I am starting to wonder if its me that isn't wired right....

We need to get back to basics,
we can't do that because we may get sued
Was the girl wanting to shoot or was it the parents making her go and shoot

 

Awful accident but guns are part of their culture and I kind of respect them for sticking with this as I daily watch our culture going down the drain!!!

Val

 

Imagine if this had been in the UK. Imagine the stance social services might take. What's this? You allow your children to handle machines built for the exclusive purpose of killing people?

Unlike many dangerous things that are intended for perfectly innocent uses, a gun is built for only one purpose, which is to kill things. An uzi is a subset of that broader general range of guns. An uzi is built for no purpose other to kill actual people.

So in effect, by allowing this 9 year old girl to practice in the use of an uzi, the implication is that they were allow a 9 year old girl to practice in the art killing people.

The yanks will of course say that they have a right to defend themselves and their property, using guns if necessary. I could understand a farmer in some remote farm panicking and picking up a shotgun if his house is being burgled while he and his family are in it. That shotgun is there for the purposes of shooting grouse or whatever. That's quite different to arming with a gun built specifically for close quarters warfare.

I mean, who has a legitimate need for an uzi? "Hello dear wife, no I haven't been wasting my money, I bought this because you never know when I might suddenly have need to do a rapid assault on the neighbour's house to liberate the neighbour from an entire squad of heavily armed and highly trained militia".

Anyone who wants to use a submachine gun who is not serving military on duty is just a terrorist to my mind.

 

Tricky one this
Sorry, this incident was a tragedy for all involved and we can only feel sorrow that it has happened.
But in light of the other news involving children in our country, the old saying " people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" comes to mind, when judging children protection in this country against other nations!

 

Our culture is infinitely ahead of the US. But if we allow guns to become a part of our culture here then our society will have hit the lows that they have.

 

After Dunblane all hand guns were banned. I had friends who were target shooters and they were outraged that they could not keep their guns at home, they had to store them at the gun club. I understand their reaction, but the law went through anyway (and I didn't understand why they thought they needed to store the guns at home ... although I did understand why they wanted to refill their own ammunition (both cost and for "hobby" reasons) [dunno if that was part of the ban though]

Similar thing in Australia where some major shooting catastrophe stimulated the country to do something and the government did a buy-back of people's guns, reduced the gun ownership dramatically, and with it the deaths-by-gunshot rate fell ...

Jeremy Vine today was talking about the number of youngsters in USA that kill / are killed in by guns. I've forgotten the comparison that he made, but Google found this one:

"A year after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, ... [there were] subsequent deaths of 194 children ages 12 and under who were reported in news accounts to have died in gun accidents, homicides, and suicides"

I don't get why they don't get it ... nothing seems to motivate the USA to do something about their needless slaughter of innocent people ...

 

Guns are not a part of our culture and neither do I think they should be, but if they want it to remain a part of their culture then so be it, accidents will of course happen and I think they accept that.

Val

 

I don't think they accept it, I think USA gun proponents make excuses for it ... I've heard arguments like "Cars are sold which go at twice the speed limit, and cars kill a lot of people" - ignoring the fact that something like 50% of deaths from car accidents are drunk/incapacitated drivers ...

About 50% of Americans are pro tighter gun laws, and gun deaths have fallen considerably since the 70's ... maybe the sea-change is actually under way?

 

If we allow guns to be part of our culture?

I think they already are, the thing no-one seems to realise in this country is that laws only apply to the law abiding public.
If you are a criminal and move in those circles its quite easy to obtain a gun.

That leaves the rest of the population at a disadvantage.

I must admit, I cant see why the US allows so many automatic weapons to be on sale so easily in some states, but the right to own a hand gun should not be illegal.
Quite often its only when something stupid like this becomes news, that the US gets put in the frame regarding gun ownership, many other countries in the world allow gun ownership.

Most of our gun laws have been made from knee jerk reaction to certain events.
You cant even target shoot here with a hand gun.
But people still get killed with them.

 

But how many people are violent criminals? Legal guns are a part of rural culture, but illegal guns are mercifully still rare in cities. Armed robbery (using proper guns) runs at about 5000 per year (from government spreadsheet 2010/11)
Numbers and percentages1 England and Wales, 2010/11 Recorded crime
Weapon type Number of offences % fired % used as blunt instrument % used as a threat
Shotguns 608, 52, 5, 43
Handguns 3,105, 13, 9, 78
Imitation firearm2 1,610, 71, 2, 27
Rifles/others3 1,701, 44, 2, 54
Non-air weapons 7,024, 37, 5, 58
Air weapons 4,203, 84, 0, 15
Total 11,227, 55, 3, 42

I suspect that the lower number of handguns fired may be a result of the difficulty of getting appropriate ammo?

How? I would much rather have to deal with a mugger with a concealed knife than a concealed gun. If they thought that the potential victim may be armed then surely they will arm themselves first.

Probably not, but I think that the very nature of a handgun means that more rigorous checks are needed before a license is issued. And a DNA test must be mandatory too for a handgun license.
Or better still, they must be kept at a licensed gun club. Although thinking about it wasn't that the case before?

I used to have a rifle (my Gramps was left to me) and license up until 2007 but gave it up as it got used so rarely. Twice in ten years, and the second time was to dispatch a deer that had been hit by a van.

 

Guns have long been in our culture
Mostly in the hands of the rich, landed and their trustees granted, but still in our culture.
We know our dogs can be shot if running loose in a field of sheep and that there are legal exceptions made for defending oneself with a licenced gun if your life is at risk.
It's just that most of us feel safe enough not to have to defend our property or ourselves with a gun, that or we cannot be bothered going through the faff to obtain one.
I am thankful that the small number of firearms on our streets have not prompted scaring the majority of reasonable citizens to react by upping the ante and arming themselves. At the moment we can usually tell the good guys/gals from the bad, if we are all armed then we are all potentially bad!

 

I dont think you can compare any thing that happens in the UK with the US, its got a much bigger population, much more space and much more in the way of "rural" (for want of a better word), communities.
If I had to deal with a mugger with a knife, I think its no contest, if I had a gun, perhaps a chance, but then as you say, he would probably have a gun also, instead of a knife.
So maybe it cancels itself out, but at least you have a choice.

Over here, you can get a criminal record for just having a penknife, which is a ridiculous situation.
And brought about, yet again, by knee jerk law making.

 

How do I arm myself. I'd like to know?

 

I heard a statistic today. 45,000 in the US are killed every year by firearms.

 

https://www.gov.uk/shotgun-and-firearm-certificates.

This is not a link to be facetious Pete, this is just to point out that if you need to, you still can hold a gun licence.
It is a lot of hard work to attain and hold the licence, which does put off a number of people who may have just held a gun on a whim.

As for being attacked, we have been burgled at home 4 times, had many cars pinched and I have been threatened and assaulted in the workplace and on the street. On a day to day basis I deal with folk that are drugged up, drunk or just plain angry. These folk can appear threatening and are often intimidating.
In spite of this I still feel I wouldn't be able to take another's life. How can I condemn violence in others if I am willing to resort to it myself?
Therefore I would not want to carry a weapon.