Connecticut School Shooting

[ChainzCooper]

Hi Jordan,

You address a point which I didn't make. I didn't suggest that there should be a total ban on gun ownership. What I said was:

Extending the right to 'keep and bear arms' to the psychotic and the deranged is a triumph of stubborn idiocy over common sense.


There are some people who should not be allowed anywhere near a gun under any circumstances. The bottom line is that 28 people, 20 of them children, who are now dead, would still be alive had the right to bear arms not included Adam Lanza.

I do not own a gun. I have no need to own a gun because, except under very stringent restrictions, no-one else in this country has one either, unless illegally. It's safer that way. I accept that this is an issue around which there are strongly and sincerely held opinions. What I don't accept is the argument which says that, if everyone has the right to carry a gun, everyone will be safer. The right to bear arms is one freedom I don't have - and don't want. You feel differently and are entitled to do so.

Regards, Bridewell.

How do you know when someone is psychotic and deranged if they have never had any problems if they have never been in trouble with police or other authorities?
Jordan

[ChainzCooper]

Chainz has absented himself from the discussion, or so he says, but he seems not to have thought through what a ban on the manufacture, import, and sale of guns would mean. He's thinking in terms of the way it is now, when a jurisdiction bans, for example, handguns, and just creates a black market import from the next city over. People would try to smuggle guns in, but guns a harder to smuggle than drugs and harder to use surreptitiously. Also, people are going to think twice about paying $500 for one, if a police officer can confiscate it without a warrant or cause, simply because guns themselves are illegal.

FWIW, a gun is a specific kind of firearm; it's not a rifle. No one uses a gun (other than a shotgun, which is still something different-- I'm talking about handguns) for hunting. Guns are for people.

Me, I thinks it's nuts that you can get a gun license without having to pass a written gun safety test, like the traffic safety test you take to get a driving learner's permit. I think it's crazy that people can own a gun, and not know how to set the sites, zero a shot group, and soforth. People shoot people they weren't aiming for all the time, because they don't know how to use the damn gun.

I'm not advocating being allowed to kill people you aim for correctly. I'm just saying.

Therefore law abiding citizens have the right to bear arms and defend themselves. Its up to you! I just don't understand the logic here this guy had no criminal record whatsoever how are we going to know this is going to happen? Do you lock up people who act strange and look weird? I think sometimes horrible things happen in life and you can't go around thinking what might have been you have accept what hand is dealt to you, at least that is what I try to do. Its a hard notion to deal with but you have to remind yourself that eventually your day will come and this will all work out. Its been a fun debate I think I have summed up everything I want to say so I'll leave it at this
Jordan

I misread what someone typed and apologized. I just don't think criminals care what any law states about any type of firearm they are going to do what they want to do so this talk about banning I think is just a waste of time
Jordan

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Ally!

You said: "...There is absolutely no reason on earth why I should not have a gun, therefore, law or not, I will carry a gun. ..."

And this attitude is the main reason to the fact, published in 2008, why 12 000 gun-caused deaths took place in your country. Meanwhile in Japan, only 11 cases, despite their laws only allow guns for hunting and sports. Think about it... besides, Japan is a democracy too.

Based on the second amendment, your neighbour could buy an nuclear bomb, if he wants to... interesting...

And comparing the things you did to a gunning massacre, is sick and inappropriate; for example, utmost few people cause intentionally traffic accidents.

All the best
Jukka

[jason_c]

Hello Ally!

You said: "...There is absolutely no reason on earth why I should not have a gun, therefore, law or not, I will carry a gun. ..."

And this attitude is the main reason to the fact, published in 2008, why 12 000 gun-caused deaths took place in your country. Meanwhile in Japan, only 11 cases, despite their laws only allow guns for hunting and sports. Think about it... besides, Japan is a democracy too.

Based on the second amendment, your neighbour could buy an nuclear bomb, if he wants to... interesting...

And comparing the things you did to a gunning massacre, is sick and inappropriate; for example, utmost few people cause intentionally traffic accidents.

All the best
Jukka

I don't know why many gun control advocates pepper their decent arguments with such silly comments.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello jason_c!

First of all; I cannot be an advocate for gun control in the US, since I am not an American.

Second; I can only talk on behalf of myself, but my motivation is simple: to provoke brain cells.... and to provoke even more; Michael Moore has stated this about the second amendment and so far I have seen no-one denying it.

Third; how about the rest of the reply?

Fourth; it's strange, that despite our common western heritage the views about gun control are obviously completely different on the two sides of the Atlantic.

Finland is one of the most liberal European countries with gun laws and that shows with our ratings with incidents like these. Unfortunately, but still the number is a lot lower than in the US. However, things are moving more to the common European standards and I personally like it better. The less opportunitites we give to the cracking people to get guns freely and the sooner we direct them to therapy, the likelihood for deeds like these will decrease.

All the best
Jukka

[Ally]

.."

And this attitude is the main reason to the fact, published in 2008, why 12 000 gun-caused deaths took place in your country. Meanwhile in Japan, only 11 cases, despite their laws only allow guns for hunting and sports. Think about it... besides, Japan is a democracy too.

What precisely is your point? Japan overall has a lower crime rate than most industrialized societies. Cherry picking out one country and going "ooh look at them, they are good, you are bad" is basically an idiotic form of argument. They have a different culture than we do. I don't support all the violent representations of crime that are celebrated in this country, so I don't watch them. I absolutely agree that ours is a culture of violence. Humans, by and large are a violent race. History as proven that. There will always be violence, there will always be murder.

And pointing out the Japanese is even more faulty, they have one thing going over us -- a more solid sense of national cohesion and identity. In fact, if you look at the countries that have statistically the lowest rates of crime, they also have the most solid core of national identity. We are not a melting pot, we are a pot that has had everything tossed in, in chunks, nothing is blended, everything is in the pot and separate and it's a lot harder to regulate the culture when there is no cohesion. We are not Americans, we are Korean-Americans and Hispanic Americans and Whatever-Americans. There is no "American" way. There's only everyone in here, eyeballing everyone else.

Based on the second amendment, your neighbour could buy an nuclear bomb, if he wants to... interesting...

That's just such an idiotic and completely wrong statement, I don't even know where to go with it.

And comparing the things you did to a gunning massacre, is sick and inappropriate; for example, utmost few people cause intentionally traffic accidents.

Oh bullcrap. Texting and driving -intentionally causing a traffic accident. Drunk driving? Intentionally causing a traffic accident. Swerving in and out/aggressive driving? Intentionally causing a traffic accident.

People do illegal/stupid things in their cars and then cause traffic accidents.
Very few people cause traffic accidents while completely obeying the law and being safe drivers just like very few people kill someone with a gun while obeying the law and being safe gun owners.

[sleekviper]

Weren't the Japanese forced to demobilize after the second world war? I think they were not allowed to even have martial arts schools for a period of time, so how the nation evolved under post war conditions would be different I would think.

[lynn cates]

it's the economy

Hello Jukka.

"things are moving more to the common European standards"

Hopefully, that does NOT include economics.

Cheers.
LC

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

First of all, Ally; you have included the point yourself. The cultural difference and it seems to be the same on the eastern and western shores of the Atlantic, despite sharing western cultural heritage...

You can go with Michael Moore with the second amendment.

Sleekviper, I did mention the statistical difference...

Lynn, we all in The European Union have shared the economical bullshit a long time ago...

All the best
Jukka

[Ally]

I do find it amusing how people who supposedly celebrate diversity and maintaining cultural identity are so keen to push THEIR idea of cultural identity on everyone else.

Cultural individuality is okay, as long as you abide by what *I* consider to be culturally appropriate and come to adopt *our* way of doing things, because really, it's the superior one. *rolls eyes*

I have no wish to model anything after the "european method ". Not that there even is one of that. Which method are you talking about? The Irish ones that allow women to die because abortion is wrong? The English one that arrests homeowners for defending themselves, and allows criminals free rein? The "benefits culture" that has 1/5 of the country on one form of government assistance or another?

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

This one is a general observation;

Despite this unfortunate phenomenon started in the US in the mid-1990s, these kinds of incidents have taken place in the UK, France, Germany, Finland etc. So, I dare say, that despite our debate this is a pan-western epidemic.

The most discusting is the attitude of the media and the certain type of people. Those, who participate to the social discussions and are in different municipal boards etc. They are nicknamed the flower-hat ladies in Finland, hope, you get the type. Anyway, they are always patting the head of the shooter saying; "Oh, you poor drop-out.... How the society has treated you...", when the ones they should care for first, are those mostly random victims, who get shot!

All the best
Jukka

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Ally!

I don't find any culture superior to any other. I like the American dare, the Asian behave-yourself, the European common-sense first etc.

I didn't mention a word "european method" anywhere and I am not saying, that the Americans should solve it in the European way. Just wondering about different thinking...

I don't accept Irish thinking. I'd like to know from you and the English members of this discussion: to which case you are refeering to?
The "benefits culture" secures, that the poorest have less reason to attack us middle-class. Thus less need to solve poverty with a gun...

All the best
Jukka

[Robert]

I don't approve of any European method of doing anything. I believe in the British method,the Spanish method, the German method.......but European? Ugh! "Europe" is a geographical term, and nothing more, as far as I am concerned.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Robert!

Totally agreed, sincerely!

And once more in my own language: Täysin samaa mieltä, rehellisesti!


OK, I meant by "more to common European standards", that we are having our gun laws a bit tighter. Since we have had our own shooting incidents too.

All the best
Jukka

[Robert]

Hi Jukka

Ha, I wasn't commenting on the guns, just on Europe. Hopefully one day your country and mine will be free of the dreadful EU.