Gunman kills 5 injures 25 in UK

[Skyrad 0]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100602/tuk-five-dead-in-gun-rampage-in-cumbria-a7ad41d.html

Its true, banning law abiding people from owning firearms does nothing to stop gun crime.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[turtlespeed 220]

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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100602/tuk-five-dead-in-gun-rampage-in-cumbria-a7ad41d.html

Its true, banning law abiding people from owning firearms does nothing to stop gun crime.

Well said sir. I believe most of us here agree.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[riddler 0]

I know that the shooter used a .22 rifle with a scope, and a shotgun. I've heard that shotguns are easily obtained in Britain, with very little (or no) control. Is that true?

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Skyrad 0]

Yes its true that shotgun licences are easier to get than rifle licenses. In recent years though there has been a decline in application for and issuing of shotgun licences. Its not yet known if the criminal had legal firarms or not.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[CornishChris 5]

I wondered how long it would be before someone took this story and made it into their argument for no gun control.

I still stand by the view that there would be substantially more (as in 1000+% increase) in gun crime in the UK if hand guns were legalised and sold openly as in the US. Of course the law abiding don't break the law. But if you slip from law abiding to criminal with easy access to weapons such as guns things get nastier quicker than without that access. I also disagree that it does 'nothing' to stop gun crime. If you can't get guns easily, which you can't in the UK (sure you can get them, as you can anything illegal if the will is strong enough), then there will be less of these incidents - as demonstrated by the UK gun crime rate versus the US gun crime rate. Therefore having gun control in the way we do must have some impact on gun crime.

It won't be long before someone uses this to promote the UK having less gun control - the whole: If there had been concealed carry individuals around this would have been stopped earlier - argument. This seems to be the argument of someone who sits around at home day-dreaming about the time they get to save the day with their big shiny gun...

RIP to the victims.

CJP

Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people

[kelpdiver 2]

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I still stand by the view that there would be substantially more (as in 1000+% increase) in gun crime in the UK if hand guns were legalised and sold openly as in the US. Of course the law abiding don't break the law. But if you slip from law abiding to criminal with easy access to weapons such as guns things get nastier quicker than without that access. I also disagree that it does 'nothing' to stop gun crime. If you can't get guns easily,

Several years back it was written that there were at least 3M illegal guns in the UK. They're not that hard to get for the criminal element.

So it surprises me that you think that legal access would increase the murder rate by 10fold due to spur of the moment homicide. If you look in the US, that sort of murder is a very small subset. It's not 90%. Millions of CCW holders have proven that even with immediate access to a gun, they're not prone to using them. They show a much higher level of responsibility than the public at large, and in some cases have compared well to police populations.

But I don't see you reverting from hardly no guns at all to allowing CCW use, so it doesn't seem like you would prevent this type of incident from happening. Maybe that's just life. But perhaps you can avoid another forms of violence when people are given back their right to self defense.

[kallend 2,026]

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I know that the shooter used a .22 rifle with a scope, and a shotgun. I've heard that shotguns are easily obtained in Britain, with very little (or no) control. Is that true?

My brother in the UK has a shotgun (legally). I don't recall that there was any difficulty. (Of course, he's not a loony nor is he a felon.)

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[airtwardo 7]

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(as in 1000+% increase)

Just curious where or how you came upon that 1000% figure...

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[remibond 0]

A little update
I heard about this at the DZ. Latest figures are 12 dead + the gunman.

Really though, don't you think it's a bit soon to be using it to argue about gun control. I mean this was under 10 hours ago

[CornishChris 5]

Just curious where or how you came upon that 1000% figure...

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I pretty much made it up. From a BBC news report:

According to Home Office figures, there were 59 firearms-related homicides in 2006-07 compared with 49 in the previous year.

If you were to open a gun shop in every town and make firearms as readily available as they are in the US then it would not surprise me if the rates went up by 1000%. When you start with small numbers then moderate changes in figures create large statistical changes. Look at the figures above. 10 additional murders relate to a 20% increase. In the US 10 additional murders would represent a minuscule statistical variation.

Why would this change happen? Well maybe it wouldn't but in my opinion guns have a greater chance of turning a bad situation into a worse one than into a better one.

CJP

Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people

[kelpdiver 2]

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Just curious where or how you came upon that 1000% figure...

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I pretty much made it up.

It's hard to give a rebuttal to "I made it up." It suggests a lack of interest in actual data.

I'm pretty confident that it would not result in a 1000% increase, though you might see a substitution effect (people killed with guns rather than other methods).

[Skyrad 0]

You're making some massive assumptions there Chris. At what point did I say there should be no gun control? I'm against a gun ban and thats a very different thing. As for guns being difficult to obtain in the UK I assume that either your no longer living in the Uk or that you live in a nice area in a middle class environment. Getting illegal firearms in the UK is a piece of piss.
At no point did I mention concealed carry.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[JohnRich 4]

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I still stand by the view that there would be substantially more (as in 1000+% increase) in gun crime in the UK if hand guns were legalised and sold openly as in the US.

If that were so, then how come the gun confiscation of 1997 didn't substantially reduce the gun murder rate? After all, that was the date upon which ready availability of legal handguns and semi-auto rifles became extremely difficult, and most ownership of those firearms were confiscated. Furthermore, gun crime has gone UP since the gun ban. Thus, crime statistics from England itself in the 13 years since the gun ban, prove you wrong.

This just goes to show that gun-o-phobes will stick to their disproved theories, no matter how much real-world evidence is available to the contrary. Hope springs eternal for the gun-ban crowd. Fortunately, fewer and fewer people are being fooled by their claims.

[riddler 0]

It seems like using the general word "ban" is the logical error here. In GB, only handguns and semi-autos have been under intense scrutiny, but it is still possible to own them. Many other types of guns seem perfectly legal and easily obtainable.

The only way one could draw any conclusions about the effect of a gun "ban" is if every type of gun was banned or rendered useless, no exceptions. That doesn't happen in any country.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Skyrad 0]

Good points.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[RonD1120 62]

Body count up to 12.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/10222188.stm

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[JohnRich 4]

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I still stand by the view that there would be substantially more (as in 1000+% increase) in gun crime in the UK if hand guns were legalised and sold openly as in the US.

More Guns, Less Crime

"Data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation show that America has been on a firearms buying spree since the end of 2005. Meanwhile, the FBI recently released preliminary 2009 crime data indicating that violent crime has been dropping at an accelerating rate since the end of 2006..."

Full story: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/fbi-crime-stats-show-an-armed-public-is-a-safer-public/

[dreamdancer 0]

he had licenses for the guns.

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[JohnRich 4]

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he had licenses for the guns.

Yep. So what's England going to do next, with their typical knee-jerk legislative response to such tragedies? Ban .22 rifles and shotguns?

[dreamdancer 0]

i don't think they'll be banned. i grew up on a farm and we always had a couple of shotguns. character references and criminal background checks will be tightened. and cornishchris is right - if we had a gun culture like the us then one can reasonably assume that gun crime (from a low base) will grow 1000%

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[DaVinci 0]

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Really though, don't you think it's a bit soon to be using it to argue about gun control. I mean this was under 10 hours ago

The Anti's don't wait when it happens in the States.

[DaVinci 0]

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and cornishchris is right - if we had a gun culture like the us then one can reasonably assume that gun crime (from a low base) will grow 1000%

Since we are using made up data.... I think that if gun laws were loosened, violent crime would drop by 1,000,000%.

More Guns, Less Crime

"Data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation show that America has been on a firearms buying spree since the end of 2005. Meanwhile, the FBI recently released preliminary 2009 crime data indicating that violent crime has been dropping at an accelerating rate since the end of 2006..."

Full story: http://pajamasmedia.com/...c-is-a-safer-public/

[dreamdancer 0]

just having the same gun crime rate as the us would mean hundreds/thousands more dead and wounded in the uk - not good.

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[remibond 0]

Does anyone know the relative crime rates in the U.K & U.S and what proportion of those include guns?

eta: also how many of the guns were obtained legally

[dreamdancer 0]

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Packing heat may backfire. People who carry guns are far likelier to get shot – and killed – than those who are unarmed, a study of shooting victims in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has found.

It would be impractical – not to say unethical – to randomly assign volunteers to carry a gun or not and see what happens. So Charles Branas's team at the University of Pennsylvania analysed 677 shootings over two-and-a-half years to discover whether victims were carrying at the time, and compared them to other Philly residents of similar age, sex and ethnicity. The team also accounted for other potentially confounding differences, such as the socioeconomic status of their neighbourhood.

Despite the US having the highest rate of firearms-related homicide in the industrialised world, the relationship between gun culture and violence is poorly understood. A recent study found that treating violence like an infectious disease led to a dramatic fall in shootings and killings.

Overall, Branas's study found that people who carried guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens. When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding