WE: After school shooting in Connecticut, Piers Morgan blasts America’s ‘gun madness’

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lombardi's_kid_brother

Why not? How many times do you plan on buying guns in your life?

Well, in a perfect world, you wouldn't be able to buy the gun without the visit so you might as well see the shrink.

You put the onus on the gun owner, you can buy x number of guns in x number of years if you pass the criminal background check and the mental health exam.

Gun rights are ingrained in our Constitution. So is voting. Ask the gun rights nuts here if they think voting should be more restrictive? I have a feeling that you won't see consistency.

---

Well you have it all figured out....congrats. And I have a feeling that you will see inconsistency in the other direction also. So there we have it...we've discovered that people believe in the things they believe in and not the things they don't.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stevemcqueen1

Japan is the ideal. They've got the most restrictive gun laws in the world and have all but eradicated gun deaths as a result. They forcibly disarmed their population when they enacted their new constitution and it worked. They have the lowest or second lowest murder rate in the world despite having one of the greatest population densities.

The laws they implemented were wholly effective and comprehensive. They will never be passed here. Plain and simple, Americans are too selfish and enjoy our toys too much to ever accept them and our gun lobbies are too powerful to allow radical changes.

But the rest of the developed world has murder rates far lower than ours too, and the countries with the most restrictive gun laws have the least armed populations and have the lowest murder rates.

The truth: take away a population's guns and you make it much harder for them to kill other people. People don't kill each other nearly as much when it's not so easy to do. It's completely intuitive. A child could understand that reasoning.

So can we all agree to leave the sophist/factually bankrupt arguments of "the evil people will just start picking us off like flies" out of the debate? Just say what your real motivation is: "I would rather keep things the way they already are. I would rather keep my guns."

---

Ever looked up Switzerland's murder rate?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Redskins Diehard

Well you have it all figured out....congrats. And I have a feeling that you will see inconsistency in the other direction also. So there we have it...we've discovered that people believe in the things they believe in and not the things they don't.

---

Hey, I still believe in rule 11 and I want you to, also. :ols:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CTskins

First you are comparing apples and oranges. All stolen property? Not necessarily. Stolen Weapons? potentially.
Secondly, the primary purpose of a car is to get from point A to point B. It is not to discharge a projectile at such a rapid rate of speed in an attack or counter-attack that it is virtually indefensible against...

---

When I was in High School, there was a perceived problem with drugs. Our school could not do anything to stop drug dealers. So they enacted a 0 tolerance policy. The 0 tolerance policy classified any pill as a drug, so when one student gave another an allergy pill, they were suspended for "Dealing Drugs". At the next PTA meeting the school boasted that their 0 tolerance program was working, because they were catching more of the student violating drug policy.

Point is, they could not do anything to stop the real problem, so they punished others as a way to make it seem like they were doing something. I see this to be very similar.

Someones house gets broken into and all her possessions are stolen, in addition to needing to start over, the burglar sells her gun to a drug dealer that uses the gun to kill another drug dealer. The drug dealer killers rarely get caught, but guess what lady, we were able to find out who owned the gun that was left one the scene, we can't catch the killers, but we can catch you, you are now going to be held responsible after we give ourselves a pat on the back. Then we are going to tell the victim's family that we apprehended one of the parties responsible for your relative's death.

Whether it is a car or a gun that is stolen, the injustice is the same. Guns are used for more than just attack or counter-attack. The hunters, sportsmen, and citizens in the US that own them shoot over 10 billion rounds a year, and most of those shots were not for attack or counter-attack.

Well, what I thought the consitution said doesn't matter. Just found this:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/politics/2...tml#trackbacks

"We are disinclined to engage in another round of historical analysis to determine whether eighteenth-century America understood the Second Amendment to include a right to bear guns outside the home," Judge Richard Posner wrote in the court's majority opinion.. . . ."The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside. The theoretical and empirical evidence (which overall is inconclusive) is consistent with concluding that a right to carry firearms in public may promote self-defense," he continued.

The complete banning of firearms is probably not going to happen if they just issued this on the 11th of December. Now to the task at hand. Regulation as to what you can have and how many in what time frame and Certifications of eligibility. Discuss.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duckus

I mentioned this before, but it got no response. For the conservatives who would like the discussion to focus less on gun control and more on mental health - what is the conservative small government solution to providing more mental heath services? I just don't see them or understand how conservatives can in good faith be calling for improvements while attempting to slash government social programs at every turn.

Are conservatives willing to come to the table and really discuss increasing government spending and government programs (state/national) to address the issue of mental health access?

---

Obamacare kicks in here shortly and is only going to expand to eventually a single payer system for trillions, so at a minimum it better be able to handle basic mental health care?
Use your (free)Obamaphone to setup a (free)Obamascan to qualify to get a smaller 2 bullet no clip palmprint reading (free)Obamagun?

I'm all in: where do we sign up?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thiebear

SteveMcqeen1
They forcibly disarmed their population. It took about 50 years of work and legislation we would call completely Draconian but the result of their efforts was a total transformation into an ideally safe society.
--------------------------------------
is this what you are proposing?

http://www.miratelinc.com/blog/10-mo...-in-the-world/

---

It would be nice to one day make a list like that. I see Canada is highly ranked. They are not so culturally dissimilar like Japan is. Can't we take a look at what they do and see what we could copy from them that would work for us.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lombardi's_kid_brother

Are you going to train my 60 year old mother on how to handle a Glock? Elemebtary school staffs are overwhelmingly female, I might add. This does not strike me as a population that is going to want to pack heat to go work.

And are you willing to see an increase in your property taxes for the kind of security that would be necessary here?

---

I could, and have certainly known some grannies that were more than capable(and willing)

I have not suggested arming all teachers(quite frankly I would like to replace a few),there are some that are worth the training and expense(which you could simply make tax deductible and self paid,except for the screening)

My wife and many friends teach elementary,there are many that would be willing and pass muster (a number already have passed CC.....besides which we have a bunch of military going to be looking for work.




My solution and a few mods to the building is the cheapest option ya cheapskate

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jumbo

How about a simple, low-impact, rational proposal to bridge these immense gulfs....maybe "No white people can have guns."

---

With the Virginia Tech and Fort Hood massacres, I think you have to extend it to Asians and Muslims too in order to be fair. So only Latinos and Blacks can have guns. But as they mainly shoot each other when engaged in gang violence, it's all good.

Everyone wins!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lombardi's_kid_brother

Are you going to train my 60 year old mother on how to handle a Glock? Elemebtary school staffs are overwhelmingly female, I might add. This does not strike me as a population that is going to want to pack heat to go work.

And are you willing to see an increase in your property taxes for the kind of security that would be necessary here?

---

Right? I mean it's funny, people (not twa) but people yell about how the real issue is all the violence on TV and in culture but then want a gun in everyone's hand to set the stage for an ol' fashioned John Wayne shootout.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stevemcqueen1

It would be nice to one day make a list like that. I see Canada is highly ranked. They are not so culturally dissimilar like Japan is. Can't we take a look at what they do and see what we could copy from them that would work for us.

---

Japan and Canada are not that culturally different? I don't know about that one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by panel

Japan and Canada are not that culturally different? I don't know about that one.

---

That's not what he said. He said Canada culturally is similar to us unlike Japan.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lombardi's_kid_brother

You know what?

The more I read this stupid logic, the more angry I get.

I'm 38 years old. I have never been in a fist-fight. It shouldn't be up to me to protect me or my kids from an armed lunatic covered in body armor.

This was a freaking suburban elementary school in Connecticut. How many of those teachers had ever seen a firearm in their lives, let alone touched one, let alone fired one, let alone be capable of engaging in a damn shootout with a well-armed man in - again - body armor. In my daughters' school, the second grade teacher is in a wheelchair...the third grade teacher is a nun. How are they going to do in a shootout?.

---

Maybe you should look into anger management classes then :pfft:

I must say I was surprised Connecticut has more gun applications than Texas (per capita) ....so you might be surprised.
How are they going to do in a one way shootout?....perhaps the teacher next door is capable.

but again I neither want, nor expect all teachers to be armed...just enough to make the bastards sweat


btw....teachers armed since 07
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...174238129.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jumbo

How about a simple, low-impact, rational proposal to bridge these immense gulfs....maybe "No white people can have guns."

---

:ols:

On a serious note, if you look at the gun violence demographics in the country, you see it effects minorities, specifically blacks and hispanics, at a disproportionate rate. I believe that's why so many of our issues with gun violence get overlooked. If you notice, we only start really having this conversation after an incident where a white guy shoots up a bunch of white victims right in the heart of middle America.

It's too easy to ignore what happens in the ghetto. I think the media needs to do a better job synthesizing the data on rates of violence in the poor communities and presenting it in a way that really hammers home what a problem it is for our society.

---------- Post added December-18th-2012 at 07:36 PM ----------

Here's a good article about Japan's gun control laws from July. It discusses how they were able to demilitarize their population and eliminate gun homicide. It's an example of what radical and comprehensive change has accomplished in a formerly violent and militaristic population. It's not long, if you're wondering what the most restrictive gun laws in the world look like, take a look:

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...deaths/260189/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Max Fisher

I've heard it said that, if you take a walk around Waikiki, it's only a matter of time until someone hands you a flyer of scantily clad women clutching handguns, overlaid with English and maybe Japanese text advertising one of the many local shooting ranges. The city's largest, the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club, advertises instructors fluent in Japanese, which is also the default language of its website. For years, this peculiar Hawaiian industry has explicitly targeted Japanese tourists, drawing them away from beaches and resorts into shopping malls, to do things that are forbidden in their own country.

Waikiki's Japanese-filled ranges are the sort of quirk you might find in any major tourist town, but they're also an intersection of two societies with wildly different approaches to guns and their role in society. Friday's horrific shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater has been a reminder that America's gun control laws are the loosest in the developed world and its rate of gun-related homicide is the highest. Of the world's 23 "rich" countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22. With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America's ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America's.

But what about the country at the other end of the spectrum? What is the role of guns in Japan, the developed world's least firearm-filled nation and perhaps its strictest controller? In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.

Almost no one in Japan owns a gun. Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country's infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.

Japanese tourists who fire off a few rounds at the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club would be breaking three separate laws back in Japan -- one for holding a handgun, one for possessing unlicensed bullets, and another violation for firing them -- the first of which alone is punishable by one to ten years in jail. Handguns are forbidden absolutely. Small-caliber rifles have been illegal to buy, sell, or transfer since 1971. Anyone who owned a rifle before then is allowed to keep it, but their heirs are required to turn it over to the police once the owner dies.

The only guns that Japanese citizens can legally buy and use are shotguns and air rifles, and it's not easy to do. The process is detailed in David Kopel's landmark study on Japanese gun control, published in the 1993 Asia Pacific Law Review, still cited as current. (Kopel, no left-wing loony, is a member of the National Rifle Association and once wrote in National Review that looser gun control laws could have stopped Adolf Hitler.)

To get a gun in Japan, first, you have to attend an all-day class and pass a written test, which are held only once per month. You also must take and pass a shooting range class. Then, head over to a hospital for a mental test and drug test (Japan is unusual in that potential gun owners must affirmatively prove their mental fitness), which you'll file with the police. Finally, pass a rigorous background check for any criminal record or association with criminal or extremist groups, and you will be the proud new owner of your shotgun or air rifle. Just don't forget to provide police with documentation on the specific location of the gun in your home, as well as the ammo, both of which must be locked and stored separately. And remember to have the police inspect the gun once per year and to re-take the class and exam every three years.

Even the most basic framework of Japan's approach to gun ownership is almost the polar opposite of America's. U.S. gun law begins with the second amendment's affirmation of the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" and narrows it down from there. Japanese law, however, starts with the 1958 act stating that "No person shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords," later adding a few exceptions. In other words, American law is designed to enshrine access to guns, while Japan starts with the premise of forbidding it. The history of that is complicated, but it's worth noting that U.S. gun law has its roots in resistance to British gun restrictions, whereas some academic literature links the Japanese law to the national campaign to forcibly disarm the samurai, which may partially explain why the 1958 mentions firearms and swords side-by-side...

---

It discusses the cultural differences between the US and Japan at the link.

I am a staunch 2nd Amendment supporter. There are common sense approaches to take here. 1) Ban high capacity magazines. Nothing over 8 rounds is necessary for self defense. Sportsmen can apply for exceptions, and leagues can control those magazines. 2) Limit round velocity. No reason for a round to travel a mile. I have hunted enough in my life to know you don't need that much power. 3) Place a "retired" police officer in all schools. I think we all know why.

There are many more common sense ideas that can be enacted without infringing on 2nd Amendment rights.