More shootings.

[Creed of Heresy]

Yeah, I'm a target shooter, too...and I've had to use firearms to stop someone else from killing me more than once...two of those times, the attackers were using knives. The argument that I don't need a gun rings very fucking hollow to me because of that.

[A Theist]

If you want an outsider's opinion... get rid of the bloody guns! I don't understand this mentality that is synonymous with a post-apocalyptic world where everyone feels the need to have firearms for their "survival". What the actual f#*$ is what I'm left thinking everytime I hear about the next disturbing massacre.

Take this guy as an example. If guns were completely scarce like any other freaking 1st world country, then I can assure you this psycho would have had no choice but to commit his disgusting acts with a weapon that would have at least given the victims a fighting chance. It's obvious that there's the problem of his mental health, but if you take away the environment swarming with lethal weapons such as guns, then the majority of these massacres would have turned out differently.

"If guns were completely scarce like any other freaking 1st world country, then I can assure you this psycho would have had no choice but to commit his disgusting acts with a weapon that would have at least given the victims a fighting chance.".....Is that right...a fighting chance with another weapon....Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people and wounded another 800 people in the Oklahoma City bombing with a mixture of common fertilizer used in farming and racing fuel...

[Creed of Heresy]

Hence, I'd rather not go tearing off after everything that has lethal uses. You can, as a decent archer, end someone just as efficiently as you could with a gun. Or, hell, crossbows. If there's an argument to be made against guns because they make killing easier, at what point does it become "too easy?" Crime's gonna happen regardless in the US, and to be entirely honest I don't think the plentiful access to firearms is the real reason. It does seem to be allowing the perpetration to be committed easier, but there's gotta be a better answer to the problem than just "because it can kill people easily it must be banned." Hell, does anyone remember The Unabomber? Sure did some damage for someone who never picked up a gun...

For instances such as this subhuman piece of shit, he should not have been paroled. He was clearly a dangerous individual. He should've been forced to have to deal with a parole officer for the rest of his life. That or subjected to some kind of mental rehabilitation, considering there were a bunch of people who apparently came forth as saying that he basically snapped after his mother died. Basically snapped, guilty of manslaughter...uhm, whose brilliant idea was it to let this guy out of law enforcement's sight?

What ARE the underlying problems, exactly? What is it that makes us Americans so damn crazy?? Ok, we're not all crazy...and hell, most of us are fairly normal...but when we go back...man, we go REALLY bad. What the hell causes this?? In other nations in the developed world, this sort of thing doesn't quite manifest so violently. Why does it do so here?

I'd LIKE to say it's just our culture...but...what aspect of it, exactly? Why ARE we so belligerent??

[Ryantology]

Every time I hear an argument which is "BUT BOMBS" or "BUT SHARP OBJECTS", I want to ask "why don't people use those weapons, instead"? Two-thirds of homicides in America are committed with firearms.

Guns give a combination of lethality and ease that no other weapon provides.

I would also like to ask where crazy people will 'find' guns if they are banned and gradually eradicated, and ammunition sales also become illegal. You can't grow them in gardens or make them out of household items. When will you understand that the reason it's so easy to find illegal guns is because we keep making and distributing ostensibly 'legal' ones? Banning guns and ammo would not solve the problem tomorrow, and the italicized word seems to make gun advocates throw their hands up and say WASTE OF TIME THEN.

You can argue for banning guns all you'd like, I'd rather argue for getting more money allocated to alleviating the root cause of the problem.

I think it's completely incorrect to present this as a "one or the other" choice. We should be doing both. I know, this does not mesh with A Theist's strawman gun control advocate. Sorry.

[CapnAwesome]

Not what the data bears out. The "murder problem" for example will still be a murder problem, regardless of what instrument is leveraged in it's commission, and we don't have any reason to assume that our murder rates would drop if gun ownership dropped.

Actually we have quite the opposite, I've pointed it out several times, and been thoroughly ignored by the anti gun crowd on here, but the UK's murder rate went up when they enacted their current gun laws in 1963 and rose throughout the next decades. If guns are this huge contributing factor in murder, I'm still waiting for the explanation on that one.

http://www.murderuk.com/misc_crime_stats.html

[Brian37]

AND they have access to highly effective weapons.

Try to understand that the problem is multifaceted. When you act as if guns are not part of the problem you simply seem dense.

...and when you act as if guns are the only problem you simply seem ignorant.

NO ONE is saying guns are not the only problem. But we are saying that far too many people use that as an excuse to do nothing about guns and all the problems that lead to gun death.

I have said that the weapons industry has no interest in solving economic problems. You create social stability and economic stability people will feel less stress, have less crime, less addiction, and more stability. That would reduce the feeling of many to feel like they need a gun. Less gun sales less profits for the manufacturers. There is not one big business that does not seek to grow it's market and gain more profits.

You look at when some major violent event happens, does not have to be a mass shooting. Just a gun death, be it from a robbery, home invasion, rape, domestic murder, ect ect ect, even a missing kid. Those crimes cause fear and cause people to go out and buy guns. So more crime and more fear increase the sale of guns.

I put the blame on big business in general. It has CURRENTLY, no interest in making it's profits in the ethical way of problem solving and improving the lives of society. What we have now is simply a giant Ponzy scheme, an extraction market that makes us dependent on them and more desperate.

So when you say the problem isn't just guns, we are saying DUH, but guns should not be used as an excuse to do nothing either.

[Ryantology]

And Australia's has trended downwards since the gun restrictions put into place after the Port Arthur massacre: http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html

[CapnAwesome]

And Australia's has trended downwards since the gun restrictions put into place after the Port Arthur massacre: http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html

Looks like it actually rose for several years, and didn't start trending downwards until recently. Murder has fallen in virtually every first world country in the same time frame, including the United States, which has had a much more dramatic drop than Australia. I'm just not seeing the correlation between guns and crime that people on here seem to insist is true.

Also I'd like to note that isn't an explanation for why murder went up in the UK when their gun laws were put into place. I'm still waiting for one.

[Brian37]

And Australia's has trended downwards since the gun restrictions put into place after the Port Arthur massacre: http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html

Looks like it actually rose for several years, and didn't start trending downwards until recently. Murder has fallen in virtually every first world country in the same time frame, including the United States, which has had a much more dramatic drop than Australia. I'm just not seeing the correlation between guns and crime that people on here seem to insist is true.

Also I'd like to note that isn't an explanation for why murder went up in the UK when their gun laws were put into place. I'm still waiting for one.

So now the excuse not to improve is "trends"? Ok, see if that excuse washes with any family member of a murder victim.

I'd say when we get to the point of Japan's gun death rate, we'd be on the right track, but right now Australia vs America doesn't mean much to me, much less the victims of any gun death.

[CapnAwesome]

I'd say when we get to the point of Japan's gun death rate, we'd be on the right track, but right now Australia vs America doesn't mean much to me, much less the victims of any gun death.

Well from what I've seen, nothing means much to you when it doesn't support your own point of view. Explain to me why the UK's murder rate went up when they banned guns. It just doesn't support your point of view.