Holy Gunfire Batman!

[Shoshino]

Contrary to quite widely held belief, certain firearms are still legal in the UK, to own a weapon a person must apply for a specific certificate for said weapon. You have the FAC (firearms certificate) and the SGC (shotgun certificate), to apply for a certificate you need to apply to a police station and then

demonstrate to the police that they have satisfactory security in place. They must also demonstrate that they have "good reason to possess" firearms and must produce such "good reason" for each individual firearm applied for.

An FAC only applys to a specific weapon, so you have to apply for, show cause and show that the weapon will be safely stored ("must be stored securely at all times so as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, access to the guns by unauthorized persons") for each firearm you wish to own. The SGC is similar but it allows ownership of any number of shotguns. Each certificate lasts for 5 years and must then be reapplied for, criminal convictions can prohibit gun ownership if the sentence was for more than 3 years the prohibition is for life, if less then it is for 5 years.

FYI: home security doesn't count as "good reason to possess"

So, farmers and hunters can easily obtain weapons suitable for their role.

Many weapons are prohibited by law

"prohibited weapon" covers a multitude of devices including, but not limited to, machine guns, rocket launchers, pepper sprays, semi-automatic and pump-action centrefire rifles, disguised firearms, grenades, torpedoes and "any firearm which either has a barrel less than 30cm in length or is less than 60cm in length overall" (the most common member of this last group is a cartridge loading pistol).

[Blades of Vanatar]

Originally Posted by Shoshino

FYI: home security doesn't count as "good reason to possess"

Is that according to British law or are you stating your opinion?

[Ineth]

Originally Posted by Paracelsi

Running to the law won't help with this kind of problem imo. Do you really think gun laws would actually deter someone who wanted to go on a killing spree?

Agree 100%.

Originally Posted by Paracelsi

They say the guy's apartment was loaded with traps, bombs and dangerous chemicals. If he couldn't use guns, he could have simply used those.

True, but even more important imo is the fact that gun control would not result in "he couldn't use guns" in the first place.

Cocaine and lots of other things are illegal, but still, anyone who is really determined to get them, can.
Someone who really wants to commit a massacre, and plans it for weeks, will be able to get a gun. In any country of the world. Gun control or not.

What gun control does, is punish those who do not commit crimes.

Also, consider the fact that there was already a localised form of gun control in place: Visitors were prohibited from carrying guns into the cinema.
What did that localised gun control accomplish? It made sure that those who did not indend to commit crimes had no guns on them (which they could have used to protect themselves in such a situation), while doing absolutely nothing to prevent the criminal from carrying out his murderous plans.

[Shoshino]

Is that according to British law or are you stating your opinion?

It is a valid educated opinion from a JP

edit:

sorry, JP means 'Justice of the Peace' otherwise known as a magistrate

Running to the law won't help with this kind of problem imo. Do you really think gun laws would actually deter someone who wanted to go on a killing spree?

You're kidding me right? I'll tell you what, I'll take a knife and attack a group of 100 people with it and see how much of a killing spree I manage before I'm restrained. likewise all those people who run from me are going to be so hurt from me... umm... threatening them with my knife...

Cocaine and lots of other things are illegal, but still, anyone who is really determined to get them, can.
Someone who really wants to commit a massacre, and plans it for weeks, will be able to get a gun. In any country of the world. Gun control or not.

seriously? you want to compare something which comes in the form of powder to a large metal object? ease of availability makes a massacre. Do you really doubt that there are people in the UK who would massacre others? we had the biggest gun rampage in years when Derrik Bird took a shotgun for a ride in his taxi and killed 12 people, Raoul Moat killed 1 and wounded 2 others.... these have been the biggest incidents in the UK since Dunblane and gun control got in serious view. You really want to be naive enough to tell me that if we didnt have the laws we have in the UK and people could own assult rifles and concealed handguns we wouldnt have daily shootings and armed robberys like in the US?

[T2Bruno]

What kind of gun control laws are there in Norway?

That just seems to be a reasonable point of comparison for the 'how affective are gun control laws for stopping a nutcase' argument. On the other hand, I think this comment:

What gun control does, is punish those who do not commit crimes.

is pure

Nobody needs an AK-47, I don't care what you do for a past time, and no one wants a neighbor with an AK-47. I really do not see how outlawing AK-47's and their ilk will punish anyone.

Seriously, there are already gun control laws for a reason. I think there should be more control (such as a ban assault/combat weapons, better licensing for handguns, etc.) but the main problem right now is the effective enforcement of existing gun laws and not allowing 'loop holes' like gun shows. That said, I don't know if existing gun laws would have kept the weapons out of Holmes hands.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Originally Posted by Shoshino

It is a valid educated opinion from a JP

edit:

sorry, JP means 'Justice of the Peace' otherwise known as a magistrate

Ok, I was just wondering where you were coming from. Though I disagree with the JP.

[Taluntain]

Originally Posted by Ineth

True, but even more important imo is the fact that gun control would not result in "he couldn't use guns" in the first place.

Cocaine and lots of other things are illegal, but still, anyone who is really determined to get them, can.
Someone who really wants to commit a massacre, and plans it for weeks, will be able to get a gun. In any country of the world. Gun control or not.

What gun control does, is punish those who do not commit crimes.

Also, consider the fact that there was already a localised form of gun control in place: Visitors were prohibited from carrying guns into the cinema.
What did that localised gun control accomplish? It made sure that those who did not indend to commit crimes had no guns on them (which they could have used to protect themselves in such a situation), while doing absolutely nothing to prevent the criminal from carrying out his murderous plans.

According to your logic then, the only place on Earth where more strict gun control would not work is the US. Because... because... why exactly? Because the NRA says so? Ease of access and availability of guns are the #1 reason why anyone can go on a shooting spree, anywhere. This guy managed to legally obtain the weapon and ammo with no questions asked. If a stricter check would have determined that he was unsuitable for gun ownership for whichever reason this could have played out in any number of other ways, but it never would have been anywhere as easy. And the harder something is to accomplish, the more likely it is to either fail or be noticed, or prevented, etc. But it all starts with the first step - preventing any lunatic from being able to walk into a shop and walk out with a convenient means for a massacre 5 minutes later.

[Ineth]

Originally Posted by Shoshino

You're kidding me right? I'll tell you what, I'll take a knife and attack a group of 100 people with it and see how much of a killing spree I manage before I'm restrained. likewise all those people who run from me are going to be so hurt from me... umm... threatening them with my knife...

It's not a joking matter.
See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_school_massacre

Originally Posted by Shoshino

seriously? you want to compare something which comes in the form of powder to a large metal object?

What's you're point? Are you claiming that illegal gun trade is impossible (or at least difficult)?
It's not. It's already flourishing right now, and more gun control will only make it more lucrative.

Originally Posted by Shoshino

ease of availability makes a massacre.

No, that's simply not true.

You have to differentiate:

A) Gun availability might make a difference in "normal" murders (e.g. husband finds wife cheating with another man, grabs the nearest weapon, and kills them) and spontaneous gang violence (members of opposing gangs cross paths, get into a fight, and grab the nearest weapons and start killing each other).
However,

1. it is plausible that many of those murders would still happen with another weapon, if a gun were not available as "the nearest weapon"
2. The "psychiatric evaluation required to possess his guns", which you reject above, would actually already provide the same result in many of those cases as full gun-control.

B) However, any case where someone has set their mind on committing murder (or even a massacre like in the case at hand), and plans it ahead for weeks, making guns illegal would do absolutely nothing to help.
They could easily get an illegal gun, and they could also easily come up with another weapon. (Knives, baseball bats, explosives, poison, toxic chemicals, arson, or simply sabotaging engineering structures or vehicles to collapse/malfunction while people are inside, to name a few - all of those are much easier to get/do than you might think.)

Originally Posted by Shoshino

Do you really doubt that there are people in the UK who would massacre others? we had the biggest gun rampage in years when Derrik Bird took a shotgun for a ride in his taxi and killed 12 people, Raoul Moat killed 1 and wounded 2 others.... these have been the biggest incidents in the UK since Dunblane and gun control got in serious view. You really want to be naive enough to tell me that if we didnt have the laws we have in the UK and people could own assult rifles and concealed handguns we wouldnt have daily shootings and armed robberys like in the US?

[the following also applies to some of your previous comments in this thread]

I think your attempts at trying to infer statistical trends from a mere sample size of 2 ('US' and 'UK') are not intellectually honest.

Even if we were talking about very simple and predictable statistical entities, such a negible sample size would be worthless - and we are in fact talking about whole societies, which are incredibly complex entities whose "behavior" is determined by a myriad of economic, social, political, ethnic, cultural, environmental, historical, and personal factors.

To put it more concisely: Introducing gun bans in the US, would not magically turn the US into the UK. It would still exhibit very different collective "behavior" - among them, most probably, its distictively high murder rate.
(You see, it is not just gun-related violence that is more prevalent in the US than in the UK - the same is also true for non-gun-related violence. There are simply many more things at play here, than your one-dimensional focus on gun availability suggests.)

Also, one thing that should have given you a clue that your conclusions of comparing the US and UK are not really ironclad, would be a look at some of the other Western societies out there.
Among the most prominent counter-examples, for example, are Canada and Switzerland: Both have very high gun availability (comparable to the US), and both have very low rates of gun-related violence (comparable to the UK).

[Taluntain]

Originally Posted by Ineth

They could easily get an illegal gun, and they could also easily come up with another weapon. (Knives, baseball bats, explosives, poison, toxic chemicals, arson, or simply sabotaging engineering structures or vehicles to collapse/malfunction while people are inside, to name a few - all of those are much easier to get/do than you might think.)

Same straw man arguments without paying any attention to what's already been written in this thread - how surprising.

If your above list was really so "easy", then any of what you're listing would be a viable alternative to guns for every Joe Crazy intending on going on a shooting spree. Guess what, it's not. Never has been. Doesn't happen. The ratio of mass knifings to mass shootings is probably 1 : 99. And the ratio of baseball bats, explosives, poison, toxic chemicals, arson, or simply sabotaging engineering structures being used by average Joe Crazy to kill people instead of using guns? Are you serious?

[T2Bruno]

... are you martaug?!?!?

[Splunge]

Originally Posted by Ineth

Also, one thing that should have given you a clue that your conclusions of comparing the US and UK are not really ironclad, would be a look at some of the other Western societies out there.
Among the most prominent counter-examples, for example, are Canada and Switzerland: Both have very high gun availability (comparable to the US), and both have very low rates of gun-related violence (comparable to the UK).

Canada? Umm, no. While the guns might theoretically be avaiable, there are a lot more restrictions than in the US. This article sums up the differences pretty well.

[Paracelsi]

I still believe that this is a unique case, since not all shooters have taken the time to painstakingly booby trap their apartment with home-made explosive devices or planned things as meticulously as this guy. But I also believe that improved gun control will have some effect (on the overall statistic) assuming it gets implemented properly. The last part is important since, like Ineth mentioned, people in the US are diverse. IMO this is one of the reasons why present gun control laws are not working as intended.

One of the things that always bothered me was how almost all shooters are loners. This makes it rather easy for them to go about whatever they were planning to do with no on else notice or caring, as is the norm, assuming they don't give themselves away by going drastically out-of-character. Instead of crying "improve gun laws" when apparently that has never worked (From the Onion - satire) they should start there. New gun control laws should include much more accurate background checks.

[Blades of Vanatar]

He was seen by his peers as sane. He fully planned this out. The guy was nuts. Just the kind of nuts that isn't readily apparent. Not every catastrophe is easily avoidable.

I am for tighter gun control as I think long-term, it will reduce murder rates and killing spree rates, but it won't eliminate them(Not saying that reducing is a bad thing...), but in this case, he probably would of eventually gotten his guns and did what he did. He would of gotten illegal firearms as compared to his store bought ones. If those of you that don't live here in the States think that it isn't very easy to get illegal firearms, you are in a dreamworld. You can get them at just about any Gun-show. And shows are in abundance. Stricter gun control will help long-term though. And it could of possibly prevented this as the risk of obtaining illegal guns might of gotten him nabbed by the cops...might of...and it might stop the next guy. Who knows...

[Taluntain]

I think the fact that it works all over the world is proof enough for anyone with half a brain to at least consider it and not reject it outright with lame NRA marketing reasoning. It doesn't prevent every nutcase out there from going on a killing spree, but compared to the US, the numbers are exponentially smaller. And trust me, it's not because the rest of the world somehow had a disproportionately smaller number of nutcases compared to the US. Again, it's all about what the nuts have easy access to. If the worst they can get their hands on is an axe or a knife they'll think a lot harder and a lot longer about using them. Guns are so attractive because the shooter gets to kill from a distance with zero chance of retaliation unless someone else happens to have a gun. Obviously, this is not the case with any melee weapons.

Certainly though, given the sheer number of ranged weapons in circulation and in private ownership in the US to bring about any major changes they'd have to go much further than in say Europe, because the circumstances and gun culture are vastly different here.

[Ineth]

Originally Posted by Taluntain

Same straw man arguments without paying any attention to what's already been written in this thread - how surprising.

The phrase "straw man arguments" is not indended to be used as a synonym for "arguments I don't like to hear", you know.

Originally Posted by Taluntain

If your above list was really so "easy", then any of what you're listing would be a viable alternative to guns for every Joe Crazy intending on going on a shooting spree.

Yes, I'm conviced they are.

Originally Posted by Taluntain

Guess what, it's not. Never has been. Doesn't happen. The ratio of mass knifings to mass shootings is probably 1 : 99.

Apart from the fact that I believe your numbers are quite exaggerated (consider gang violence)...

You're introducing a logical fallacy here.

The fact that guns are the first weapon of choice in most massacres, tells us nothing about whether or not those massacres would also be viable if guns were not available (and hence the assasins would have to revert to their second choice). Nothing.

Originally Posted by Taluntain

And the ratio of baseball bats, explosives, poison, toxic chemicals, arson, or simply sabotaging engineering structures being used by average Joe Crazy to kill people instead of using guns? Are you serious?

Quite so.

Which part exactly do you find difficult to imagine?

Explosives are probably the most difficult thing to acquire and use from that list, but still quite possible to get (can be home-made from household items, although not trivially).
It is noteworthy that in the case at hand, explosives were in fact available to the assasin.

Poison: Everything in this world is poisonous to humans if consumed in high enough amounts. There are plenty of things for which the lethal limit is small enough to make it possible to add it to people's food without them knowing it - including various houshold (cleaning) substances, and drugs you can get at the pharmacy.

Toxic chemicals which can fill a closed room in gaseous form and kill its inhabitants can, like explosives, be made from household items (although, again, you would have to know what you're doing).

Arson: Setting fire to a building while people inside are sleeping or locked in. (Used to be a historically very popular way to commit massacres before guns became cheap).

Sabotage: Getting a stage/tribune in a stadium/gymnasium to collapse under the load of many people by removing screws/dowels before the event, is entirely possible. So is sabotaging a car/bus so its breaks will fail.
In fact, destruction on a much larger scale would be plausible: For example, I once talked to a professor of civil engineering who explained to me that many large road bridges of a certain type could easily be weakened to the point that they would suddenly collapse during the next moderate windstorm - and this could be done (without being noticed) by a single person with no particular skills, and equipped with only a crowbar, a jab saw, and two or three hours of time. (I probably shouldn't reveal more details about this on the internet though... )

Originally Posted by T2Bruno

... are you martaug?!?!?

What is that, a user name? In that case, no, I'm new here.

Originally Posted by Splunge

Canada? Umm, no. While the guns might theoretically be avaiable, there are a lot more restrictions than in the US. This article sums up the differences pretty well.

Most differences highlighted in that article are either merely cosmetic ("10-rounds vs. 15 rounds"), or represent types of "gun control" on the Canadian side which do not focus on preventing people from getting guns, but merely make it easier for police to identify guns which were used to commit crimes.

Also note that I did not claim the US and Canada are identical in this respect.
Still, practical gun availability in Canada is much closer to the US than to Britain. If your theory of a one-dimensional relationship between gun availability and gun violence were correct, one would expect the latter to also be much closer to the US than to the UK, while the opposite is true.

The conclusion is that you simply can't deduce meaningful relations as a statistical layperson by comparing two single (hand-picked) aspects of a few (hand-picked) countries.

Originally Posted by Taluntain

I think the fact that it works all over the world is proof enough [...]

But that's the thing: This "proof" that "it works all over the world" simply does not exists.
You're conclusion is something you can only decude from looking at other countries, if
a) you don't care about statistical meaningfulness, and
b) you have already made up your mind about what the conlcusion should be in advance.

Not to mention that all of this doesn't even touch on another thing which hasn't really been mentioned much in this thread: The precedence of liberty and the constitution.
Unlike most European contries, the US is founded on the principle that coming up with a policy that you believe might potentially give some overall positive effect on society, doesn't automatically give you the right to trample millions of people's personal liberties in order to implement that policy. Personal liberties have a very high value in the constitution, and proposed restrictions on them should be backed up by very rigorous proof that the end justifies the means.

[Harbourboy]

I've only ever seen an actual gun in real life on one occasion, and that was strapped to a cop I saw in California once. In my whole life living here in New Zealand I have never seen, let alone touched a gun. Not surprisingly, gun related deaths in this country are so rare, they make front page news.

[Taluntain]

Originally Posted by Ineth

The phrase "straw man arguments" is not indended to be used as a synonym for "arguments I don't like to hear", you know.

Oh, I know, that's why I never use them as such.

Yes, I'm conviced they are.

Right. And the fact that these happen so rarely to be almost unheard of does not shake your conviction in the slightest.

Apart from the fact that I believe your numbers are quite exaggerated (consider gang violence)...

You're introducing a logical fallacy here.

The fact that guns are the first weapon of choice in most massacres, tells us nothing about whether or not those massacres would also be viable if guns were not available (and hence the assasins would have to revert to their second choice). Nothing.

Another straw man. We aren't discussing gang violence but mass killings by Joe Crazies. Actually, the logical fallacy is your inability to comprehend the fact that if you remove the means for easy ranged massacres, they become exponentially harder to pull off. By your reasoning, guns are somehow the only weapon on the planet that rational logic does not apply to. Where are your second-choice massacres in Europe? Or is your point that we don't have lunatics who want to kill other people here?

Quite so.

Which part exactly do you find difficult to imagine?

Explosives are probably the most difficult thing to acquire and use from that list, but still quite possible to get (can be home-made from household items, although not trivially).
It is noteworthy that in the case at hand, explosives were in fact available to the assasin.

Poison: Everything in this world is poisonous to humans if consumed in high enough amounts. There are plenty of things for which the lethal limit is small enough to make it possible to add it to people's food without them knowing it - including various houshold (cleaning) substances, and drugs you can get at the pharmacy.

Toxic chemicals which can fill a closed room in gaseous form and kill its inhabitants can, like explosives, be made from household items (although, again, you would have to know what you're doing).

Arson: Setting fire to a building while people inside are sleeping or locked in. (Used to be a historically very popular way to commit massacres before guns became cheap).

Sabotage: Getting a stage/tribune in a stadium/gymnasium to collapse under the load of many people by removing screws/dowels before the event, is entirely possible. So is sabotaging a car/bus so its breaks will fail.
In fact, destruction on a much larger scale would be plausible: For example, I once talked to a professor of civil engineering who explained to me that many large road bridges of a certain type could easily be weakened to the point that they would suddenly collapse during the next moderate windstorm - and this could be done (without being noticed) by a single person with no particular skills, and equipped with only a crowbar, a jab saw, and two or three hours of time. (I probably shouldn't reveal more details about this on the internet though... )

The majority of what you listed above are classified as terrorist activities. And I'm sure I don't need to point out to you how much harder any of those are to pull off undetected post 9/11. They pretty much don't happen without highly trained terrorist (group) involvement and even the great majority of those attempts are foiled before they can pull them off. I think that it's obvious enough that that is not in the same league as Joe Crazy taking 5, going to the gun store and coming back packing a gun and ammo to start his private crusade. This is without dissecting your list further, because at least half of what you listed is such fantasy that nobody is even attempting to do it because it's so unlikely to succeed. Try setting fire to a building undetected and before the building is evacuated. Try walking into any restaurant kitchen and start sprinkling poison on the food. Try figuring out how to structurally weaken anything without your structural engineer consultant reporting you the police. Etc.

But that's the thing: This "proof" that "it works all over the world" simply does not exists.
You're conclusion is something you can only decude from looking at other countries, if
a) you don't care about statistical meaningfulness, and
b) you have already made up your mind about what the conlcusion should be in advance.

Not to mention that all of this doesn't even touch on another thing which hasn't really been mentioned much in this thread: The precedence of liberty and the constitution.
Unlike most European contries, the US is founded on the principle that coming up with a policy that you believe might potentially give some overall positive effect on society, doesn't automatically give you the right to trample millions of people's personal liberties in order to implement that policy. Personal liberties have a very high value in the constitution, and proposed restrictions on them should be backed up by very rigorous proof that the end justifies the means.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. 'Nuff said.

(Of course, if someone has been indoctrinated into believing that their pudding simply tastes so much better because it leaves a bit of a sour aftertaste, no amount of common sense will convince them otherwise.)

[Arkite]

Originally Posted by Ineth

Also, consider the fact that there was already a localised form of gun control in place: Visitors were prohibited from carrying guns into the cinema.
What did that localised gun control accomplish? It made sure that those who did not indend to commit crimes had no guns on them (which they could have used to protect themselves in such a situation), while doing absolutely nothing to prevent the criminal from carrying out his murderous plans.

This is a moot point. Even if somebody had snuck a gun into the cinema, the killer had full ballistic body armour from head to toe.