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In the USA you can buy a gun like sweets

mrmcfister wrote:

> 'Why an event like this in the USA becomes headline news over
> here only seems to demonstrate that our news netwroks are
> rather in thrall to the USA. I doubt a similar event in Mexico
> would make the evening news'.
>
>
> Really Robches? Think this event will feature everywhere and
> would if it was in any country with a free press.
>
> This scumbag has devastated many families whose loved ones are
> now lying motionless on mortuary trays.Kids lost their dads etc
> etc.Time to blame more and understand less.

I don't think so. Thousands of people die every year in Mexico due to drug violence, and it barely makes the news. The USA is the most powerful country in the world, what happens there makes the news. A hundred headless bodies being found in Mexico makes page 19.

Flat_Eric wrote:

> Robches wrote:
>
> > It takes a brave man to decide when rights are no longer
> > relevant. Is the right to self defence ever irrelevant?
>
>
> Nice deft movement of the goalposts there!
>
> Higher up you said that the right to bear arms is there because
> the founding fathers wanted citizens to be able to protect the
> newly-established USA against foreign powers.
>
> Now you're saying it's there for "self-defence".
>
> So which is it?
>
> Or do you seriously believe that a foreign invasion of the USA
> is conceivable today?

Self defence is an innate human right, but it doesn't mean much if the means to achieve it are banned. The reason the right to keep and bear arms was written into the US constitution was as I said. For the founding fathers, the idea of owning arms for self defence and indeed hunting would have been too obvious to have been mentioned, but the fact that the 2nd amendment was written was to ensure that a free people would be armed to defend their state.

Anyone offended by this is of course free to try and amend the constitution, that is an honest way to behave and has been done several times, but you cannot try and pretend the constitution does not say what it says.

Sam Slater wrote:

> [quote]If modern armies were so powerful Afghanistan would have
> been done and dusted long ago.[/quote]
>
> The reason Afghanistan isn't 'done and dusted' is because the
> war has never been fought on militaristic terms. People just
> don't tolerate Hiroshimas and Dresdens these days. We could
> turn Afghanistan into a dust bowl within hours if we had the
> inclination.
>
> Silly point.
>

Hardly. The war in Afghanistan shows that unless, as you seem to be saying, we use nuclear weapons, modern armies are hamstrung when faced with a motivated and armed resistance. President Assad no doubt felt very secure a year ago, now he his future looks distinctly rocky.. Mao wasn't joking, power comes through the barrel of a gun.

Sam Slater wrote:

> [quote]That wasn't what I said and is in fact a stupid and
> offensive comment.[/quote]
>
> Offensive my arse. We've debated gun ownership before, after
> the college shootings a few years ago. Remember? You're
> argument then was that the only way to defend against nutters
> entering college campuses was to let students carry weapons on
> campus.
>
> Today, you start your reply with: "It would seem the only
> person armed at the cinema was, sadly, the killer."
> i.e, it was sad that no one else in the cinema (mums & dads
> taking kids to watch batman) was armed. Just another way of
> saying "If only some of those mums & dads exercised their
> state's right to bear arms, this might have turned out
> differently."
>
> My remark was based on previous discussions and direct quotes
> from you. Sorry if you find your own logic so offensive, but
> that's a problem you have to take up with yourself.
>
> Unless you've changed your mind over the last year or so and
> now agree that America should work with the states to make it
> harder to own and carry guns.
>

I will leave your arse out of it, but your grasp of logic seems shaky. It is sad that a legally armed private citizen, or indeed a security guard or an off duty cop, was not in the cinema to stop this attack in its tracks. You seem to think that if places like college campuses pass laws banning guns, that somehow makes them safer. All it does is allow killers the knowledge that their victims will be defenceless. As soon as he met armed police this man gave himself up. I think it's sad that didn't happen sooner rather than later, I trust you would agree with that?

I'm puzzled Robches how you apparently think that allowing everyone and his dog to carry shooters somehow makes society safer. Because that's what you seem to be advocating.

Perhaps we should all go round with knives and nunchuks as well Robches - purely for "self defence" of course.

Tell you what - let's have no controls or restrictions at all on what people are allowed to own and carry on their person - much safer that way for everyone!

Following that "logic", perhaps you also believe that the more countries have nukes, the safer the world will be and the less likely that they'll ever be used?

Your argument that the sight of an armed lawman is enough to stop a spree killer in his tracks and meekly surrender is also flawed. We don't yet know the full story behind how this particular shooter was arrested, but many incidents of this nature end with the gunman shooting himself dead. Their intention from the outset is usually to go out with a bang, so the prospect of being shot by a policeman is neither here nor there in their thinking.

- Eric

Eric:

Sometimes these shooters kill themselves, sometimes they surrender, there is no reason to it, and no point looking for one.

As for ordinary people being allowed to arm themselves for self defence, you are no doubt referring to the ancient common law rights we all had to defend ourselves, until the advent of the Firearms Act 1920 and the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, since when violent crime has been abolished in Britain, because criminals, of course, are keen to obey the law.

Our armies don't need nuclear weapons to turn Afghanistan into a dust bowl. Conventional weaponry will suffice.

All we need is apathy about mass civilian deaths and a 'shoot first, ask questions later' attitude. The Taliban don't have to play by the same rules our armies do. I don't know why you can't see this.

[quote]I will leave your arse out of it, but your grasp of logic seems shaky.[/quote]

That's very easy to say - now show why.

[quote]It is sad that a legally armed private citizen, or indeed a security guard or an off duty cop, was not in the cinema to stop this attack in its tracks.[/quote]

And I'm telling you that if 10 protective parents in that cinema, who'd had little professional training with weapons, combat and coping with fear, adrenalin and immense hysteria, had pull out their guns and started firing who knows how many extra people would have been caught in the cross-fire. And even if the police showed up, how are a few coppers to know which of the dozen gunmen going crazy is the nutter? It would be chaos. Over 5% of soldiers' deaths in Afghanistan are attributed to friendly fire, and even more through accidents, and they're TRAINED soldiers.

What I pointed out last time we debated this, and which I'll point out again, is that 20 times more people die per year in America, from just accidents involving guns, than die from mass murder sprees like this. I'm talking Dad showing off with his kids, teenagers finding Dad's gun and acting an idiot, toddlers finding something in a shoe box under the bed, grandpa forgetting his gun's loaded as he sets about cleaning it on the porch.......thousands of deaths year after year after year. I don't even need to go into the murder rate.

[quote]You seem to think that if places like college campuses pass laws banning guns, that somehow makes them safer.[/quote]

Correctomundo! Would I want my daughter/son/niece/nephew on a campus where no one is armed (leaving them vulnerable to a nutter going mad with a gun) or a campus where everyone's young, hormonal, argumentative, drunk, high and sexed-up, but carrying a gun 'just in case'? Only a nutter would pick the second.

More guns to stop deaths by guns is utterly mental.

Sam Slater wrote:

> More guns to stop deaths by guns is utterly mental.


Agree 100%.

And Robches you didn't address my point above:

Following your own "logic", do you also think it's a good idea that besides guns, we should all be allowed to carry other weapons (knives etc.) ... strictly for "self defence" of course?

After all (and again I'm just following your "logic" here), wouldn't the freedom for anyone to carry knives help prevent knife crime?

And if not, why do you think that lots of people carrying guns is going to prevent gun crime?

- Eric