US cinema shooting Options

[Parsifal]

Well since the shootings, applications for guns have risen over 40% in Arizona

So it seems we are wrong.
The answer to horrific gun crime.. is for everyone to buy more guns.

And by that reasoning every nation should have nuclear weapons.

[berenger79]

I chuckled wryly at the Colorado native featured on a BBC video who said he was buying a gun now for his own protection. Not quite comprehending that it was guns which had created his need for protection in the first place.

This post has been edited by berenger79: Jul 26 2012, 18:48

[Parsifal]

I suspect that the upsurge in gun sales may be a fear of a call for stricter gun laws. It won't happen.

[sanitynotincluded]

It's so tragically predictable that whenever some psycho goes on a killing rampage, up pop the leftie chorus to demand that only criminals have guns. As has been alluded to, various countries have higher gun ownership rates than the USA yet lower gun crime rates. Anyone who thinks that guns are particularly difficult to get hold of, even in countries with moronically restrictive laws such as the UK, is deluding themselves, and the idea that a person willing to murder a dozen randoms will be dissuaded because guns are banned is ridiculous.

As has been pointed out by variuos more clear sighted commentators, if someone else in that cinema had had a gun, fewer people would have died.

As with so many kneejerk responses, the ban all guns position satisfies the childish "something must be done" instincts, while serving only to make people less safe.

[Ollie2UK]

As has been pointed out by variuos more clear sighted commentators, if someone else in that cinema had had a gun, fewer people would have died.

What if half a dozen people had been carrying a gun? Then they could all have opened fire, in the gloom, from several different directions and caused even more carnage than the lone gunman managed.

Seriously, the stupidity of the pro-gun lobby never fails to amaze me.

[sanitynotincluded]

What if half a dozen people had been carrying a gun? Then they could all have opened fire,.

In which case he would certainly have been dropped before he killed as many people.

Seriously, the stupidity of the pro-gun lobby never fails to amaze me.

If it were even on percent of one percent of the mindblowing inanity of the unthinking banning mob it would be ten times what it is.

[Astron]

Really a man walks into a cinema open fires and like 12 people jump up and shoot him dead?
In a large dark room, in a,state of panic and chaos a dozen people aim like a master shooter all straight to the heart of the psycho. No stray bullets, no casualties no nothing? Just straight shooting and then back to watching the movie?
Yeah that's a likely scenario.

Sanity don't you bore yourself sometimes with your horendous opinions on just anything which I'm 99.9% are just there so you can be controversial? It's tiresome and nobody can be that stupid, really.

[Ollie2UK]

So, the world would be a safer place if only more people were prepared to take part in random shoot outs in public places?

[Kev]

As has been pointed out by variuos more clear sighted commentators, if someone else in that cinema had had a gun, fewer people would have died.

This is real life not some Hollywood action film. If there had been a shootout in a dark, smoke-filled cinema then many more people would have died.

[sanitynotincluded]

Yes, it's real life, and we are not safer in a society where only the criminally inclined have guns. Deluding yourself that people who are willing to break the prohibition on murder would not be willing to break the prohibition on guns might be comforting to feeble minds, but it does nothing to protect society.

Nobody has suggested that people ought to engage in random shootouts, merely that it would be better if the murdering psycho had had his head blown off before he killed a dozen people.

Really a man walks into a cinema open fires and like 12 people jump up and shoot him dead?

Only a complete and utter arsehole would say that that wasn't preferable to him shooting twelve people dead.

[Chris]

I can't understand why there's even a debate on this issue. Are we stuck in the 1800's?!

Guns kill people, guns are a leathal weapon, it has no other purpose, it's not like a knife, it's literally there to kill people - THAT'S why it should be banned.

There is absolutely NO justification in 2012 for any civilian to own a personal hand gun and the sooner people get their heads around that, the safer the world will be - fact.

It might take 50 years before that ever happens though, but I do believe one day, someone in that country in a position of power, with two brain cells to rub together will make that law.

[stulancs]

I really don't think banning guns makes a difference. If a country has a culture of violence like the US, there will be a lot of crime whatever methods are available, and looking at reducing certain types of violent crime is missing the point because generally violence comes from the same root causes so if you don't tackle them the violence will just be displaced.

A culture of violence is why the UK despite having the strictest gun control in the Western world has still been the scene of three mass shootings in living memory, although arguably two of them could have been prevented if there was a mental capacity test on the licence application. If gun control was the answer, we wouldn't have had any. At the same time, Swiss rates of gun ownership are comparable to the US while the incidence of mass shootings are far below it.

[Chris]

The point remains though... there's no point to them other than to kill people. Last time I checked killing people = bad. Yet people still debate around it and talk about cultures and violence and displacement etc which is all well and good but it doesn't change the fact that killing people are what guns are for and therefore in 2012 in a developed and civilised society (well, it tries to be) there is simply no justification for them.

(That's no offence to you by the way but it blows my mind - see what I did there, that this hasn't been done decades ago. Then again I shouldn't be surprised, it's not that long since they allowed black people equal rights and they're only starting to think about treating gay people the same way... )

[Parsifal]

As has been pointed out by variuos more clear sighted commentators, if someone else in that cinema had had a gun, fewer people would have died.

What if half a dozen people had been carrying a gun?

Half a dozen only? What if everybody in the cinema was toting a gun that night? I can see it now. Gunfight at the O.K. Corrale redux.

The point remains though... there's no point to them other than to kill people.

... and to kill animals for "sport".
What kind of person enjoys killing animals for sport?

[AdrienAsche]

As has been pointed out by variuos more clear sighted commentators, if someone else in that cinema had had a gun, fewer people would have died.

What if half a dozen people had been carrying a gun?

Half a dozen only? What if everybody in the cinema was toting a gun that night? I can see it now. Gunfight at the O.K. Corrale redux.

The point remains though... there's no point to them other than to kill people.

... and to kill animals for "sport".
What kind of person enjoys killing animals for sport?

An alarming portion of the Midwest and the South.

[Parsifal]

As has been pointed out by variuos more clear sighted commentators, if someone else in that cinema had had a gun, fewer people would have died.

What if half a dozen people had been carrying a gun?

Half a dozen only? What if everybody in the cinema was toting a gun that night? I can see it now. Gunfight at the O.K. Corrale redux.

The point remains though... there's no point to them other than to kill people.

... and to kill animals for "sport".
What kind of person enjoys killing animals for sport?

An alarming portion of the Midwest and the South.

And we know how they vote.

[Astron]

Really a man walks into a cinema open fires and like 12 people jump up and shoot him dead?

Only a complete and utter arsehole would say that that wasn't preferable to him shooting twelve people dead.

...I walked right into that one didn't I?

[sanitynotincluded]

Yes.

, the safer the world will be - fact.

Writing "fact" after a fiction does not make it correct, it just draws attention to the falsehood.

[stulancs]

The point remains though... there's no point to them other than to kill people. Last time I checked killing people = bad. Yet people still debate around it and talk about cultures and violence and displacement etc which is all well and good but it doesn't change the fact that killing people are what guns are for and therefore in 2012 in a developed and civilised society (well, it tries to be) there is simply no justification for them.

Killing someone is often justified, that's why we have laws about self defence and why the police have armed response units. It's a spurious argument that in a civilised society there's no justification for owning weapons because society defines all manner of criminality as being wrong, but criminality happens outside of society and society often fails to protect people from being the victims of it.

Laws should be evidence based, not media based. And all the evidence at least for UK gun control was that the regulatory system pre 1997 was fine, and that the regulatory structure post 1997 didn't make any difference, just as all the foreign evidence says that countries that have high weapons ownership don't necessarily have high crime rates.

Laws should never be based on morals, only evidence, otherwise you run the risk of not only creating laws which don't work, but also forcing your point of view on others, just as we gays had to suffer until the 1960s.

This post has been edited by stulancs: Jul 28 2012, 17:49

[Chris]

I don't think it's a moral issue, it's common sense. The same as everyone (ie two men or two woman) having the right to be together.

I totally agree one set of individuals opinions shouldnt force their possibly prejudiced views on everyone (hello Torys) but allowing average citizens to own leathal weapons to kill each other with is to me, insane and archaeic.

And I have to disagree with the statement that killing people is often justified. You might want to, in the moment and that's where the gun issue comes in, but is it necessary or justifiable, I don't think so. There's always going to be the extreme exception but for the average joe to be able to shoot the average joe can't be right.

I'm no bible basher but from growing up Thou Shalt Not Kill kinda stuck with me.... :S