Seven dead, sixteen wounded in shooting in the Netherlands

[Euromutt]

Slightly outdated synopsis here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13024785
For more up to date info (in Dutch): http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2011/04/09/meerdere-doden-bij-schietpartij-alphen-aan-de-rijn/

Essentially, the shooter opened up in a supermarket around noon (local time) on Saturday, shooting people apparently at random, before killing himself. While the shooter had a license to own five firearms, and had three registered to him, he reportedly used an automatic weapon, which are illegal for private citizens to own in the Netherlands.

The shooter is apparently one Tristan van der Vlis, aged 24, of native Dutch descent (which almost certainly rules out an Islamist terrorist angle).

So once again, all the gun laws on the books (and Dutch gun laws are very strict) fail to stop someone determined to commit mayhem.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. And another in Brazil...

the exporting of the best of American culture is going very well.

[slackmaster]

2. That kind of rationalization solves nothing and goes stale quickly

:nuke:

[Euromutt]

5. Right, because whenever anything bad happens anywhere, it's the United States' fault

If you want to finger a culprit, try the 24-hour news media that sensationalizes incidents like this. Before CNN, you had to murder someone famous like John Lennon or Ronald Reagan to get noticed. These days, if shoot enough regular, non-famous people, you can become a posthumous household word overnight.

[cleanhippie]

8. An absurd statement.

[Callisto32]

16. Indeed.

Thug culture sucks.

We should try to export gun culture instead.

[sharesunited]

3. Making them scarce is the way to go.

[oneshooter]

4. I am still awaiting an answer from you. n/t

[Common Sense Party]

7. You're not likely to get an answer.

We can speculate. He'd call the United Nations and get a special envoy to negotiate with the intruder and see what sort of concession would make the intruder leave.

[RSillsbee]

6. I agree but how do you make murderers scarce? NT

[cleanhippie]

9. Uh Shares, theu DID make 'em scarce. Deduct one point for overusing absurd canard.

[Euromutt]

15. The Dutch rate of legal private gun ownership is 3.9 guns/100 inhabitants

By comparison, Belgium has ~17.2 guns/100 inhabitants, Germany 30.3/100.

As you rightly note, cleanhippie, legal privately owned firearms are scarce in the Netherlands, and the few that exist are tightly controlled, but this guy was able to get hold of a machine gun (which is for all practical purposes impossible for a private citizen to do legally) nonetheless.

[oneshooter]

18. That is why, when my BIL's relatives visit, they always want to go to the range.

He is Dutch and they love to shoot the M1 Garands and Carbines in my collection! They also shoot skeet and my Sharps rifles, 45autos, BAR and 1919a4! Go through a shit pot of ammo and enjoy every shot!

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[Callisto32]

17. And un-fucking-possible, parrot.

My friend has an African Gray with a larger vocabulary than you apparently do....jeez.

[oneshooter]

19. And probably makes more sense. n/t

[spin]

21. Still having your Alice in Wonderland nightmares?

[rl6214]

28. who's that, the dutch?

[applegrove]

10. As the world gets USA gun culture exported to their shores, brazil & the netherlands,

the gun manufacturers must be rubbing their hands and the increase in gun sales it bodes well for.

[Logical]

11. Explain "Gun Culture". n-t

[applegrove]

12. A culture where a significant portion of your adolescents are encouraged to fantasize

about gun play.

[Logical]

13. Well, my kids had never held or shot a gun until they were over 15........

I bet 70% of the kids know in my neighborhood have never held a gun.

Video games have them I will admit. But I know many kids who play war games on the xbox but never shoot real guns.

Watch the "Penn and Teller" show Bullshit. There is a episode about if vodeo games cause violence.

I am not sure the crooks need motivation to use guns. They are easy tools to do their jobs.

Hunting is way down over the last 30 years. So many less people use guns to hunt.

[Callisto32]

20. What about the culture...

where my loving relatives taught me responsibility and safety in handling dangerous tools and situations?

What about the culture where they taught me safety, and patience, and even biofeedback ("alright feel for your heart, try to keep it slow" we didn't call it biofeedback, cuz' we wuz hicks)?

What about the fun days with family and friends out on the range, doing more talking and enjoying the day than honest-to-God shooting? What about when I got older, and I used my background in firearms to learn about physics, and wood and metalworking, and precision in work?

What about how I now have the knowledge of these tools that I can teach all the above, and share all the above with my own children?

Have you ever given or received a weapon (I include guns and "real" blades as well) as a gift? It is a profound experience, not because of the arm itself, but the symbol of trust. You do not give a weapon if you don't trust the recipient, and the recipient knows that.


I think what you call "gun culture" is something more like "criminal/thug" culture.

In gun culture responsibility and safety reign supreme.

[rl6214]

30. Back in the 60's we played GI Joe and cowboys and indians

what sort of culture is that? We didn't have these problems then. It's not the gun culture, it's the parenting culture.

[Euromutt]

14. (I repeat) Right, because whenever anything bad happens anywhere, it's the United States' fault

Speaking as someone not born a U.S. citizen (I got naturalized three and a half years ago) the attitude among certain self-styled progressives that non-Americans are incapable of doing evil without some cabal of Americans pulling their strings honks me right off. The rest of the world actually does have an existence and history independent of American involvement. Europeans managed to start two world wars without the Americans being in any way involved. There's plenty of gun culture in the Balkans without it having been copied from the Americans (a legacy of several centuries of intermittent warfare with the Turks, Austro-Hungarians, Russians and each other), and interestingly, that's also where the criminal element of western Europe gets most of its guns from. I would be surprised if that's where the automatic weapon used in this shooting turned out to have originated as well.

[PavePusher]

24. Patronize.

It's what some liberals (all too many) do best.

Shameful and disgusting. Sorry it has to happen here.

[gejohnston]

22. we got ours from there

We exported nothing. It happens everywhere just that Fox and CNN never thought to report it. Sorry, the average union worker that goes deer hunting or target shooting are not the same people who go nuts.

[PavePusher]

23. Just FYI...

since you appear quite ignorant on the subject...

Brazil is a manufacturer and exporter of firearms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Firearms_manufacturers_in_Brazil
http://www.taurususa.com/whats-new.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMBEL



They also have had a stagering crime and murder rate, and for some time, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil

[friendly_iconoclast]

25. -1 for utter historical ignorance. The Netherlands had a political assasination w/ a gun in **1584**

William (or Willem) the Silent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Silent




No wonder your side is losing the political fight....

[applegrove]

26. Assasination is as old as the hills. We are talking about what used to be only an american

thing. Shooting into a crowd didn't use to happen elsewhere.

[GreenStormCloud]

27. Mass murder is also as old as the hills.

There are historical examples that are thousands of years old. The methods vary a good bit, and the number of corpses varies, but otherwise it's the same.

[rl6214]

31. do a google search

you'll find you are wrong.

[friendly_iconoclast]

32. Go peddle your bigoted horseshit somewhere else:

(Note: emphasis added)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181064/?tool=pmcentrez

Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry. 1999 June; 1(3): 66–70. PMCID: PMC181064

Copyright © 1999, Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.
Running Amok: A Modern Perspective on a Culture-Bound Syndrome
Manuel L. Saint Martin, M.D., J.D.

...... However, characterizing amok as a culture-bound syndrome ignores the fact that similar behavior has been observed in virtually all Western and Eastern cultures, having no geographical isolation. Furthermore, the belief that amok rarely occurs today is contrary to evidence that similar episodes of violent behavior are more common in modern societies than they were in the primitive cultures where amok was first observed.....

.....Amok, or running amok, is derived from the Malay word mengamok, which means to make a furious and desperate charge. Captain Cook is credited with making the first outside observations and recordings of amok in the Malay tribesmen in 1770 during his around-the-world voyage. He described the affected individuals as behaving violently without apparent cause and indiscriminately killing or maiming villagers and animals in a frenzied attack. Amok attacks involved an average of 10 victims and ended when the individual was subdued or “put down” by his fellow tribesmen, and frequently killed in the process....

[applegrove]

33. I see. So mass shootings are not an American thing. And calling me a bigot is labelling. It is what

sociopaths use to try and change somebody's behaviour. A liberal would hate to be called a bigot wouldn't they? Unless you see it for what it is which is just a tool from the psychopath toolbox often used by the right.

[friendly_iconoclast]

35. I retract (and apologize for) the 'bigot' remark, as you spoke from ignorance.

The US has a gun culture, and a murder problem. It's had a murder problem for a long time. New York City has had a much higher

murder rate than London for many years, even when both cities had essentially the same gun laws (late 19th century).


And since the States does have a gun culture, with widespread ownship of guns to go along with it, guns are what most

(not all) American murders are committed with. But a gun culture isn't neccessarily contiguous with a high murder and/or

suicide rate. Mexico, Russia, and Brazil have lower civilian gun ownership rates than the US- and higher murder rates.

Japan has a miniscule gun ownership rate compared to the US- and a far higher suicide rate.


A gun culture can be shown not to drive up murder and violent crime rates, the US is the most recent and obvious example:

The murder and violent crime rates have decreased at the same time the number of guns in circulation has exploded.


The problem comes when people decide to kill each other, for any reason and by whatever means. That needs to be worked on.

[rl6214]

37. Labeling?

About the worst a pro gun activist or gun enthusiast (pro-RKBA) person will do is use the term 'anti' or prohibisionits (prohi) while we on the gun rights side see every name in the book and every insult (outright or veiled) thrown our way so you can't throw that "labelling" arguement at us.

[rl6214]

34. Here is a list of school related attacks

Many of them are not American, some of the worst being in Israel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school-related_attacks

[Euromutt]

36. But for how long was it "only an American thing"?

Actually, I'd argue it never was.

Count Vladimir Dembsky opened fire into a crowd from a balcony in Warsaw, killing 13 and wounding 10 more. That was in 1904 (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NEM19040223.2.9 ), 45 years before Howard Unruh became the first American single-episode mass shooter in Camden, NJ in 1949 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Unruh).

In 1913, Ernst Wagner of Degerloch, Germany, stabbed his wife and four children to death before, later that day, going on a shooting spree in the village of Mühlhausen an der Enz, shooting 20 people, of whom 9 fatally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_August_Wagner).

In June 1945, an unidentified drunk Frenchman went on the rampage with a rifle in Rouen, killing 14 people (including two policemen) and wounding another 9.

In 1938, Mutsuo Toi committed the "Tsuyama Massacre," murdering 30 people and wounding 3 more with a shotgun, sword and axe in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. It was the most severe documented mass/spree killing by an individual until 1982, when a South Korean police officer named Woo Bum-Kon rampaged through five villages in Uiryeong county, killing 56 people and wounding another 35. That incident still stands as the worst mass killing with personal weapons in modern history. The only individuals with higher body counts have been bombers, arsonists and people who crashed airliners.

And I've limited myself to mass/spree killers who used firearms as at least one of their weapons. There are plenty of recorded instances in from 1850 to 1950 of people running amok with bladed implements in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), the Philippines and Malaysia, racking up body counts comparable to that of most "active shooters." American mass/spree shooters weren't the first, and they haven't been the worst; they've just received the most media coverage, rather than a couple of paragraphs in the Soerabaja Courant. I would argue that there's a stronger correlation between mass shootings and the penetration of 24-hour rolling news channels than there is between the former and "gun culture."

[rl6214]

29. Yeah except they can't get them in their countries because

they are so tightly regulated.

[Hoyt]

38. If it happens in the Netherlands, you can bet your rear it will happen here.

[lawodevolution]

39. And in countries with tough gun laws like Mexico and Nigeria they have mass killings all the time

So how would more gun control effect it?

[Hoyt]

40. This ain't Nigeria, or a war between Mexican drug cartels using US made guns.

[lawodevolution]

41. Exactly, this is the USA where gun laws are more relaxed

[Euromutt]

42. That's because it's a socio-psychological issue, not a gun law issue

As many mental health experts, criminologists and sociologists are pointing out in the Dutch media right now, gun laws aren't the problem: random mass killings have occurred in a variety of countries with varying degrees of stringency of gun laws (from the U.S., through western Europe, to Japan and China). The problem is people getting disaffected and alienated from society to such a degree that they feel the only way they can get noticed is by killing a bunch of strangers, and care sufficiently little about other members of society that they aren't inhibited from slaughtering a bunch of them.

The availability of guns is ancillary to this main problem, and tightening gun laws isn't going to make it go away.