It might have something to do with US news and current affairs being so insular and uninterested in anything happening outside their own borders, I suspect.
Chaps, perhaps you should lookup “Deviancy Amplification Spiral”. I’m sure there’s a bit of it involved here.
Anyhow, I’m pretty sure it’s just an aspect of American culture. Gun control would probably help prevent these things, but lack of gun control certainly doesn’t cause them!
They are the only laws proposed, either bans of possession or bans of type. For instance, there is a piece of legislation now pending, HR 1022, which is explicitly titled “Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007”. Cite. There’s also the pending Supreme Court case about the D.C. gun ban.
Let’s not pretend that banning isn’t the endgame for a good portion of our population and legislature. It is revealed every time a law is proposed.
How very true. You began the irreversible slide to becoming like any other country with the New Deal and the rise of federal government. It’s very sad, I would have emigrated to any pre-1930s America. Too late now, I think.
Bah. I think we need to distinguish between legitimate uses of guns for hunting and self protection vs military type weapons that have no legitimate civilian purpose. And while registration from dealers and background checks have blocked 1.3 million felons from buying guns cite- WARNING this is the Brady site and not neutral on the issue. , the fact remains I can go up to you and buy your gun even though I could in theory be an escaped felon. What’s wrong with treating them like cars and documenting every transaction? There are some common sense things we can do to extend the background checks and stop large volume sales.
Americans see having guns at home as a right. Many of those Swiss have guns at home only as part of their military duty. Completely different mindsets.
Oh, brother. Must we do this again? I guess.
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Define “military-type weapons”.
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Felons are already excluded from ownership. While I agree that it is too easy to get around that, regulating it is a practical impossibility, although I am open to suggestion on how to improve oversight in that regard.
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How and when do large volume sales take place except within the context of manufacturer and licensed dealer?
People who go on drives for fun are also intent on going on drives. I know people who very specifically want to drive fast and recklessly; they do not want to do other things at that time…it is the speed and the danger and the sense of power that attracts them. The Gremlin could go 90 just like the Trans Am, but they buy and drive a Trans Am. The desire to drive fast came from the fetishization of cars in movies and pop culture. It seems to me that the desire to shoot, to experienec the presumed excitement, sense of power, and sense of danger, might very well sometimes come from the fetishization and glamorization of guns in our culture. The object itself would serve as the “trigger” for acting out this fetish (pardon the choice of words).
Sailboat
WTF? Terrorism is rational behavior and “a good reason” in your worldview?
- Define “military-type weapons”.
Something that fires too many rounds in too short a time. I don’t mind if you have a gun that can fell a single deer from 100 yards away, but you don’t need one that can kill 100 deer in 10 seconds.
I think it’s technically feasible to construct a definition of what constitutes too much firepower. I personally don’t have the expertise to do so but I’m sure it can be done.
- Felons are already excluded from ownership. While I agree that it is too easy to get around that, regulating it is a practical impossibility, although I am open to suggestion on how to improve oversight in that regard.
Simple- you want to sell me your gun, you trot me down to the local police station, they do a background check on me, the registration is transferred to me and you’ll be off the hook if the gun is later used in a crime.
- How and when do large volume sales take place except within the context of manufacturer and licensed dealer?
How many guns can you buy per month where you are? If there is a reasonable limit on number of transactions per month for individuals, you’re going to find it harder to engage in gun trafficking. States that have adopted limits on volume purchasing have found gunrunning dropping off dramatically.
I am disappointed to see that the discussion has devolved into the ‘same old, same old’. I do not wish to weigh in on either side. But surely the OP’s question cannot be answered simply by the availability of guns. *Bowling for Columbine * seems to demonstrate the reality of significant cultural differences, as mentioned earlier. But, as also mentioned earlier, it does little to elucidate those differences. Many additional posts also seem to recognize cultural or societal differences, but again without significant discussion (except as related to “gun culture”).
I was hopeful that answers to the OP would help to illuminate me on the cultural, or societal, aspects. Are we all just cowboys at heart? Does our culture denigrate or devalue life more than other cultures? And is mass killing reflective of similar differences in crimes in general?
I certainly do not have the answer(s). But IMHO this is the significance behind what the OP was asking.
In Virginia you can only buy one gun a month unless you go to a gun show which is unregulated.
Guns and the technology of death is big business in America. It’s become our heritage, I believe that’s why these things happen here. It’s our way of life.
Ladders are subject to rules of manufacture that define distance between the steps,strenghth of the structure and the angles of the steps. They must meet OSHA and many other standards. Power tools are subject to many regulations in regard to safety. Automobiles are subject to huge amounts of laws and regulation governing the manufacture and use. No one is suggesting they be eliminated. They are suggesting they be made as safe as possible. Guns are extremely dangerous and get little regulation.
Many buy automatic weapons . Some have automatic weapons that are antipersonnel weapons. They are illegal for hunting. Yet the gun lovers group all the guns together as sacred. When they do so the people who question gun ownership are given great arguments.
Something should be said about the size of the US population. There are a lot more people in the US than there are in the UK or Australia. More people = more maniacs.
There are many elements in your post that cause me to believe that you do not understand the issue well, particularly the critical difference between automatic and semi-automatic firearms.
The fact is that very few people buy automatic firearms, as these are strictly regulated by federal law. Also, many semi-automatic firearms are perfectly legal for hunting purposes.
Automatic weapons have been severely proscribed since 1934. There is an incredible amount of regulation on automatic weapons, you don’t know the half of it. Further, importation of automatic weapons has been banned since 1986, making them extremely rare and extraordinarily expensive. Very few people indeed have $5,000-10,000 to spend on a single weapon.
Finally, there has only been one documented murder with an automatic weapon, in 1986. Guess what? It was a corrupt police officer, killing a drug dealer.
The myths about automatic weapons abound, but they have no basis in reality.
Me, too. I’m sorry, because I’m a part of it. But misconceptions take root when people don’t object to them. I’d rather get to the root causes, myself, but it always comes down to this. It’s a shame.
I don’t know that it is possible to do so.
That is how it is supposed to be done, only through a FFL-licensed dealer. I have no issues with that.
To the best of my knowledge you are limited to one per month in Pennsylvania.
Well, off the top of my head I can recall the Ecole Polytechnique from 1989, Taber from 1999 IIRC, and Kimveer Gill last year. That’s 3 in Canada in the past 18 years. The US has ten times our population, so the equivalent would be 30 such incidents since 89. How many have there been?
There’s no reason whatsoever for a hunter to require a semi automatic weapon. There’s certainly no reason whatsover for extended clips.
A catalogue for paramilitary clothing was delivered to my house this week inadvertantly. 90% of the photographs in it were of brawny men brandishing semi automatic weapons in silly poses. It seemed totally inappropiate to me. Who do you think the marketers were targeting?