http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/12/14/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school Comments On: Shooting Reported at Connecticut Elementary School by Goldy en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 09:45:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Neglectful parents who (to their benefit) didn't learn how to model constructive and pro-social behavior for their children are a dangerous, growing phenomenon in our society.

Who's regulating/monitoring parenting skills? Because we become parents doesn't give us a "free ticket" from having mental health and interpersonal communication issues which need attention.

Metaphoric to a person who seeks to acquire a gun - a parent who is not "qualified" (has no "background check" or monitoring done for parenting/communication skills) is potentially very dangerous. Further, parents "wrap their hands around" a child, guide/"aim" their direction, and, ultimately, pull the trigger.

What we really need to give our attention to is not the gun, but who's behind the trigger?

Posted by friendlyneighborhood]]> Mon, 17 Dec 2012 08:33:50 -0800 The Stranger According to ABC news blogs who quoted the FBI Uniform Crime Report, between 2006 and 2010 47,856 people were murdered in the U.S. by firearms, more than twice as many as were killed by all other mean combined http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/20…
A CDC breakdown of people that died by firearms shows, Suicide: 18,735, Homicide: 11,493, Unintentional: 554, Legal interventions: 333, Undetermined: 232 deaths, 73,505 non-fatal firearm injuries in 2010 and an additional 13,851 non-fatal injuries from BB or pellet guns. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60….
US Second Amendment was enacted to protect individual’s right to possess firearms, such as self-defense within the home when technology was relatively crude and deliveries of services were slow. Today police use radio, fast cars, aviation not horses. There are more than 800,000 law enforcement officers in the US who are supposedly well trained to carry firearms and are psychologically fit to protect the public. http://www.nlera.org/?page_id=116. Since about 1/4 or more adults in the USA suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder, it is irresponsible to allow civilians to use firearms. Firearms should be banned.http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publicati…

Posted by Pierre F. Lherisson]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:53:14 -0800 The Stranger Yes, you seem to have almost mastered the art of cut-and-paste.
But the question was not "can you demonstrate the art of cut-and-paste".

What SPECIFIC law(s) that you believe would have prevented this SPECIFIC incident.
Please be specific.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:22:24 -0800 The Stranger The result has been among the strictest firearms laws in the world.[9] After Hungerford, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 criminalised most semi-automatic long-barrelled weapons; it was generally supported by the Labour opposition although some Labour backbenchers thought it inadequate.[10] After the second incident, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 criminalised private possession of most handguns having a calibre over .22; the Snowdrop Campaign continued to press for a wider ban, and in 1997 the incoming Labour government introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, which extended this to most handguns with a calibre of .22 (there are exceptions for some antique handguns and black-powder revolvers.)

[edit]Impact of firearm legislation

In 2006, writing in the British Journal of Criminology, Dr Jeanine Baker and Dr Samara McPhedran found no measurable effect detectable from the 1997 firearms legislation with ARIMA statistical analysis [11] but in subsequent years firearm homicides declined. In 2012 the Home Office reported that, "in 2010/11, firearms were involved in 11,227 recorded offences in England and Wales, the seventh consecutive annual fall".[12]

Firearms statistics in England and Wales include airguns and imitations guns, which make up a high proportion of these recorded offences (see under "Firearms crime" below).

Prohibited firearms

The following are generally prohibited :[23][24]
Fully automatic or burst-fire weapons, including air guns.
Firearms disguised as another item (e.g. walking sticks, mobile telephones, etc.)
Rockets and mortars.
Air guns chambered for self-contained gas cartridges.
Any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid gas or other thing. Generally stun guns or electric shock devices, CS gas not usually cattle prods but depends on type

Licensing is strict as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politic…

But again, gun nuts hysterical over their penis substitutes ignore reality, facts and anything else reality-based that might deprive them of the most effective human killing machines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politic…
Posted by judybrowni]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:54:31 -0800 The Stranger "You want specific laws that would have prevented this: How about the assault rifle ban which was recently over-turned."

I'm thinking that I'll have to post this link about half-a-dozen times today.
But I can do that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Ass…
And it did nothing to stop anything.
The manufacturers simply changed the cosmetic characteristics of their product and were in compliance.

"Or uniform federal controls of gun ownership ..."

What, SPECIFICALLY, would those "controls" be?
Please be specific.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:44:45 -0800 The Stranger
Or uniform federal controls of gun ownership, instead of the patchwork of red states where guns can be bought openly and shipped to states with better control, and gun shows where gun control laws are flouted.

Gun control laws like that of Great Britain, where even with the fewer number of residents factored in has 1/5th the murders in the U.S., and 1/10 the number of firearm deaths.

Laws like that:

Number of Murders, United States, 2009: 15,241

"Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146

Number of Murders, Britain, 2008*: 648
(Since Britain’s population is 1/5 that of US, this is equivalent to 3,240 US murders)

Number of Murders by[pdf] firearms, Britain, 2008* 39
(equivalent to 195 US murders)

*The Home office reported murder statistics in the UK for the 12 months to March 2009, but these are 12-month figures).

For more on murder by firearms in Britain, see the BBC.

The international comparisons show conclusively that fewer gun owners per capita produce not only fewer murders by firearm, but fewer murders per capita over all. In the case of Britain, firearms murders are 48 times fewer than in the US.

Do hunters really need semi-automatic Glock hand guns? Is that how they roll in deer season? The US public doesn’t think so."
http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/over-900…

You'll find hyperlinks to all the above statistics in the link above, -- not that facts ever convinced a gun nut hysterical about losing his phallic symbols.

Posted by judybrowni]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:40:31 -0800 The Stranger "I think a person should try to figure out under what circumstances gun laws will actually reduce gun violence before he or she proposes restrictions on the second amendment rights of others."

That makes no sense.
You cannot discuss the effects of the laws without specifying what laws you are discussing.
So I'm just going to comment again on how you cannot post the SPECIFIC law(s) that you believe would have prevented this SPECIFIC incident.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:29:21 -0800 The Stranger
BTW Why do you think the murder rate in Chicago is so much higher than the murder rate in New York?
Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:48:31 -0800 The Stranger "Woud you concede that stricter gun laws only reduce gun violence to the extent that they are enforced?"

Is there some reason you cannot post the SPECIFIC law(s) that you believe would have prevented this SPECIFIC incident?

Instead you're supporting the NRA's talking point of outlawing guns and only outlaws having guns.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:19:06 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:15:23 -0800 The Stranger No, you really did not.
Let me break down your closest suggestions:

"If we had
a nation wide assault weapons ban
combined w/ strict licensing and registration requirements for handguns
and an NYC style stop and frisk program in every city
then we'ed all be a lot safer,
but none of that is ever going to happen."

Wasn't there already a nation-wide ban on "assault weapons"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Ass…
Did it work?
No.

You fail to be specific about "strict" in your handgun suggestion.

And I've already shown you that stop-and-frisk fail in over 99% of the stops and that violent crime in NYC has been in decline for years prior to stop-and-frisk and that there is no evidence that stop-and-frisk does anything to reduce violent crime. Those are statistics.

So unless the shooter was a black or hispanic kid your proposal would do nothing at all.
Which has been the criticism that you've been unable to address every time you bring it up.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:08:05 -0800 The Stranger
I can see it now, 5th graders slaughtering each other.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:06:19 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:56:28 -0800 The Stranger
We need to ban all sales that are not from a federally licensed dealer who can perform a background check. We need to register every one of those sales. We need to license ownership and require training and regular mental health evaluations to retain the license. We need to allow localities to restrict ownership of rifles if they want--rural areas could opt out to allow hunting and target shooting, but big cities could just say no. Handguns should require a higher level of training and mental health checkups.

If I were making law from scratch, I'd say no guns in cities unless you're an active law enforcement official. Guns in the countryside kept in centralized armories near hunting and target shooting areas, where people can join as members to use guns under closely regulated conditions. Totally remove the idea that guns have any purpose in killing people, except in military and as a last resort during police operations. That's too hard to get to from our current culture, but it's what I'd like to see.
Posted by Cascadian]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:52:36 -0800 The Stranger "Things don't just magically go away because somebody makes a law against them."

If you want to disagree with the NRA then your first step should be to stop agreeing with them.
What is it that the NRA members keep saying?
When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

Now, try to suggest a specific law that would have prevented this specific incident.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:45:36 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:42:10 -0800 The Stranger "...people like you oppose the aggressive police tactics that make such laws effective."

And since you have not suggested a single, specific law that would have any impact in this specific case that means that you're beating on a straw man again.

Suggest at least one SPECIFIC law that would have prevented this SPECIFIC incident.
But you won't, will you?
Which is why the NRA keeps winning these debates.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:27:58 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:20:21 -0800 The Stranger So why don't you suggest a specific law that would have prevented this specific shooting?

Why isn't anyone here doing that?
We've seen enough of these articles by now that anyone for "gun control" should have some idea of what law(s) they would like passed.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:03:01 -0800 The Stranger

Posted by Captain Wiggette]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:01:35 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Tawnos]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:00:57 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:54:40 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Gurldoggie]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:49:08 -0800 The Stranger
All the arguments where essentially outlined with the same cast and the counter arguments are already known and expected. In this way it is quite a microcosm of the debate in general though.

Merely an observation.
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:48:31 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Rotten666]]> Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:47:48 -0800 The Stranger