MrMuttley wrote:
Alienturnedhuman wrote:
If the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument is being adopted, that just means someone just wants guns. And that's fine, if you just want guns that's your right to want guns. But don't try to dress it up as anything beyond that. There is no greater purpose, there is no higher reasoning or justification for it. America has 4% of the population of the planet yet when you hear that there has been a shooting in a civilised public place on the news the thought is not "where in the world has this happened" it is "where in America has this happened?"[/color]
Just to play devils advocate for a minute. That's the point isn't it. Other countries have relatively relaxed gun laws and yet it's a lot more rare for you to hear of school shootings and cinema massacres in places like Canada and Switzerland that both have higher levels of gun ownership than the US. Yes it does happen but then it also happens in the UK occasionally and we have some of the strictest gun laws.
It reminds me of an incident back in the 90's I forget the actual incident but a family had been killed by some maniac wielding a fully automatic assault rifle. Some politician went on the news to say he was going to use this as a platform to push his gun control agenda. All very well and good for the cameras but the weapon used in the killings had been illegal in the US for civilians for decades.
The gun crime problem they have in the US has more to do with their overall societies problems than their lax gun laws.
You are right, that there are other places around the world where gun ownership is at a similar or even higher rate than in the US, yet these places have far fewer issues with nut-jobs going off on a homicidal rampage, and that ergo, it is not an issue of gun control per say, but a much broader sociological issue.
However, if the Swiss and Canadians have shown themselves, as societies, to be responsible enough to own guns without killing each other all the time, then maybe they're grown up enough, as a society, to have relatively lax gun laws. However, the US has shown time and again (this is a generalisation, I realise that) that they are not grown up enough to have guns without killing each other all over the place. As Alien' said "when you hear that there has been a shooting in a civilised public place on the news the thought is not "where in the world has this happened" it is "where in America has this happened?"", I know this is certainly my reaction.`
It's always the few who spoil it for the masses, most gun owning citizens are law abiding and not generally inclined to mass murder, I imagine. But as a whole, such incidents as this one in Connecticut happen far too often in the US for any reasonable human being to think that that society is mature enough to have such lax gun laws.
Obviously to suddenly tighten them up would not be easy, or likely have that much of an effect initially, seeing as there are already millions of guns out there in the public domain, and that some mentalist would likely see the "infringing on their constitutional rights" as enough justification to go out and slaughter a bunch of folk. But, eventually, there would be less guns, if they went about things the right way, and eventually there would be less shootings, thus eventually there would be less people getting murdered. Surely it's a constitutional right to expect your government, and fellow citizens, to desire, and follow through on, the pursuit of all reasonable steps to reduce the likelihood of you being murdered? And that saying "hmm, maybe we shouldn't let virtually anyone own, and often carry, such obviously, and easily, deadly weapons, especially as they keep shooting each other" is an entirely reasonable thing to do?
Again as Alien pointed out, just change the constitution, it's been amended a load of times already, amend it again, and then people haven't got the "it's my constitutional right" "argument". The whole "right to bear arms" thing is completely outmoded anyway , in context, it was a vaguely sensible thing, but that was 221 years ago, back then America was pretty backward, and "wild", in many respects, compared to back this side of the pond, there's no need for it these days.
It'd also help with all the vicious gang/drug lord crime south of the boarder. I saw a documentary not too long ago about the problems in Mexico, and their police pointed out that virtually every murder committed was being carried out with guns from America, and we're not talking about illegal guns, but gun initially purchased entirely legally back in the US, and then smuggled south.
Maybe, in the future American society would be mature enough to take on the responsibility of owning so many guns, but maybe if they were, they wouldn't want to.
Edited for a bit of the drivel.
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