Topic: Newtown Massacre

[smokester]

As my daughter is 6 and a bundle of joy beyond compare, I can sense the enormity of the loss only too well.  I think I would nuke the world if someone were to take her from me in this way.

poo may well happen and there are children dying every minute of the day in some part of the world, but the sheer senselessness of this incident is too difficult for my brain to compute.  I just want to vomit when I think of it.

The Wolverhampton attack does not compare and only reinforces Six's view.  No one was killed there and brave adults willingly took hits with the machete to protect the children, as I would and I'd guess so would everyone else here.  If Horrett Campbell had had a semi automatic firearm, I doubt anyone would have been left alive and this is a real example of how having near to no guns in this country probably saves a lot of lives every year.

[goldshirt*9]

I so agree, our gun laws keep us "safe".
Unfortunately USA will have a fight on their hands to change their law and more importantly mind set.

[bubu]

The Wolverhampton attack does not compare and only reinforces Six's view.  No one was killed there and brave adults willingly took hits with the machete to protect the children, as I would and I'd guess so would everyone else here.  If Horrett Campbell had had a semi automatic firearm, I doubt anyone would have been left alive and this is a real example of how having near to no guns in this country probably saves a lot of lives every year.

That was exactly my point when I said I am happy that here few people have guns and you need special permission to own them, many instable persons don't have access to one and I believe the police have to keep public order nor me or you, still for people who like firearms there are special places where they can excercise themselves

[6pairsofshoes]

Dahmer killed one person at a time.  He didn't shoot his way into a school with a military style assault rifle.  You are right.  There is no way to prevent evil people from doing evil things, but you can throw obstacles in their way.  That's all we can do besides wringing hands and gnashing teeth.

And, no, money won't bring back dead children, but it might help defray funeral expenses and rebuild the structure that the shooter demolished in his frenzy to kill.  All this chaos and destruction caused physical damage that will require labor and resources to put right.  Liability insurance could have helped at least defray some of this.  It's not much, I know, but if I have to have it in order to operate an automobile, is it too much to ask that owners of guns likewise be held responsible for accidental damage?  It won't bring back Ms. Lanza, but at least it will insure that her estate will help make right some of the terrible damage wrought by her failure to insure that her guns were secured and kept safely away from a mentally defective son.

[smokester]

Nope. (at least not mine).

My argument (as I summed up in the second post) is that legislation cannot stop a determined person from doing extraordinarily nasty things. No matter how you legislate, someone will always find a way to circumvent the legislation to do their dark deeds.

Legislation, on the other hand, almost always inconveniences the law-abiding without affecting the criminal, be it by gun, by dog or by scalpel. I don't recall Jeffrey Dahmer having a gun.

I know what you are saying here, but I'd give you 3 days to obtain a semi automatic firearm, and then the ammo (which will be far harder to obtain btw) and I bet you'd either fail or be arrested in the process.  If I gave you a month you may just do it although I doubt you'd get that many rounds.  This is the reality of availability of guns here in the U.K and I saying that as someone who has seen them about in my past.  That prick who killed the children wouldn't have even been able to buy a gun of the gangsters here, they'd have just robbed him and sent in on his way.  He may have buddied up with a farmer and obtained a shotgun, but it would have been a double barrelled and he'd wouldn't have been able to reload it more than 2 or 3 times before he'd been brought down.

I am not judging America's policies on gun ownership as that is their affair, but I don't think it is debatable that Lanza would have had to have been a lot brighter and infinitely more resourceful to have carried out the attack here.

[smokester]

I don't think focusing on gun control helps, I think that the issue is much, much wider than guns.

In this particular case, the guns were legally owned (as I understand it) and it is entirely possible to legally own several guns, and ammunition, in this country too - therefore the dumb kid of a gun owner could use those guns in exactly (well not quite exactly, but close enough to make no difference) the same way here.

As I said: laws only really hamstring the law-abiding - law-breakers and lunatics aren't even slowed.

As I understand it (these days), it is no easy matter to acquire a gun license and I recall after Dunblane when the law was tightened even more, recognised sportsmen even had difficulty obtaining them for their sport.  It's certainly not unheard of in farming/rural communities as guns are required for pest control, but here in the smoke I do not know a single, licensed gun owner.

The point of what I am saying which is just repeating what I said before, is that if you, or I, flipped and decided to go on a killing spree at this particular moment, we would have no chance in acquiring the weaponry (or certainly not the ammo) to carry it out.

[smokester]

That is also true for most Americans.

I suppose I am just trying to make sense of the mechanics involved with this incident, and trying to reassure myself that it is less likely to happen here.

I won't disagree that access to lethal weapons does not stop someone that is intent on killing, they'll undoubtedly find a way.  But I do think that the absence of guns, removes the option in peoples minds of shooting someone who has really pissed them off.  They're more likely to look round for a lump of timber.

[6pairsofshoes]

The weapon used, owned legally, was a military style assault rifle.  Why this weapon was available to be used to shoot its handler's way into an elementary school is a reasonable question.

If the reason to own and enjoy such a weapon is for target shooting, then why not require it to be retained and locked down between sessions at a carefully monitored target range?  Why do Americans need so much firepower?  I live in a high crime relatively dangerous city and I would feel less secure with a gun than without one.  We have a peculiar culture here that equates freedom and autonomy with weaponry.  That needs to change.  How one effects this is an open question.

[dandrummerman]

As I said: laws only really hamstring the law-abiding - law-breakers and lunatics aren't even slowed.

QFT
 
There's not really a need for a market of easily available assault rifles (these rifles are NOT automatic, as automatic weapons are against the law), but I don't see how they differ much from other guns. The ammunition might be a bit larger, maybe they hold a few more rounds than, say, a handgun. But they aren't really more deadly. If an attacker only had a few handguns at his disposal, he'd still easily kill many.

Hell, the truly sick people who go out and do this kind of thing don't even need guns. Take away all the guns? You still can't take away their urge to do it, and they'll just end up resorting to other means, such as explosive devices.

I'll step out of the conversation now. I don't like getting into politics and/or "the right to bear arms" discussions in light of the tragedy that was.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm sorry, but that's defeatist logic. 
It's like saying this:
If you make people get drivers licenses to operate a car, only good drivers will get licenses and the bad drivers will find a way to drive anyway. 

While this is true, the bad drivers are largely kept to a minimum.  And when people are caught driving without a license, they are fined or jailed.

So, what does one say to the families of the dead six year olds?  Too bad?  There's nothing to be done?  We'll all just throw in the towel and wail and pray every time a crazy gets weapons and shoots up a school because that's the way it is? 

I know if my child had been murdered, I'd not accept such a pronouncement.  I'd move heaven and earth to see that nobody else had to suffer the way my family had for no good reason.  But that's me.

[dweez]

Thousands of people drive with a suspended or no license...just saying.

[smokester]

Thousands of people drive with a suspended or no license...just saying.

I think what Six meant is that the authorities actively try and stop and prosecute such people, and that they are condemned on the whole by the general public.

[smokester]

I'm sorry, but that's defeatist logic. 
It's like saying this:
If you make people get drivers licenses to operate a car, only good drivers will get licenses and the bad drivers will find a way to drive anyway.

No, it isn't. It is like saying that cars must be banned, because sometimes even licensed owners kill people with their cars. (When was the last time a mass shooting was conducted using unlicensed guns?)

... or that cars with more than 50cc engines must be banned, because licensed owners with powerful cars could potentially cause more damage than licensed owners of little cars.

So, what does one say to the families of the dead six year olds?

One says “It was a tragedy, and the only person to blame has killed himself. Sorry, it is time for the healing process to start.”

Look upon inhumanity as a force of nature – you can’t legislate to stop lightning, flood, famine or plague (although we, along with King Canute, perennially try), so why would we try to legislate against the unpredictable and unknowable madman?

There is nothing that can be done. Nothing. This is not throwing in the towel, it is stating a simple truth.

I know if my child had been murdered, I'd not accept such a pronouncement.  I'd move heaven and earth to see that nobody else had to suffer the way my family had for no good reason.  But that's me.

And that is your right. Do whatever you have to do to try to live with your loss, but please don’t try to tell me what I can and can’t do in my normal, law-abiding life. I am fed up to the back teeth with people whose desire for revenge/ restitution/ whatever make my life a misery on a day to day basis, whilst continuing to fail to prevent atrocities.

I am fed up with having to be frisked and scanned at airports, after an hour-long queue, when there are no recorded instances of a bomber having been stopped, caught or deterred by the machines: the bad guys find a way to avoid being scanned. The only reason for the scanners to exist is because “someone has to do something”.

I am fed up with grannies having to undergo onerous expensive and time-consuming checks for previous child-abuse convictions before they are allowed to teach children to knit in a classroom surrounded by other adults, when paedophiles don’t submit themselves for checks. The only reason for the checks to exist is because “someone has to do something”.

We need to re-learn, as a society, that bad things happen – they can’t be eradicated, and they are not always “someone’s fault”.

The way I see it is: I keep the sharp knives in a drawer that is out of the reach of my children as I know that children and sharp objects are not a good mix.  I realise that they'll probably find something else to cut themselves with, but I'll be damned if I move those knives to within reach.

[8ullfrog]

You don't go reaching in my drawers, hopefully.

[smokester]

True.

... and concomitantly if someone else doesn't have the same discipline, and their children cut themselves in their kitchen, you don't expect knives to be banned.

Or do you?

I am not suggesting bans either here or in the U.S. and have not throughout this thread. I am happy with our laws and American gun policy is none of my business as I am not eligible to vote there.

What I am saying in response to your "poo happens" (which it does) view, is that you can be sensible about things without being oppressive.