I'll give my view on this but i don't think people on here are going to take to it well..

I think the idea of guns being readily available for civilians to use to be ridiculous and stupid.

Year after year i sit and see the news come in of the latest school shooting tragedy or some other shooting in America and at first when i saw these i was genuinely shocked but now i am not even surprised and i just don't give a shit about them anymore.

When the right to wield a gun is in your constitution and that anyone can have one you are just asking for stuff like this to happen. Year after year, shooting after shooting it's the same old sob story about how a student came in and shot up the school or whatever it may be and you never learn. I am by no means saying that people getting shot in this way isn't a horrific event but like seriously how do you not expect this to happen.

Look already this year we have had this shooting and the one on the congresswoman by people who freely were allowed firearms. Where i live this is virtually unheard of. I don't think my country has ever had a school shooting ever or at least in my lifetime and why is that? We don't give guns to anyone.

Let's me honest here you say guns are used for personal protection. It hasn't done much good in protecting anyone at all these school shootings. How often do you hear in the news of people shooting their attackers who attempt to kill them, never.

This isn't a hit at you Beach Bum but i'll use your comment

Quote:

Seriously if someone decides to start shooting up the local mall again while I'm there I'd like to be able to pull my Glock and drop him.

Would it not be better to just not allow everyone to have access to guns and then there would be no shooting up of the mall.

Where i live guess who is allowed guns... people who hunt, people in the law enforcement. That is it and people who hunt need to provide lots of evidence to prove that they are safe in using a firearm etc.

and that is why i no longer have any sympathy when i see school shootings or whatever. It's all your own faults.

EDIT: A simple way to think of it. How many school shootings etc. do you hear in other countries who have laws probiting access to guns? Now look at the USA and just think of how many school shootings you know of with free access to them.

I can think of at least 5 in the USA and none anywhere else - and when i saw anywhere else i mean developed countries, places like Iraq or whatever do not count.

Beach Bum wrote:

We don't really have "free access" to guns. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops that the government has set up to get one legally.

Well that's what i meant, i didn't think you just go to your local supermarket and throw one into the trolley lol.

Beach Bum wrote:

The problem is that criminals don't bother to jump through these hoops they either steal them or buy them from the person who did. It is my opinion that restricting access to guns doesn't do anything to stop the criminals from getting weapons if they really want to.

I can't disagree with this. Paramilitaries here imported their guns from outside Ireland though.

Beach Bum wrote:

Even if private citizens can't access the guns the criminals still can smuggle them in or however the hell they do it. All this really stops is school shootings because some douchebag kid that should have been aborted can't take Daddy's rifle and shoot up his school.

But is that not good enough? Reducing that alone is a good thing.

Look at it this way. Throughout the whole world criminals have access to guns, it doesn't matter what country. Yet all those countries which don't permit the ownership of guns still function perfectly fine. Not to say that criminals don't shoot people but the number of incidents is still really quite low.

Beach Bum wrote:

Also the school shootings couldn't really be stopped even if you allowed conceal carry because the government won't even allow you to wear a chain on your wallet in a school anymore. There is no way they would allow anyone to step foot on property knowing they had a gun on them for protection.

The response of the government like that is because of the shootings though and as you said the people who do the school shootings are some kid who has access to daddys gun. If there was no access to daddys gun it could be avoided altogether.

Realistically there is only two scenarios i can think of currently that would work.

1. Get rid of the ability to require guns legally, this would then reduce the number of people with access to guns and would help alleviate the problem. Of course the criminals still have access.

2. This is what seems to be get done but needs done more. Allow legal carrying of guns but increase the security ridiculously. Searches all the time etc.

I think 1. is the more ideal scenario but i do recognise it has problems. I don't mean this to sound rude about the USA (i am really fond of the US) but there does seem to be alot of poor people about and they are probably the ones who commit the most crimes. I've said this before to people here on IRC, quite a long time ago in fact but we are really different cultures. I am sure alot of people in the US don't have or can't afford insurance. If everyone had insurance the gun-crime problem could sort of be fixed.

Let's be honest how likely is it that a criminal is going to break into your house just to shoot you? Very very unlikely unless you royally pissed them off or did something to them. They most likely are going to rob you.

I see on a number of sites that people say they would just get their shotgun or whatever and start shooting at the person for being on their land or stealing shit. If you had insurance there would be no problem with this as it would cover it and there would be no shooting of anyone. They are not going to burst into your house and shoot you and steal your stuff. I've been robbed before, the insurance just sorted it out.

I think this has a lot to do with economic and social problems within the USA.

EDIT:

This is aimed at Usa.

Note the bottom line here.

In the Republic there were 1.63 homicides per 100,000 in 2006 and 1.95 per 100,000 in 2007. This compared with 1.42 per 100,000 in England and Wales in 2005-2006.

While the rate of gun killings was higher than in England and Wales, the number of such crimes was still relatively small and Ireland was far from a “pistolised” society, such as the US.

I am not saying there isn't gun crime, that would be stupid of me. I am saying that it is rarely reported or heard of. Besides the figures aren't really that much different between England and Wales and Ireland.

You must appreciate that even though there was a peace process here there is still a lot of paramilitary and sectarian attacks that go on here and also that the attacks documented there are most likely not from the public.

Look here's a sectarian attack in the news here today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12161396

Beach Bum wrote:

I don't think that insurance has anything to do with it. If someone broke into my home, I'm not going to stop and ask, "Hey you planning to shoot me or are you just robbing me?" I'm going to shoot first and ask questions later. Plus even if they were just robbing me, I happen to like my computer and it ain't going anywhere without a fight.

Woah woah woah.

This is what is exactly what i'm trying to say.

First obviously you don't want your shit to get stolen.

But the fact is you are shooting someone, hurting them and possibly even killing them when you could let them take your stuff and get it covered by your insurance and getting it replaced.

I know this sounds odd that you are letting people just rob you but you have to appreciate sure this person may be shit and total dirt to you after they are stealing your stuff but they are still fundamentally a human being and you have killed them.

I don't know how to say this without sounding horrible so forgive me if i do but maybe people in the US are more attached to their possessions.

This isn't to say that e.g. my computer is getting stolen - i don't want to lose all my files, music, work etc. but it's still just a computer and if i had it insured it could get replaced. I've seen from my time i've spent in America that there is a lot of poor people in America (hell when i visited last year i overheard a guy talking on his phone about not having $50 to repair his car) and that people often work 2 jobs or even 3.

Because of this i can see why people don't want to lose their possessions if they have to save lots of money to be able to afford them. They are really their pride and joy. Like you know that feeling when you save up and buy something yourself. Like my first guitar i would hate for that to get stolen since i bought it all by myself, some people feel t his away about their cars etc.

I can see that being a huge burden for some people in the USA so that's why they do attack people but i wouldn't feel comfortable shooting and killing someone over it. For these people however and when thats all they have i can understand it.

Like i said, totally different cultures here.