Newtown Shootings

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Ben
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Ben »

poto wrote:
Ben wrote:
David N. Snyder wrote:but unfortunately it probably wouldn't have mattered in this case since he acquired the guns illegally.
True.
But why is there so many guns in the US?
And why are they so easily obtainable (legally or illegally?)
kind regards,

Ben
Because civilians rose up and used their guns to shoot the British. And my nation's founders thought it would be a good idea to keep the populace armed to guard against invasion.
With great respect to your founding fathers, I believe the retention of the 'right to bear arms' clause in this day and age is an anachronism and its presence now is only harming you.
Historically it worked well to dissuade our enemies.
I'll take your word for it.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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Ben
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Ben »

David N. Snyder wrote:There are too many guns around.
Paul McGeough, who is a respected journalist in this country, wrote an opinion piece published today that there is an estimated 300 million weapons in circulation in the US and another four million entering the market each year. Unfortunately he doesn't cite where he got those figures from.

After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre where Martin Bryant killed 35 people in Tasmania, our federal govt organized a national compulsory gun buy back scheme. Apart from a number of professional groups and sporting clubs who were exempt from the buy back, the scheme netted millions of weapons which were destroyed. The sky didn't fall in. While we still have some gun-related crime - there's a lot less of it.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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poto
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by poto »

Ben wrote: With great respect to your founding fathers, I believe the retention of the 'right to bear arms' clause in this day and age is an anachronism and its presence now is only harming you.
I would respectfully disagree. If you watch the very first video I posted in this thread, statistically violence has been on a declining trend for centuries. The presence of more guns hasn't made our society as a whole more violent. In fact, here in the US violent crime has been on a decline since the mid-90's. I largely attribute the uptick in the 70's and 80's to the war on drugs and especially crack cocaine use which has waned in recent years. Although, meth seems to be a growing concern these days.

Image

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

So, how is it harming me exactly?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis
Justsit
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Justsit »

Ben wrote:
David N. Snyder wrote:There are too many guns around.
Paul McGeough, who is a respected journalist in this country, wrote an opinion piece published today that there is an estimated 300 million weapons in circulation in the US and another four million entering the market each year. Unfortunately he doesn't cite where he got those figures from.

After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre where Martin Bryant killed 35 people in Tasmania, our federal govt organized a national compulsory gun buy back scheme. Apart from a number of professional groups and sporting clubs who were exempt from the buy back, the scheme netted millions of weapons which were destroyed. The sky didn't fall in. While we still have some gun-related crime - there's a lot less of it.
kind regards,

Ben
The figure quoted today in the Washington Post is roughly 270 million privately owned guns (estimate - counting method varies by state). This amounts to 88 guns for every 100 people. This figure does not include illegal guns.

A compulsory buy back would never fly here in the US. Many Americans love guns :guns: - my brother owns 70 (don't ask me why, I don't have a clue). And as long as the Second Amendment (misinterpreted as it is) and the National Rifle Association are in existence, real gun control is off limits (politically, it's a death sentence) and the attitude is "I'll give you my gun when you pry (or take) it from my cold, dead hands" (NRA slogan - seriously). As long as the bad guys can get anything they want on the black market, from Saturday night specials and fully automatic weapons all the way to rocket launchers, scared citizens will demand the "right to protect" themselves.

The results of these attitudes are self-evident.
alan
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by alan »

American culture fetishizes guns. Until we get past that, these things will continue to happen.
Just a point of fact.
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robertk
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by robertk »

I think it can happen in any country where there are guns: the shooter used a hunting rifle and they are very common in countruies like New zealand -which are extremely strict on handgun control. If it had happened in Arizona possibly one of the teachers would have had a pistol strapped on - and been able to shoot the guy early on-
Or not..Can anyone really stop tragic events.

If it isn't shooting incidents it might be a bus going off the freeway.
Or if they mandate that then an earthquake or hurricane kill even more.
In Japan a few years ago a guy killed 6 children at a school using a knife.

For the suggestion that spending resources on taking care of the mentally ill is needed to fix spree killers. How many people are estimated to have mental problems in the USA: even if the goverment committed extra billions do we trust the authorities to know who is likely to go a killing episode and should be locked up..
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Dan74
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Dan74 »

While having so many guns around is not a great idea, I don't think this is the determining factor. Canadians have even more guns. In Switzerland where I am now due to their compulsory military service, there are lots of guns around too. More important is the culture, I think.
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ancientbuddhism
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by ancientbuddhism »

I imagine that China has strict gun control laws, but then there is this:

China School Attack: Knife-Wielding Man Injures 22 Kids, 1 Adult Outside Primary School

Perhaps China will enact stricter laws on culinary utensils.
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Reductor
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Reductor »

A quick link showing the number of firearms per capita. The US is still winner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_ ... by_country" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What we do have in Canada is a licensing system that requires both training and background checks of those that would wish to be licensed (and a 28 day waiting period). So, to actually be eligible to purchase a gun you have to jump through some hoops, and I think that dissuades many people making the effort.

Also, handguns are very regulated and must be registered (along with prohibited weapons, which can only be owned by a select few collectors). You need a permit just to transport one from your home to the shooting range. Yet, people are shot with those things often enough in some of our larger cities.

Additionally, the firearm licensing apparatus is country wide. So no popping over to the next province with less stringent laws on the books to buy something you can't get at home.

EDIT: thought I'd mention that there are strict laws concerning storage and access to all firearms. They must be rendered inoperable, have a trigger lock, and be stored in a room or container that is locked. If the firearm is stored near ammo, then that ammo must be locked in container that is not easily broken into.

Since I'm posting, I'd like to share this link: http://www.latimes.com/news/world/world ... 3015.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Crazy mass-murderers, child murderers, and would-be killers abound in the world. They all seek to do the horrendous; guns are just very efficient. And for that reason they should be ardently regulated, although I do not agree with outright illegalization.
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Mr Man
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Mr Man »

ancientbuddhism wrote:I imagine that China has strict gun control laws, but then there is this:

China School Attack: Knife-Wielding Man Injures 22 Kids, 1 Adult Outside Primary School

Perhaps China will enact stricter laws on culinary utensils.
Could this possibly be put forward as an example of how gun control saves lives?

Don't think any thing is going to change in the US though. Americans are just too in to their guns (and rights). Rationality goes out the window.
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Mr Man
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Mr Man »

I think it would kind of be nice if we could separate the tragedy of what happened from the Gun Control debate though. My heart goes out to those who lost their loved ones and those who were affected.
Justsit
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by Justsit »

Agreed, Mr. Man.

In the interest of accuracy, though, the rifle used is not a "hunting rifle" - unless one is hunting humans. (Available for about $800 at your local Walmart. Gotta love America.)
corrine
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by corrine »

While I live in the southwestern United States and I am an advocate of gun control, at this time my only feeling is one of grief for these innocent lives lost and for their poor families who may never recover. How do you move forward when something so unthinkable has happened to your sweet little angel? Are there any answers to be had? Anger is a normal but not helpful response. I really believe that we have to find a way to stop these senseless slaughters. My country, which I dearly love, seems to have become a shooting gallery. I do not know what has changed to cause this. It was not this way when I was young. Children were, overall, free to live their precious little lives safely. I grew up in Los Angeles and ran around the entire neighborhood without my parents having to worry. In the fifties. The neighbors watched out for all of the kids.

What has happened to us as a nation? I simply cannot come to grips with this. Are there answers? To be angry in the aftermath may be natural, but it does not seem to address the actual horrible problem. What can we do, now, to stop this?

corrine
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LonesomeYogurt
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

corrine wrote: What has happened to us as a nation? I simply cannot come to grips with this. Are there answers? To be angry in the aftermath may be natural, but it does not seem to address the actual horrible problem. What can we do, now, to stop this?
We can have a meaningful conversation about the gun laws that allowed this to happen!
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
daverupa
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Re: Newtown Shootings

Post by daverupa »

LonesomeYogurt wrote:
corrine wrote: What has happened to us as a nation? I simply cannot come to grips with this. Are there answers? To be angry in the aftermath may be natural, but it does not seem to address the actual horrible problem. What can we do, now, to stop this?
We can have a meaningful conversation about the gun laws that allowed this to happen!
Guns are not magical talismans that break the minds of those who come into contact with them. Violence being done, the particular tool chosen is not a sole cause (it may not even be a cause). Trying to remove means without addressing motives is going about things altogether backwards.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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