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What Price American Gun Laws Now?

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Les	Posted: Jul 20 2012, 01:32 PM
I use a computer, therefore I am. Group: Admin Posts: 19,062 Member No.: 70 Joined: 8-March 09	Again! http://news.sky.com/story/962756/denver-sh...-at-batman-film

lifesmate	Posted: Jul 20 2012, 01:39 PM
Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 31,127 Member No.: 3 Joined: 3-March 08	this country will be the same in a few years.

Les	Posted: Jul 20 2012, 01:43 PM
I use a computer, therefore I am. Group: Admin Posts: 19,062 Member No.: 70 Joined: 8-March 09	God forbid. I think it's one of the few things I'd take to the streets with a placard over.

lifesmate	Posted: Jul 20 2012, 02:54 PM
Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 31,127 Member No.: 3 Joined: 3-March 08	There is already quite a lot of gun crime despite our laws. I agree,would never endorse anyone getting a gun.

Ribs	Posted: Jul 21 2012, 04:57 PM
Member Group: Members Posts: 481 Member No.: 237 Joined: 2-October 11	Unless they limit the availability of guns in the US this kind of thing is going to keep on happening..but it seems to be part of their culture. Why is it possible for any gun available to the public to have a rifle with a magazine that enables someone to fire 100 rounds before reloading. Making it more difficult to fire at innocent people at such high volume and speed might have saved at least a few lives. But they won't do anything about it.

Les	Posted: Jul 22 2012, 06:41 AM
I use a computer, therefore I am. Group: Admin Posts: 19,062 Member No.: 70 Joined: 8-March 09	Next steps, in this case, would be to load your popcorn in your backpack along with your automatic rifle, just in case you need to shoot at a crazed gunman. That worries me. One firecracker on the big screen and you could have a gunfight between innocent movie goers. They need to, at least, tighten their gun laws and I agree, Ribs, limit the type of firearm people are allowed to carry around with them for personal protection.

voice	Posted: Jul 22 2012, 04:41 PM
Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 25,642 Member No.: 1 Joined: 3-March 08	Why the story? This is second nature for a country that has such gun laws. Bring on the next one; as there surely will be another one. America still thinks it is still in the wild west. Their constitution is more important that human life it seems.

Ribs

Posted: Jul 22 2012, 06:07 PM

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QUOTE (voice @ Jul 22 2012, 04:41 PM)

Why the story? This is second nature for a country that has such gun laws. Bring on the next one; as there surely will be another one. America still thinks it is still in the wild west.

Their constitution is more important that human life it seems.

Isn't gun law a political football in the US?

zombie444	Posted: Jul 22 2012, 06:10 PM
Advanced Member Group: Members1 Posts: 2,014 Member No.: 231 Joined: 15-July 11	Imagine if guns were easily available in this country OMG

Les	Posted: Jul 29 2012, 10:04 AM
I use a computer, therefore I am. Group: Admin Posts: 19,062 Member No.: 70 Joined: 8-March 09	Doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Interesting development in the Aurora shootings. It appears at this point that James Holmes was seeing a psychiatrist in the time leading up to the shootings. So, why was he allowed to buy that huge arsenal of guns and ammunition? Now, that is frightening. Mind you, I did hear something on the news that cast some doubt on the Psychiatrist he was seeing. I'll try to dig up any more information on that, unless someone else knows about that? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19022570

Ron55	Posted: Jul 31 2012, 10:27 AM
Trust no one. Group: Global Moderators Posts: 6,801 Member No.: 95 Joined: 11-September 09	I was a member of a firearms (pistol) club and on the committee for over twenty years. My roles included, small bore competition secretary, small bore safety officer, full bore safety officer and I was (and still am) a qualified RCO (Range Conducting Officer). I was also on the regional sub committees of the SSBSA (Somerset Small Bore Shooting Association), NRA (National Rifle Association), SBSA (Small Bore Shooting Association) and the NPA (National Pistol Association). I have spent more time on firearm ranges than I could shake a stick at and have witnessed (and instructed) people from all walks of life including the police in the safe handling of firearms and (pistol) shooting disciplines involving static and moving (turning) targets. I no longer have the statistics available to me but I can tell you that you would have been very surprised if not shocked at just how many people owned firearms in this country and when you looked at these statistics you could see that the amount of crime committed with firearms was very low indeed and in the main carried out by non certificated owners using unregistered guns. Many of these firearms were in circulation before the need to obtain a firearm certificate and for the, �would� be owner to prove why he/she wanted it and for them to be vetted by the police. Unfortunately, these guns are still in circulation because it was only the legitimate owners that handed them in to the police when it was made illegal to own pistols and revolvers in this country. Due to this legislation, the movement and acquisition of illegal firearms has been made much easier because many of those involved in the target shooting fraternity are no longer active. They were, to some extent, the eyes and ears of the police and could help maintain the ebb and flow of legally kept weapons thus restricting the movement of those underground firearms. America could take a leaf from this country and tighten their gun laws but, not to the extent this country has; that would be too little too late. The guns are out there and no matter how many times they offer an amnesty, they will stay out there. This is not only my opinion but the opinion of many officers in the police force, especially those in the firearms division with whom, in the past, I have had the pleasure to shoot with. There is a vast difference between those who enjoy pistol and rifle target shooting to those who just like the sound and feel of a fully automatic weapon; weapons that can fire off many rounds in a single burst. With these weapons it is not possible to enter a precision shooting competition nor is it the intention of those who own such weapons to do so. This is the scary part. It is just the sound and feel of these weapons that is the attraction and sooner or later these, or at least a small minority of the more dubious of them, want more than just a few tin cans to annihilate! This may seem a poor analogy but, it is one that is true and springs readily to mind. Some years ago I was a member of our local darts team and we decided to recruit a few more members to put together another team with a few extra to sit on the bench, as it were. There was one particular character that was well known as a local nutcase who applied. Needless to say he was given the chance to prove himself. But, and for some strange reason, he decided that it was much more fun to throw all three darts at the same time! I remember another member of the team, who was also my shooting partner at the time saying to me �that is the sort of bloke that would own an assault rifle�. The point is, he�s not interested in the precision element of the sport, just at how many he could throw at the board at once; and we had the feeling the board would not be his only target! Tight restrictions on the ownership of firearms with the application and grant, where deemed safe of a certificate, tighter restrictions on the type of firearm (semi auto, single) and, and as far as I am concerned, stronger and more in-depth vetting of the applicant is needed. Why is the gun required, vermin control, hunting, or target shooting? Bring in more firearm ranges and train people to run them and to teach the safe use and handling of firearms. Make it illegal to carry firearms in unlocked cases. Bring in legislation that states all firearms are to be kept under lock and key in the home with firing pins, bolts, and slides under lock and key separately. All ammunition to be kept under lock and key and separate from the firearms. And, to make it illegal to transport the firearm/s unless in a box bolted or padlocked to the inside of the boot of the vehicle and again, with the ammunition secured in a separate container. And, make it illegal to own weapons that are capable of firing in bursts. All the vetting in the world will not throw up the weirdoes and fruitcakes in America or anywhere else. Even with psychiatric profiling it is not sure who would still get through the net and, it�s with this thought in mind and with millions of firearms legally owned out there, that to call for and achieve a complete ban on all firearms, just might tip some of them to go out with a bang! It�s a frightening and chilling thought!

sherry	Posted: Jul 31 2012, 12:35 PM
sherry Group: Admin Posts: 30,685 Member No.: 25 Joined: 2-June 08	I suppose it's the same with everything really. The wrong ones will always find a way and that means there aren't any easy answers. It would alarm me though, if anyone could walk about with a gun in public. When you go up town on an ordinary day and you see at least one or two unsavories during the week out there.

frehley	Posted: Jul 31 2012, 06:15 PM
Jess's Dad Group: Admin Posts: 3,854 Member No.: 235 Joined: 31-August 11	One of the most spotted bumper stickers in the good ol' USA. "Kill 'em all .......... let God sort 'em out."

Ron55	Posted: Jul 31 2012, 06:21 PM
Trust no one. Group: Global Moderators Posts: 6,801 Member No.: 95 Joined: 11-September 09	There used to be a bumper sticker in this country a number of years ago. If you outlaw guns...only outlaws will have guns!

Duck

Posted: Aug 1 2012, 07:48 AM

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Skep blog has some interesting figures and facts this week

QUOTE

http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/07/31/gun-...-large-numbers/

The Colorado Massacre, Gun Control,
and the Law of Large Numbers

by Michael Shermer, Jul 31 2012

It is too soon to tell what the motive was behind the accused James Holmes� mass murder in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, especially now that he has stopped talking to the authorities in charge of his case. Reports about his personality, thoughts, and behaviors from friends, fellow students, professors, and the police are conflicting. He was smart, brilliant in fact. No, he wasn�t; he was a sub-standard student who dropped out of his doctoral program at the University of Colorado after failing a preliminary exam. He was a quiet man who said nothing to indicate he was on the verge of cracking. Also not true; he left an incoherent and rambling voice message on the phone service of a gun club he wanted to join, the owner of which noted: �It was this deep, guttural voice, rambling something incoherent. I thought, �What is this idiot trying to be?�.� He rigged his apartment with explosive devices but then warned the police about them after his capture. Initial reports described the event as spontaneous and random, but he mailed a notebook to his psychiatrist at his university describing in detail with diagrams precisely what he (pre)planned to do.

It may be months before we have any clue to his mind and motive. And short of something obvious like a brain tumor pressing against his amygdala (the brain�s emotion center)�similar to that in the brain of Charles Whitman, the University of Texas bell tower shooter who in 1966 killed 49 people including himself after leaving a note to authorities to autopsy his brain because he felt there was something wrong�we may never know the motive behind James Holmes murderous actions.

We do know something for certain, however, and that is that this will happen again�and again and again. The reason is the law of large numbers that I will outline below that are disturbing enough that it really is now time to rethink our gun-control laws to include the prohibition of semi-automatic assault rifles like those Holmes� allegedly used to murder 12 and wound another 58 in a matter of seconds. Had he not had such weapons�possessing, say, only a pistol purchased for self-defense�the tragedy would surely have been lessened. Thus, even though I am a life-long libertarian who champions freedom in all spheres of life and has previously opposed gun-control measures in principle (I do not personally enjoy hunting or recreational gun shooting), I now believe that the freedom of a few people to own WMMs (Weapons of Mass Murder) conflicts with the freedom of the rest of us to enter the public sphere without the chance of our ultimate freedom of life itself being cut short. Here are a few figures that should give even the most freedom-loving libertarian and conservative pause.

First, there�s a good chance that James Holmes is schizophrenic, suffered from severe depression, or is a psychopath. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, Schizophrenics account for about 1.1 percent of the U.S. population over the age of 18, with the onset of occurrence most likely in the early to mid 20s. Major depressive disorders strike about 6.7 percent of Americans over the age of 18. Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by lacking empathy and guilt, shallow emotions and cold-heartedness, impulsivity and antisocial behaviors, and most notably criminality. According to University of Cambridge psychologist Kevin Dutton, author of the forthcoming book The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 16, 2012), whom I queried for this article, �estimates of the incidence of psychopathy tend to vary from 1�3 percent in men to 0.5�1 percent in women,� and in prison populations �around 50 percent of the most serious crimes on record�crimes such as murder and serial rape, for instance�are committed by psychopaths.�

As a back-of-the-envelope calculation, let us employ a figure of 2 percent across these three disorders (Schizophrenia, major depression, and psychopathy) for men only (since such mass murders are almost always committed by men)�by the law of large numbers the following calculations indicate that the Aurora tragedy is by no means a one-off event and that it will happen again:

The current U.S. population is approximately 314 million, about half of which are males, so if 2% of the 157 million American men suffer from one of these severe disorders, this results in a figure of 3,140,000. Most of these men are not violent; in fact, recent studies on psychopathy, for example, show that many are successful CEOs, politicians, and Wall Street traders and executives who employ their psychopathic personality traits of tough-minded and emotionless impulsive decision making to great effect in the rough-and-tumble world of business and politics. And most Schizophrenics and sufferers of severe depression are not violent. So let�s conservatively estimate that if only 1% of these 3,140,000 men commit any kind of violent act, this results in 31,400 acts of violence per year, a nontrivial number.

If only 1% of those violent acts involve murders, this leaves us with 314 unnecessary tragic deaths caused by psychopaths. And, finally, if only 1% of those murderous violent acts involves killing multiple people at once, this results in a rate of 3.14 Aurora-size mass murders per year in America, which is actually lower than the rate of around a dozen per year that we have been averaging the past half century, depending on what constitutes a mass murder (school-shootings alone that amount to more than one killed in one event happen on average once a year in the U.S.).

Again, it�s too early to say whether or not Holmes was a Schizophrenic, suffered from severe depression, or was a psychopath, and the specific figures of how many mass murders there are per year vary across different data sets, but my point is a larger one: A large-numbers analysis allows us to understand on a societal-level scale why such events happen randomly and without any specific cause common to all (drugs, gangs, bullying, depression, psychopathy, psychosis, violent video games, and the like). History and population demographics for rates of mass murder show that Aurora-size events are going to happen again and again and again, and there is no way to predict who is going to do it, where, or when. (With the possible exception of a national database that tracks and alerts authorities to the purchase of mass quantities of guns and ammunition by private citizens.) All we know is that it will happen again�for certain.

Thus, damage control is the only option we have, if we want to do something about this tragic social problem. And by damage control I mean gun control. Specifically, I mean outlawing all automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles for anyone who is not in law enforcement or the military. When the Second Amendment was written stating that citizens have a right to �keep and bear arms,� rifles took over a minute to load one bullet at a time. The most crazed 18th century American could not possibly commit mass murder because no WMMs existed at the time.

My fellow libertarians are likely to see this as another loss of freedom, but I disagree. The principle of freedom states that all people are free to think, believe, and act as they choose, so long as they do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. But the freedom for me to swing my arm ends at your nose. The freedom for you to own any gun you like is in conflict with my freedom to interact freely with my fellow citizens in public spaces when so many madmen mingle among us. We should ban assault weapons of all kinds. We already disallow private citizens to own nuclear weapons, missiles, grenade launchers, and the like. WMMs that can be secreted into a movie theater should be categorized among those we can no longer tolerate. This is no loss of freedom. It is, in fact, an increase in freedom�the freedom to move about our living spaces without fear of being gunned down in cold blood.

If you think I am exaggerating, or that my calculations are nothing but mathematical hyperbole, just consider the case of Aurora victim Jessica Ghawi, who was almost gunned down in a shopping mall in Toronto in another public shooting the month before, after which she reflected on her blog: �I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders� faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don�t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath.�

Ron55

Posted: Aug 1 2012, 10:20 AM

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QUOTE (frehley @ Jul 31 2012, 06:15 PM)

One of the most spotted bumper stickers in the good ol' USA.

"Kill 'em all .......... let God sort 'em out."

I think I�m right in saying that this quotation is or was adopted by the Marines and/or the Green Berets. I believe it originated in France but was, and I dare say still is, a misquoted reference to a biblical quotation.

The facts escape me for now and I don�t have the time to research it.

Duck

Posted: Aug 1 2012, 11:24 AM

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Here we are

QUOTE

�Kill them all and let God sort them out.�

http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/07/kil...t-them-out.html

In 1209, Pope Innocent III decided it was time to crack down on followers of a religious sect that had become popular in Southern France.

Originally called Albigensians, they came to be more widely known as the Cathars.

Cathars were Christians. But they rejected the authority of the pope and other key aspects of Catholicism, so they were deemed heretics by the Catholic Church.

This apparently didn�t matter much to most people living in the French town of Beziers. Catholics and Cathars had lived there together for many years in relative harmony.

On July 22, 1209, they were celebrating the annual Feast of Mary Magdalene together, a religious holiday observed by various Christian religions.

Suddenly, the festivities were cut short when an army of �Crusaders� sent by Pope Innocent III showed up outside the walls of the town.

The military leader of the army was Simon de Montfort, a French nobleman highly motivated by the pope�s promise that he could keep the land of any heretics he killed.

The Crusaders were accompanied by an official representative of the pope, a French Cistercian monk named Arnaud Amalric (also variously referred to as Arnald Amalric and Arnauld-Amaury).

De Montfort demanded that the leaders of Beziers turn over the town�s Cathar heretics to him. They refused. The Crusaders attacked.

According to accounts written decades later, as the attack began, a soldier asked Amalric how they would be able to tell which Beziers townspeople were Catholics and which were Cathars.

Amalric supposedly answered (in French): �Kill them all. God will recognize his own.�

Some sources give the alleged quote as �Kill them all, for the Lord knows his own� or as �Kill them all. The Lord knows his own.�

It eventually came to be most commonly paraphrased as �Kill them all and let God sort them out.�

It�s questionable whether Almaric actually said anything like those words. But there�s no question that they reflect what happened that day.

De Montfort�s army killed virtually every man, woman and child in the town � estimated to be as many as 20,000 people � and burned Beziers to the ground.

The Beziers Massacre was just one of the first of many atrocities that occurred during the Albigensian Crusades. Over the next four decades, roughly a million more people were killed during those bloody religious conflicts.

Amalric�s infamous quotation was updated during the Vietnam War, when the saying �Kill �em all, let God sort �em out� became popular among American special forces troops.

This �witticism� was put on unofficial military patches, pins and t-shirts that are now sold as �collectibles� on eBay.

More recently, American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan updated the saying again in the form: �Kill �em all. Let Allah sort �em out.�

T-shirts with that variation are now being sold online by the SEAL Team Gear store.

It�s disconcerting to think about otherwise pious Christians or heroic Americans blithely killing innocent people in the name of religion, or Cold war politics, or the �war on terror.�

And, some people view it as controversial or politically incorrect to talk about it.

But, as they used to say in �Nam � there it is.

Les	Posted: Aug 3 2012, 07:16 AM
I use a computer, therefore I am. Group: Admin Posts: 19,062 Member No.: 70 Joined: 8-March 09	I blame Kenny Everett myself. "Round 'em up, put 'em in a field and bomb the bstards.*

Duck	Posted: Aug 3 2012, 08:48 AM
Advanced Member Group: Members Posts: 4,072 Member No.: 84 Joined: 11-June 09	Thankfully the general public is not allowed to purchase long or short range mortars for personal protection.

Les

Posted: Aug 7 2012, 07:33 AM

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Oh, this just gets better.

QUOTE

OAK CREEK, Wis. � The gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple had a criminal record, a history of involvement in the white supremacist movement and a checkered career in the Army, law enforcement authorities and organizations that monitor hate groups said Monday.

Nevertheless, Wade Michael Page, 40, was able to legally purchase a 9-millimeter handgun at a local gun store and was believed to have acted alone when he entered the temple in a Milwaukee suburb Sunday morning and opened fire.

"He bought it legally; he was not an ineligible person," said James Santelle, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Wisconsin.

I also notice that coverage of this incident hasn't received the same level of coverage as the Aurora shootings. I don't understand that at all. It seems to me to be precisely the same - maniac is able to buy guns and, surprisingly, uses then to act out his sick ideals and kill innocent people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...0,5375121.story

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