And to compund it he had Oprah Winfrey on the phone - I think the Police made sure he had no friearms before he took that particualr call.
There are almost as many guns in America as there are people, yet when it comes to gun related murders, the United States is only 28th highest in the world. In countries like Israel and Switzerland, almost every household has a weapon, yet gun related crime is almost unheard of. Clearly, limiting the availability of weapons is not the simple answer many would have you believe it is. I very much doubt that any legislation imaginable would have prevented the terrible tragedy which occurred in Newtown recently.
Some US cities are up there with Venezeula and South African though for having high murder rates. Baltimore in Maryland is one example, it has a murder rate of 43 per 100,000 people...blamed in part to high unemployment and a serious drugs problem. And no doubt on the availability of shooters.
We had a case here in the north east of England recently where a guy has gone on the rampage with a shotgun and shot dead three or four members of his immediate family. All this when he was heavily under the influence of alcohol. The police had had numerous opportunities to withdraw this person's licence and weapons previous to the incident but did not act (for which they are currently undergoing a police complaints procedure I believe, the useless bastards). I'm sure most countries with high murder rates are down to robberies/muggings/gang shootings as opposed to the type of incident above. The UK has a low murder rate and that in part has to be down to the lack of guns on the streets. Long may it continue.
"Parents of children at the Sandy Hook school have visited a gun store asking to buy weapons for protection in the wake of the shooting. One gun shop owner in Newtown reported that a couple had been in his shop looking for something to help safeguard their family. Sales of weapons have soared in the wake of Friday's shooting, according to anecdotal evidence from stores." **** sake. Always knew Americans were thick but this sums them up. Stock up your houses with guns to protect yourself, the very same thing the mum of the shooter did. See where it gets you. Great idea
UK population ~65million - ~300 gun deaths a year USA population ~300million - ~30,000 gun deaths a year
I was just about to say the same thing. Even as Obama was on TV in front of the nation bawling his eyes out claiming he'd do everything in his power to prevent this sort of sh1t happening again the dumb chumps were flocking to their local gun shops to stock up on more weapons. I suppose they think that if they all had a gun then the shooter wouldn't have been able to pop off as many shots without being killed himself. The fact that you wouldn't have a load of junior school teachers packing 9mm pistols and therefore no difference at all would have been made has passed them by. Just a bunch more guns in the hands of careless idiots in the name of upholding their constitutional rights. It will be tomorrow's chip papers as far as the US are concerned. No change will be made and this won't be the last time some loser goes postal and wipes out a load of innocent people. Have a go at google or wiki and search for USA gun massacres and the list goes on a while, this is nothing particularly new over there.
Obviously I never wish this on kids, it's a tragedy, but after reading about it this morning I almost felt like they deserve whatever comes their way (parents, not the kids) for taking such a ****ing idiotic stance on the subject. They've just watched 20 young kids get massacred and think the logical and most sensible thing to do is stock up on yet more guns and ammo, no doubt leaving them around the vicinity of some lunatic kid who'll go on to do the same thing in a few years time. Some people are so mentally challenged they just can't be helped. The Yanks are one them
I think you can add the ethnic element in London/Manchester/Liverpool etc to this list. Guns are ten a penny in Harlesden/Tottenham/Moss Side/ Toxteth etc and it is now deeply entrenched in the youth of today that dying from a bullet is all part of gansta life. These mugs glorify the likes of 50 Cent and getting shot is considered an occupational hazard. Stuff like Dunblane is thankfully rare but Winston being shot by his drug dealing rival M'Butu happens every week and we hardly bat an eyelid. A mate of mine in Serious Crimes tells tales of what the gangs do to each other that would curl your toes. What doesn't get reported is frightening.
If i was in the cinema that got attacked with a side arm dare say i would`ve taken the **** out or at least join in .....
I just read a few statistics about American gun ownership and there was one part about the area surrounding this school. There are 36 registered gun dealers within 10 miles of it. That's shops and private dealers. On the day of the massacre, Americans attempted to buy 154,000 guns and in the month of November there were over 2 million gun sales. That's a little excessive.
It's interesting to see the difference in reaction to mass shootings in the US and mass shootings in countries with tough gun laws like Norway and Germany
Don't go using Israel as an example as it is totally incomparable. Preventing the Israeli population turning the guns on eachother is one thing the Israeli government seem quite good at "There are only a few tens of thousands of legal guns in Israel, and the only people allowed to own them legally live in the settlements, do business in the settlements, or are in professions at risk of violence. Both countries require you to have a reason to have a gun. There isn't this idea that you have a right to a gun. You need a reason. And then you need to go back to the permitting authority every six months or so to assure them the reason is still valid. Switzerland has also been moving away from having widespread guns. The laws are done canton by canton, which is like a province. Everyone in Switzerland serves in the army, and the cantons used to let you have the guns at home. They've been moving to keeping the guns in depots. That means they're not in the household, which makes sense because the literature shows us that if the gun is in the household, the risk goes up for everyone in the household. In Israel, it used to be that all soldiers would take the guns home with them. Now they have to leave them on base. Over the years they've done this -- it began, I think, in 2006 -- there's been a 60 percent decrease in suicide on weekends among IDS soldiers. And it did not correspond to an increase in weekday suicide. People think suicide is an impulse that exists and builds. This shows that doesn't happen. The impulse to suicide is transitory. Someone with access to a gun at that moment may commit suicide, but if not, they may not. Israel rejects 40 percent of its applications for a gun, the highest rate of rejection of any country in the world. And even when you get approved, "all guns must have an Interior Ministry permit and identifying mark for tracing." That seems like it might make people think twice before they shoot from a gun they know the government can track. Israel is not a peaceful society. If there were a lot of guns, it may be even more violent. Israeli schools are well known for having a lot of the kicking and punching type of violence. I don't know that Switzerland has that reputation. But Israel does, and it seems that the lack of guns promotes the lack of firearm violence rather than there being some nascent tendency toward peacefulness and cohesion. That cohesion may or may not exist, but not having guns prevents guns from being used in violence. I don't know what other countries have, but I've read about suicide in Israel, and it's striking there, because there's an age discrepancy. Between ages 18 and 21, when people are in the army and have access to guns, firearm suicide is very common. At other ages, strangulation is very common. So it does seem to suggest that people commit suicide with what they have access to even in the same society. "
It's a simplistic idea, but won't this kind of thing help with the over-population of the world? It makes no sense for medical science to keep us all alive longer if the human race is spreading across the globe like locusts, unchecked. It's going to take a fair few 'nutjobs' to make any real difference in the grand scheme of things, but 'every little helps'
