Give me ONE good reason...

[Bicoastal]

...why the citizens of any society with an ounce of civilization should find it necessary to arm themselves with weaponry at all times--like at work, at play, at school, etc.--on the off-chance that some armed-to-the-teeth lunatic will get the drop on then. Many have been suggesting this today, but to me it begs the question of why we even have to WORRY about crazies with machine guns--who gave these psychopaths weapons in the first place?! Who allowed them to enter a gun store, request a fearsome instrument for the vague reason of "hunting," or worse, "protection?" And how many more times will it happen before we figure out how to fix it?

Why have we failed where other countries have succeeded?! Why is this a uniquely American problem?

<Sigh>

[MonkeyFunk]

1. because we live in a revenge-oriented society

Almost all of these shootings are somebody getting revenge for some slight, real or imagined. It seems the worst thing that could happen to a man in America is to lose face, and the only way to gain it back is to extract revenge.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. My theory - because so many are just plain scared shitless most of

the time. Another theory - arrogance/thirst for power. I know this is not a popular topic or a popular view, but I can't find any non-dysfunctional reason for it.

[Warpy]

3. I'll take my chances

I'm bad with firearms.

[Massacure]

4. Because its culture.

The same reason why some people get tattoos, pierce their bodies, split their tongues, walk on glass or hot coals, and many other weird things.

[BushOut06]

5. Nice, I get a front-row seat for this

I just love it when DUers attack each other! :sarcasm:

:popcorn:

[Bicoastal]

7. No one ain't attackin' nobody nohow...

At least not yet.

Hey, pass the popcorn.

[baldguy]

6. Fear & stupidity

The same dangerous combination that causes so much misery.

[Irreverend IX]

8. What's the difference between a cop and a criminal?

Often, just the badge. I'm afraid I don't trust George W. Bush enough that I want his minions to be the only ones with guns. "Civilization" is a thin veneer; as Hurricane Katrina showed, the lawless jungle is never far away. Walking through my neighborhood at night, I often see a large truck parked at the local Safeway, offloading food. If that truck stopped coming one day, it wouldn't take much time for law and order to be thrown to the winds. Like it or not, violence has always been a part of life, and sometimes there's no other choice if you want to defend yourself and yours.

Other countries have "succeeded" mostly for cultural reasons; I think that the US's ruthless consumer culture is a big cause of maniacal shooting sprees like the one today; you don't see this stuff in Third World countries with a much higher rate of gun ownership than the US. It's a lot easier to blame these complex problems on pieces of steel, though.

[TX-RAT]

29. What an insult to the active and retired law enforcement personnel on this board.

Thanks

[WillyT]

9. Three Reasons...

Small penises, small brains, and small hearts.

:shrug:

[Ksec]

There isnt one and I used to be a hunter

Im convinced the only thing all these tragedies have in common are the gun.

It may be time to end this insanity.

If there were no gun today, there would be no deaths.

[BushOut06]

12. It may very well be time to start turning in guns

I'm willing to give up my guns if it means that we can live in a safer society. I know that we would have a long way to go, but maybe it's time to start.

[KG]

10. america is an adolescent society, led by children, with an infant citizenry.

[Raskolnik]

25. How so?

How are American citizens any less "mature" than those of the rest of the world?

[uppityperson]

11. Fear of being out of control, not being in control that is.

We are supposed to be in control at all times, death is to be feared, and besides, you should be afraid because you just never know what might happen so lock yourself up in your little world, be safe at all times and you will be happy and safe and live forever and here is a pony.

[whistle]

13. According to MSNBC this shooter had two handguns which had the serial numbers

....filed off. One of the weapons was a 9mm and the other a .22 caliber. With these weapons we are supposed to believe he could inflict the carnage that he did killing 33 people (I guess that includes himself) and seriously wounding 15 others? Then he turns one of these weapons on himself and shoots his face off, killing himself in the process. None of this adds up as far as a lone shooter, especially with the two earlier shootings in the dorm.

My point here is that unless we have not been told the entire facts, this single shooter armed with these modest fire power weapons moving across campus in a stealthy manner as he supposedly did, it really seems totally unlikely he could have acted entirely alone here. A second shooter might have been involved with additional weapons which we are not being told about. That is purely speculation on my part in an effort to reconcile what appears to be a mass murder rampage against facts which just don't add up.

[hogwyld]

30. Well, the Glock's a high capacity military weapon

It hols 15 in the magazine plus one in the "pipe". It takes all of 1.5 seconds to change mags and presto, bango, another 15 shots.

[Dave From Canada]

14. Breaking news, you don't have to enter a gun store to buy a gun.

[Bicoastal]

15. You're absolutely right.

Although here I should point out that most of the time, the weapons used in these massacres were, at some point, bought legally. Furthermore, it's highly likely that, unlike most school shootings, the gunman was at least legally old enough to purchase the weapons himself. We'll have to see.

If I could, I'd edit my post above. Your point does tend to create more rhetorical questions then it answers, though....

[slackmaster]

16. Straw's a flyin' here

...to me it begs the question of why we even have to WORRY about crazies with machine guns...

I have no such concern. Crazies in cars are a much bigger risk to me.

[Bicoastal]

17. As someone who ended up losing a vertabrae ...

...when I was hit (while crossing a commerical intersection on a green pedestrian walk signal) by a stupid young girl whose license had already been suspended twice before, I can honestly say that crazy gunman scare me way than crazy drivers, and incidents like this one demonstrate why.

[slackmaster]

18. It must be a real drag for you being scared all the time

Please accept my condolences.

[Bicoastal]

19. Considering I had PTSD for 2 years after the accident...

...I think I'm currently doing alright in the fear department.

Please accept my middle finger.

[slackmaster]

21. We're a bit testy, aren't we?

:nuke:

[Bicoastal]

22. Yeah, I am. Sorry. (No, really.)

I don't know why, but the accident still haunts me for no good reason. Many expected me to be paralyzed for the rest of my life (including, at one point, my doctor), and here I am today, standing, walking, with only a surgical scar on my neck to remind me...I'm a young man (25), and this was about three years ago.

Still, you must have known that saying: "It must be a real drag for you being scared all the time. Please accept my condolences." would provoke that reaction.

Anyway, I'm willing to say sorry and call a truce. :blush:

And frankly, I'm not really that scared of crazed gunman. But clearly some people are, or they wouldn't be suggesting the need for ALL non-felon students to carry concealed weapons on campus, to prevent events like this from happening again. Nothing scares me so much that I need a permanent reminder of my fear on my person at all times--not even cars. :)

[depakid]

20. Australia already showed us how to fix it

But Americans are NOT rational people when it comes to guns (or to healthcare or education or economics- or pick an issue).

So they're condemned to a long decline, and many more repeats of this tragedy.

[Dave From Canada]

23. How did they "fix" it? In Canada, we've had some similar problems.

Woman, gunman dead in Montreal school rampage
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html

[depakid]

24. This is how they fixed it- along with a peer reviewed study of the results

From a book review in the British Medical Journal:

Over our dead bodies: Port Arthur and Australia's fight for gun control

On Sunday 28 April 1996, 23 year old Martin Bryant entered a tourist complex 100 km south of Hobart, Tasmania, and shot dead 35 people, wounding 18 others. The media described it as "the worst massacre by a single gunman in Australian history," although Chapman points out on page 1 that the wholesale slaughter of aborigines in the 19th century often involved far higher individual tallies.

Before this watershed tragedy, Australia's eight states and territories had different laws. In practice, they operated on or below the lowest denominator (ironically, that of Tasmania). For years, attempts to limit gun ownership had floundered in political backwaters, fobbed off by politicians cowed by vocal pro-gun lobbyists. After the massacre, obfuscation was cut through and a practical national gun agreement put in place. This included a ban on semiautomatic and pump action rifles, a compensatory buy back scheme, a register of all firearms, shooter licensing based on a "genuine reason for owning a firearm," safe storage requirements, and uniform national laws.

Myths surrounding gun control abound. "Guns don't kill people, people do" has had a successful run in the United States, but the Australian public simply did not buy this argument. I cheered when the epidemiological arsenal of sensitivity, specificity, and power was used to knock the stuffing out of arguments for a prohibited persons register; to prevent 570 assaults yet miss 30 each year in New Zealand alone would entail locking up 150 000 Kiwis.

Chapman sticks to his area of expertise and writes knowledgeably and well. He lays bare the bones of advocacy on both sides of the gun control debate and shows that understanding the opposition and getting the facts right are key to any public health change. If he ever wants a new career he could star as a general; until then I am glad he is wearing the white hat. Three years on, there have been no further Australian massacres (the previous average was one a year), and the core of the agreement remains intact. Japan, Britain, Canada, and Australia lead the world in gun control, while the United States lags a long way behind.

This book is really about the workings of the media, the use of lobbying, and the skills of advocacy. So pick a day when you are tired of dealing with the aftermath of ignored public health issues and read this ripping yarn, arm yourself with the tools it offers, and be ready to go into battle.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7203/199

-------------

Massive Gun "Buyback" Doubled Fall In Australian Gun Deaths

The chances of gun death in Australia dropped twice as steeply after 700,000 guns were destroyed in a national firearm "buyback" and amnesty, reveals a decade long study in Injury Prevention. The study tracks the 10 years following the introduction of gun law reform in Australia between 1996 and 1998.

The legislation was prompted by a firearm massacre in Tasmania in 1996, when 35 people were killed and a further 18 seriously wounded. The reforms banned the use of semi automatic and pump action shotguns and rifles, destroying more than 700,000 weapons taken from a population of 12 million adults.

The study shows that in the 18 years before the legislation was passed, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, in which 112 people died and 52 were wounded. There have been no mass shootings since the law came into force.

The fall in the number of deaths associated with the use of firearms, including suicides, rapidly accelerated after the law took effect. The decline was at least twice as high (6%) as it had been before the reforms were introduced. In the 18 years prior to the legislation, on average, 491 people took their lives, using a firearm. After the legislation, this fell to an average of 246.

Similarly, the number of murders using guns fell from an annual average of 93 to just over 55. There was no evidence that the use of other methods to commit suicide or homicide increased.

Before the introduction of the law, the overall number of homicides not related to guns had increased 1% a year. After the law took effect, this number fell by almost 2.5% a year. And the total numbers of suicides fell by 4% after having risen annually by 2% before the introduction of the gun laws.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=59264


Full BMJ article: http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/12/6/365

[Dave From Canada]

33. Reading from the link, the law discussed is comprised of a ban on semiautomatic and pump action

rifles, a compensatory buy back scheme, a register of all firearms, shooter licensing based on a "genuine reason for owning a firearm," safe storage requirements, and uniform national laws. It's all very good, however the part where a government official decides whether you have a genuine reason to own a firearm may have a constitutional challenge. Also, they cite Canada among others as an example of such legislation. As I've already stated, we've unfortunately had our own problems with similar incidents.

Woman, gunman dead in Montreal school rampage
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html

[Done]

26. If everybody's carrying a gun around

you damn well better get yourself one. Isn't that reason enough for everyone to get a gun? :shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Seems to be a rehashing...

of the "if you don't have anything to hide, you won't mind us tapping your phones" argument.

[B Calm]

28. I blame right wing hate radio...

[Connonym]

31. 1 reason: Inability to understand statistical probabilities

with an over estimation of the chance of needing a gun and an under estimation of the risk said gun to get you or a loved one killed.

[BluePatriot]

32. Sadly I don't think a gun ban/gun control would work here

...basically because we've adapted as a society in the USA to having so much weaponry and violence around.

We need to get to the root causes of violence, like, disconnect from the community around us which can progress to disconnect from humanity as a whole. Then the issue would resolve itself gradually. How many people know their neighbors? Feel involved with the world around them, or like they have a life? I was telling my SO that I feel the structure of our modern society has caused these problems.