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

[County1883]

Perhaps the Queen's English defines "violence" differently than Yankee English. Please enlighten me, what do you consider "violence"? Because the link i cited was from a UK paper, not an American one.

Ok, firstly the definition of violent crime is different from country-to-country. Secondly, the paper reporting this is the same as listening to FOX news

[2v2nv]

One of the biggest problems is when people assume that people only blame guns. This is far from the truth.

Most do. You have to admit that. Shoot there are people on the forums screaming ban guns. Thats essentially where they placed their blame right?

[DieselPwr44]

A bigger **** you to those that say guns don't kill people. I mean the biggest **** you allowed. .

My guns are stored in the safe in my house and not one time in the last 30 years have I had to get up in the middle of the night and go downtown looking for them because they got the itch to go shoot somebody.

So right back at you in the biggest way allowed.

[SkinInsite]

Is anyone tired of this argument?
Does anyone realize how OFTEN this happens now?

Will anything ever change it?
Will there ever be a real dialogue on the problem instead of accusations and defensiveness?
This country is ****ing CRAZY.

~Bang

Seriously people are ****ed up in the head because this same argument is play out for 30 ****ing years.

[2v2nv]

My guns are stored in the safe in my house and not one time in the last 30 years have I had to get up in the middle of the night and go downtown looking for them because they got the itch to go shoot somebody.

So right back at you in the biggest way allowed.

I admire your guts and completely agree. I would also like to add that my wife had a huge fear of guns until I taught herhow to shoot and the importance of how important it is to know how to safely use one. Now she knows that if she is ever by herself and hears a window break that she isnt prey to a sick monster. She can turn the tables safely. We also have a safe room with ammo and a 12 Ga that also would help her get the upper hand against a full grown man.

She also has a cute .38 with pink grips she would love to show to a burglar. She is completely self reliable in a situation like that and I would imagine many husbamds would like that. I do...

[Enter Apotheosis]

Most do. You have to admit that. Shoot there are people on the forums screaming ban guns. Thats essentially where they placed their blame right?

No. That is completely off-base and unfair to everyone who engages in this debate.

People argue the loudest and most vigorously about guns, sure. That's because it is an issue that is controversial by virtue of the fact that there are radically different viewpoints, each with some level of merit. It doesn't mean that people aren't genuinely curious about the psychological or social developments that led to the attack and aren't extremely interested in preventing them in the future. In fact, those aspects of the debate will receive just as much, if not much more, media attention in the coming days and weeks than the gun debate.

The difference is that most everyone is in agreement about the fact that those things must be addressed and there aren't very many opposing viewpoints, so it is a more soft-spoken issue in open forums with less strong-willed opposition.

[egtuna]

One guy hides a bomb in his shoe, and we all have to take our shoes off everytime we fly. 31 school shootings since Columbine, and nothing's changed. Doesn't make sense.

[Bacon]

Is anyone tired of this argument?
Does anyone realize how OFTEN this happens now?

Will anything ever change it?
Will there ever be a real dialogue on the problem instead of accusations and defensiveness?
This country is ****ing CRAZY.

~Bang

Real change is diverted by people making the same defensive arguments because they like guns. They want to feel safe and secure, and having a means of protecting oneself provides that. In addition, the Constitution provided the right to bear arms in order to offer a sense of security in wartime, which was and is grossly misapplied to our present context. As long as this holds true, nothing will change.

That's where the young people come in. Don't give in to fear. Don't teach your children that they should fear guns, or that they need one to feel safe. Teach them self-defense. Make them feel comfortable in their own skin. Point to these horrible tragedies and change their thinking not so that these calamities will stop, but so that we can start making real progress in modifying what is obviously a flawed system. I'm not calling for a gun ban. I'm calling for us to step back and think what guns actually offer us and why our children need them. The culture isn't going to change overnight, it will take decades, but I hope that, in time, the response to a call for gun restriction isn't "hell NO, you stay away from my gun" but "alright, yeah, maybe this isn't working." Because it isn't, at all. And the former response is going to handily drown out the latter, again.

[County1883]

It's actually very simple.

A combination of guns & gross wealth inequality along with poor provisions for mental illness is the main cause.

In short, don't give stupid miserable unhappy poor people guns.

It's much easier (And cheaper) to just remove the guns than it is to fix social problems.

[armstrong001]

This is what happens when people look at stats but not the data itself.

The article even mentions that what's reported as a violent crime in one country isn't recorded as one in another.

From the article cited:

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

The figures, compiled by the Tories, are considered the most accurate and up-to-date available.

[MattFancy]

Pretty interesting take here: http://gizmodo.com/5968608/of-course...ut-gun-control

Guns are technology. And since the Industrial age, when a technology causes harm, it has immediately been regulated to make sure that harm doesn't happen again. When a meningitis outbreak swept the United States in October, we didn't wait until people stopped dying to identify the steroid that caused it. When a software bug turned hundreds of thousands of Toyotas into unstable land-rockets, no one shouted politicization when the recall was announced. We fixed it. When the Challenger exploded, we didn't waste any time finding out what went wrong.

But guns don't kill people, people do. Fine. By that logic, cars don't kill people. But we still have speed limits. We still have to wear seat belts. We still need to take a driver's test. And yet it's far harder in most parts of this country to get a learner's permit than a gun permit.

[Pride]

That's not why it's "wrong", it's just unrealistic for many reasons (like the fact that it will always be illegal to possess weapons on a school ground) to think that the best solution is someone else mowing down a potential shooter instead of there just not being guns to begin with.

And removing all guns from this country (ban or not) is realistic?

I don't think so.

[armstrong001]

Ok, firstly the definition of violent crime is different from country-to-country. Secondly, the paper reporting this is the same as listening to FOX news

Are you saying that they are mis-quoting the official report?

[FanboyOf91]

It's much easier (And cheaper) to just remove the guns than it is to fix social problems.

If you don't treat the actual cancer (social problems), you really haven't solved anything.

Though you will have made many poor people's lives more miserable by denying them an effective tool of self-defense.

[SkinInsite]

And removing all guns from this country (ban or not) is realistic?

I don't think so.

What's realistic then? Just to live with the possibility of a mass shooting every other month.

Because whatever we are doing for the past 30 years isn't working.