We Read Many Valid Points Against The Widespread Carrying Of Guns In America, But If This Citizen Had Not Been Carrying A Gun, Things Could Have Been Much Worse.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5769727/One-dead-injured-mass-shooting-Oklahoma-City-restaurant.html

[youngmafbog]

ZM, you said "if the guy carrying out the attack hadn't been allowed to carry one, the incident would never have happened."

That is rubbish.

Jeez you are right, it is hard on here sometimes.

[ichkeria]

Man has gun
Man shoots with gun
Man doesn’t have gun
Man can’t shoot with gun

Strip away all the nonsense and that is what it boils down to ....

[youngmafbog]

You missed one.

Man has illegal gun.
Man shoots with illegal gun.

It is the 'not allowed' bit that is rubbish.

Like I said above The good guy will obey the law the bad will not proven over and over by the fact prisons are full.

[ichkeria]

Sure
And I realise that no one is going to wave a magic wand and most of America’s guns will disappear. But we should not lose sight of the fact that fewer guns = less killings, and the solution long term is not more guns to shoot people before they shoot you!

[youngmafbog]

I agree, in principle. But that is not what ZM said.

[jim360]

The problem is that there is also the "spontaneous bad guy", or the "fairly lazy bad guy who happens to have easy access to a gun anyway", or the "accidental bad guy", or the "guy who made a bad judgement call and it ends up with a death because that's what guns are for", etc etc.

No-one believes for a second that the restriction of guns will end gun violence. But (over time, properly phased-in, with a properly-trained and resource police force to manage the transition, etc) it will be possible to achieve a massive reduction. If all you have to do to go out and shoot people is to reach into your bedside cabinet it makes a difference.

[Spicerack]

///.if guns weren't allowed to be carried by the general public.......the incident would not have happened.///

Wrong,,,,again.

///Jeez, it's hard work on here sometimes.///

Right. But not for the reason you, or the other genius, think.

[youngmafbog]

Can't really argue with that but I wold counter that in the US it is going to be nigh on impossible to get the good guys to hand over their weapons whilst all those other guys you describe are out there.

What will happen is good guys hand them in bad guys and odd balls (no shortage there) won't. Good guys will then feel very vulnerable.

In addition much of the US is remote. You cannot get rid of guns there.

I still maintain the US needs to address the problem of why so many people want to kill others. Other countries allow guns but dont have the same murder rate. That needs anwering otherwise remove the guns they will just use trucks or whatever means is available.

The US gun issue is very complex IMHO.

[jim360]

It is indeed. It's also fairly clear, as you say, that a blanket ban on guns wouldn't work. What is sad is that, right now, it's almost impossible to take any action at all -- be it on restricting access to weapons that can't possibly be claimed as for defensive purposes, or on addressing any other side issue.

[anotheoldgit]

/// AOG's logic is that, if guns weren't carried by the general public then this incident wouldn't have been prevented. ///

No let's have this correct shall we?

AOG's logic is that, if a gun hadn't been carried by this member of the general public, then this incident could have turned out to be much worse.
FACT.

/// if guns weren't allowed to be carried by the general public.......the incident would not have happened. ///

You are only stating the obvious, but could only happen in Zac's dream world, which is quite a distance from the real world.

Lesson over for the one pupil in the remedial class, goes by the name of Zacs junior.

[sp1814]

To prevent people from getting all tied up in semantics...yes, if the bystander didn’t have a gun the situation could have been much worse. But the fact that guns are so easily available in the U.S. means that the situation was more likely to happen in the first place.

We can simultaneously be happy that this situation did not resolve worse than it did, and also acknowledge that we are never more than a month away from the next mass shooting.

[Gromit]

After the recent Texas shooting, an official asserted that the problem was that buildings had too many entrances.

If this restaurant had no doors, then the gunman could not have got in and shot people. It has nothing to do with guns or crime. I blame the architects for not designing safer buildings.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-shooting-santa-fe-school-doors-dan-patrick-lieutenant-governor-a8358691.html

[Zacs-Master]

'You are only stating the obvious'

Mmm. I was.

'But the fact that guns are so easily available in the U.S. ..........'

AOG's argument is that it's a good job they are. Which would be unecessary, if they weren't. I appreciate that's a historic argument but you can't just make a statement without reference to the underlying facts, which are, if guns had never been allowed to be so widely available to the public, there would have been no situation to prevent.

[youngmafbog]

Unfortunately you are right SP, and lets hope it is a month and not sooner.

Jim "What is sad is that, right now, it's almost impossible to take any action at all", whist I agree totally with regard to the average American's regard to gun ownership what is stopping the US authorities from understanding WHY they do it. Surely no one could object to that. I know it is no mean feat and would cost a fair packet but what value is a life?

[anotheoldgit]

Zacs-Master

///'But the fact that guns are so easily available in the U.S. ..........' ///

/// AOG's argument is that it's a good job they are. ///

I didn't say that, but what I did say was, "If This Citizen Had Not Been Carrying A Gun, Things Could Have Been Much Worse".

In this particular instance.

[andy-hughes]

YMB - // That simply is not true. It really isnt a full argument but it is one for far more than one second. //

The current NRA mantra is "The only answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun …" so I'd say this scenario fits that argument absolutely perfectly.

Of course, it does rather over-rule the slightly iffy question about how they make sure that 'good guys with guns' actually stay as 'good guys with guns', and more importantly, why they can't see that any 'guy' wanting to carry a gun is seriously diminishing his 'good guy' status right there!

[jim360]

YMB: if memory serves, the NRA is such an influential lobby in US politics that they've effectively forced laws to be passed blocking federal funding even into research of gun-related crime. I'm not sure how extensive this block is, but in practice I think it means that basically it's impossible for an official body to research the causes of gun crime.

I might be exaggerating this a little but it's known as the Dickey Amendment, and better info is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment

[david small]

We should all have the means of being able to defend family and Home. Limited self defence permitted with in reason.

[andy-hughes]

david small - // Limited self defence permitted with in reason. //


That one sentence is an entire minefield all on its own.

Who decides what is 'limited', what is 'self defence' and what is 'within reason'?

All these things are variables which all shift according to each and every individual circumstance, which makes it impossible ethically, and obviously impossible legally as well.

[jno]

Things Could Have Been Much Worse

how? He'd already finished his shooting and was leaving.