Monday, April 06, 2009

Have Your Say: US Gun Control


A recent series of shooting incidents in the US has many people calling for stricter gun control laws and looking to Obama to make the change. This year, in under one month, there has been at least seven separate incidents in which people have been killed as a result of a shooting incident:

April 6, 2009: father shot to death his five children at home in Washington before killing himself, (USA Today).

April 4, 2009: in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 23 year-old Richard Poplawsk opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, (Yahoo News).

April 3, 2009: Binghamton, N.Y: Jiverly Voong aka Jiverly Wong kills13 people in a shooting rampage inside a New York State immigration services centre, (Countusout Wordpress).

March 29, 2009: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, North Carolina, before a police officers shot him, (Countusout Wordpress).

March 29, 2009: Indian techie Devan Kalathat, 42, shot and killed his two children and three other relatives, then killed himself in an upscale neighbourhood of Santa Clara, California, (Yahoo News).  

March 21, 2009: Lovelle Mixon, 26, shot and killed four Oakland, California, police officers after a traffic stop. Mixon was killed in a shootout with SWAT officers, (CNN.com).

March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people - including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff’s deputy - across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself, (CNN.com).

(From the above incidents only) Total shooting incidents in under one month = 7Total people killed including gunman = 40

Many of those in favor of tighter guns laws have claimed that the right to bear arms is over ruling people’s right to live in safety and without fear. Pro gun supporters have claimed that banning certain weapons such as fully automatics would make little real difference, referring to the late Charlton Heston’s comment ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people’, a much used quote by the National Rifle Association in America. Many also feel that by banning certain weapons your making it harder for people to depend themselves when an incident arises, and that its better to have a gun and not need it, then to need a gun and not have it.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Should there be tighter guns laws in the US?

Leave us your comments. 

7 comments:

PHilfy said...

Simply put - yes, there should be tighter gun control laws.. anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themeless. It took one mass shooting incident in Australia in the 1990's to change the whole country and make guns laws extremely strict and because of it there are far less shootings. America makes too much money from it so they'll never ban fully automatics so, you reap what you sew.

Selph said...

gun laws need to be soooo much tighter in aMERICA...who the f*&*k needs to buy an Uzi???
The amendment excuse is a total load of crap.....

VZT said...

Everyone does like to get up in arms, no pun intended, about the right to bear arms. It should be like, if you want a gun, fine, but you have to take a course that covers safety, legality, and so on. I mean, you're not allowed to go out and drive a car without passing a test first right? This will prob deter some nutters.

Flagday said...

No one needs automatic weapons. No hunter certainly needs automatic weapons. People, including the cops, stand a better chance against someone not holding a machine gun. It's like modern warfare out there. The NRA fears any kind of gun control. It's true, people kill people not guns. But those holding guns are a lot deadlier.

Anonymous said...

It's just naive to tink that the kind of "ban" proposed by American Liberals will have ANY effect on this type of crime. The guns are already out there and a bad guy can be just as distructive with a pump action shotgun. After the Australia Ban Gun crime is WAY UP !! Not down as PHilfy suggests. I wish folks would RESEACH before they comment. None of the listed crimes involved full automatic weapons.

Miss Scarlett said...

Tightening gun laws only creates more illegal behavior. It also doesn't take weapon out of the hands of the criminals. On the contrary. Eventually, the criminals are the only ones who will have them...

I always thought some sort of weapon safety should be taught in schools right along with their sex ed classes. I'm not talking about actually putting weapons in the hands of kids, but teaching them useful facts that could save their lives. I remember seeing a story on the news a few years back. Some digruntled guy went into a college in Canada with a .22 and shot and killed people. A .22... That probably doesn't mean a lot to a lot of people but it does me. Here in MIchigan, there are a lot of hunting enthusiasts. So I grew up around weapons and know those people in Canada didn't have to die. How? Anyone could have picked up desk and ran at the guy. I know .22 wouldn't penetrate it. It'd be a useful excise to allow students to have the opportunity to be shot with a paint gun. Let them feel how much that REALLY hurts...and it's just harmless paint!

The media also fails to EVER print stories of responsibly, armed citizens who saved their own life and/or the life if their family, protected their business, etc. because they were armed.

Were any of the above listed people, healthy, responsible weapon owners? Or were they someone running around with a head full of other issues? How many of them were illegally armed? How many of those people would have used some other means to killed anyway gun or not?

PHilfy said...

Interesting points, thank you for your comments, a very divided subject.

In response.. I think its interesting that many people who feel stricter gun control laws would make little difference and believe in that sense, that we might as well not try and use regulation to at least make it harder for nutters to buy fully automatic and other NOT NEEDED weapons.

No one is suggesting that tighter laws will act as a silver bullet to gun crime, but making it harder for the wrong people to have access to the deadliset weapons is not a fool's plan and would save lives.

In addition, Anonymous claims that gun crimes in Australia have increased after the ban in the 1990's.. I beg to differ and put quite simply - what do you think the gun crime rate would be like today had Australia not banned automatics? Lower?

Gun crimes will never disappear completely, but Australia's government took a bold step years ago to make a difference and it has. Its harder for criminals to commit crimes with fully automatics and I completely disagree that a shotgun can have as much damage as an M4 fully automatic. Shotguns are designed to have an incredibly hard-hitting stopping power at short-medium distances only.

The point is not 'should we ban guns totally and hope for the best'?, or even 'why do we need fully automatics in the first place'?.... the point is that by taking steps to make it harder for idiots to have such fire power is at least a step in the right direction... fine, America loves their guns and want the right to keep em, go for it.. but that dont mean you cant make owning weapons harder like VZT said with harder tests and tighter laws.

Anonymous claims that all of the listed shooting incidents were not used with an automatic weapon, I have to admit that the reports I used as sources of information didn't mention the weapon type, and honestly I dont think thats the point, although I am very curious as to how he knows for a fact that all seven incidents did not use any automatics. Either way, Its not just about the weapon, its about the people behind it and I am always surprised at how many people believe that America should sit back and do nothing to combat the situation when you quite obviously admit there is a problem.

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