OK, Let's do it again. Why do you Brits have such retarded, faggotty gun laws?

[Gopher Gary]

Granted I did some into this thread on the back of the same arguement held elsewhere.  So yeah.  Maybe I was a bit in your face.

A fun troll would engage me in some dick jokes.

[FourAceDeal]

The high school I went to had an indoor shooting range under the theater where kids used to bring their guns to school for target practice. It was closed down due to lead contamination, not due to school shootings. Those didn't start happening until the mid 90's. 

In my school it was compulsory to be an Army cadet from 14 years old and onwards.  We had a range in the cellar that ran the length of the school where we'd fire the .22 rifles.  One evening a week and some weekends we were bussed out in groups to a range were we would fire the .303s.  A couple of times per term we went on weekend manouvres with whaever our parent unit was (mine was the Prince of Wales Regiment - light infantry) where we would use the 7.62mm FN semi-autos and would taught the niceties of the bayonet and such.  Nights would be spent sitting in damp holes in the woods in ambush groups.  As a result of all this my school put more officers into the British Army than any other.

We were taught what guns were for.  They are for killing people.  (And for stealing their countries, but that bits frowned upon these days.)


Editted to say....  There are 700,000 licenced gun owners in Britain (I used to be one of them).  To call us an unarmed society is incorrect.  We just don't have the same culture of ownership and tend to only rarely go ape shit in public with them.  The question that needs to be addressed is why there is this American phenomena of the killing spree.  And to be honest until both sides of the arguement sit down and talk about it properly it's going to keep happening.

[Jack]

The question that needs to be addressed is why there is this American phenomena of the killing spree.  And to be honest until both sides of the arguement sit down and talk about it properly it's going to keep happening.

Can't seem to find a world analysis of spree killers; it's probably buried on page fifty of google under all the links which prefer to only analyze shooters. The best could come up with is Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers The tables in the body of the page only display fifteen entries but the links to the right of the top of the page display the full tables. It's not as detailed as it could be, and offers no statistical analysis. North and South America are counted as one entity with the US owning right at half of the instances, and all European countries are also counted as a whole. The number of occurrences between the Americas and Europe isn't remarkably separated; though its difficult to know how that relates to a per capita statistic as the tables date back to the late eighteen hundreds for the Americas and Europe. Though if one really wanted to do the math using this table, a ten or twenty year study of instances for the US and Europe based on current populations could be easily done. The US certainly leads the pack in educational settings, with two thirds of the listed US instances perpetuated by adults.

[Jack]

North and South America are counted as one entity with the US owning right at half of the instances,

Correction, 80%.

[Jack]

Now really wishing could find a decent analysis, instead of digging around a Wikipedia link. The site does state the listing is incomplete, but will assume the data for the last twenty years is likely to be fairly accurate for the US and Europe. When analyzing the tables for the Americas and Europe, the US displays 36 spree killer instances in the last twenty years, while Europe displays 33. Considering the population of Europe is 2.3 times the US, one could conclude Europe statistically has twice the instances of spree killings as the US. However, the Americas and Europe tables do not include educational and workplace killings, which the US is the clear front runner. So to be fair, added the 12 workplace and 14 educational US instances in the last twenty years, while not bothering adding anything for workplace or educational settings for Europe. That brings the total US instances to 62 compared to the previous stated 33 for Europe. Calculating the population of Europe as rounded down to twice the size of the US, the statistical occurrence of spree killings would appear to be close enough to consider as equal. The fact mass murder is often viewed as primarily an American issue probably speaks more to the narrow focus of national news. Edited to add, a ten year analysis using the same fairness of adding workplace and educational to the US and not Europe, yields the same results. In fact, the ten year totals are almost exactly half the twenty year totals, indicating nothing much has recently changed.

[Jack]

Not sure if you care for that perspective; comparing Europe as a continent to the US. Didn't bother comparing North America as a continent because the Canadians wouldn't add much to US totals anyway and their populations might sku the per capita results. The Europe table displays 3 instances in the last twenty years specific to the UK, compared to the previously stated US 62 which included school and work. The US population is approximately five times larger than the UK, so US spree killings occur three times as often in the US as Great Britain in particular, according to these tables. Even the twenty year familicide instances which fit spree killing criterias are statistically balanced between the US and Europe, though the UK specific entries total only 1. Wanted to say maybe you're right, and the British are culturally less likely to snap, but there doesn't appear to be any single European country that stands out as more or less the spree type. It's odd.

[Gopher Gary]

You lured Jack into a spreadsheet and she ate into my time. 

But in case you were wondering, my dick is so big the NSA keep a 24 hour watch on it. 

[FourAceDeal]

Not sure if you care for that perspective; comparing Europe as a continent to the US. Didn't bother comparing North America as a continent because the Canadians wouldn't add much to US totals anyway and their populations might sku the per capita results. The Europe table displays 3 instances in the last twenty years specific to the UK, compared to the previously stated US 62 which included school and work. The US population is approximately five times larger than the UK, so US spree killings occur three times as often in the US as Great Britain in particular, according to these tables. Even the twenty year familicide instances which fit spree killing criterias are statistically balanced between the US and Europe, though the UK specific entries total only 1. Wanted to say maybe you're right, and the British are culturally less likely to snap, but there doesn't appear to be any single European country that stands out as more or less the spree type. It's odd.

The UK has one mass shooting (4 or more victims dead) about once every ten years. 

The UK has about 55 to 65 gun murders per year (that's about a months worth for the city of Chicago).

Last year the UK police shot dead a total of  2 people.  And that was a bad year.  Most years it's less. 

I grant you that we're lucky in that we are surrounded by water and can make it difficult for people to import guns illegally.


editted to say......  If you really know the British you will know that we have a streak of evil insanity deep within our national culture.  It is possible that the reason we don;t have guns is that we don;t know how to play nicely.  I reckon if we were armed to the degree that the US is then we'd show you all what a murder rate was.  I think our society would last a week at most before we either destroyed ourselves or our neighbours. 

[Jack]

editted to say......  If you really know the British you will know that we have a streak of evil insanity deep within our national culture.  It is possible that the reason we don;t have guns is that we don;t know how to play nicely.  I reckon if we were armed to the degree that the US is then we'd show you all what a murder rate was.  I think our society would last a week at most before we either destroyed ourselves or our neighbours.

That might not be correct. The UK shows a marked increase in homicide in the few years immediately after gun reform, with a mostly steady decline over the last dozen years, and is now equally comparable to rates at the time of gun reform in the mid 80's. Give it a few years and you might have that graph to post, but thus far it doesn't look like fewer guns really matter much for UK murder rates. Though it's difficult to look at it only from a perspective of guns. Misspoke before and US spree killings are four times higher than the UK, but US homicide rates in general are also about four times the UK. The US has seen a similar decline in homicide as the UK over the last fifteen years, and are also comparable to rates in the mid 80's. Maybe it's related to the techno boom and people are too tapped into their electronics to be bothered with murdering; couldn't say.

[Yuri Bezmenov]

The high school I went to had an indoor shooting range under the theater where kids used to bring their guns to school for target practice. It was closed down due to lead contamination, not due to school shootings. Those didn't start happening until the mid 90's. 

In my school it was compulsory to be an Army cadet from 14 years old and onwards.  We had a range in the cellar that ran the length of the school where we'd fire the .22 rifles.  One evening a week and some weekends we were bussed out in groups to a range were we would fire the .303s.  A couple of times per term we went on weekend manouvres with whaever our parent unit was (mine was the Prince of Wales Regiment - light infantry) where we would use the 7.62mm FN semi-autos and would taught the niceties of the bayonet and such.  Nights would be spent sitting in damp holes in the woods in ambush groups.  As a result of all this my school put more officers into the British Army than any other.

It sounds more like the school provided guns rather that kids bringing their own guns.

We were taught what guns were for.  They are for killing people.  (And for stealing their countries, but that bits frowned upon these days.)

  Guns are ALSO for hunting, recreation and self defense.   

Editted to say....  There are 700,000 licenced gun owners in Britain (I used to be one of them).  To call us an unarmed society is incorrect.

I don't recall anyone making that claim in the first place. 

We just don't have the same culture of ownership and tend to only rarely go ape shit in public with them.  The question that needs to be addressed is why there is this American phenomena of the killing spree.  And to be honest until both sides of the arguement sit down and talk about it properly it's going to keep happening.

It's a social problem that began to appear in the mid 90's. Prior to that, school shootings were extremely rare. Therefore, you have to look for a sociological cause, not blame it on guns.

[odeon]

http://www.vakkur.com/hx/guns/guns_kia_79_99.htm

[FourAceDeal]

It's a social problem that began to appear in the mid 90's. Prior to that, school shootings were extremely rare. Therefore, you have to look for a sociological cause, not blame it on guns.

If children were being beaten to death by sociological causes I'd be inclined to agree.  But they get shot by guns.  It's difficult not to include guns in the blame.  As they are being shot.  By guns.  The link is about as direct as you can ever get.

[FourAceDeal]

http://www.vakkur.com/hx/guns/guns_kia_79_99.htm

Facts?  Well you can prove anything with facts.

[odeon]

http://www.vakkur.com/hx/guns/guns_kia_79_99.htm

Facts?  Well you can prove anything with facts.

I was especially fascinated by this:

1979 32,689

1980 33,477

1981 33,778

1982 32,682

1983 30,842

1984 31,078

1985 31,324

1986 33,126

1987 32,638

1988 33,757

1989 34,471

1990 36,866

1991 38,077

1992 37,474

1993 39,358

1994 38,187

1995 35,957

1996 33,750

1997 32,166

Clearly a social problem.

[Yuri Bezmenov]

http://www.vakkur.com/hx/guns/guns_kia_79_99.htm

It's interesting to note that the majority of firearm deaths in America are due to suicide.

That's an argument in favor of guns since it makes suicide painless.