.

JR

 

[kambo]

I surely don't think crazy people should have guns.

JR

yea, but, u dont really find out if that person is crazy or not until/after the shooting...

 

[micaddict]

And everybody likes to think they're immune to craziness.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I surely don't think crazy people should have guns.

JR

yea, but, u dont really find out if that person is crazy or not until/after the shooting...

Several cases where mental health professionals were prevented by law from sharing important information about risky patients mental health. 

Common sense but complicated by privacy concerns.

JR

 

[kambo]

I surely don't think crazy people should have guns.

JR

yea, but, u dont really find out if that person is crazy or not until/after the shooting...

Several cases where mental health professionals were prevented by law from sharing important information about risky patients mental health. 

Common sense but complicated by privacy concerns.

JR

just curious, what is the stats on gun shooting/killings that got involved mentally ill persons...
i goggled but i didnt get any decent info....

i am counting in ur post about re mental illness is a problem !

The US has a mental health problem. 

JR

at :
http://groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=63002.msg798151#msg798151

 

[mattiasNYC]

Actually criminals do make some of their own guns. There is a whole network of underground guns that are made in remote jungles which eventually make their way to the streets.

The statistics I've seen says most weapons used by criminals are sourced domestically.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/guns.html

 

[Matt Nolan]

, shooting for pleasure / sport is pretty sick in my opinion,

I enjoy shooting for pleasure / sport.  I can ring a gong fairly consistently at 600 yards.  I don't shoot at live targets, ever.  It's a skill you can develop, just like hitting a ball with a bat, or being able to kick a ball into a net, but opinions are line noses, everybody has one.........
Best,
Bruno2000

Sorry, I should have been more clear. Shooting live targets for pleasure / sport is pretty sick in my opinion.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I surely don't think crazy people should have guns.

JR

yea, but, u dont really find out if that person is crazy or not until/after the shooting...

Several cases where mental health professionals were prevented by law from sharing important information about risky patients mental health. 

Common sense but complicated by privacy concerns.

JR

just curious, what is the stats on gun shooting/killings that got involved mentally ill persons...
i goggled but i didnt get any decent info....

i am counting in ur post about re mental illness is a problem !

The US has a mental health problem. 

JR

at :
http://groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=63002.msg798151#msg798151

Mental health is not the "only" problem just one hole in the bottom of the boat that needs plugging. I recall decades ago when the government cut funding for mental health services and many institutionalized individuals were turned into homeless. The recent focus is on privacy. Many anti-psychotic meds are unpleasant to take, so individuals may reject the medication that can keep them stable.
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I am apprehensive about the negative political climate surrounding police in the US, especially in some large cities.  Police should never be looked at through an us vs them lens, they are us.

If communities believe the police are them, that needs to be addressed and any basis for the perception fixed (more body cams, more minority officers).

From my perspective race relations is moving in the wrong direction for several years now, as some interest groups draw power and energy from the discord. As I've said before words have consequences and a short inflammatory sound bite, walked back by several minutes of qualification and dissemination afterwards is not neutralized. All that media picks up and repeats over and over is the brief inflammatory comment. Maybe the inflammatory sound bite didn't need saying. I do not believe politicians are completely ignorant of this phenomenon, or innocent of stirring the pot.

JR

 

[mattiasNYC]

I am apprehensive about the negative political climate surrounding police in the US, especially in some large cities.  Police should never be looked at through an us vs them lens, they are us.

If communities believe the police are them, that needs to be addressed and any basis for the perception fixed (more body cams, more minority officers).

I don't disagree with any of the above. I think one thing that is often overlooked is that police officers bond together and there seems to be an unspoken rule (or spoken) that they stick together and support each other no matter what. So you don't see police officers speaking up against each other as much as you'd see in other professions, and certainly not testifying against each other. Add to this the leadership and the legal system often supporting them and the view of "us and them" is just cemented.

In NY you can look at the officer that exposed a Brooklyn precincts ways of going about things by taping their roll-calls and leaking that to media. They basically made false-arrests to tweak numbers. The repercussions for him when he was found out were straight up crazy.

So of course when you have a police shooting and some rep stands up and says "oh, the cop fired two shots" and later it turns out to be 14 (or whatever), and when you have cops routinely make up charges that are routinely dropped because they were bogus and no fellow officers step in to prevent it - then the public will indeed see cops as "them".

To me it's a very clear distinction between cops and the rest. They do what they want, and we obey them and don't question them.

I have a feeling that if cops instead of being quiet about these killings by police spoke up honestly then the public would get a nuanced view of officers, and that in turn would make it less likely to see terrible things like the events we just saw.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The police routinely risk their lives to keep a community safer. No doubt there is some siege mentality from the near constant threat of injury.  This has probably gotten worse over the last several years from a biased media and negative political messaging . 

Just like any large group there are bad apples (with guns), but the vast majority are honorable men risking their lives for us. We need to treat them better than we do, they are not the bad guys (except for the very few bad apples that get way too much exposure).

A larger problem IMO is poverty and peer on peer crime .  Chicago has tried to increase police presence and visibility to (finally) address all the shootings there. Reports from the 4th of July weekend experiment seem mixed. I am glad to hear they they are actually trying something different

JR