Another day, another mass shooting

[Chloé Palmas]

Hardly, this happens every time that there is a mass casualty event. Eventually, once the hysteria dies down, things go back to normal.

[Lutherf]

Originally Posted by Hugh

If they didn't want mass shootings there would be no mass shootings, the fact that there are so many indicates they want mass shootings to continue...

Nobody wants mass shootings to continue. The issue is with regard to how to mitigate such events without unduly infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens.

[Chloé Palmas]

Oh don't worry he didn't really mean it to come out like that - he was just retorting the same logic back at Papa Smurf.

Hugh is a brave man. To live in Yorkshire and know how to use sarcasm...even I had to read it twice today morning, lol.

Originally Posted by Lutherf

Nobody wants mass shootings to continue. The issue is with regard to how to mitigate such events without unduly infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens.

As Chloe stated...

Originally Posted by Lutherf

Nobody wants mass shootings to continue. The issue is with regard to how to mitigate such events without unduly infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens.

The issue is what Americans perceive to be their rights, coupled to their perception of how those rights are best preserved.

There is no universal law that holds you as a human being have the right to possess a lethal firearm against the possibility your life may be endangered.

Your constitution was framed and amended by men in a specific historical context, with a particular agenda, and the way in which it is fetishised and venerated by so many of you, some 3 centuries later, is frankly a tad disturbing.

Your founding fathers asserted rights in the way that best served their purposes: Create a nation state by union of the colonies; keep the Brits out. That’s really all there is to it. Asserting that a self-evident right to bear arms exists (via the negative formulation, that it not be infringed) served that agenda.

[Chloé Palmas]

Originally Posted by denphone

Why does one want a gun unless it is used for certain pastimes or other important purposes through licensing as tell me as

Yeah this is something which is the rare exception for guns ; they serve a very specific purpose...which is to "fire" them / shoot. Granted the same for other things used as a weapon (in modern crime) do serve another purpose (cars for transport, knives for food etc). With guns, it is to fire them.

I suppose that you could have weapons for trade purposes but for the most part a gun does not serve an originating metric / mechanism that is different than what a criminal would use it for. (I.e to fire the gun). The reasoning behind it is different, the desired outcome is intended to be different and the entire purposes and philosophy is different but both time the use of the machine / appliance (in this instance, the gun) is the same.

Now you tell me whether it is justifiable or not to prevent all of us who do not intent to use it for criminal purposes to be prevented from possessing it, altogether.

[Chloé Palmas]

Originally Posted by Hugh

He did say ‘not many’, not ‘none’...

Okay so, gun crime has seen a 20% increase, this year alone:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/597170...y-forest-gate/

How is that any proof that the ban on guns lowers even gun crime?

Leave alone crime in general just gun related crime.

Just 6 months (this year):

• • February 12 Taxi driver Bulent Kabala, 41, shot dead on a roundabout in Enfield
  • March 8 Kelvin Odunuyi, 19, shot in Wood Green amid escalating gang warfare
  • March 14 Joseph Williams-Torres, 20, shot dead in a stationary car in Walthamstow
  • March 17 Student Russell Jones shot and stabbed to death near Ponders End station in Enfield.
  • March 25 Abraham Badru, 26, shot in Dalston, East London, without warning
  • April 2 Tanesha Melbourne, 17, gunned down by drug gang in Tottenham
  • April 2 Amaan Shakoor, 16, shot in the face outside Walthamstow Leisure Centre
  • April 9 An armed man was shot dead by police in Romford after threatening people with a gun near a petrol station
  • May 1 A 30-year-old man died outside Queensbury Tube station in North London after being found with serious injuries
  • May 5 Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton was gunned down in a drive by shooting near his home in Kennington, South London
  • May 6 Man, 22, is shot in New Cross, South East London
  • May 6 Boy, 13, blasted in head with shotgun while walking with his parents in Wealdstone, near Harrow, in North West London, as 15-year-old also injured in the head in the shooting
  • June 1 A 24-year-old man is fighting for his life after being shot with a "machine gun" in Brent, north-west London
  • June 3 Oluwafemi Omosuyi, 22, airlifted to hospital in Southwark, South London, after witnesses reported he was shot in the face with a shotgun. another man, 25, suffered non-life-threatening injuries
  • June 6 A teenage boy was left fighting for his life after he and two others were shot in Brixton at around 11pm
  • July 9 Gunman shoots three times at woman, but misses
  • July 27 Four men aged between 20 and 22 were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after exchanging gun fire with police in Forest Gate
  • August 20 Armed police swarm a school in Maida Hill, West London, after "shots fired" as terrified staff cower in classroom cupboard
  • August 20 A woman, 30, and two men - aged 18 and 24 - were rushed to hospital following a drive-by shooting outside Kingsbury Tube station

So guns are banned, and there have been 7000 incidents involving guns:

The number of lethal guns fired has increased by around 20 per cent since 2012.
Across England and Wales there were 6,694 recorded offences up to October 2017 - a 20 per cent rise.

Btw this from both left and right leaning sources:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8177161.html

Forces registered 37,443 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in the year ending September 2017 – the highest tally since comparable records started in the 12 months to March 2011. Gun crime saw 6,694 recorded offences.

Den lauding it up as far as something to look down his / her nose at Americans is totally misplaced.

[denphone]

l am certainly not lauding anything up or looking down my nose at Americans or anybody else Chloe as l am just giving my own thoughts on the matter as you and others are.

l never said that l had the answers but other then those personal uses for guns under strong licensing laws which l mentioned in a previous post there is no justification in a civilised country for having widespread personal ownership of firearms.

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

Okay so, gun crime has seen a 20% increase, this year alone:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/597170...y-forest-gate/

How is that any proof that the ban on guns lowers even gun crime?

Where to begin ....

For starters, if you want to compare the UK and the USA, bald percentages are useless. They take no account of starting points and they don’t allow for differing definitions of ‘gun crime’. The simpler and clearer way of doing it would be to take a simple, comparable metric -e.g. people criminally injured or killed by firearms - and then compare those statistics per 100,000 of population.

Second, a number of the gun crimes in your list feature firearms that may be legally bought and owned in the UK. If you’re wanting to compare the UK and the USA, you have to compare like with like. Pick something that’s legal in the USA but banned here and determine whether there’s a statistically significant difference in the number of people criminally killed or wounded by those items, again, per 100,000 of the population. That way, you may begin to determine whether the ban makes a difference.

Third, in any case your list is a collection of headlines that you’ve managed to Google up in the time available to you when making your post. Neither the size of the list nor the severity of the incidents on it have any useful statistical value. What they do have is shock value, which lends some superficial credibility to your argument.

Fourth, the claim of a 20% upswing in lethal firearms ‘fired’ since 2012 is problematic. Why 2012? There was no significant change in legislation that year, except for exemptions granted to allow certain Olympic events to function. Pistols except .22 calibre were banned by the Major government after Dunblane and the rest were banned by Blair a couple of years later. Without having read into it, I suspect we would find that 2012 either corresponds to some police budgeting or staffing issue, or else it might have been a historic low point. Either way, I’d bet that the year was chosen for political reasons, to maximise the apparent severity of the problem. A 20% increase on a historic low, for example, sounds awful but without proper historical context may be highly misleading.

Finally - and assuming the 20% statistic is useful at face value - we still know nothing of causality. The figure is very carefully presented as shots fired, not guns in circulation. The author appears to suggest that guns already in circulation are being used more often, not that more guns are getting into the country. There are various reasons why shots fired may increase but the most likely scenario I can see is that criminals are emboldened by the belief that they can get away with it. As the average British citizen is unarmed, this can only be due to perception of police resources, and not the likelihood of a potential victim firing back, which would be a factor in the USA.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

You also have the right to own a gun, in the UK. You don't have to justify your reasoning to anyone, either.

Well you do. You have to justify it to the police.

---------- Post added at 13:54 ---------- Previous post was at 13:50 ----------

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

Hardly, this happens every time that there is a mass casualty event. Eventually, once the hysteria dies down, things go back to normal.

Mass shootings in the US are ‘normal’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...s-gun-violence

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

You also have the right to own a gun, in the UK. You don't have to justify your reasoning to anyone, either.

Oh, I missed this before.
You do have to justify it, to obtain a license.
Being a member of a shooting club for target shooting is an accepted reason.

[Chloé Palmas]

Yeah, as in give them a valid reason for wanting it.

I meant Den didn't have to justify his right to have it.

Originally Posted by Chris

Where to begin ....
For starters, if you want to compare the UK and the USA, bald percentages are useless. They take no account of starting points and they don’t allow for differing definitions of ‘gun crime’. The simpler and clearer way of doing it would be to take a simple, comparable metric -e.g. people criminally injured or killed by firearms - and then compare those statistics per 100,000 of population.

Okay so the crimes are technically defined as different terms, so yeah we can look at raw numbers, yes.

Second, a number of the gun crimes in your list feature firearms that may be legally bought and owned in the UK. If you’re wanting to compare the UK and the USA, you have to compare like with like. Pick something that’s legal in the USA but banned here and determine whether there’s a statistically significant difference in the number of people criminally killed or wounded by those items, again, per 100,000 of the population. That way, you may begin to determine whether the ban makes a difference.

How do you prove a negative, though? The M4 is not banned in the UK, but the fact that it hasn't been used in a mass shooting in the UK is hardly indicative proof that the UK made the right call in not banning the weapon.

The AR 15 is banned in the UK but not in the US but it hardly proves that banning it in the UK has meant that there are no mass atrocities in the UK involving that gun, because banning it was the correct thing to do.

Conversely double barrel shotguns are legal in the UK. Moat used one, killed a person and injured a couple more a few years ago. Makes zero difference as to whether the weapon is banned.

Third, in any case your list is a collection of headlines that you’ve managed to Google up in the time available to you when making your post. Neither the size of the list nor the severity of the incidents on it have any useful statistical value. What they do have is shock value, which lends some superficial credibility to your argument.

Actually, partly true. After post 6 (let them kill each other) kind of posts I figured that I might need to dumb it down, some. Couldn't think of much worse than the Sun. I figured someone may accuse me of bias in the Sun (leaning right) so I had to find the same story (article) in the Guardian.

I didn't google the ones that I knew about anyway - Moss Side wasn't too far from where I grew up so when I heard about it the other weekend I thought "yup, another success in Britain's gun ban". As for the rest - some remind me of you because you are just north of Watford - a lot of them (Kingsbury / Queensbury etc) are very close to you (locality wise / other side of Stanmore). Thanks to the irritating "Google trending" options that you can't disable on older phones every time you tap the app on a 6.0 or older phone, you get the latest sensationalist stuff from there.

I.e. gun crime stories. It is not so much that I use a google search of stuff as much as the sensationalist headlines are much more in tune with gun control.

Fourth, the claim of a 20% upswing in lethal firearms ‘fired’ since 2012 is problematic. Why 2012? There was no significant change in legislation that year, except for exemptions granted to allow certain Olympic events to function. Pistols except .22 calibre were banned by the Major government after Dunblane and the rest were banned by Blair a couple of years later. Without having read into it, I suspect we would find that 2012 either corresponds to some police budgeting or staffing issue, or else it might have been a historic low point. Either way, I’d bet that the year was chosen for political reasons, to maximise the apparent severity of the problem. A 20% increase on a historic low, for example, sounds awful but without proper historical context may be highly misleading.

See why I hate Redwood now? Had it not been for his nonsense Major may yet have survived 97. Granted Blair was romping to a landslide anyway but instead of letting the *******s win, the *******s gave us a weapons ban instead. Everything other than .22 were banned and then Blair came along, banned the rest and what happened in 2010? Derrick Bird killed 12 people with .22 rifle.

We can look into the 2012 stats when we get a bit more time, yes - for now this is kind of a rushed reply (and it might show lol).

Finally - and assuming the 20% statistic is useful at face value - we still know nothing of causality. The figure is very carefully presented as shots fired, not guns in circulation. The author appears to suggest that guns already in circulation are being used more often, not that more guns are getting into the country. There are various reasons why shots fired may increase but the most likely scenario I can see is that criminals are emboldened by the belief that they can get away with it. As the average British citizen is unarmed, this can only be due to perception of police resources, and not the likelihood of a potential victim firing back, which would be a factor in the USA.

That is something that I was going to say at the end of post 37 ; the one difference is that Americans generally will be armed enough to fire back.

This likely does warrant a longer response that I don't have the time for now (was going to reply later on this week / next) but a lot of the discussion here is different from the way it started off with "let them kill each other / here come the NRA". Plus it went from philosophy to empirical statistics, which will likely take some time to get into further / with some depth.

[Lutherf]

Originally Posted by Chris

Where to begin ....

For starters, if you want to compare the UK and the USA, bald percentages are useless. They take no account of starting points and they don’t allow for differing definitions of ‘gun crime’. The simpler and clearer way of doing it would be to take a simple, comparable metric -e.g. people criminally injured or killed by firearms - and then compare those statistics per 100,000 of population.

Second, a number of the gun crimes in your list feature firearms that may be legally bought and owned in the UK. If you’re wanting to compare the UK and the USA, you have to compare like with like. Pick something that’s legal in the USA but banned here and determine whether there’s a statistically significant difference in the number of people criminally killed or wounded by those items, again, per 100,000 of the population. That way, you may begin to determine whether the ban makes a difference.

Third, in any case your list is a collection of headlines that you’ve managed to Google up in the time available to you when making your post. Neither the size of the list nor the severity of the incidents on it have any useful statistical value. What they do have is shock value, which lends some superficial credibility to your argument.

Fourth, the claim of a 20% upswing in lethal firearms ‘fired’ since 2012 is problematic. Why 2012? There was no significant change in legislation that year, except for exemptions granted to allow certain Olympic events to function. Pistols except .22 calibre were banned by the Major government after Dunblane and the rest were banned by Blair a couple of years later. Without having read into it, I suspect we would find that 2012 either corresponds to some police budgeting or staffing issue, or else it might have been a historic low point. Either way, I’d bet that the year was chosen for political reasons, to maximise the apparent severity of the problem. A 20% increase on a historic low, for example, sounds awful but without proper historical context may be highly misleading.

Finally - and assuming the 20% statistic is useful at face value - we still know nothing of causality. The figure is very carefully presented as shots fired, not guns in circulation. The author appears to suggest that guns already in circulation are being used more often, not that more guns are getting into the country. There are various reasons why shots fired may increase but the most likely scenario I can see is that criminals are emboldened by the belief that they can get away with it. As the average British citizen is unarmed, this can only be due to perception of police resources, and not the likelihood of a potential victim firing back, which would be a factor in the USA.

Did you really just suggest that the threat of getting shot back at might deter someone from using a gun to commit a crime? That's actually something I'd agree with, at least in general terms. We'll make an NRA member out of you yet!

---------- Post added at 02:55 ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 ----------

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

That is something that I was going to say at the end of post 37 ; the one difference is that Americans generally will be armed enough to fire back.

This likely does warrant a longer response that I don't have the time for now (was going to reply later on this week / next) but a lot of the discussion here is different from the way it started off with "let them kill each other / here come the NRA". Plus it went from philosophy to empirical statistics, which will likely take some time to get into further / with some depth.

Walking around armed isn't exactly an "American" thing. Many states have substantial restrictions regarding who can carry, what manner they can carry in and where they can carry. The same applies to certain municipalities.

While I can carry a concealed weapon most places in Arizona (don't even need a permit) I definitely can not do so in California or New York. If I lived upstate New York I could, with an appropriate permit, carry my firearm most places. However, when I enter New York City that changes and I'd need a completely separate permit to carry there. The laws regarding carrying a firearm in public vary dramatically across the country and have caused a great number of otherwise law abiding people to unwittingly run afoul of the authorities.

[Chloé Palmas]

Originally Posted by denphone

l am certainly not lauding anything up or looking down my nose at Americans or anybody else Chloe as l am just giving my own thoughts on the matter as you and others are.

l never said that l had the answers but other then those personal uses for guns under strong licensing laws which l mentioned in a previous post there is no justification in a civilised country for having widespread personal ownership of firearms.

Right, so you are basically saying that America is not a civilized nation. Fine, you are not lauding it over anyone but I do think that you are looking down your nose at a nation that you see as less "civilized".

You seem like a perfectly pleasant individual so perhaps I am interpreting this incorrectly, so my apologies, if I am. The way I am reading what you are writing though is that just because you see no need for an armed populace, you think of those who are as less civilized, per your metric definition.

I don't have all the time to get into it now but as when I do, I'll get back to this and am happy to listen to whatever rationale you meant by what you said.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

Right, so you are basically saying that America is not a civilized nation. Fine, you are not lauding it over anyone but I do think that you are looking down your nose at a nation that you see as less "civilized".

l think you know exactly what my meaning is l am certainly not looking down my nose at America as it is a fantastic country with many good people but the American psyche and approach with regards to guns is wedded blindly to the past IMO and that is the less civilised bit.

---------- Post added at 05:37 ---------- Previous post was at 05:32 ----------

Originally Posted by Chloé Palmas

You seem like a perfectly pleasant individual so perhaps I am interpreting this incorrectly, so my apologies, if I am. The way I am reading what you are writing though is that just because you see no need for an armed populace, you think of those who are as less civilized, per your metric definition.

Why does a country need a armed populace? unless individuals need a gun for the reasons l have stated in earlier posts through strict licensing gun laws.