UKH

This is so depressing and quite astonishing.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, however, said gun control would probably not have stopped the attack. 
He added that if a "crazy" gunman launched such an attack, there was no way that law enforcement officers could be there to stop it. 
"The best way is to be prepared to defend yourself," he told CBS News. 

Breaking News coming in right now of at least 7 more reported dead in yet another mass shooting in Ohio.

As you say depressing

Hardly astonishing is it, it’s depressingly routine, but it’s their choice, they know what the problem is, they know the solution, they chose to do nothing about it, they’re prepared to pay the price to keep their guns - let em get on with it, stupid arseholes.

With the volume of guns in the USA and the amount of unlicensed ones I'm not sure if they could disarm the population. Its not like over here where the vast majority of guns were registered.

This by the way is not me defending their gun culture, I just think its gone too far to do anything about it. 

There are probably too many guns out there to do anything quickly, but if the background atmosphere was changed by legislation to make "new" ownership much more restrictive, and things like gun amnesties were encouraged, and other initiatives that I'm sure people could think of, then in a generation the problem would be greatly reduced.

Not having a quick fix is not a good reason for ignoring the long term possibilities.

Having said all that though, the real problem is getting past the current NRA lobby etc so that a start can be made down that road. I don't hold out any hope of this happening anytime in the near future, so tragically, many more people will die unnecessarily in the USA from this kind of incident.

The country is sick. It depresses me how we’re opening ourselves up more and more of their culture. 

I have absolutely no idea how much ammo is floating around in general circulation, but, if you can't get rid of the guns, couldn't ammo sales be restricted?

Stereotype 327 million people in one fell swoop.

Way to go!

Yes, but at least they weren't stupid enough to vote in some tosser like Boris Johnson.

Ah...

How do you fix a problem ... well if you don’t start you’ll never fix it, and guess what, the yanks won’t even start, But hey, they’re not interested in our opinions so I’ll just stick to calling them arseholes.

I'd imagine there are preppers with enough to supply a small war for a few years! 

Boris was voted in by a tiny percentile of the population, not that that's any consolation 

Someone should ask him how many mass shootings have been stopped by armed bystanders? I'm no expert on this but I don't recall hearing of any, they mainly seem to end in being shot dead by the police, turning their gun on themselves when cornered or (as in this case) surrender.

It's fine, the pro-gun lobby has won the debate and a mere 10'000 murders a year is simply the price worth paying.

You could stop new ownership over night but it wouldn't do anything for the millions of guns out there. I don't see an amnesty working in the state's, a small % will be handed in but I suspect most will be from responsible owners rather than the dickheads and a lot of the responsible owners will want to hand on to them because they know how many dickheads there are out there who are armed. 

I agree fully, I just can't see a long term fix that won't make things worse before they get better. 

This is probably the best option, yes it will get smuggled in but if legitimate purchase was licenced and limited I think it would help.

Edited to add. 

Just been looking it up and so far in 2019 there have been 251 mass shootings in the US. (defined as 4 or more people). I don't have clue 1 what the answer is but I hope someone sussed it out soon. 

Latest FCO travel advice:

"It is advised against all except essential travel to the US due to the continued elevated incidence of mass shooting throughout much of the country. Those needing to travel should avoid public places of commerce, education and worship."

... if only.

I have chatted to Americans who say that the first port of call should be better enforcement of the existing laws. Seems like a reasonable start to me!

Where was this advice issued? Can't see it on their website

... if only.

But then you get incidents like the recent one where a women died after being shot by a police officer who was trying to shoot a dog (not sure if it was hers, officer certainly wasn't sure at time of shots).

So is there trust of correct use of weapons by the police in the USA. Difficult for people to give up their arms if they've no confidence in the police.

This has been suggested before; make bullets $1000 each. If you are defending your family or your home, a few bullets are all thats needed; who cares what the cost. It just would stop people having hudreds of them (such as that chap who opened fire on the music festival in vegas a while back......).

Unfortunately while people are willing to come out with the sort of stuff reported in the OP whilst in a osition of authority and influence, there's little hope. I also read a report this morning saying that soemthing like 80% of the worlds privately held guns are in the USA, and th only country that comes close to the US in terms of private gun ownership is Yemen, and they have their own unique issues at present.

Problems with restricting bullets is that there are almost certainly too many people out there who make their own, or at least have the means to. So there would be a massive black market and restricted supply would probably only affect responsible gun owners, leaving the criminal and the "crazy" with just as much ammo as before.

As long as you are sending thoughts and prayers i really wouldn't sweat it.

I'm sure we would have heard of any of these cases as they would, unfortunately*, bolster the case for private gun ownership. The NRA and the like would surely make a big thing of this.

*Unfortunate for the case for the reduction of privately-help weapons, not unfortunate that a shooter has been stopped/people saved.

A tragic event (again) which makes Trump's comments about lawless London look even more pathetic and unworthy.

I recall from a TV program a few years back that the American police were less likely to shoot and were better at containing situations where firearms were involved than the UK police. I think it was the I think it was a ratio of fatal police shootings per firearms incident. That said, there are so many firearms 'incidents' in the US that a huge number of people end up be killed and they do get a lot of practice.

Well that just proves that not enough people carry semi-automatic weapons as a matter of routine in case they run into this sort of episode, surely?

jcm

The reality is that trying to shoot accurately with a hand gun, when someone is trying to shoot you and you are terrified for your life is not easy. I am quite a good shot with a handgun, when I'm standing still, controlling my breathing and squeezing the trigger gently. As soon as I start to move it's hopeless, the bullets can be way off target and that's without someone with an armalite rifle trying to kill me. I think there are plenty of individuals in power in the US, including the current president, who think they would turn into some movie hero when the bullets start flying. The reality is, and this is totally understandable, they would probably wet them selves and start crying like most people in this situation and holding a gun you can't hit anything with would just make you even more of a target.

Of course because if there are zero guns about then obviously there are still going to be mass shooting. (Head slap)

Well he has a point they have poor record on the last however many.

Which begs the question, in a country where every man and his dog has a gun, why the shootings happen? How many centuries does it take for a country full of guns to learn how to defend themselves and stop these shootings in their tracks. I am sure Ken Paxton could elaborate on all of this

They could have a paid amnesty, even 10,000 dollars per gun would be worth it. And affordable for America.

The amnesty would have to also include the license.

Not sure how accurate that is. Wiki gives 30.4 police killings per 10 million of population for the USA, with only 0.2 for the UK. Not sure how that equates per incident, but given the standard of weapons training for the average US cop vs firearm specialists in the UK I think it very unlikely the number of police shootings per incident is higher in the UK.

That would cost 5 trillion dollars for them all. 

Indeed, but her being armed wouldn't have stopped it!

There is a whole raft of things which need to change, but enforcement of current laws might be a good start!

Probably countered by the number of times they shoot people for no good reason at all.

It's an amnesty. I wouldn't expect everyone to trade in at once. Maybe those who would be seen as a bit idealogical would keep their guns because they love them so much that they make a cash valuation.

Also the amnesty would only be available at short notice for three days. In order to concentrate minds not create a shitty market.

Jon Sopel's (BBC Washington Correspondent) book, 'If only they didn't speak English' is worth a read in trying to understand the USA at the moment.

He devotes a few pages to the gun issue. His conclusion is that due to historical, geographical and political reasons the chances of the Americans restricting their gun use is practically zero. It will not matter how many people die. 

Furthermore, the increasing rise in a belief in conspiracy theories, for example that Sandy Hook never really happened, clouds reality for an increasing number of people to the point where they don't know what is true and what is false. 

These are dark matters, that make me want to take the high ground again. To walk amongst the clear pools and rushing water amidst the granite spires and climb up amongst the cathedrals of the sky and leave all this stuff behind. 

Heart in the Highlands

I watched "The NRA's Global Impact" from the Patriot Act on Netflix. It was interesting, and argues how America's gun problem affects us all. The NRA is an incredibly evil organisation.

Apparently, illegal guns are quite easy to get hold of in the UK, but the ammunition is much harder to get hold of and significantly more expensive.

Bizarrely Trump - for once - may have got this right, when he describes it as a 'mental health issue.' Can't see his right-wing hang'em supporters being very pleased with the legal implication of that though. Still, the perpetrator  was white so unlikely to be executed anyway.

No.  He's just using the standard Fox News classification system.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClIuZ76UkAAoFxE.jpg

Zero guns isn't practically achievable though. Ignore all the constitutional-right guns and the sporting guns, all of which could with enough political capital be removed from society over time then you're left with the guns which could reasonably be defined as essential tools of a trade, those held by criminals and those in a greyer area, tucked away in drawers and attics long forgotten, almost certainly that's still tens of millions.

It's easy to see how with the NRA breathing down the neck of anyone proposing even minor reform and faced with this depressing reality fatalism sets in. Ignoring the issue and accepting a daily mass murder becomes the price of a political career since any step in the right direction will be widely unpopular, heavily opposed and won't yield demonstrable results for decades if at all taken in isolation.

jk

An intuition defying point.  Bullets are so small and easy to smuggle, one would imagine,

Then again I could probably make a serviceable gun with several workshop facilities I could access, and I might be able to home-convert a “replica”.  On the other hand, I don’t have any metal casting facilities, and I’m not keen to try making my own black powder, nor even to buy the ingredients online - the fun home chemistry experiments of the 1980s now seem to fall under terrorism laws...

And I suspect - though I'm no expert - that if you tried using black powder as a propellant in a modern firearm, the results would be...suboptimal, at best.

Maybe it's the underworld version of inkjet printers; they sell you the equipment cheaply, and clean you out on the consumables?

True.  Wintertree, Sr had a collection of muzzle loaders including a 6-shot muzzle loading revolver.  13 year old me was disappointed by the lack of trust shown by the chemists when I went shopping for my home-cured-bacon experiments.

I don’t actually know how much overlap there is between firearms and ammunition manufacturers.  The modern business trend is definitely towards slow drip supply of consumables however...

If you've never made ammunition by hand you should try it - It actually takes quite some time to make. And you have to get supplies of primers, bullets, and the explosive substance to propel said bullets in the first place. Plus you need the equipment to put it all together.

If ammo sales were restricted, and to get further supplies you had to hand in the empties, then that in itself would drastically reduce the number of people with the capability to go "off the reservation".

Incidentally the amendment to the USA Constitution actually only gives the right to bear arms "as a member of a properly constituted militia" or some such phrase. If these people were forced to either be in, and be subject to checks for said militia, then surely the crazies would never be allowed in, and hence would no longer have a "right to bear arms".

I absolutely do not believe that. Our armed police are much more highly trained and are only deployed with firearms to incidents which justify the deployment of firearms (to my knowledge, and obviously excepting high-visibility armed patrols).I Ifthe argument is that you're less likely as a criminal to be shot by the police in the USA than here, that's probably because if you're on the receiving end of the armed police here you're probably yourself armed.

You only have to look at a handful of YouTube videos to see the difference in approach and the difference in competence. Ditto the Armed Forces.

Yes. It wouldn’t be hard to create a register with the aim to have all firearms registered and licensed. Maybe over a 10 year period. All gun sales and exchanges go on the register. Prosecute people who have unregistered guns after 2029, and anyone who sells a gun without a licence to sell, immediately.

I don't know the answer, but it seems that if you're an armed bystander and happen to be black, there is not insignificant chance you also end up being shot by the police

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/ej-bradford-jemel-roberson-poli...

Absolutely!

And of course couple that with the fact that in a mass shooting, if you then took out a handgun to try and kill the shooter, someone else with a gun will see you and think you are the shooter. It'll end up in a massive western style shoot out!

The good guys will win though. There’s always a hero at the end. 

18 months ago:  youtube.com/watch?v=fOCF9nCeRtg&  (Skip forward to 1:25)

Neither were we to be fair, 160,000 delusionists managed that task.

I do agree with that.

Even in the UK you don't have zero gun ownership.

Hard to find any heroes in the gun debate. Has there ever been a good guy shooter?

Less guns is possible though. The Australian experiment in buying back guns removed 57,000 weapons from circulation and gun injuries, suicide, homicide, mass killings went down. No proof of causality is possible but, yeah.

Small steps can be good. The NRA oppose anything of course but the economics of gun buy-back are outside their control. Especially if safeguards are made about what kinds of guns are being bought back so that people don’t take the piss and the highest risk weopnry is most effectively targeted.

How do you defend yourself when someone shoots you in the back while you're doing your weekly shop?

Most Americans think their country is sick. They would like to be better. 

It really is unbelievable how naive he is.

Stereotype about 300 million people in one fell swoop.

I find it ironic that usually the guy (invariably it’s a young man) shoots himself, or is shot by the government  agents (police) that everyone seems so afraid of losing their rights to. 

I wonder if the gunman was saying ' send them back, send them back', in his head whilst he shot all those poor people. 

They've closed 8chan down now - which should definitely help stop gun crime.

F**king idiots !

Yes, that's right I think. Although I suppose from the authorities' point of view, you lose or give up your rights when you take out a gun in public and start blasting away at people with it? Just thinking / wondering I'm no lawyer

Have they or has their security firm decided to drop them because they can do without that kind of publicity?

Cloudflare blocked them.  But ..... my point being that they'll blame anything - other than their stupid gun laws.

Cloudfare said they would almost certainly get the same services from someone else very soon (as previous extremist customers they had dropped did).

"Most" doesn't have to be 300 million. It could be less than that. You have to have more than one attribute to become a stereotype. If, as I guess, most Americans are ashamed of Trump and full of anxiety about lack of gun control, that doesn't suggest they are conforming to a stereotype, or that I think they are. 

The sort of people who attend Trump's rallies, who chant "send her back", "lock her up", or call out "shoot them!", when Trump asks what is to be done about migrants, now that's a stereotype. 

youtube.com/watch?v=jt5dzCd1pJQ&

https://mobile.twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1158426842862432256?ref_src=...

Murdoch's news and Trump encourages white supremacist terrorism?

I think it absolutely right that 8chan has shut down. That doesn't mean it should be used as an excuse by the gun lobby to prevent any restriction on gun ownership.

If 8chan had been the preserve of Islamic radicals it wouldn't have lasted a week.