You're right johnno, and I find it increasingly difficult to feel sympathy when this happens, the victims are innocent, and I still wish it hadnt happened, but the american society brings these thing upon themselves.
The problem with that line of thought though... it's not as if many people who end up killing innocent bystanders are buying their bullets legally. At least not where I grew up. Drive by shooting that hit everyone but the intended target were by and large committed by people who hadn't legally purchased their handguns. But because handguns overall are soooo easy to obtain legally in many states... getting them illegaly is seemingly all that much easier.
It's not very shocking at all the one of the guns used in this latest massacre was a .22 calibre handgun. It's got to be one of the most common killers of people outside of the AK47. Cheap... readily available and cheap to load. What more could any gun wielding coward/maniac want for?
I agree. they want guns for some reason. I have always said why have a gun if you are learning martial arts?
But some of the poeple have valid reasons. But some just collect and have a passion for them to the point of sexual obsession. It just seems silly to have too much weaponary to wipe out the entire worls.
clamp down on the 2nd amendment, the British are not invading anymore so its a bit outdated...
the NRA gun lobby and their fellow redneck nut huggers will prevent a clamp down, they are actually wanting looser laws so people can carry guns to prevent this happenening again
if everyone has a gun then people will think twice about shooting another...
before the pistol ban in the UK i used to shoot a .22 pistol. They are very easy to handle recoil wise due to the low powder content.
Popular choice for old target shooters like myself.
Popular choice for crap gun manufacturers as well. They pump any number of total crap low quality handguns that usually end up on the street. It's a very popular calibre amongst gang bangers because it's easy to get a hold of one.
When I was a kid it was like the first 'real' rifle you got growing up. A right of passage of sorts. I've still got one.
Got it.
Or better, let's install turrets with submachineguns at the entrance of every school in the US, so that when they'll see some lunatic that has brought a gun (got easily like it was a hotdog or a MP3 reader) they can cut the weirdo in half with a stray of bullets.
Or even better, let's put mine fields in the meadows between the campus...
I don't deny that **** like that happens in other parts of the world... what I'm trying to understand is why so often and with such gravity in the US. I quote what a guy wrote here... if here in Italy a common guy in the school wanted to shoot people, he wouldn't be able to find a gun. At least, not in legal ways, and very few common people has the guts or the knowledges to get one in criminal places or from smugglers.
I cannot really understand why US people can't see a connection in the ease with which people can buy guns in the US and the frequent killings in schools and such. They deny the connection... while, like Slip said, they should only accept it as a price to pay if they want that kind of freedom.
No flaming intentions here, guys. I'm only very very sad thinking at those 33 people in your country.
Maybe the guy, seeing some obstacle in getting guns, he would have abandoned the idea of doing such a mess.
Or maybe not.
Do you think it is pure coincidence that this never seems to happen in the UK (touch wood)? I have lived in London for my whole life and never seen a civillian with a gun. Almost all shootings in England seem to be inter-gang, or the police shooting Brazillian electricians.
Stricter gun controls do work - the stats back it up. Gun deaths in the UK stand at about 200 a year, compared to just over 11,000 in the US (Study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
As for having the argument of it being legal and therefore controlled - the stas back up the fact that most mass-killers were legal owners:
http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF02.htm
Go figure - still want your constitutional rights from an era long-gone? The US is terminally ill and seems intent on spreading its disease overseas.
First of all plenty of kids who are legal citizens will work those jobs. Second if they can't get someone to work the job for minimum wage then they have to pay more. Illegals taking those jobs for minimum wage destroy the bargaining leverage for the common family which makes the rich richer and keeps the poor extremely poor.
riiiiight... last I checked there were tons of white kids signing up to work in inner city gas stations, grotty kitchens and hot roofing crews.
As if by you merely saying that.. it is reality. Many companies will only pay what they're required to by law. Often time the laws comes down on the illegal alien but not the company hiring them. It was so silly at one point in LA that illegally staffed cut and sew operations run by Chinese and Koreans simply budgeted in the paltry penalty fees they'd get hit with for employing illegals on a regular basis. What it cost them in fee's was miniscule in comparsion to what they were making in profits.
Hmm.. so the companies that employ illegals bear no responsibility? Good one.
Not to worry the gun debate is in a lull until the ever clever Apotheosis and the equally endowed Mr. Wesson return and find that everyone is infringing on their right to arm bears.
So you think white kids are the only legal citizens? If it's a black neiborhood then there are black kids looking for jobs, if its a Chinese neiborhood Chinese kids need work ect.
If they need the job done and no one will do it for minimum wage they will raise their pay or go out of buisness.
I wasn't talking about the laws or who was to blame. The whole situation needs a major overhall but anybody, illegal or otherwise, who is willing to work for substandard wages is the biggest part of the problem. If they weren't there companies couldn't hire them regaurdless of the miniscule fines.