Connecticut 'gunman dead' after US school shooting

[Krauter]

Originally Posted by August

A very interesting article on mental illness:

Hmm.. trying to find an AMA on reddit about a guy who gave up his life to take care of his mentally disabled brother. He talks about how he managed it fine up until his brother turned 20 and started getting violent. Powerful stuff.

I'll post it if I can find it.

[Krauter]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It's Australia, anything that moves is a deadly weapon!

[Armistead]

Our gun laws simply won't stop these mass school shootings. Years ago the big debate regarding the 3 day wait was due more to rage shooting, someone getting mad, felt they needed to shoot their spouse, etc. This kid that did this tried to buy a gun at Dick's Sporting and was denied. I think the fact he was denied may show his mother's guns were secure from him and he forced her to give them.

Cetainly we need to look at gun laws, gun dealers, we can probably do some things that will stop some street crime, spouse shooting, gun accidents, etc., but nothing we do will stop people like Adam.

[eddie]

One smart and lucky little girl! Played dead while all her friends were being killed.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...id=msnhp&pos=3

[Fish]

[QUOTE=August;1976748]Says you but the International Crime Victims Survey says otherwise:

I think thats a non sequitur.

http://rechten.uvt.nl/icvs/pdffiles/ICVS2004_05.pdf

[Fish]

Originally Posted by August

You Dutch weren't complaining when us evil gun owning Americans rescued you from the Germans.

And a other non sequitur.

Did I hurt your feelings August?

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by eddie

One smart and lucky little girl! Played dead while all her friends were being killed.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...id=msnhp&pos=3

I feel sorry for her. Now those images will be in her head all her life... but still, thank God she survived.

[August]

Originally Posted by Fish

And a other non sequitur.

Did I hurt your feelings August?

Of course not. Did I hurt yours?

[Fish]

Originally Posted by August

Of course not. Did I hurt yours?

No.

[AVGWarhawk]

I'm kind of having mixed feelings about it.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by eddie

One smart and lucky little girl! Played dead while all her friends were being killed.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...id=msnhp&pos=3

God Bless her....probably traumatised for life

[eddie]

You 're right JIm, she's going to need a lot of love and caring for a long time, sure hope she'll get through ok!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by eddie

You 're right JIm, she's going to need a lot of love and caring for a long time, sure hope she'll get through ok!

Rgr that matey

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Our gun laws simply won't stop these mass school shootings. Years ago the big debate regarding the 3 day wait was due more to rage shooting, someone getting mad, felt they needed to shoot their spouse, etc. This kid that did this tried to buy a gun at Dick's Sporting and was denied. I think the fact he was denied may show his mother's guns were secure from him and he forced her to give them.

Cetainly we need to look at gun laws, gun dealers, we can probably do some things that will stop some street crime, spouse shooting, gun accidents, etc., but nothing we do will stop people like Adam.

I disagree that nothing you do will stop them. Reducing the capacity to kill numerous people in a short space of time may prevent killings on the scale that seems to have become routine in these matters. Removing automatic and semi-automatic weapons from the market reduces the ability for these types of incdients to occur. You may not stop people like these killing someone and likely themselves, but you are more likely to stop them killing 20 or 30 people at a time.

Since our gun laws changed in 1996 there have been no mass killings involving a firearm, prior to this we had 16 occur between 1989 and 1996. Also firearm related robberies reduced by 37%. Given these numbers you might think it is worth giving it a go.

I agree that guns don't kill people, people kill people, but people without guns kill fewer people. This is what gun controls buy you. They do not eradicate the problem entirely, but are an effective form of harm minimisation that reduces the number of future deaths by restricting the availability of the weapons that enable mass killings.

I think the reality is, that the economics of the equation is likely to be the biggest factor in the gun law debate. Put simply, there are too many guns out there for the USA to afford to be able to ban all semi-automatic weapons and carry out a gun amensty and buy back scheme as was done here in Australia. That was largely funded by a 1% levy on income tax to finance the compensation of gun owners whose weapons suddenly became illegal. Note these wepaons included all semi-automatic rifles including .22 rimfires, semi-automatic shotguns and pump action shotguns. This buyback netted 600,000 weapons and cost over AU$500m.

A second buy back of illegal pistols netted around 50,000 weapons and cost around AU$50m.

Some back of the coaster sums shows a similar buy back in the US would cost well in excess of US$2B based on an average cost of $1300 per weapon and that would only take about 1.5 million weapons out of the market which is small dent in the market. It would also be argued that this would target law abiding owners whilst leaving millions in the hands of those who flout the law.

There is also the question of what a control scheme like this does to the gun manufacturers and the jobs that the weapons industry provide for thousands of workers.

I'll be very surprised if the US actually does anything meaningful in terms of gun control this time around as time after time the economics gets in the way of the saving of lives.

[eddie]

The funerals started to day, I've never been to one where a child has been lost. Such small coffins, I couldn't imagine anything like that. May God watch over and comfort the parents at a time like this.