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School shooting: but don't mention guns!

Meadmaker said:
Then I remembered Switzerland.

Has that subject come up? I haven't read the whole thread. I don't know if it is still the law there, but at one time, Swiss men were required to have assault rifles in their homes, and they didn't have a high murder rate or a problem with spree killers. Does anyone know if that's still the case?

They've got more guns than we do, but not our problems. I wonder what the difference is. What makes America unique, but in a very, very, bad way?
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In Switzerland, ironically enough, they actually have a well-regulated militia. It's only after their military training that Swiss men keep their service weapons at home.
 
There seems to be a desire to identify a single cause. Why can't poverty, easy availability of guns, specifics of the individual shooter, etc, etc, etc be to blame? I don't see that anomolies like switzerland would disprove an argument about availability of guns causing dead 6 year olds, unless the claim is that it is a necessary and sufficient cause. Is the question here whether there is any way at all that any society can live with high gun ownership without 6 year olds getting shot and, if it can, then the US shouldn't have to consider reducing gun ownership to cut down on the dead 6 year olds?
 
shuttlt said:
I don't understand what is so special about them that makes gun ownership an issue of "freedom"
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Well, I try to choose my words carefully.

Many Americans consider firearm ownership to be a legal 'right' as well as a freedom. It's not a legal right here in Canada so perhaps referring to it as an earned 'privilege' might be more appropriate. One could argue that being allowed to keep their guns might be a property right if the owner has demonstrated that she or he has done nothing, nor has given indication of any behavioral problem that would disqualify them from firearm ownership.

OTOH, irrespective of the laws of any particular state or country, some might even claim that the personal security afforded by firearm ownership is a natural or even (if you'll pardon the expression) a god-given right.

As I've mentioned, it's a matter of perspective and there's where the irreconcilable impasse seems to be...
 
I think if somebody believes God wants them to own guns, then further argument is impossible. If society has ganted me the right to own a gun, then society can change it's mind if it wants. Is there anything that is special about gun ownership here that makes it something that would be bad if 100 years from now it was illegal (there would be practical difficulties in the US, but I mean in principle)? Heroine was legal 100 years ago in the UK, now it's illegal. Perhaps if I'd enjoyed a bit of heroine responsibly in 1910 I would have been annoyed to think that my hard won rights would be infringed. Does the right to own a gun, or buy heroine come from some permanent place, or do these things change over time without the "rights" part of it mattering very much. What happened to my right to own slaves? Society changes it's mind about rights all the time. Would it matter today if some old dead people had died for my right to own slaves or sell opium to the Chinese?
 
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zooterkin said:
In Switzerland, ironically enough, they actually have a well-regulated militia. It's only after their military training that Swiss men keep their service weapons at home.
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Years ago I remember getting into an online discussion about the 2nd ammendment on an online forum, and noting that pro and anti gun rights people both seemed to ignore that clause of the 2nd ammendment.

Also the fact that "to bear arms" does not mean "to carry a weapon". Swiss men have both a right and a duty to bear arms. Americans have neither. ("To bear arms" means to become part of an army.)

I wonder if spree killers and/or overall gun crime would be less common in America if there were mandatory militia training and participation.
 
Darat said:
I don't see how your posts follows on from what I posted. :confused:

You made a claim that the problem isn't the weapon but the people, I then pointed out that the facts are that in the USA you have already made the decision that it is often about the weapon but not the person.
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I don't see how you think your post made that point, but no matter.

We have not made the decision that it is about the weapon rather than the person for any of the weapons used in Friday's murders. Our laws do not ban those weapons, they simply restrict the kind of person who can legally buy them.

Different nations have made different choices. Where trade-offs must be made, we have usually chosen to err on the side of freedom.

I repeat my claim that it isn't the weapon but the person. Every person posting in this thread could be given the four weapons the murderer had, and I'd be willing to bet big money that not one school child would be killed by them.
 
zeggman said:
Machete, butcher knife, axe, sword, baseball bat, golf club, crow bar, automobile, chain saw, fire...

Are you going to ban them all?

I understand the emotional reaction people have, but the problem is really the murderer, not the weapon.
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The issue with the type of weapon is how likely will it kill, how many can you kill with it and how easy is it to disarm? A gun shot is the most likely to kill, a semi auto can keep going for a number of shots and is fast to reload and it is hard to disarm because the shooter can keep their distance. You can also keep going for longer with a gun before exhaustion takes over.

If you go with your reasoning of ignoring the type of weapon, why have all armed forces stopped using swords and bow and arrows? Why are the police not armed with baseball bats and chain saws?
 
Autolite said:
The point being that the ultimate goal of many of those advocating for tighter firearms restrictions seems to be the total elimination of private firearms ownership with no law being too 'silly' if it promotes that agenda.
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As I've commented many times before, whenever someone says "seems to be" your antennae should go up, because it's highly likely a fallacious argument is in the works.

The total elimination of private firearms ownership would be silly. Guns are needed by farmers, veterinarians, pest control workers, maybe private security in some cases, anyone who needs to go into grizzly bear or polar bear territory, I'm sure you could supply more.

So this "ultimate goal" is almost certainly a boogyman of your own invention.

However if one's ultimate goal is saner gun laws, even somewhat silly gun laws might be a step in the right direction.

The fact that many pointless, irrational and ineffective rules and regulations are currently in force tends to justify the opposition to further restrictions.
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No it doesn't. If further restrictions lead to greater social utility they lead to greater social utility, completely regardless of whether there are some pointless laws already in place.

What you are doing here is trying a strained guilt-by-association argument, where you associate gun control with silly laws and argue that because silly laws exist all gun control is bad. It's just not a rational argument.

In any case it can be argued that, in western society at least, there are now already enough gun control laws to prevent the criminal use of firearms provided those laws are enforced and complied with.
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Since the criminal use of firearms still goes on, more obviously needs to be done, right?

Getting those with criminal intent to comply seems to be the problem. If that can't be accomplished with the laws that we have now, how would adding more prohibitions and restrictions rectify the situation???
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Wow, three question marks!!! It must be a really serious question!!!

Adding more prohibitions can reduce the number of guns in circulation, or make those guns more secure, thus decreasing opportunities for criminals to obtain them.

However focusing strictly on criminals is an exercise in goalpost-shifting since we're also worried about suicides, accidents, domestic incidents and lots of other cases where people other than career criminals engaged in armed robberies use guns.
 
zeggman said:
...........I repeat my claim that it isn't the weapon but the person..........
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So, if you are saying that the weapon is unimportant, you won't be too disturbed if restrictions on the sale and use of those weapons are introduced. That's the logic of your argument.

Mike
 
zeggman said:
Different nations have made different choices. Where trade-offs must be made, we have usually chosen to err on the side of freedom.
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It's a bit selective though, isn't it. i mean... you guys haven't erred on the side of freedom for drug possession so much. Other countries seem to err on the side of freedom a lot more for prostitution. You don't err on the side of freedom half so much with gambling as with guns. Maybe you don't like some of the things I've chosen and there may well be better examples, but it seems to me that the US picks and chooses what freedoms it errs on the side of.
 
shuttlt said:
Would it matter today if some old dead people had died for my right to own slaves or sell opium to the Chinese?
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Well, Canadians fought and died fighting the communist Chinese during the Korean conflict yet the Canadian federal government just recently forfeited rights to one of it's most valuable national resources to the same communist Chinese government.

Does it matter?

I suppose that depends on who you ask because it is, of course, a matter of perspective...
 
zeggman said:
...
None of these arrests/convictions would have happened in the United States.
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Just for reference:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162...authorities-warn-against-social-media-frauds/

Connecticut authorities complained Sunday that false information about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school is being promulgated online by social media tricksters. And they warned that such misinformation is prosecutable under the law.
"Misinformation is being posted on social media...
[Conn. State Police spokesman Paul] Vance said he considered the misinformation a "violation of federal law and warrants an investigation."
"These issues are crimes, they will be examined in state and federally."
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So writing 'misinformation' on Twitter is potentially an arrestable offence in the US?
 
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I refuse to take a position on Switzerland, but I can say my philosophy is "hate the shooter, love the gun."
 
Nessie said:
a semi auto can keep going for a number of shots and is fast to reload and it is hard to disarm
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And in the other thread, you are currently trying to convince triforcharity that it is perilously easy for someone to be disarmed...
 
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