Mark Steel on NRA reaction to Boston bomb. Genius

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Wow, you can't see the woods for the trees can you? How about American lives ARE endangered ALREADY because of the status quo? Thats why the massacres are happening now?

When any psycho can walk into a gunshop and buy an assault rifle unchallenged, what the hell did you expect to happen?

It depends on where the gun users are getting their supply channels. So it will be effective depending which country it is. Here in the UK and Europe gun restriction is very effective because of how hard it is to obtain them in the first place. You cannot own a gun without a special license (farmers are allowed shotguns being one of the exceptions) and the supply chains are next to non existent. As a consequence, gun caused murders are very rare in this country. The exception being troubles-era Northern Ireland.

I'm suspecting that Jamaicas problems are caused by 1. Its proximity to the USA and 2. Unattentive or inefficient package and border monitoring. If the USA banned guns and really enforced the ban like how they do in the UK, Jamaica's gun issues would probably dry up as a consequence.

Last edited by thomas81 on 28 Apr 2013, 6:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

The point about your nephew is one to bring up. Gun prevalence makes it much easier to commit suicide. If I wanted to kill myself, I'd use a gun if I had one. I'd stake that if the USA prohibited guns you'd also see an associated drop in suicide rates.

Public opinion doesn't favor them that's why, they had to bend and confuse the terms so much that the general public didn't know what they were proposing. This is a common tactic by the gun grabbers, the same way they deliberately refer to AR15s and similar guns as "assault rifles" and "machine guns" when they aren't significantly different than many semi-automatic hunting rifles. 90% of people support background checks, well we already have background checks. Adam Lanza, the Newtown gunman actually failed his background check so he stole his guns anyways. Murderers don't follow the law, who'd of thought? What they were proposing was essentially a national registry and outlaw private transfer of guns, this was after the dream of reviving the AWB was DOA. These politicians don't fear the NRA, they fear the will of the people.

Your cousin didn't commit suicide because your uncle didn't store his bolt and ammunition separately from his rifle. I assume he committed suicide because he was very troubled young man.

Jamaica has a much high rate of violence than any other Caribbean country so no. Violence in Jamaica is probably more likely fueled by the extreme poverty and warring gangs that run the drug trade. Law abiding citizens are at the mercy of these criminals in Jamaica, as said those criminals don't seem to heed the law.

Public opinion on this matter was measured by polls which are notoriously inaccurate and pruned to reflect the wishes of the pollsters. The fact that guns and ammo sales have shot through the roof and non-gun owners have become gun owners says more.
People do not trust their politicians here.


I’m an NRA member but I don’t follow much of what they say on every matter. I can say with certainly that they’ve done more to prevent firearm related deaths by being proactive in terms of safety training than any anti-gun organization like The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly Handgun Control Inc.).


Sorry for your loss but he didn’t commit suicide because of the rifle being left available. He obviously intended to commit suicide and the rifle was just the first tool available. Homes have other suicide tools on hand that would have gotten the job done just as well.


Funny, I've lived in the US all my life and have never been out of the country for more than a month at a time and I just don’t see guns everywhere unless I'm looking for them.


Those gun free zones are nothing more than a written invitation for an active shooter to come in and wreak havoc. It’s happened at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook Elementary to name a few of the common household word shootings.


A pointless rule that is nothing more than a protectionist feel-good measure.


Good place for you to stay, then.
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Funny, as an American here in Dogpatch with all the gun nuts and rednecks I don’t feel endangered by guns at all. But I guess I’m just not socially enlightened enough to know how I feel.


Learn a little about gun laws in this country. Not what your leftist media tells its sheeple but the law itself then come back.
Right now you’re just spouting rhetoric that’s already been shot down over and over.

Last edited by Raptor on 28 Apr 2013, 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can follow you JB, right up until you get into the idea that making the prisons tougher and ramping up the death penalty would be effective. The problem is that deterrents work best if they're severe and immediate, e.g. a gun pointed at you with the sure knowledge that to continue your current course is to be shot; the vague thought of a tough prison or distant needle does not have the same effect. Singapore is but one of many countries that execute drug smugglers, and yet people still smuggle drugs through Singapore, cause they don't expect to get caught. That's one of the great things about guns in private hands, they actually prevent crimes, as opposed to the justice system, which overwhelmingly punishes after the fact but does not prevent,

By that logic, you could probably develop the same conditioning against nail bombs or pressure cooker bombs, if everyone was walking around with them.

The rest of the world by in large has a rational and sober fear of firearms and for good reason.


So you say, but right now I see you doing less shooting and more running your mouth.

Probably half or more of murders in this country are drug related and most of those can be tied directly to prohibition than the effects of the drugs. I'm so sick of these politicians saying how much they care about children when they continue immoral and ILLEGAL drug war against the American people that has destroyed our inner cities and created the largest imprisoned population in the world. These "liberal" sickos who cry for gun control claim to care about minorities when the drug war is disgustingly racist and aimed at locking them up and destroying their communities. Colorado and their "liberal" governor and "liberal" legislature which have recently rammed thru their own gun control measures are plotting ways to overturn the will of the people of Colorado who voted themselves to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The ploy being kicked around is put a massive tax increase on ballot to cover the cost of "regulating" legal marijuana and if it fails the referendum that legalized would be voided, as if it costs ANYWHERE near the cost of prohibition.

Colorado and a lot of western states have seen a massive influx of Californians fleeing their failed state but they're bringing to deluded politicial beliefs that destroyed California.

Politicians getting crocodile tears is just so sickening, are these people idiots or just plain sociopaths? They care so much about children but we commit a Sandy Hook, a Boston bombing, and Aurora EVERY day overseas. How many tears has Obama shed for those Pakistani school children he's murdered? Again unsurprising, remember Madeline Albright saying the deaths 500,000 Iraqi children from our sanctions was worth the price to punish Saddam Hussein.

That statement right there shows you lack of understanding of the subject you're trying to argue.


Fear of an inanimate object? The fear of weapons is called Hoplophobia.




I sense hostility rising here. Is that what you resort to when you can't bring anything of substance to a debate?

And you're the one that baited me with this \/ thread a few days ago.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt229481.html

Young teenage boys don't have enough knowledge about suicide methods, guns are quick and final, doesn't give them a chance to reconsider, they just do it.

Most people that consider suicide, will reconsider if given the oppertunity and chance. Your reasoning seems very callous, especially given the number of people here who would have considered suicide here at some time.



I agree, we have a lower death rate from guns, and lower suicide rate. We also don't have the death penalty, so that when mistakes are made with convictions, we can release them rather than just say sorry over their grave.

You talk a lot about it but you don't display much understanding either.


and what tell me, is the fear of a weapon plus an unstable lunatic behind the trigger?



Context, context context.

Now which of the following raptors do you think i could have meant, considering there was a damn dinosaur in the opening post? Don't flatter yourself sparky.

The NRA advocates on behalf of it's constituents, and there are a lot of them. It sounds like pure semantics, but you need to understand that the poll being touted showed 90% support for "background checks" generally, not 90% support for that particular bill. There is also the matter of how that poll was worded, and the ignorance of the electorate concerning what laws are already on the books and what is actually meant by some of these proposed laws. Many people responding to that poll, for example, thought they were supporting a law that was already on the books.



So, if he'd used a belt instead would you be calling for belt control? Not trying to be callous, but you opened the door by relating a personal story for political purposes.



Just as I find the criminalization of speech in the commonwealth countries disturbing. Thankfully, we don't use the comfort of foreigners as a metric for formulating our domestic policies.



What's your point? It used to be common for high schools to have rifle teams, and for teens in hunting country to have deer rifles in their cars on campus during the season; never caused any problems.



And you can kindly keep them there in Australia with you.

??? Have you any idea of the historical murder situation?

As someone who lived in Jamaica in the 90s, it has made no differnce. The most violent were the 70s to late 80s and that was political and crime. It is not like they can control it that well anyway. The significance is it is less of a stop off for drug than that past, as they are going more direct, or through Mexico now.

1980s was pretty bad. They basically sent in the military. It is not as bad, as in the past.

This is what people don't seem to understand it is nothing to do with any of this. Both the anti and gun lobby are wrong. There are cultural differences, where a policy might might make a difference. But in terms of a general rule, there is no hard evidence either way that it make one iota of differnce.

It is not as if these law are enforceable, in the Don constituencies, where the politician are linked to the don what they say goes. I basically studied the electoral system as project, and was given access to their system. They used fingerprint scanners, and id cards way before they were used in other countries (and many western country still rely on trust), to try and put a lid on the corruption, it hasn't worked really. In any event the normal response is for the looser to cry foul.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 28 Apr 2013, 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Isn't that what I've been saying all along? That it's cultural and socioeconomic, not firearms access or lack thereof?

But that the point it works both ways.

Personally in the UK I agree with the situation. You might not agree, but personally you aren't living here, and I'm not criticizing your country. It is very specific.