A Price Worth Paying For The Right To Bear Arms?

[sandyRoe]

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/white-man-hunted-after-black-church-shooting/ar-AAbKSzj

[ummmm]

It'll just reinforce the 'right to bear arms'

[Svejk]

Similar things happen in countries where they don't have it.

[zebo]

I tend to think that if America wants to live according to a 200+ year old document they deserve all they get, the Right and the NRA (a tautology?) will never allow America to advance beyond their frontiersman attitude. In the very remote areas, I can see the need to be able to protect oneself but to be in the queue for the check-out at Safeway in a metropolitan area and see a well-dressed couple in front with weapons openly carried in their belts is disconcerting.

[ToraToraTora]

A price worth paying? The Americans certainly seem to think so, they pay it all the time.

[mikey4444]

If it really was a hate crime, then it was a racist attack. America is a country that has too much racism and too many guns, so we shouldn't be terribly surprised when this sort of thing happened.

Until the majority of American people who don't have guns get organised and actually do something about the gun issue, this is going to continue to happen. The solution is in their hands.

[anotheoldgit]

Such a thing could happen here in the UK, in fact it has and we don't have a right to bear arms.

The Hungerford massacre, the Dunblane school massacre, the Cumbria shootings and the Monkseaton shootings, to name some of the worst.

[anotheoldgit]

mikey4444

/// If it really was a hate crime, then it was a racist attack ///

We all know you can't wait to tag a racist tag on such things, but just because some unfortunate black people were killed by a white person, does not mean it was a racist attack, he could have hated them because of their religion, or was simply a madman who would have killed people regardless of the colour of their skin.

[mikey4444]

AOG...after Dunblane, gun ownership was severely curtailed in Britain, a change in the law that was widely agreed with and appreciated. Massacres like those that happen on a regular basis, all over the USA, are not happening here in Britain any more, or at least very rarely, almost exclusively due to the change in law.

Both Thomas Hamilton and Michael Ryan were licensed gun owners, and had access to high power guns. Madness and gun ownership are not ideal bed-fellows, so by preventing gun ownership, we have done much to make our country safer.

The Americans have an appalling record of gun murders and its getting worse. But after the Sandy Hook massacre, some of them were actually suggesting that gun ownership should be increased !

Almost impossible to believe, but true nethertheless.

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33179627

AOG...why are so obtuse ? Look at the link above...there is very little doubt that the murders were racist, as voice by the two white men seen in the clip.

[ToraToraTora]

Yes AOG it can happen here but gun availability means it's rare. Of course shops are full of murder weapons though not as efficient as a gun of course but there are plenty of weapons should the intent arise.

[mikey4444]

TTT...the voice of common sense !

To answer Sandys question directly....no, of course its not a price worth paying, but the Americans need to be convinced of that...its all down to education.

[-Talbot-]

anotheoldgit
mikey4444

/// If it really was a hate crime, then it was a racist attack ///

We all know you can't wait to tag a racist tag on such things, but just because some unfortunate black people were killed by a white person, does not mean it was a racist attack, he could have hated them because of their religion, or was simply a madman who would have killed people regardless of the colour



Or because he hated the hymn they were singing, or the organ was out of tune or he was a madman racist...it is a possibility you know.

[RATTER15]

So all this praying ***, done nothing for them!!

The most violent areas in the USA are the heavily Christian areas!!

give up religion and guns to live in peace!

[ToraToraTora]

The US will never do anything about the 2nd. It is more important to them that rednecks can have a collection of guns and that the general public have easy access to weapons of death. They don't mind about the occasional massachre or kids blowing off their own heads with moms handbag gun. They don't care, it is only us in the civilised nations that care about that sort of thing. We are pi55ing in the wind everytime this happens we whine from across the pond. The US shruggs and continues because no US government, of any hue, will commit electoral suicide by trying to do anything about it.

[mikey4444]

LOL to that Ratter !

Never a day goes past that I am not eternally grateful that I am an atheist !

[Svejk]

Yes, Talbot, a distinct possibility. But not a known fact as mikey would have it.

[mikey4444]

TTT...I agree with all you say, but its clear that gun ownership is not uniform across the nation and the population. If enough people rose up, got organised and formed an effective opposition, who knows what they could achieve ?

After all, that is how racism was dealt with in the 50's and 60's, by ordinary, decent people standing up and being counted.

But I agree that they would have their work cut out for them.

[anotheoldgit]

mikey4444

/// AOG...why are so obtuse ? Look at the link above...there is very little doubt that the murders were racist, as voice by the two white men seen in the clip. ///

No, all I could hear was the police chief stating categorically that it was a 'hate' crime.

[Zacs-Master]

1. Racism wasn't 'dealt with' in the 50's and 60's.
2. "If enough people rose up, got organised and formed an effective opposition, who knows what they could achieve ?" Death by shooting in a large number of cases....probably.