At the risk of agreeing with some of the very people I can't stand - the presence of guns in a society is not [ia posteriori[/i evidence of wide-scale gun violence. Canada has enough firearms in circulation to win half-a-dozen world wars and yet, despite its proximity to the States, doesn't suffer anywhere near the same number of casualties.

Americans have always feared the untrammeled violence of the state and widespread circulation of firearms was meant to discourage anyone from curtailing those freedoms many of their European ancestors didn't enjoy. I think the fear was and remains reasonable and so was the solution. That said, whilst prior to WWI citizen militias could probably hold their own against armies of the state, pitted against satellite imagery, Apache "Longbow" helicopters and Hellfire missiles it's doubtful the Minutemen could offer anything more than token resistance.

It's very difficult to argue for gun ownership in Britain without keyboards being tossed into the air in horror and mothers ushering their kids out of the room. Invariably the response is [i"Guns kill people, duh!"[/i and before long one or more people are being labeled Nazis. If you are lucky enough to get beyond first base and point out that against the British state we have almost no means of defence should we need it the reply then is something along the lines of [i"We're not likely to"[/i. Given this country's long and bloody history in addition to the huge number of problems which have broken on us or are about to (the current economic malaise, the far greater one when this last debt bubble we've created implodes on us, global warming, peak oil, global shortages of water, food and other finite resources, overpopulation etc.) I'd say this is a naive assumption.

Why it is that there is almost complete unanimity on the question of guns in society is an interesting question. After all, alcohol has always been a far bigger killer than firearms in Britain yet you don't see 95% of people arguing to ban it. I think it's no-coincidence that the government and the media combined (in one of those rare moments when both sing exclusively from the same hymn sheet, which should be suspicious in itself) to hit guns when they were at their weakest post-Hungerford following decades when civil unrest was a major political issue (the miners' strike, Poll Tax etc.)

Returning to the US, I'd argue that it is the proliferation of guns [iwithin a fundamentally corrupt and unjust, militaristic and economically polarised nation deeply divided along lines of race, religion and class [/i that leads to widespread gun violence.

The problem with a reasoned argument in favour of gun control is that ultimately the reasoned argument becomes meaningless when the gun licensing laws are made obsolete and they are on sale in Asda.

At that point every citizen who hasn't got a big enough cock wants the biggest gun that Asda stock that christmas whilst every citizen who can't be d working for a living but prefers robbing instead is also stood behind them in the checkout queue looking over their shoulder and wondering if they picked up enough ammunition or whether they should go back and get some grenades as well.

Its pointless telling those with small cocks, the criminal and the ones with brains that don't quite work the same way as the rest of us that the right to bear arms is purely for protection against an over-zealous state, should that ever happen, when that statement will whizz by fifty miles above their heads and you end up with the same situation here that they have in many areas of the US where YOU buy a gun because you want to shoot a burglar dead should you ever be visited by one, or the bloke down your street has got a gun and you know for a fact that he's a nut-job and you want to protect your family on the day when he finally flips.

The same point. Was put to a ex teacher who lives near the incident. The person asking this was a BBC news reporter.

So its not just those crazy Yanks.

I think that sentence sums it up nicely. Gun laws on there own wont do a great deal in a Nation that is fundamentally Paranoid.

But it is a valid point. If all the Teachers were armed they could have taken out the Gunman.


Although if the gunman was a teacher then that would make it worse.

Now if all of the children had been armed and trained then they could have taken out the gunman and would also be able to take out any crazed teachers who pose a risk to them.

The problem with America is that not everyone has a gun. If all the unarmed were armed that problem would be solved. I do feel that they should put Gun training on the curriculum for all children aged over five and that it is the duty of all parents to buy their children a gun at the age of five as a type of coming of age present.

Maybe that is what the gun lobby should be pushing

Nail....hammer....head.

The best you will ever get is a law restricting ownership to possibly one gun per household, and maybe a maximum amount of ammunition also.

I wouldn't expect that to happen any time soon though.

If guns were instanly banned tomorrow, it would probably take 50-100 years before guns did not become readily available, because of the sheer amount of guns in that country.

Whilst there's no disputing that they have a lot, they wouldn't be anywhere near the top of the list. If you substitute the emotive terms "weirdos and idiots", with "people who randomly murder large groups of strangers" then you'll agree there are more dangerous places in the world. Would you feel your kids were safer in Connecticut, Helmand, Kabul, Bogota, or the Gaza Strip?

Can't disagree with a word of that. the only thing I would add is each child U-5 top becompulsorily accompanied by an armed guard paired up from the 5-11 age group. Ammunition vending machines on each corridor would be good too.

Obama is already calling for "meaningful action" against gun crime. But [iwhat kind[/i of meaningful action?

The wise choice would be to conduct a well-financed, independent enquiry which, rather than focusing narrowly on technicalities such as this or that particular caliber or semi-automatic vs fully automatic etc., instead looks at gun violence as a [iproduct of its socio-economic context.[/i

Unfortunately, my guess is Obama means pouring more of the state's money into the burgeoning commercial market for domestic militarization. Since the election of Ronald Reagan the dividing line between the police and the military blurred increasingly (and, more importantly, worryingly). Post 9/11, George W. Bush's Patriot Act and perhaps, worst of all, Obama it no longer exists. In cities such as New York, Orlando and Los Angeles the police are now equipped with the very same technologies as those employed by the US Marines on the streets of Kabul. Congressmen bankrolled by defence contractors such as Lockheed and even BAE are lobbying for multi-billion dollar contracts to purchase unmanned drones, armoured vehicles and assault weapons under the specious rubric of "urban pacification". The investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill noted that the first people into New Orleans immediately after hurricane Katrina were the highly-controversial mercenary army, Blackwater (now absurdly titled, "Academi"icon_wink.gif. When California was recently threatened by a spate of brush fires it wasn't FEMA which was called out to manage the situation but the US Army. The FBI now has sufficient weapons and materiel to start a war against several small nations [iat once[/i with the expectation of victory. The CIA, which is constitutionally forbidden from actions within the United States now no longer even operates under a pretense. In the last decade over 70 so-called "Fusion Centres" have been set up domestically (with at least one in each state) to collate, organise and interpret intelligence gathered on US citizens. Recently, an alarming case came to light where a 20 year old woman who had done nothing more than work as a volunteer on Ron Paul's election campaign discovered she had been blacklisted as a potential threat to national security. Attempts by activists to clarify this decision were met by an overwhelming shield of secrecy. Then there are the newly created internment camps designed not just for terrorists but anyone the state deems a threat. Observers note that these camps are uniformly identified in an innocuous fashion in order to mislead the public, but it's pretty difficult to argue such a purpose when you see triple barbed-wire fences pointing inwards, guard towers etc. Even more alarming is their positioning adjacent to rail lines which has caused more than one commentator to make the obvious connection to German concentration camps.

It would be wrong to claim Americans are now living in a police state. But post 9/11 I think it is reasonable to suggest they are closer today than at any point in history. Moreover, it wouldn't take an enormous effort to push it over the precipice. I think there are more than a few parallels with the Wiemar Republic which ultimately dissolved into fascism when the same kind of debt bubble that exists in America today collapsed. If I lived stateside I'd be hoping the stars don't converge to juxtapose the inevitable financial meltdown with another domestic terrorist attack. Where THAT might lead I'd be too worried to contemplate.

The perception amongst many Americans is that gun controls would result in the good guys giving up their guns, whilst the bad guys keep theirs. They still see the main threat to them coming from the armed burglar or mugger rather than the deranged mass killer.

Until he can come up with a viable plan that will convince the population that controls will reduce the number of guns in the hands of the bad guys, Obama will struggle to pass any meaningful legislation.

I'm certainly not going to America anytime soon. You could get shot at anytime and anywhere by an unhinged person.

What happens when you mix Monday Night Football, a black, Democrat President, a mass shooting tragedy and a bunch of rednecks?

rlTHISrl

The attitude of some Americans sickens me it really does, and having seen some clips on u tube I can't believe I actually have a bot of respect for Piers Morgan for sticking it too some of the gun toting idiots in the media. The gun situation isn't a simple fix but the attitude of the gun living people over there is that if there were more guns then things like the mass shootings would be less likely to happen. Which is just crazy. One argument I've heard is that law abiding citizens shouldn't be punished for the criminals actions, but the fact of the mater is, the mother of the guy who shot all those people on Friday was a law abiding citizen and she had a semi automatic rifle in her house, and also the kid that did it was also law abiding until he snapped. ATEOTD no ordinary citizen needs a semi automatic assault rifle at their disposal, and the people that do want these are the sort of people that shouldn't be allowed them. this article in the guardian sums some of the attitudes of the gun toting idiots up www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments

The attitude of some Americans sickens me it really does, and having seen some clips on u tube I can't believe I actually have a bot of respect for Piers Morgan for sticking it too some of the gun toting idiots in the media. The gun situation isn't a simple fix but the attitude of the gun living people over there is that if there were more guns then things like the mass shootings would be less likely to happen. Which is just crazy. One argument I've heard is that law abiding citizens shouldn't be punished for the criminals actions, but the fact of the mater is, the mother of the guy who shot all those people on Friday was a law abiding citizen and she had a semi automatic rifle in her house, and also the kid that did it was also law abiding until he snapped. ATEOTD no ordinary citizen needs a semi automatic assault rifle at their disposal, and the people that do want these are the sort of people that shouldn't be allowed them. this article in the guardian sums some of the attitudes of the gun toting idiots up www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments