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Table Talk / Re: The recent talk about weapons after the Sandy Hook incident.
« on: January 07, 2013, 04:09:53 PM »I'm just going to play Devil’s Advocate here for the sake of debate so don’t take this as my personal opinion.
In 1997 Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children and their teacher in Dunblane. The following year the 1997 firearms act was passed making it near impossible to own a personal handgun, since then there have been no homicides by firearm since. This act and the acts of 1968 have made England have the lowest Gun homicide rate in the world, notably 40 times smaller than the US. It took many decades but Gun crimes are pretty much non-existent in England now and honestly no one feels like they are missing out by not having guns, now the British Government is slowly cracking down on Knife crimes, trying to bring them to a halt.
Anyway this is just some food for thought to help with the discussion.
Should probably bring along the fact that the UK is a couple of islands, not a half of a continent with a long, understaffed border which criminals take advantage of in order to procure guns (untraceable guns at that) at cheaper and cheaper prices.
Replying to this and the other points - Although you are right England is very close to a country where civil war was effectively happening. During the 60's onwards gun laws were still present in England but they weren't as tight, only a short distance away was Ireland, where as you may know, is where the 'troubles' took place because of the whole IRA issue. One would assume that it would not have been too difficult to smuggle guns across the border? Bombs were smuggles across the border so one would assume that guns could and probably would have been smuggled as well? Despite this the homicide rate because of firearms was still much lower in England then quite a few American States during this period.
But this is still different from the Cartel Issues so let’s find some other examples. In Canada the Gun laws have been gradually getting stricter and stricter over the decades to the point where you cannot legally own any firearms without registering for them; as expected the gun related homicide rate has been gradually dropping as the gun laws become more and more restrictive. Still there is a clear difference isn't there? Canada doesn’t have a state that borders the Mexican border, but still, can we not assume that because Canada does border many American states criminals would be able to smuggle in illegal weapons of all kinds from over the border?
Moving away from America again let’s look at some mainland European Gun laws. Lets look at Turkey, their homicide rate is nearly 3 times smaller than America (about 0.75 per 100,000 compared to over 3 per 100,000). Their gun laws are restrictive to the point where you cannot own any automatic or semi-automatic weaponry, now unless you don't keep up with modern affairs you should know about the issues neighbouring Turkey. There is literally a heavy warzone very close to some Turkish towns and a massive border for weapons to pass over that is less well guarded then the American-Mexican border, and yet they still manage to keep their homicide rate relatively low. So if you think America can't stop an illegal trade of weapons then perhaps you need to reconsider.
Now let’s go back to America - fun fact. In 2005 the number of Gun Homicides because of accidental shootings is actually higher than the total amount of Gun homicides in the whole of Japan, Romania, Belarus, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Austria, Estonia and is only just under Northern Ireland - and bear in mind that I skipped out quite a few countries because there were so many. Here is a list of Gun Homicide rates if your interested - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list
Not only that but do you really think all of the homicides are because of illegally obtained Guns alone? Think about how many people in America have died because of legally owned weaponry (also most of those accidental deaths were probably from legally owned weapons).
My final question for you all - Do any of you think that there will come a time when America might need to swallow its pride and admit that perhaps letting 88 in every 100 citizens own a tool of death is a bad idea?
I see you're pushing for laws here.
Two days ago, January the fifth. Five measly days into the new year. Chicago has some the tightest gun restrictions and laws in the country. There were five murders in five days with ILLEGAL firearms.
By any standards, that's too many murders. Now what if these murderers knew that Chicago has very loose gun laws, much like Texas, for example. Well they'd be fear stricken. If this mugger knows that 50% of the adults walking the street has some sort of firearm, what are the chances that they'll still try to attack them or rob them? Even if it's just a small percentage of muggings and attacks less, then it still makes a difference.
And keep in mind, America IS NOT England. Shit changes from place to place, People change from place to place. Also, as far as I know, England doesn't have as bad a crime (Gun related or not) problem as America, and that includes gangs in many cities.
