ScienceBloggers Greg Laden and Matt Springer have both weighed in on the weapons used by Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. Matt disagrees with the basic gun control argument that Greg initially raised, but focused primarily on correcting some factual errors that Greg made in a later post. Unfortunately, Matt seems to have some incorrect assumptions about firearm availability on military installations. He also seems to have missed at least one important factual point about the firearms that were used in the shooting.
Matt starts off quite badly, at least from the perspective of the facts on the ground:
If my fellow SB friend Greg wants to spin the Ft. Hoot shooting as a cause for gun control then frankly there's pretty much nothing further to say. You'd think a @#$% major in the @#$% army on a @#$% army base just might not have been terribly inconvenienced in procuring weaponry even if every civilian gun in the hemisphere vanished in a puff of sunshine and wishful thinking. But I was going to leave it alone, assuming that that particular point makes itself.
First of all, the military tries hard - and usually succeeds - in keeping tight control over military weapons of all kinds. When not in use, weapons are kept under lock and key, and only certain people have access to them. Hasan did not have access to so much as a sidearm at the time of the shootings. This was undoubtedly one of the main reasons that he bought his own weapons.
By the way, I would expect that when the court-martial papers are drawn up, Hasan will be facing some weapons charges. He was almost certainly in violation of the regulations that cover the ownership of personal weapons by soldiers, carrying personal weapons on base, transporting personal weapons onto the base, and probably a few other things for good measure.
And, believe me, there are regulations that cover ownership of personal firearms by soldiers and on base. If Nancy Pelosi were to propose a national firearms law that mirrors the military's regulations tomorrow, it's entirely possible that the entire senior leadership of the NRA would suffer collective apoplexy.
Junior soldiers have to store weapons in their unit firearms locker, and sign them in and out when they use them. All weapons that come onto base for any reason must be declared to the MPs and registered immediately. Weapons must be transported and stored safely, with trigger and barrel locks or with the bolt removed, and in an appropriately locked container. Under no circumstances is a weapon allowed to be stored loaded. That's just what I remember off the top of my head - I know there's more.
The bottom line is that at the time of the shootings Hasan did not have any more access to firearms than a civilian would have. Had it been more difficult for him to acquire civilian handguns, it would have been more difficult for him to carry out the shooting.
This brings us to the second point, which involves the firearms themselves. Matt takes exception to Greg's description of the Five-seven handgun as a weapon that's "designed to be very effective at killing large numbers of people in close quarters":
The Five-Seven (weird trademark capitalization is goofy even when Apple does it) is not designed to kill large numbers of people in close quarters, except insofar as any pistol is most effective relatively close. It's a pistol like any other, and does the same thing. With the exception of the last three words, you could replace Five-Seven with pretty much any centerfire pistol except the niche wilderness big-bore revolvers and have a statement that works just as well.
That's more or less true as far as the weapon itself is concerned, but Matt leaves out something important - the magazine. Hasan is reported to have purchased (and presumably used) high-capacity 20 round magazines. The FN does not need to use that magazine size - 10 round magazines are also available.
It's difficult to think of a high capacity pistol magazine as being designed to do anything other than make it easier to kill lots of people in close quarters in a short period of time. It's equally difficult to look at the details of the Fort Hood shootings, and wonder how many people died and were wounded because Hasan was able to buy and use 20 round clips.
By most reports, Hasan fired over 100 rounds within three or four minutes. If we assume that most of the rounds were fired from the FN, and that he didn't reload the revolver (which seems reasonable), he would have had to reload at least four times. Had he been using 10-round clips, he would have had to reload at least nine times. Even if we assume that he was proficient enough to reload and resume firing within 3 seconds, that means that the high-capacity magazines gave him at least an extra 15 seconds of shooting time.
Fifteen seconds doesn't seem like much, but it can be a lifetime.
- Log in to post comments
I heard, unconfirmed, that he never used the 357. I find it astonishing that people are making arguments that the FN is not an effective killing macnine designed, pretty much as the manufacturer describes it, for maximum effectiveness in close quarters combat situations where you need to get as many bullets as possible into as many people as possible.
The reason I find it astonishing that people are making the argument (Matt and folks commenting on my blog) that this is not really an effective super dangerous killing pistol thingie is because this guy did apparently fire about 100 rounds into over 40 people killing about 25% of them. So it worked.
My gun control related argument is really about the gun check law that allowed to FBI to know a) Hasan may be a dangerous person and b) he just purchased this pistol, but to be c) unable to link those two facts together because the federal gun check law does not allow the FBI to collate the data.
There is a very high probability that this massacre would not have happened if the NRA/Gun lobby had not forced the law to be watered down as it is. People involved in the gun lobby should not be allowed to walk away from that responsibility.
I have no problem with gun ownership. I have huge problems with stupidity.
"If Nancy Pelosi were to propose a national firearms law that mirrors the military's regulations tomorrow, it's entirely possible that the entire senior leadership of the NRA would suffer collective apoplexy."
Wrong. NRA would salivate at any proposed legislation of the type mentioned because it would stand ZERO chance of passing and would give them another victory (pretty much for free).
"It's difficult to think of a high capacity pistol magazine as being designed to do anything other than make it easier to kill lots of people in close quarters in a short period of time."
You obviously have little experience with firearms.
1) A Hasan-type wacko-terrorist heading to a mass shooting would have absolutely no problem loading 10 low-capacity (10 rd) magazines and use them -- it takes about 2 seconds for a modestly trained person to insert a fresh magazine. So for them it makes NO difference. Law-abiding citizens, on the other hand, packing firearms CANNOT carry many magazines on them. Allowing high-capacity magazines to be carried would level their surviving chances in an encounter.
2) If the purpose of high-cap magazines was "to kill lots of people in close quarters in a short period of time", then why are they routinely issued to police officers? Are they supposed "to kill lots of people in a short period of time"? Regular police officers are issued sidearms for SELF-PROTECTION, not to engage in offensive gunfights (this is SWAT's job).
3) Your premise is that making high-cap magazines legally unavailable would reduce the chances of Hasan getting his. The investigation is still ongoing, but there are indications that Hasan was connected with extremist groups and therefore would have likely had no problem whatsoever obtaining them.
4) If you think prohibition ever worked you obviously did not study history too well.
"Under no circumstances is a weapon allowed to be stored loaded."
Indeed. Where I've been involved with weapon handling procedures ammunition is stored separately from the weapons themselves.
3.72 Gun related homicides (per 10k pop.) US- where guns are legal
0.15 Gun related homicides (per 10k pop.) England and Wales - most guns illegal*
It isn't rocket science.
*some rifles and shotguns can be licensed to farmers etc. but tight restrictions apply)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death…
I had a suspicion my post might get things going around SB. ;)
Anyway, there's some clarification in the comments of my post if you're intersted. The short of it is that it's quite true that guns aren't ubiquitous on base, but are nonetheless easy to get. Just walk over to the practice range. The 9mm Berettas you'd find there would actually have been more dangerous. They come with 15 round magazines, but like the FN reloading takes about 2 seconds unpracticed. Considering he attacked unimpeded for more than 4 minutes I'd say the time difference is immaterial.
Given that, the fact that the FBI didn't know of his purchase makes no difference since he didn't have to buy a gun at all if he didn't want to. And if they did know, it probably wouldn't have raised further flags given the absolutely egregious stuff they didn't act on. And either way I personally like that whole "get a warrant" thing in the constitution if the government wants to look in to your personal purchases.
High capacity magazines are available for almost every semi-automatic pistol that exists. Glock has some 30 round magazines for several of its pistols. 30 rounds of 9mm hollowpoints probably would have been more deadly than 20 rounds of 5.7mm. And he only would have had to reload 3 times to go over 100 rounds fired there.
He probably used the five-seven because the brady campaign demonized into a cop killer gun that is super deadly before it was ever popular here. The officers that stopped this shooting are the first cops to be shot with a five-seven in the US...so this "cop killer" is at best a "cop wounder"...
Yes, any gun is deadly. But the five-seven is no more deadly than 100 rounds of any other handgun.
Symball said: 3.72 Gun related homicides (per 10k pop.) US- where guns are legal
0.15 Gun related homicides (per 10k pop.) England and Wales - most guns illegal* It isn't rocket science.
Apparently it is to people who need it explained (repeatedly) that the purpose of gun control laws is to prevent homicides, not merely gun-related homicides. Quoting the latter is question-begging in the extreme, in that it implicitly assumes no difference in the non-forearm homicide rates, and implies that gun homicides are somehow more tragic than those where the perp chose a different weapon. Total homicide rates are the relevant, apolitical measure.
It is also worth noting just how low the figure you cite is. With all the serious political issues we face, is it really efficient to go all wonky over something that effects fewer than 4 people in 10,000, and in highly predictable demographics (young males)? Both those foaming at the mouth to ban handguns, and those who speak affectionately of cold, dead fingers gripping theirs, need a priority check.
@Matt (#5):
Yes, there are weapons at the range. They're also typically very well controlled. He might have been able to use the weapon to assault other people on the range, but he would not have been able to walk away with the weapon.
In that case, he would have been able to shoot people at the range, but that's a very different environment than the SRP center.
I'm somewhat skeptical about the 2 second figure, at least if we're talking about the time from firing the last aimed round from the old magazine to the time the first aimed round is fired from the new one - particularly when someone's both pumped on adrenalin and removing the new magazines from whatever pocket they were hidden in.
On that topic, it's probably also worth noting that it's more difficult to successfully conceal 10 magazines in your pockets than 5 - even if we're talking about ACU cargo pockets.
As far as the total time goes, I still don't think that even 10 seconds is immaterial when we're talking about a period of time that's under 5 minutes. That's true even if it's a solid block of time. If we're talking - as we are here - about many more 2-3 second delays during the shooting, which translates to many more chances to make a break for better cover, or the door, or to try to tackle the shooter, or whatever, it's even moreso.
In Mexico, you can get life in prison for a single round of 'military' ammo. They have one of the highest violent crime rates in the entire world. In Chicago, handguns are illegal and they have almost 2 murders a day. Why? Only legal citizens are disarmed by anti-gun laws leaving them easy prey for career criminals.
In Switzerland, people receive mandatory military training after school and are issued a full auto assault rifle to keep at home. They have one of the lowest violent crime rates in the entire world. What few instances they have are almost always committed by foreigners. This is also the case in New Zealand where they have 1 gun for every 3 people yet there were only 3 murders last year in the entire country, all committed by foreigners.
"I'm somewhat skeptical about the 2 second figure, at least if we're talking about the time from firing the last aimed round from the old magazine to the time the first aimed round is fired from the new one - particularly when someone's both pumped on adrenalin and removing the new magazines from whatever pocket they were hidden in."
Mike, it is always good to educate yourself before talking about something you have no idea about. Here is a video of an IPSC shooter shooting 6 rounds + reloading from a belt pouch + shooting 6 more. Do you know how much time spent TOTAL? About 4 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzAeobt3ceU&feature=related
#5, Your NZ homicide stats are off by around an order of magnitude - we tend to get about 100 murders a year, and we do plenty of them ourselves.
Stats available Here
Whoops, that should be '#9, Your NZ homicide stats are off...' etc.
Most of those guns in NZ would be owned by hunters, farmers, collectors or sports people. Hand guns are extremely rare in NZ. Laws on hand guns are extremely strict. The police don't even carry guns.
#8: So you're saying that the presence of other armed people might have ended his rampage with many fewer lives lost? I sense I'm only moments from convincing you to get a concealed carry permit. ;)
In fairness to what is a horrible circumstance, I can't credibly say with any certainty whether the extra few seconds of reloading would have made any difference in the case of 10 vs. 20 round magazines. We don't know the details, but I haven't heard of anyone attempting to take him on unarmed, and in any case that would be an exceptionally difficult thing for a human being to do under those kind of circumstances. Even for soldiers, who are certainly not trained to react to their own comrades in arms attacking them on base in the US. I sort of doubt the people in the building could even easily tell who was shooting in that kind of chaotic environment, with the shooter in uniform. However, concealment of the magazines would probably not have been a major factor; bullets have finite size and higher-capacity magazines are proportionally larger.
For the comment in #10, it's probably also not fair to assume a very low reload time based on a practiced competition shooter. Nonetheless a magazine change is a very quick thing even for an amateur (hit one button, insert new magazine), especially for an army officer who if nothing else would have gotten experience during the various annual (I think) requalifications.
#14,
I showed extreme (the actual time in the video was closer to 3 seconds than 4 seconds) simply to refute a claim that 2 seconds was too short (that I made in #2 and you repeaded in #5) for a MODESTLY trained shooter.
@Mark (#10):
It looks like the time between the last shot from the first clip and the first from the next clip in that video is very close to one second. Are you suggesting that a skilled competition shooter firing at a fixed target at a known distance, using a rig designed specifically for that type of speed shooting, is only going to be able to cut reload time in half?
@Matt (#10):
I don't dispute that it's a very quick thing - but seconds matter. I suspect that you and Mark believe that as well. If not, why are both of you taking so much time to try to argue that 2 seconds is a more reasonable time than then 3 seconds I suggested.
As far as the annual qualifications thing goes, I'm fairly sure that's something that often doesn't apply to the medical corps officers - at least in practice. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure my wife hasn't had to qualify since she came back from the last deployment.
Yes, I think that the presence of other armed people might very well have made a difference. That doesn't mean I think that routinely having large numbers of people carrying is a good idea. That's at least partly because I think that the fraction of the population that's likely to cause serious harm with a firearm through stupidity is substantially larger than the fraction who are purely malicious.
"Are you suggesting that a skilled competition shooter firing at a fixed target at a known distance, using a rig designed specifically for that type of speed shooting, is only going to be able to cut reload time in half?"
1) I am a very modest runner. Would it surprise you if I say I can do 100 m in 20 seconds so that the best runners in the world are only going to be able to cut that time in half?
2) rig designed specifically for speed SHOOTING does not have anything to do with the speed of RELOADING (except for a beveled mag well, which is found on many stock guns as well).
But you are right, 3 sec vs 2 sec -- it is a moot point. My actual point was that 10x10 is as deadly as 5x20.
@Mark (#17):
I may have misused the word "rig". I did not intend to refer to only the weapon; I was talking about the shooter's entire setup. The second magazine was in what appeared to be a belt clip designed for fast reloading, and had been positioned with the magazine carefully angled so that it could be rapidly removed and inserted into the gun.
Hasan was wearing ACUs, almost certainly without web gear. That means that he almost certainly had his magazines in his pockets (probably the thigh cargo pockets), not in pouches designed to hold magazines. That's a very different setup, and one that's certain to add time to the process.
I absolutely agree - 10 ten round clips are as deadly as 5 twenty round clips. Once the bullets leave the gun.
My point is - and remains - that an extra few seconds here and there, under the conditions in the Fort Hood SRP center while Hasan was shooting, could very easily have been the difference between life and death for some of the people there.
"I find it astonishing that people are making arguments that the FN is not an effective killing macnine designed, pretty much as the manufacturer describes it, for maximum effectiveness in close quarters combat situations where you need to get as many bullets as possible into as many people as possible."
When people who shoot talk about "effectiveness" they are almost always talking about single-shot effectiveness at killing or incapacitating an adult male at a set range. At typical crime ranges, about the distance across a good sized living room, about 25', a shotgun is far more efficient than any handgun. And better than most rifle rounds.
Of course shooting unarmed people grouped into a building there are more factors than single-shot effectiveness. In that case volume of fire, the sustained rate of fire, is a major factor. Your ability to 'hose down' any area of potential resistance, each shot being an act of intimidation, your ability to maintain control, is far more important that your ability to kill with one shot.
The FN 5.7 is not very powerful in terms of single-shot effectiveness. It is essentially a .22 with a considerable amount of powder behind it. It splits the difference between the common .22LR and the military round a M-16 typically shoots. It is incrementally more powerful than the .22WMR in terms of muzzle energy. In terms of rounds available for all guns the 5.7mm shells are not very powerful.
http://www.chuckhawks.com/5-7x28_cop_killer.htm
But each round is small, light, and when fired, won't cause a lot of recoil. This means the magazines available carry more rounds and you can get off a lot of rounds rapidly while maintaining some nominal level of accuracy. All the sort of things you want if you plan of intimidating a large group and maximizing casualties. Your understanding of it is quite apt.
"My point is - and remains - that an extra few seconds here and there, under the conditions in the Fort Hood SRP center while Hasan was shooting, could very easily have been the difference between life and death for some of the people there."
Excellent point! And while I am not aware of any examples of unarmed victims being able to attack the shooter during reload period, I am aware of an instance when an armed concealed weapon holder was able to kill the attacker exactly at that time -- last year (or year before?) in Winnemuca bar, Nevada.
You got my point...
@Science Avenger (#7)
Total homicides 0.042802 per 1k capita USA
Total homicides 0.0140633 per 1k capita UK
The UK has a third of the murders in total too
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capi…
And do you really believe that that number is acceptable! the US is more dangerous than Armenia and Yemen, does that make you proud of your country!
And Mark- How many more people would have been saved if he didn't have a gun at all!
Crazy merkins
Symball,
Sorry, but yours is an emotional response on both counts.
1) So what it takes to make guns unavailable to psychopaths and terrorists? Will passing the law suffice and sending police after every gun in the country? If you want to see how prohibitions work, you don't have to go back 80 years, just look at the "victories" of "the war on drugs" today. Look at availability of drugs in prisons (the most controlled environment possible).
2) If you think that US's homicide rate has its cause in guns availability, you need to try to answer some questions, like: why Norway's and Switzerlands's gun ownership rates are almost as high as in US yet homicide rates are many times lower? Why Japanese people in US with high availability of guns display the same low homicide rates as Japanese in Japan where guns are heavily regulated. Remember, correlation does not mean causation.
Debates on magazine size are a waste of time. Most, but not all, semi-automatic pistols will still fire a chambered round with the magazine removed. I takes very little training to keep track of the shots fired and swap the empty magazine for a fresh one held in the off-side hand without adding any significant delay between aimed shots. One doesn't wait for the slide to lock back indicating an empty magazine before swapping mags.
You would be better served to save your "debate juices" for questions that really matter. Like for instance, "What law would satisfy DC v Heller, yet keep a handgun out of the hands of a US Army Major with no criminal or psychiatric record?"
Mark- I think that the reason prohibition has worked so well in the UK is simply that it is one based on public support, we don't want them. Comparing this to the war on drugs which is simply a political construct designed to win the votes of a minority of the population (but one with a high voter turnout!) is comparing apples and cheese.
I would also take issue with your using Norway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Norway
and Switzerland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
as examples of high gun ownership.
Norway has a high proportion of hunting rifles and sports guns- not guns as I'm sure an expert like you would agree that are very efficient at killing people. Switzerland's high gun ownership is so high because they are all issued with a military weapon at 18. They must keep it locked safely away at all times
Switzerland is similar but their high rates of gun ownership are also related to the fact that everyone over 20 gets given an army rifle which must be kept locked away at all times
Japanese law states that owning a gun is an offence without a difficult to obtain license- there might be a lot of illegal guns there but these will be kept hidden away rather than flaunted as they seem to be in the US.
This might be an emotional response but I have always been disturbed by the American love affair with guns and the unwillingness to accept that this results in higher rates of gun homicides. You chose this democratically and I respect your right to shoot the hell out of each other, but please don't try and blame it on anything other than an unwillingness to accept that the world has moved on from the wild west.
@DDS -- NRA Life member
how about debates like why do we need handguns at all? Hunting and sports shooting fair enough- I don't see the attraction but I can understand why you would need a gun. Self defence? - if you weren't all willy waving and didn't carry them in the first place then you could live quite peacefully knowing your neighbour didn't either.
Now for a really tough question you could ask how to de-commission a nation of gun nuts- I'm afraid that one is beyond me.
Symball,
You might find it interesting that I became American citizen only about a year ago. Mine is not an obsession with Wild West, but having been born in Russia I know too wellwhat could happen to weaponless and enslaved population. Too me any the public safety debates are secondary to the notion that people who surrender guns are inviting slavery upon them (just like a woman walking naked into a bad neighborhood is not necessarily to be raped but why take the chances). But I am OK engaging in public safety debates since I believe in the right of personal self-defense as well, and consider it is quite documented that allowing citizens to carry handguns actually reduces crime.
As to you
"Switzerland is similar but their high rates of gun ownership are also related to the fact that everyone over 20 gets given an army rifle which must be kept locked away at all times,"
agian, "must be locked" and "locked" are as different as "chair" is different from "electric chair". Do you really believe that a law that states guns must be locked could stop a killer from unlocking them?
Concerning the question "why do we need handguns at all?", let me answer you with the quote from Ralph Mroz, peace officer and gun writer:
"Excuse me??? When did someone else's - let alone some bureaucrat's - opinion of someone's needs become a restriction on their right to own something? That's totalitarian!"
3.72 Gun related homicides (per 10k pop.) US- where guns are legal
0.15 Gun related homicides (per 10k pop.) England and Wales - most guns illegal*
It isn't rocket science.
___________________________
...and nothing is obvious from your stats. What was the rate of gun related homicides in the U.S. several years ago before most gun control laws were enacted? Same goes for the UK. Comparing one country to another doesn't have any bearing on whether gun control is causal.
MD said: Yes, I think that the presence of other armed people might very well have made a difference. That doesn't mean I think that routinely having large numbers of people carrying is a good idea.
That's an excellent point that gets glossed over too often in these debates. Yes, having armed people around at that moment likely would have ended the conflict sooner, but it doesn't follow from there that having people armed all the time would result in net gain of life, since we must consider the negatives of inappropriate shootings from the new armed folks the rest of the time.
Symball said: The UK has a third of the murders in total too. And do you really believe that that number is acceptable! the US is more dangerous than Armenia and Yemen, does that make you proud of your country!
No, but then neither does our horrible record on incarceration (1% of our populace), health care, or any number of issues where we lag behind the rest of the world. 44% (IIRC) of our voters were willing to put Sarah Palin within a heartbeat of the presidency for Christ's sake! We are an ignorant, violent, overly religious lot, with unique racial and other problems, and we pay for it. But that doesn't make your ignorant comments about us all waving guns around willy nilly like it was the wild west any less laughably ignorant, and completely unproductive. You sound like you formed your opinion of the US from watching "Gunsmoke" reruns.
There is simply no evidence that the presence of guns, all by itself, causes our murder rates to be what they are. They are simply tools, dangeous ones for sure, but tools nonetheless, and without the urge to kill, they pose virtually no threat to anyone. It's the broader sociological issues that lead to the urge to kill that we need to focus on, not the tool of choice to carry out that urge.
Mark's comment,
of course applies equally well to drugs, pornography, intoxicants, anti-American propaganda, explosives, weaponized anthrax, and instruments of torture.
Since when possession of adult pornography, intoxicants, anti-American propaganda, as well as ropes, handcuffs, spiked collars, chains, nipple clamps, knifes, needles, electricity, water and other instruments of torture, is forbidden in US?
Science Avenger, I'm not trying to base my opinions on TV- If I did that I would never leave my front door (the detective series Midsomer Murders is filmed in and around my home town).
I will admit to being a little provocative with my comments but when commenters like yourself, Mark and others refuse to admit the possibility that the number of guns available in the US is contributing to the very high homicide rate that you have, i get a bit riled. I don't expect you to reverse 200 years of gun laws tomorrow, but I do find it strange that so many americans (or naturalised americans in marks case) find it so hard to have the debate in the first place.
Mark- re. locking guns away, both Switzerland and Norway are having serious national debates about gun control and whether to tighten restrictions on guns. Perhaps some murders cannot be solved by tighter restrictions, but that does not excuse not trying to prevent the rest of the murders that could. To use driving as an analogy, a seatbelt might not save you in a high speed head on collision, but I don't see anyone arguing that you shouldn't wear one to help out the rest of the time.
"commenters like yourself, Mark and others refuse to admit the possibility that the number of guns available in the US is contributing to the very high homicide rate that you have, i get a bit riled."
Symball, you obviously do not live in the US. Why are you then getting riled about something that is quite foreign to you? Don't you think that people more affected by violence you mentioned have spent more time thinking and studying it and analyzed already (and discarded) the idea that gun control works in US? The evidence is too overwhelming to the contrary, those states that adopted concealed carry laws for the law-abiding have seen decrease in violent crime. Those cities (Chicago, Washington DC) that have had the most restrictions are commonly known here in the US as "crime capitals".
Mark, of course gun control does not work if each state, town or county has its own regulations, each incompatible with its neighbour's, some with prohibition and other with no control at all. And, of course no frontier and custom between these areas.
So it's not that gun control does not work in the US. It's that a mosaic of different gun control regulations spread out over a big country like the US does not work. Nor it would in any other place. But gun control as it's implemented and working well in most civilized countries would also work well in the US if tried. Or is it that US citizens are a different kind of human beings?
I never understood this kind of USAmerican exceptionalism. It's a bit like the health reform thingy. Why what works perfectly well in most civilized countries in the world would not work in the US?
But there is something I understand. In a country like yours with the laws you have and weapons are easier to get than p0rn, I understand that those who live there feel the need to have a weapon. I certainly did so when I lived there. But now I'm back to Europe so I don't need it anymore.
"But gun control as it's implemented and working well in most civilized countries would also work well in the US if tried."
Like it works in Mexico?
Symball said: ...yourself, Mark and others refuse to admit the possibility that the number of guns available in the US is contributing to the very high homicide rate that you have...I do find it strange that so many americans (or naturalised americans in marks case) find it so hard to have the debate in the first place.
It's hard to have a productive debate when people constantly misrepresent your arguments. I don't refuse to admit the possibility that guns are the primary case of our high homicide rate, I've just seen the relevant data and I know it doesn't support that hypothesis. If guns were the primary factor in our murder rate, we'd see a positive geographic correlation of murders by where the guns are, out in the sticks where paranoid old white men are stockpiling weapons and ammo as if Armageddon were right around the corner. We don't. Instead, what we see is a strong correlation with the shooters and victims being young, minority males. 20 year olds (of any race) get murdered by guns at 9x the rate of 60 year olds (want to wager on who has more guns?).
The data points overwhelmingly to socioeconomic factors being the primary causes of our high murder rates, not the presence of guns. IMO calling for a gun ban every time there is a horrible shooting is a simplistic dodge of the more complicated social problems we need to address.
"But gun control as it's implemented and working well in most civilized countries would also work well in the US if tried."
Like it works in Mexico?
Not really Mark- Mexico isn't really a country where you could say the gun laws work well is it. More like the countries you have already mentioned, Norway and switzerland, where the idea of personal defense is anathema to the gun lobby, they want guns for hunting and sports shooting, not killing other people. This is the real crux of the matter for me, it is not the number of guns that seems to matter, it is the culture of gun ownership that counts.
Science Avenger- yes I agree that the deep inequality in the US is driving the killings, but that is also mirrored in Europe. the main difference in the murder rates is the restriction on guns. It isn't really comparing like with like when you have an inner city full of gangs and a couple of crazy old coots with a waco sized arsenal in the middle of the wilderness!
Finally I am happy for the American people to blow the hell out of each other if they really want to, but it doesn't stop me feeling a little sad that so many people have died just because it makes some people feel good to hold a gun.