Virginia College Gun Rampage

[Fjool]

You can walk into any dozen garden sheds in Lerwick and find half a dozen pinch bars. You would not find one gun.

 

That's because next-to-nobody has one here - I'm talking about a situation such as in the US, where guns are widely available.

 

If you're arguing that owning a gun offers you some kind of protection in this country, then you are only arguing for an arms race in this regard. Once people carry one 'for protection', they encourage others to also carry them, 'for protection'. The youths in our hypothetical scenario would almost certainly be keen to get their hands on your gun.

 

Buying a gun, any gun, encourages the production of at least one more gun. I suspect that it encourages the production of perhaps two or more new guns eventually.

[Evil Inky]

If you are taken by surprise by a group of youths wielding pinch bars,unless they kick down your door, you need a minder.

I see - that would explain why muggings are so rare, then.

[peeriebryan]

Gunman named - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6563565.stm

[Claudias]

If you are taken by surprise by a group of youths wielding pinch bars,unless they kick down your door, you need a minder.

I see - that would explain why muggings are so rare, then.

 

You are going from the specific to the general. We were talking about a gun as a deterrent.

[Claudias]

You can walk into any dozen garden sheds in Lerwick and find half a dozen pinch bars. You would not find one gun.

 

That's because next-to-nobody has one here - I'm talking about a situation such as in the US, where guns are widely available.

 

If you're arguing that owning a gun offers you some kind of protection in this country, then you are only arguing for an arms race in this regard. Once people carry one 'for protection', they encourage others to also carry them, 'for protection'. The youths in our hypothetical scenario would almost certainly be keen to get their hands on your gun.

 

Buying a gun, any gun, encourages the production of at least one more gun. I suspect that it encourages the production of perhaps two or more new guns eventually.

 

Once again Fjool we seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Where we differ is in the amount of control. Tightening British gun laws because of events in America is no way to go. British people have,on the whole,used guns responsibly for hundreds of years. Only in recent years has gun crime become prevalent.

[Para Handy]

There as many people killed by bad or drunk drivers every day and I don’t see any of you leading the charge to ban cars or motorbikes

 

Cars and motorbikes are not designed to kill. What other purpose does a gun have?

 

 

What a gun is designed is beside the point, I would be pissed off, if any member of my family was killed, what did it, makes no difference dead is dead. Gun or car what about a knife, it was designed to kill. but I bet most of you still use one to cut up your stakes with. Death is just part of life, the Bourbon Dolphin is proof of that, there deaths are no less hurt full as the deaths in Virginia are. A gun can be used to knock down tin cans just the same as a catapult can. Or shoot the cow that gave you your stake

[Evil Inky]

You are going from the specific to the general. We were talking about a gun as a deterrent.

And I contend that a gun is of less use as a deterrent to violent crime than some people think. The majority of violent crime in the UK consists of drunk young men thumping each other or domestic violence. It's difficult to see how guns would help in these sorts of situations.

[Sherlock]

I normally hesitate to become involved in such debates, lest my profession be used against me. The fact is, my colleagues and I are more likely than most, throughout the course of our careers, to have a firearm pointed at us or used against us or to be threatened with such as a result of what we do. And, yes, it IS our job and our choice to do so.

 

You might, therefore, expect us to wish the additional "protection" of having firearms as routine? I, for one, want no such thing. Nor do many of my colleagues. In fact, other than in jest, I can think of none I have met throughout my service who would wish for such a thing as the routine arming of the police.

 

From a purely personal point of view, guns kill. As do knives. All those who say, "Ah but guns can be a deterrent", well then, by logical extension of that reasoning, so can a knife. Shall we all start carrying knives, axes, razor blades, baseball bats, etc, as deterrent, just in case we are attacked by groups of marauding youths carrying baseball bats? There is an equal chance that, should you produce such a "deterrent" and your opponent is armed, one of those weapons may end up being used, through fear or desperation, or just bravado/red mist/adrenalin, whatever.

 

Violence, or the threat of violence, is not an answer. Every day, my colleagues attempt to defuse situations which have the capacity to become violent. They don't achieve that through the threat of violence as a deterrent, but through the use of interpersonal skills, reasoning and use of language - verbal and non-verbal - to resolve difficulties. Locking someone up is a last resort. We are taught that to take away the liberty of an individual, for however long, is an enormous and far-reaching act in its implications and effect on the person so detained. Contrary to some popular belief (and many urban myths) we do take this responsibility seriously.

 

To summarise. Guns bad.

 

Yes, gun crime is on the (gradual and very slow by comparison to other nations) increase, however to advocate arming ourselves to protect ourselves is - again, personally - sheer lunacy and the next step on a slippery slope to more Hungerfords, more Dunblanes, our very own Colombine... It does not matter what caused these men to do what they did, it only matters that they had the tools necessary to do so. Pinch bars did not kill 32 people in a Virginia campus, guns and bullets did.

 

That, for me, is enough.

 

I remain your humble servant.

[Twerto]

Guns are bad m'kay!

[Styles]

I was allways tempted to go on a lads holiday or stag doo to some of those eastern european countries where you can go and shoot all sorts of guns. Some of them seemed like cannons! Probally sore on the arms though!

[Evil Inky]

I was allways tempted to go on a lads holiday or stag doo to some of those eastern european countries where you can go and shoot all sorts of guns. Some of them seemed like cannons! Probally sore on the arms though!

 

I had a go with an AK-47 when I was on holiday a couple of years ago. Sore on the shoulder and on the ears, too.

[Claudias]

From a purely personal point of view, guns kill. As do knives. All those who say, "Ah but guns can be a deterrent", well then, by logical extension of that reasoning, so can a knife. Shall we all start carrying knives, axes, razor blades, baseball bats, etc, as deterrent, just in case we are attacked by groups of marauding youths carrying baseball bats? There is an equal chance that, should you produce such a "deterrent" and your opponent is armed, one of those weapons may end up being used, through fear or desperation, or just bravado/red mist/adrenalin, whatever.

 

Yes, gun crime is on the (gradual and very slow by comparison to other nations) increase, however to advocate arming ourselves to protect ourselves is - again, personally - sheer lunacy and the next step on a slippery slope to more Hungerfords, more Dunblanes, our very own Colombine... It does not matter what caused these men to do what they did, it only matters that they had the tools necessary to do so. Pinch bars did not kill 32 people in a Virginia campus, guns and bullets did.

 

I agree with you 100%. If only governments thought the same way there would be no need for atomic weapons. Trident could be phased out and all the money saved could be used to alleviate some of the problems which cause the confrontations.

 

As for pinch bars killing 32 people,try Ratchet and Clank.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Claudias wrote:

A deterrent?

 

para handy wrote:

Death is just part of life

=====================================

Firearm injuries are the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury deaths to children younger than 15 years of age in the US.

 

Well it will certainly deter those kids from ever picking up a pinch bar or taking part in any other part of life.

 

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/89/4/788

[sassermaet]

American gun laws have been lax for years and years.

 

Before this one, we had the shooting at that Amish school about six or seven months ago. Before that was a school shooting in Minnesota and before that was Columbine.

 

They try to come up with their excuses - if you watch Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine they try to reason that kids resort to gun crime because of, for example, coming from a broken home. Yet the divorce rate in the UK is higher than anywhere else and the gun crime rate is about half that of America.

 

Let's face it - America cares more about international problems than it does about domestic troubles like that. They seem to think that if they ignore it and sweep it under the carpet it will eventually go away. But it doesn't.

 

I was in P3 when the Dunblane killings happened and I can remember it really well - the fact that a man stormed in and gunned down 16 children, all aged 5, and their teacher was considered shocking and tragic. Let's face it, you don't expect to send your kids to school and for them to get shot, do you? After it happened the families of the dead have been campaigning to get guns banned - and to be honest I can understand their point. What use is a gun except to kill or maim someone?

 

As long as America has its precious Declaration of Independence (which, I might add, was written before the abolition of slavery, probably contributing to the long-running issue of racial inequality there) they'll never tighten their gun laws at all, let alone ban the damn things.

 

It makes you sick.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/s/W/heston_colddeadhands.jpg