'everybody Has To Have Guns....'

[agchristie]

Eagles of Death frontman says....

'Until nobody has guns everybody should have guns'

How irresponsible is this comment?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/eagles-of-death-metal-frontman

[andy-hughes]

Clanad - //As a "gun- obsessed American" I had a good conversation with two of our deputy-sheriffs here in rural western U.S. Regardless of one's own beliefs concerning gun ownership, one of the deputy's was especially insightful when he commented that "... a gun in one's hand is far better than a police-officer on the phone..."

Providing that sight of it does not provoke another citizen enjoying the freedom to carry arms into shooting you while you are not looking!

And assuming (wrongly, obviously!) that everyone has restraint, courtesy, care, and inherent nobility, and it never going to loose off a few rounds after getting cut up on the freeway, or a bad day at the office.

Face it - guns and basic human nature are a lethal mix.

[jim360]

The problem Clanad is that the US is just so radically different in terms of gun culture that trying to draw correlations between gun laws and others is already fraught with danger long before you consider the statistical questions. Not least among the problem of considering the question is that "gun crime" ought to be split at least into two separate categories, only one of which involves the criminals that the Eagles of Death frontman and NRA seem so concerned with trying to stop. Moreover, this is also the less deadly part of gun crime, it seems.

So far, 2016 has seem well over 1,500 Americans die as a result of gun-related crimes. Most of these cases were single-victim incidents. Almost all of the ones with higher death tolls arose as a result of family disputes, including a tragic case in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia that saw a son snap as he was told about some changes in living arrangements and gun down three generations of his family; parents, grandmother and siblings, before finally turning the gun on himself. Another incident saw three people die in a graveyard as they were visiting the murderer's wife's grave. A further case involved another set of domestic disputes, probably also related to mental health issues. And so on.

Indeed, few of the most serious gun-related incidents this year appear to have involved traditional crime. I haven't been able to categorise them all yet, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if the death toll from violent, premediated crime is only around half of the total number of deaths. But it seems that these are the ones that dominate the headlines, prompting Americans to adopt a "good guy, bad guy" mentality that the NRA exploits. Unfortunately, the more people who own guns, the easier it is for apparently random acts of violence and rage lead to large body counts.

Overall, the message that guns make people safer is seriously misleading.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp-6-dead-in-chesapeake-murder-suicide-20160128-story.html

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/01/02/at-least-3-people-dead-in-shooting-at-ontario-cemetery/

http://www.times-standard.com/general-news/20160213/police-3-dead-in-shooting-over-apparent-domestic-dispute

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Troopers-Unclear-why-Colonie-cop-killed-family-6823480.php

[andy-hughes]

jim - the voice of reason as always - and backed up with some evidence.

Hats off!

[jim360]

I should say that I got around to starting this research because of a post I saw from an American friend of mine -- someone who, to say the least, enjoys his guns. The gist of it was a celebration of the less than two months of open-carry laws in Texas and how, so far, this has not led to utter chaos. How nice, I thought -- and I'm sure the 130 people who've been shot dead in Texas since the start of the year would agree with that.

Reading about that Chesapeake case the first time it was hard not to shed a tear or two. Cases like that should make anyone sad. The indifferent response of Americans to such cases should make everyone angry. NRA propaganda, it seems, is very effective at burying the truth that your own guns are more of a danger to your safety than criminals (and their guns) are.

[Clanad]

As I suspected, jim360, when scanning the articles you've attached, on thing connects them all and that's the mental state clearly present in each.

Look, I understand that Europeans in general and perhaps Brits in particular have found a way of ceding their safety and responsibility to the gendarmes which hasn't happened here in the U.S. I do read articles concerning Britain that describe the multitudes of privately owned weapons that hidden in walls and other places that could come close to the ratio of privately owned, legally purchased guns here in the U.S. , but I have no way of knowing for sure.

One fact is clear though, there are mental condition factors in many killings that are not gun related. It's only been a few days that a man with a machete attacked several people, killing two, as I recall... so I guess we should restrict ownership of all knives over a certain length... how about lengths of1 inch galvanized pipe, with which another individual killed his family?

The list goes on, but the one thing that's sure is that when the U.S. decided over 20 or thirty years ago to close down mental hospitals in favor of new drugs that were coming available, the murder rates increased significantly...

I do find a puzzling statistic here :http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes-per-1000 though in that Total Crime in the U.K. is 109.56 per 1,000 while in the U.S., it's only 41.29... Violent crime is much more of a statistical spread however, in favor of the U.K.

[Old_Geezer]

The point is that, longer term, it is far better to remove guns from the whole of society. That, that, makes any short termism regardless how good a soundbite it is, of little consequence in the grand scheme of things.

[Clanad]

OG, have a plan on how to do that?

Look, it's a cliche' but true none-the-less that when guns are outlawed only the outlaws will have guns.

I suspect, even in dowdy old England that the Mafia (or other criminal sector) have access and ownership of all the guns they deem necessary, no?

[Old_Geezer]

I think that ceding their safety and responsibility to the gendarmes is the wrong way to look at it. It's more a case of removing the threat, or at worse minimising it, in the first place.

[Clanad]

That link should read: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes-per-1000 ...

[Old_Geezer]

I'm not going to work out the details for you but the way to go would be along the lines of making firearms licensable, ensure it is difficult to get a licence and the applicant needs a good reason other than "I want to shoot other people who may or may not potentially threaten me ", put in scheme for folk to hand in firearms, ensure any found that are not properly licensed are destroyed, and weather the storm until the supply in your society dries up. I'll leave the details up to your politicians.

[andy-hughes]

Clanad - //It's only been a few days that a man with a machete attacked several people, killing two, as I recall... so I guess we should restrict ownership of all knives over a certain length... how about lengths of1 inch galvanized pipe, with which another individual killed his family? //

Your argument is the standard rebuttal used in this argument, but remember, unlike knives, machetes and piping, the specific purpose of carrying a gun outside a shooting range, is to have the potential to shoot people. Everything else has one or more purposes, the gun has only one purpose and that is to propel a piece of lead at lethal velocity into a target, and in the mentioned scenarios, that target is another human being.

[andy-hughes]

Old_Geezer - " ... I'll leave the details up to your politicians. //

And that is where the problem begins and ends.

The amount of money and political pressure invested in keeping gun manufacture going means that no politician of any party is ever going to try and get guns banned. Obama's rather wimpy speeches on the subject are the closest any president has come to saying something for decades, and another Republican president would say nothing at all, as the Bushes didn't.

To effect a change in anything in a nation, you need the will of the people, and the government.

For guns in America, you have neither.

[jim360]

I'm not going to hide the mental health aspect of those cases, Clanad, and certainly it's an issue that also requires vastly more attention than the US (and the UK, for that matter) tends to give it. That doesn't stop the point though that the worst thing you can give to someone with mental illness is easy access to a deadly weapon that is very difficult to defend against except if someone else happens to have a similar weapon -- and of course their own mental state may not be brilliant. Such people are a danger to themselves and others, and the (relative) ease of access to guns only accentuates this while having a relatively minimal impact on protecting oneself from others.

A further complicating factor in the US is, of course, that guns are already prevalent (in some states I think it's probably at least one gun per person already) so that gun control measures are only really effective if you start trying to get back some of the guns from the public. This is highly unrealistic, to say the least -- and so the issue will certainly drag on for many decades to come. In the meantime any kind of measure appears to promote a backlash. What's wrong with, for example, prohibiting the sale of weapons that certainly can't be referred to as for "defensive" purposes, ie assault weapons? Or why is the NRA so desperate to suppress any kind of background checking? Such measures only have to save one life or so in order to have been worth a little bit of inconvenience.

[andy-hughes]

jim360 - //Or why is the NRA so desperate to suppress any kind of background checking? Such measures only have to save one life or so in order to have been worth a little bit of inconvenience. //

You and I both know the answer to that question - anything that may prevent a citizen from paying money to own a gun has to be suppressed, no matter what the motivation or the potential to save a life.

[jackthehat]

To kill someone with a machete you have to 'get up close and personal' and the number of victims will be limited because they will, hopefully be able to, run away.
Not so with a gun where you are only limited by the amount of ammunition you are carrying.

[melv16]

Gerry Fitt the Northern Ireland politician had to endure several attempts on his life. In an interview some years ago he said every country in the world has idiots, the problem with NI is that our idiots have guns.
The answer is to keep idiots and guns separate. The common sense approach would be to have vigorous back ground checks. The cost of this should be on the license fee. BTW, do you need a licence to own a gun in the US?

[jim360]

Probably depends on the state (another issue in the US -- probably a good deal of the opposition to gun control is that it's often attempted nationally, and Americans hate their federal government almost as much as they love their guns).

[Clanad]

Background checks... gottum
Assault weapon (fully automatic) banning gottum
Gun licensing... gottum

Someone has badly misled Jim360, andy-hughes and others concerning lack of control on guns.

All of the above are required before assuming ownership of a gun. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is in charge of background checks for all licensed Federal Firearm Licensees (FFL) (Seen here: http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Your-Federal-Firearms-License )

The NRA fully supports this program, but does not support its expansion to include private sales.

Question for each of you... do you really suppose a criminal intent upon getting a gun is going to go to a FFL for his/her gun? I don't think so either...

As to melv's "up close and personal" observation... I'd beg to differ simply by reading each of the links that Jim360 has posted... each one of the murders was as up close and personal as you can get... I'm sure the perpetrator was splattered and not with mud...

[Clanad]

Lastly, having read the actual statement from Mr. Hughes, it sounds well reasoned and thoughtful... seen here:

Hughes told iTELE that he's been unable to control his emotions since the attacks.

"I haven't had any nightmares and I've slept fine but when I'm awake is when I see things that are nightmares," he said.

Asked if the trauma he and others experienced has changed his views on gun control, Hughes, co-founder of the band, said he believes everyone should be armed.

"I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe until nobody has guns everybody has to have them. Because I don't ever want to see anything like this ever happen again and I want everyone to have the best chance to live and I saw people die that maybe could have lived," he said.

"I wish I knew for sure if they could have had a better chance because there were some real angels, real wonderful people in that show that aren't alive today and I really wish they were."

To my recollection over 130 people died during the Paris terrorist attack. I would have hated standing there helpless as people were falling all around...

[Peter Pedant]

// I do read articles concerning Britain that describe the multitudes of privately owned weapons that hidden in walls and other places that could come close to the ratio of privately owned, legally purchased guns here in the U.S. , but I have no way of knowing for sure. // Clanad

blimey i dont !
( read about concealed guns in walls etc - I mean 'concealments' are well known in England but have completely different significance and never include guns ( usually single shoes or small items such as scent bottles )

Clearly unlicensed guns would have to be concealed in the UK
and someone must have estimated the number of unlicensed guns here.

2 million gun licences issued in the UK fora population of 60m
compared to 200 million in the land of the free

so to get up to american ownership levels there would have to be 58 million unlicensed guns here

well OK not everythign you read on AB makes sense