Another season, another massacre.  If anything demonstrates the cultural difference between the UK & US more than how one makes tea, it's gun control. And as usual, it's precipitated by another hideous harvest of human lives.

I can just about grasp the initial premise of owning one gun, but beyond that, I fail to understand how more guns save you better: especially in the face of overwhelming evidence that they don't.

I know there's no compromise to be achieved, no argument to be won. We've all lost.
 

The argument was lost after Sandyhook. If slaughtering children wasn't enough to force change then nothing would ever be enough.

The c+w fan demographic targeted is (or was) likely predominantly pro-gun.

Interesting.

There is that, but it seems the debate usually moves towards "well that's why we need guns, to defend ourselves"

Yeah I dunno. If someone set out to drive a stake through the 2nd amendment...

I read a pro-2nd Amendment article I am trying to find again, it said you're 3 times more likely to die in a massacre in Norway than the US (0.3 per 100,000 in US vs. 1.38 per 100,000 in Norway). Of course, it's the tens of thousands of non-mass-shootings which makes America so dangerous to be in (unless you believe this). I find this to be a sobering source of gun crime stats.

Breivik really messed up the argument for those who are anti-gun.

I agree that Sandy Hook was the inflection point and the NRA responded by saying it was a liberal hoax to take their guns. So that's that. I kinda wish some of the pictures of the aftermath would leak out to bring home the reality of the atrocity (but then as a parent I really, really don't want to risk seeing that).

I've tried to envisage what it would look like to revoke the 2nd Amendment. How would all those guns out there in the US get taken away? I expect there'd be a lot of police dead after gun-owners defend their 'rightful' property from seizure.

The milder option is to simply bulk up checks on new gun purchases. I really don't see why there is any resistance to this. It feels like you get a gun as the surprise in boxes of breakfast cereal.

With the Vegas shooter having a family history of psychopathy and crime, there should be no way he got hold of guns, let alone 40+ of them. Which militia was he a member of? 

Ugh, it all just seems to unfixable while the NRA lobby is so powerful.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/04/las-vegas-shooting-youtube-hoax-conspiracy-theories

As a practical matter this can be easily avoided. 1. Outlaw possession of certain types/quantities of guns, ammo and whatnot, with draconian financial and criminal penalties. 2. Provide an 'amnesty period' during which owners can surrender the items in question without penalty, and (perhaps) a small financial reward.

No need to go around breaking down doors, though cops are generally not shy about doing that and, if indicated, showing up at your door with all sorts of military hardware, robots, helicopters, armoured vehicles &such. Good luck winning a shootout, unless martyrdom is your idea of "winning".

One of the reasons that the Vegas situation has not resulted in any new laws is that even the most ardent anti gun activists could not conceive of a law that would have prevented the incident.  They even stated this publicly.

Probably you know that I am a big believer in private gun ownership and as stated earlier, arguing about it really never changes anyone's opinion one way or the other.

For me, the most confusing aspect of the situation is that if the guy's real goal was to kill a lot of people, he would have used an entirely different gun type and setup.  This is fairly common knowledge among even slightly experienced gun owners and he was not a beginner nor financially limited in his decisions.

Even the average 12 year old who has any gun experience knows this and anyone with even the slightest interest could read it on common internet forums, magazines or books on the subject.

To me there are still many unknowns about what really happened in that hotel room.

Harry

I think what you are missing in any attempt to repeal one of the "Bill of Rights" items is that these are considered "fundamental to human nature", not "Government approved".

If you take away any of these "fundamental rights", then they all are up for grabs and none matter at all.

I can go down the list of "fundamental rights" in the US constitution and find several items that I am not a big believer in - example - "Rights of the Press" are certainly an area that that is abused.

For better or worse, if one falls, they all fall.  If the people's right to own guns is taken away, then I have no interest in helping to protect their particular sensitive /  interesting "right" either.  Why would I care if they don't care about mine? 

Another point that is missing in the gun control discussion is that the best way to reduce gun sales is to not talk about it.  When Obama and Hillary were on the anti-gun war path, guns sold rapidly.  Now that we have a gun - friendly President and Congress - gun sales have declined sharply.






 

"if the guy's real goal was to kill a lot of people, he would have used an entirely different gun type and setup"

Yet somehow, he managed. American ingenuity.  (dance)

He used a semi-automatic rifle with a bumpstock, pretty effective by the looks of it.

Why should a normal person be allowed to own a semi-automatic rifle in the first place? There's no sensible reason why.

Perhaps Harry meant he should have used a belt-fed, tripod mounted HMG, or a grenade launcher?

That, for me, is the bottom line. Within a gun-owning culture, buy a small arm to 'defend' yourself, by all means. If you're a hunter, buy a rifle that maximises the chances of a quick, clean, kill; cool.  But where is any logic in allowing people to buy weapons and accessories that enable mass slaughter?  It's just contrary to common sense.

But it's not my gig.  If Americans want to facilitate the killing of each other en masse, all I can (or should) do is comment from the sidelines.

Harry, I respect your right to bear arms (though I would never vote for it for my country). I would just urge you to challenge the small print. The devil is always in the detail.

Murdering strangers with firearms is a human right in America, according to Harry.

We don't have a window into this guy's mind and who knows what he was thinking, but I think it unlikely he'd have had a head count clocking up as he was spraying bullets. Given he was unencumbered by financial burdens, wouldn't the easiest way to execute this atrocity be to buy a missile laden jet and carpet bomb the stadium? Or are jets not covered by the 2nd amendment? From his point of view, at least he would have been able to get away. Perhaps he derived some perverse pleasure from being there first hand. :(  I wonder how come it's guns that have become embedded in the subconscious as the armament of choice? Presumably, it's the portability and concealment properties that people like, and the bigger firearms have become more prevalent on the back of smaller arms becoming commonplace - essentially it's a penis measuring contest. Now, if penises had been the weapon of choice way back when, imagine the how the world would be today... I suspect Throb may well be the commander of the universe by now.






 

"I wonder how come it's guns that have become embedded in the subconscious as the armament of choice"

Throwback to the cowboy myth.

Cowboys were a myth?!

No, but many of their putative behaviors and alleged firearms prowess as portrayed in paperback novels and hollywood certainly are. In every red-blooded American male there lurks a small boy with a six-shooter. And a bump stock. There's a reason why "cowboy" has become an adjective meaning 'dangerously gung-ho jackass'. CF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_myth

"When the worst of humanity strikes, the best of humanity responds" -- Trump on Las Vegas shooting

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-social-media