quote:

Originally posted by HardTranceProd I don't like America's "armed-to-the-teeth" lifestyle either. It's something that's completely alien to me.

That's the only reason why we're not still under British rule. People tend to forget that.

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However, this past week the world has been shaken by three extremely violent events which, surprisingly, were outside the USA. One was a brutal murder of a girl in an Italian village called Perugia. The second was this Finnish school massacre. And the third was the shooting at a rave in Venezula which left 4 people dead while DJ Carl Cox was spinning. The US is not the only place where senseless violence occurs and sometimes people forget that.

The main problem is that in order to stop violence we need to attack it's causes rather than simply attacking the materials which can be used as tools to carry it out.

Good luck with that, though.

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Originally posted by HardTranceProd The US is not the only place where senseless violence occurs and sometimes people forget that.

I'm not disputing that. I'm pretty sure that, proportionally, there are just as many nutters capable of committing horrible acts like this most countries as there are in America.

I'm not making any comments on "Americans" and their willingness to carry out such attacks, I'm commenting on what the state does about it. In the UK, they DID do something about it, but in America, nothing has been done because to support gun control is akin to supporting al-Qaida over there!

I don't really think that you can characterise a whole population just because one person of that nationality decided to shoot a school up, but I do think that government responses and attitudes to solutions can be quite telling - in this case, the British public (and government) seemingly decided this was unacceptable and wanted the law changing, whereas in America, the prevailing attitude, among the population and government, seems to be that they are willing to put up with instances like this so that they can still latch on to some archaic law that says they can own a gun to defend themselves from the British!

We'll see how the Finns react - like the British or like the Americans...

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Originally posted by George Smiley I'm not disputing that. I'm pretty sure that, proportionally, there are just as many nutters capable of committing horrible acts like this most countries as there are in America. I'm not making any comments on "Americans" and their willingness to carry out such attacks, I'm commenting on what the state does about it. In the UK, they DID do something about it, but in America, nothing has been done because to support gun control is akin to supporting al-Qaida over there! I don't really think that you can characterise a whole population just because one person of that nationality decided to shoot a school up, but I do think that government responses and attitudes to solutions can be quite telling - in this case, the British public (and government) seemingly decided this was unacceptable and wanted the law changing, whereas in America, the prevailing attitude, among the population and government, seems to be that they are willing to put up with instances like this so that they can still latch on to some archaic law that says they can own a gun to defend themselves from the British! We'll see how the Finns react - like the British or like the Americans...

They will react like the Americans. I know this because Finland is #3 in gun ownership in the world, as was mentioned in the original BBC article.

Gun ownership is prized in Finland just like in the US and Switzerland.

Recall that in 2002 there was a mall shooting in Helsinki I believe. I don't think a lot of dramatic action was taken at that time, either, because obviously shooting incidents still occur there.

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Oh well, maybe the British are just a race of complete and utter nutters so need strict gun laws like the strict alcohol licence laws!

I think I read somewhere that even tho Finland (and Switzerland) have very high gun ownership, they have relatively little gun crime...

Threads like this remind me that I've never, ever, seen a good argument against making guns illegal.

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According to the Department of Justice, about 800,000 incidents occur each year in the US where firearms were used defensively. So yes, I'd say they definitely are useful.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN dont argue with the yanks nutter, they know best!

Ummmm, am I missing something here? It clearly says that that was the FIRST school shooting in Finland. So by far, things in Finland are far safer that in USA. AND, there are no perfect countries, there are criminals and murderers all over the world, except in some countries its much more per capita than others ...


EDIT: Correction - First school shooting in Filand since 1989 when 2 were killed.

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Last edited by Magnetonium on Nov-07-2007 at 22:34

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Originally posted by HardTranceProd The US is not the only place where senseless violence occurs and sometimes people forget that.

i dont think anyone here thinks the US is the only nation where violence erupts. but those of us in comparable nations (like myself or george) DO realise that the biggest contributor to gun violence in the USA is the readily available weapons on sale at your local kmart

as for all of those here arguing that "only criminals will have the weapons if there is gun control" -that's only a legitimate argument in a country whose historically lax gun control measures have turned the US into an armed state. it's too late for the US now. yet britain, a nation much much older than the US, is able to have gun control and there is much less gun violence.

it really amuses me too that nutjobs like trancer believe citizens owning guns actually act as a counter measure against the state. you know, a state that has tanks

edit: see lira's lovely resized image

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Last edited by pkcRAISTLIN on Nov-08-2007 at 11:51

oops. im a net noob, how do i resize that?

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I don't think gun restriction laws will be introduced in the US in the near future. I think it'd be ineffective. 1/3 of the world's guns are owned by US citizens, heh. Plus, it'd be political suicide. A lot of US citizens just don't want such laws.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN dont argue with the yanks nutter, they know best!

Great work, PKC!

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN oops. im a net noob, how do i resize that?

Easiest way to do that:

1. Go to http://www.**************
   
2. Choose URL
   
3. Paste the URL of the image you intend to resize
   
4. Choose one of those resizing options
   
5. Press Submit
   
6. ???
   
7. Choose the last piece of code and place it into the img tags.
   
8. Profit!!!
   

Here's the final result:





edit: I guess I should've chosen 800x600... but, well, that's just a sample anyway

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