Open carry (gun policy)

seemunkee

Rolf F wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

I'll never understand the yanks attitude, but the NRA are so powerful that the situation is unlikely to change.

Apparently it is a bit - I think it was on Stephen Frys US trip that I saw something about how gun ownership is on the decline as a result of which the gun manufacturers are getting a bit desperate - eg manufacturing guns specifically designed to appeal to children/girls etc.

Can only live in hope.......
Incidentally, the plot of deaths against gun ownership would be interesting if subdivided according to state. Should be very easy to see which states have low gun ownership.

Not true. The far right used the "Obama is going to take away your guns" boogeyman to frighten their supporters into stocking up. Apparently last year was a boon to the gun manufacurers and several areas of the country ran out of bullets(Florida). I have a conservative aunt and uncle(Florida) who have never owned guns before that went out and bought them. They don't know how to shoot and will probably never take a class or go to a range to practice.

rolf_f

seemunkee wrote:

Not true. The far right used the "Obama is going to take away your guns" boogeyman to frighten their supporters into stocking up. Apparently last year was a boon to the gun manufacurers and several areas of the country ran out of bullets(Florida). I have a conservative aunt and uncle(Florida) who have never owned guns before that went out and bought them. They don't know how to shoot and will probably never take a class or go to a range to practice.

I'm not convinced about Stephen Frys accuracy but you'll have to do better than unqualified 'Not true' comments. Certainly I doubt that your aunt and uncle are a statistically adequate sample size and certainly not from Florida which is bound to be one of the high gun owning states. I'm not denying that there are an awful lot of imbeciles around who are easily frightened by scare mongers but most Americans I've met have been pretty rational.

mrushton

South Africa and Israel are also heavily armed cultures. We don't live in the US nor depend on eg gun manufacture/sales for our living so it's hard to comment. The UK had some hysterical reaction to the Dunblane shootings but there are more illegal weapons in circulation now (supposedly) than ever. Anyone from the Police (Nap D) care to comment?
On a flight to the US, I had a conversation with someone who ran security at a nuclear power plant and couldn't understand why we didn't have guns.
I did some shooting when I went to Las Vegas. It wasn't a nice experience and the ease at which you could end a life was for me not pleasant. I tried a Glock 17 and and an M16 (with laser sights) and decided that I had no interest, altho' if it was the gunfight in Heat or some kind of zombie attack it might be different.

MattC59

I read somewhere last week, that three states in the US have now made it legal to carry a concealed weapon :shock:(That's without the concealed weapon permit which could previously be applied for !!)

And get this.............. It was specifically included that you can carry a concealed weapon in a bar !!!!

I'm staying out of bars in Virginia !!!

BruceLoop

eltonioni wrote:

SteppenHerring wrote:

Yes, it's a daft saying of the NRA, but guns don't kill people, people kill people. To be more specific, there are far more guns per head in Switzerland than there are in the US yet there is far more gun crime in the US. So actually the saying should be "Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people".

I've seen a graph somewhere showing that Switzerland has an exceptionally high rate of gun deaths so there is a direct correlation between having guns around the house and getting killed by one.

Obviously people do the killing but if they don't have guns in the first place they don't use 'em to kill 'em.



Update, I found it

You found it? Gee, I wonder where you found this spectacularly selective bit of information? Could it of been on the Gun Control Network website? Why dont you email them (as I have - they wont reply) and ask them why they have not included countries like Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and on and on.....

As they wont reply to you I will answer: Its becasue all these countries have higher murder rates than the America AND have very strict gun laws. It kind of undermines their argument - and yours.

Tell you what, any of you anti gun people on here want to tell me one place in the world, at any point in history where gun control laws have actually reduced gun/violent crime? Seriously, just one. My bet is you wont find anywhere. At best, crime stays the same, the usual thing to happen is that violent crime goes up. Why? Suddently the bad guys can do whatever they like with even more confidence.

Gun control sounds like a no brainer, in reality it is immoral.

BruceLoop

Rolf F wrote:

seemunkee wrote:

Not true. The far right used the "Obama is going to take away your guns" boogeyman to frighten their supporters into stocking up. Apparently last year was a boon to the gun manufacurers and several areas of the country ran out of bullets(Florida). I have a conservative aunt and uncle(Florida) who have never owned guns before that went out and bought them. They don't know how to shoot and will probably never take a class or go to a range to practice.

I'm not convinced about Stephen Frys accuracy but you'll have to do better than unqualified 'Not true' comments. Certainly I doubt that your aunt and uncle are a statistically adequate sample size and certainly not from Florida which is bound to be one of the high gun owning states. I'm not denying that there are an awful lot of imbeciles around who are easily frightened by scare mongers but most Americans I've met have been pretty rational.

Rolf,
Im afraid your the one who is going to have to do better than simply assuming your anti gun comments must be true. Gun laws have been becoming more permissive in the US for the last 20+ years and gun crime and violent crime have been falling.

Area's in the US with the strictest gun laws are almost always the most violent. DC was the classic example of this. In the late 70's DC got very strict on gun ownership and the murder rate went through the roof - a peaceful place became the murder capital of the US and stayed pretty close to the top of the chart until.... The gun ban was struck down in 2008. (DC v Heller). Guess what? the murder rate has fallen by about 25% since then. Its not just DC that this situation has been observed, Chicago, Ireland, UK, Jamaica have all seen increases in gun crime and violent crime after gun bans were put in to place.

It is also true that gun ownership in the US is as high as its ever been. One interesting story is that of the spike in sales after September 11th. Many people predicted a corresponding rise in crime becasue of the extra guns in citizens hands. It never happened.

Its very well documented (even the BBC covered the story) that gun manufacturers struggled to keep up with demand during the election campaign - people were anxious about Obama's voting reocrd on gun rights, so they stocked up.

finchy

BruceLoop wrote:

eltonioni wrote:

SteppenHerring wrote:

Yes, it's a daft saying of the NRA, but guns don't kill people, people kill people. To be more specific, there are far more guns per head in Switzerland than there are in the US yet there is far more gun crime in the US. So actually the saying should be "Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people".

I've seen a graph somewhere showing that Switzerland has an exceptionally high rate of gun deaths so there is a direct correlation between having guns around the house and getting killed by one.

Obviously people do the killing but if they don't have guns in the first place they don't use 'em to kill 'em.



Update, I found it

You found it? Gee, I wonder where you found this spectacularly selective bit of information? Could it of been on the Gun Control Network website? Why dont you email them (as I have - they wont reply) and ask them why they have not included countries like Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and on and on.....

As they wont reply to you I will answer: Its becasue all these countries have higher murder rates than the America AND have very strict gun laws. It kind of undermines their argument - and yours.

Tell you what, any of you anti gun people on here want to tell me one place in the world, at any point in history where gun control laws have actually reduced gun/violent crime? Seriously, just one. My bet is you wont find anywhere. At best, crime stays the same, the usual thing to happen is that violent crime goes up. Why? Suddently the bad guys can do whatever they like with even more confidence.

Gun control sounds like a no brainer, in reality it is immoral.

But the graph is looking at highly developed countries only. It's very difficult to compare a country like the UK or France, with a place like Brazil, with it's massive slums. It makes a lot more sense to compare countries with similar economic conditions, although you could probably go further with these figures by comparing income inequalities, etc from country to country.

I suspect that proving that easing or increasing restrictions on gun ownership has any effect on the murder rate would be virtually impossible because there are so many other factors such as unemployment, the availability of drugs, effectiveness of policing, etc, etc.

ride_whenever

wonder about the correlation between gun bans and illegal firearms?

BruceLoop

You raise a lot of good points. The graph, however remains very selective and shows the correlation it is interested in showing. Poland and Portugal are as highly developed as the UK, Switzerland and the US? Questionable.

Its also important to point out that the US records homicide very differently to say, the UK. I wont go in to details but it is very unflattering. The UK records it very accurately and the murder figures are as low as they possibly can be. eg; In the US, police officer on the crime scene suspects a murder so this is how it is recorded. Official stats will reflect this even if it turns out to be an accident. In the UK it would be amended and not included in the official murder rate.

As you rightly point out correlation does not prove causation but when asked the question; "please show me one place in the world where gun control laws have reduced gun crime". I have never been shown one convicing case. Why is it OK for a government to spend millions of public money on a policy that has never been proven to work?

I urge you to look at the case of DC. Crime was falling steadily up until the ban in '77. After the ban the change was dramatic. The fact that it rose relative to other cities further validates the point. Look up what happened in jamiaca in the 60's as well - Literally an overnight explosion in violence.

When you get the same correlation time and time again it tells a story. At best, gun control does not work.

cee

BruceLoop wrote:

. Why is it OK for a government to spend millions of public money on a policy that has never been proven to work?

.

because governments don't need things to work...they just need to seen to be trying something, prohibition of drugs anyone?..yeah cos there are no drugs in the uk

finchy

I suppose any gun-related problems basically boils down to the owners.

I've never been to the USA, so I might well be talking out of my rear end, but it seems to me that anybody can get a gun out there, no might how mad or irresponsible they might be.

For example:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/toddle ... d=10056190

How can anybody be that stupid? And how does somebody like that get a gun in the first place?

With regards to the US figures, they would really have to be looked into very carefully, comparing trends with other countries in the world, etc.

I don't know whether a change in gun ownership laws would result in a higher murder rate. On the one hand, I don't think we really have that sort of culture where a lot of people would just shoot another person to settle some argument or another, but on the other (can I ask if you're British or American?), given the amount of booze that the Brits can go through, we could very well end up with a load of inebriated twats with guns wondering the streets at night, which is thought that scares the hell out of me. To be honest, if people were allowed to carry guns freely (and I know this does happen to an extent in some cities), I would not go into any town centre at night.

Smokin Joe

All the tough gun controls brought in after Dunblane did was to deprive reponsible sporting shooters of their sport. The bad guys didn't take much notice of the new laws.

I wonder why politicians thought they would? Or maybe they new they wouldn't, but sporting shooters were considered fair game in the drive for favourable tabloid headlines.

BruceLoop

Johnfinch,
I spend a lot of my time researching this particular subject and consequently that means 'discussing' this subject with people. Can i say your post is about as reasoned and sensible as i have ever encountered. I am sure you dont need my approval but anyway, thought I would pass it on.

Firstly, i am british and have lived here all my life. I am 32 and remember dunblane and hungerford very clearly.

US gun laws: contrary to popular belief the US has literally thousands of different gun laws and not surprisingly these vary from state to state. Some have waiting periods on collection, some area's have very tight restrictions, some are very permissive, some like Kennesaw in GA actually have a law that the head of a household must keep a firearm in the home. Most have a permissive attitude towards concealed carry of a weapon (with permit), some allow open carry without a permit. I cant possibly summarise it all here but you get the idea.

Generally speaking the US is a very peaceful place. No really. In any one year 50% of the counties have 0 (zero) homicides. The majority of the violence is concentrated in certain cities. The thing that most astounds people and what seems completely counter intuitive to the English mindset is that the areas with more permissive gun laws are less violent that area's with strict gun laws. A great example of that was the DC gun ban but I wont repeat myself.

A horrible illustration of this on a smaller scale is the phenomena of the mass public shooting. ALL of these mass shootings have been carried out in Gun Free Zones - eg schools, shopping malls. The shooter was very obviously interested in a high body count and places with minimal resistance will help achieve that goal. A more general example would be that criminals are more willing to break in to a house in a state or county with strict gun control becasue they have little fear of meeting any resistance.

The toddler with the gun story is awful. However, children stumbling across a gun in the house and killing themslves is exceedingly rare in the US. More children drown in buckets flooded with rain water in their own gardens than from gun accidents.

This post is getting long - sorry.

Final point; About 25 years ago Florida was the first state to introduce a concealed carry law. This basically meant that if you dont have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness you can have a permit to carry a concealed firearm wherever you go. It was predicted that every drunken argument, minor car crash and domestic dispute would end in gunfire. In reality, crime went down. Almost every state copied them and the majority saw a fall in crime, at worst it remained the same.

The question you raise about our culture being able to handle more permissive gun laws is well noted. Even I would have concerns over how we actually re-introduced guns to the UK but none the less, I hope I live to see that day.

If you got to the end of that - sorry for boring you.