Another US school shooting.

Another US school shooting.

When are our backwards cousins going to learn about gun control?

Never, it's too legally entrenched for them ever to change it. Half th country would be up in arms, literally.

The only way I could see it happening is if there's a tragedy on a huge scale, and I'm not sure what that would be cos there's already been a lot. But if there was something massive the govt could possibly push through an amendment on moral grounds.

Coming from a different culture, I find it difficult to get my head around the attachment and sense of entitlement many Americans feel to guns.

I don't really think you can justify it by saying you need it to defend yourself; you're more likely to get shot if you have one that if you don't.

I too have no idea what it will take for them to change - but they're way off every Westernised country I can think of, and if children dying most years isn't enough to put them off, I don't know what is.

I can't understand it either, but it's a vicious circle. The more that have them, the more that want them.

I can understand it in some respects from a human rights point of view, ie why shouldn't they be allowed a gun to defend themselves, their property etc. But the problem's so widespread that I don't really think a gun's even a deterrent any more cos you wold just naturally expect someone to have one.

its funny as fuck seeing the gun counters 3 aisles down from the bakers in wal mart,

its total clown shoes the state they have got themselves into. It'll never be ammended i dont think any tragedy no matter how manic would ever get the full population to drop the weapons

it comes from when the constitution was written. It was decided that in order for the people to be free it could not be ONLY the state who had the right to bear arms. if everyone had that right then the state could not force things through with the barrel of a gun as the ordinary citizen would be in a position to defend themselves against the state.
I guess that made some kind of sense in the 1770's when they had just freed themselves from a heavily armed british state.
bit fucking stupid now like though

there are many countries where citizens are permitted to carry arms... this is a cultural problem.

but only in america did the constitution writers see it as your moral duty to bear arms as a private citizen

anyway it seems sick to be arguing about this point when such a horror has been done to innocent kids.

lol was it not you that started with your knee jerk anti-americanism?

I was far more anti-American in my post than forks was.

Anyway, you're mistaken about guns:


Gabor T. The impact of the availability of firearms on violent crime, suicide, and accidental death. Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada, 1994.


This study suggests that 92% of the variance in death rate in the areas examined was explained by gun control - ergo 8% is left to explain cultural/societal pressures.

I can't find the report could you post up a link, I know Canadians and its very easy to get hold of fire arms there....

http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/pol-leg/res-eval/publications/reports/1990-95/pdfs/gab_en.pdf
I must confess - I haven't read this properly, I was citing another source quoting it, and I think referring to primary literature strengthens ones arguments

Gun control is lax by our standards - but not by US standards!

Apparently there are only 50 people in the entire country licensed to carry handguns, in the name of self protection.

There are other studies too, here's a good link:
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/cdic-mcc/19-1/d_e.html

It would be incredible difficult to establish a causative relationship between firearms and murder rate - you'd need 2 international randomised groups, with guns randomly assigned to one group, and follow them up over many years.

However, there is reasonable evidence of an association between availability of guns and deaths associated with guns.

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publications/GunsinCanada.htm

there are millions of guns in Canada - I'd love for you to argue otherwise

There are 'loads' of guns by our standards, there are not 'loads' by US standards.

canada has an estmated 11 million guns and 32,320,000 citizens, about a third of the population is armed!

Thats not as high as America but its astill a huge percentage of the population.

Guns are readily available in Canada, which demonstrates that America's problem is deffinatly cultural and not the legality/availibility of guns.

if you gave everyone in england a gun would the murder rate go up or down do you think?

That's the standard Michael Moore argument, which works well on film - and there's almost certainly a lot of truth around it.

However, you rightly say 'it's not as high' without saying how high:

The US has almost 60x more handguns, but the US population is only about 10x higher.

Gun control is far higher in Canada than the US, partly as a result of their 1995 firearms act, which places hefty restrictions on who can own a handgun, and lesser restrictions on guns for hunting.

Either way.....this isolated example ignores the wealth of literature associating lack of effective gun control with deaths by guns.

If the US wants to reduce the numbers of school shootings and its almost preposterously high murder rate, a good evidence-based place to start would be by imposing further restrictions on gun ownership.

what a stupid question, of course it would go up.... but when comparing two entities with different cultures you're bound to see proportional differences.

There are more dangerous drivers in Pakistan than there are in America, but because America has a larger population there will be more deaths per anum.... This doesn't reflect the driving culture of either nations though!

I would never dispute this.... However to simply blame America's high homicide rate on the availibility of guns is stupid... It completely ignores circumstance.

There are plenty of nations where guns are far more accessible with much lower homicide rates.

Which begs the question....what's the cultural/societal cause, and how do they tackle that?

I've already accepted there is such a component, by the way, but I think gun control is the most easily modifiable factor.