we know

[Andrez]

I like how the world complains about hearing about America all the time...then their media is showing off -our- news instead of local national news.

I love the way how you fucking americans think the world is only made of 'MURICA.

Welcome to the country of freedom dropped by drones upon your house and stolen Nobel prizes

#mur'ca

[Nightmare]

Guns

I like how I'd be imprisoned in the UK for carrying this in public without 'a detailed, necessary reason to carry it'.

[Vanquish]

I like how I'd be imprisoned in the UK for carrying this in public without 'a detailed, necessary reason to carry it'.

I also like that you'd be imprisoned in the UK for carrying it. I mean, it is a knife. Only an absolute idiot would condone people being able to walk around with knives freely and without having to explain themselves.

[Nightmare]

I like how I'd be imprisoned in the UK for carrying this in public without 'a detailed, necessary reason to carry it'.

I also like that you'd be imprisoned in the UK for carrying it. I mean, it is a knife. Only an absolute idiot would condone people being able to walk around with knives freely and without having to explain themselves.

Would "I use it at work" count? :)

[Vanquish]

Would "I use it at work" count? :)

I don't think so. My initial thoughts would be perhaps carpentry but a knife of that size wouldn't be suitable for anything, and it would presumably be carried around as part of a toolkit and not as an individual item. I also think it's incredibly naive of you to imply that the majority of people carrying knives are "using them for work", unless "work" to you means being a paid hitman or some other kind of thing which I'm sure you aren't involved with.

Also I never seemed to suggest that Britain's law on possessing certain items is perfect (I believe private ownership of firearms is possible here), but it's miles ahead of American legislation which quite frankly is stuck in the dark ages. If you want to take a look at a country which has good gun laws, I'll draw your attention to Japan.

[YesWeCamp]

I like how I'd be imprisoned in the UK for carrying this in public without 'a detailed, necessary reason to carry it'.

Why would you carry this in public anyway? To husk fruit on a parkbench? Well if you carry it at your job I don't think they'll sue you for it.

[Marti]

i like how in America you can own a gun but not be able to drink some shitty light beer

[1Cap]

123

[Andrez]

When you talk about "americans" you mean "North Americans"? Because im a american guy. Well, im a world guy.

I am not against any nation ... I am against killing people ...
We are in 2014! Where is the technology? Why, still, kill people?

In this context americans = USA
and by the way, technology right now is upon some villages in Middle East, with a nice 'made in USA' sign and delivering democracy all over the place

i like how in America you can own a gun but not be able to drink some shitty light beer

^exactly, funny logic in USA

[Krayce]

Impressive image there! (Ferguson Protester Doused With Milk After Pepper Spraying)

Just passing though, I don't like to talk if it cannot change the world in a positive way...
That's a good debate anyway; I like read all posts btw.

[Nightmare]

@ Vanq & YWC

Depending on where you live, you most likely can't carry a gun on you in public. It changes state to state. Higher crime/urban areas are usually really strict about it. You keep them in your house unless you're driving to go hunting or to a shooting range, etc.

---

I just like discussing these differences in cultures.
That Opinel knife above. I bring it with me to work. I have a couple much nicer knives, but I choose that one because it's small, and not intimidating. If I pull it out to cut a rope or something, people around me won't be worried. Basically, knife fans would laugh at it compared to most other knives that many people carry on them.

But in the UK, I'm suddenly a hitman suspect just for being caught with that in my pocket.
:D

---

Btw, do they check people for such things if you're just walking down the street/inside a store/etc. there?
Or could I walk along with a giant pocket knife concealed and never have anyone know about it?

[Marti]

Country Guns per 100 Total Firearm-related Deaths per 100,000
United States 88.8 10.2
Switzerland 45.7 3.84
Finland 45.3 3.64
Sweden 31.6 1.47
Norway 31.3 1.78
France 31.2 3
Canada 30.8 2.44
Austria 30.4 2.94
Iceland 30.3 1.25
Germany 30.3 1.1
New Zealand 22.6 2.66
Greece 22.5 1.5
Belgium 17.2 2.43
Luxembourg 15.3 1.81
Australia 15 1.04
South Africa 12.7 9.41
Turkey 12.5 0.72
Denmark 12 1.45
Malta 11.9 2.16
Italy 11.9 1.28
Spain 10.4 0.63
Ireland 8.6 1.03
Portugal 8.5 1.77
Israel 7.3 1.86
United Kingdom 6.2 0.25
Netherlands 3.9 0.46
Japan 0.6 0.06


uhhhhhhhhhhhh so they dont have a gun in public, but still manage to kill quite a few people

edit: maybe its because people like this are american:

[Vanquish]

-

Interesting list. Surprised Switzerland and the Nordic countries are so high.

[Nightmare]

uhhhhhhhhhhhh so they dont have a gun in public, but still manage to kill quite a few people

Criminals break the law of course.
Gang members shoot rival gang members. It racks up a lot of gun deaths.

[Marti]

And they can do so because its too easy to get a gun

[Nightmare]

You can't buy guns in other countries now? :D

[Marti]

You can't buy guns in other countries now? :D

you dont read do you?


also:

So, do we have a gang problem or a gun problem? Data collected by the National Gang Center, the government agency responsible for cataloging gang violence, makes clear that it's the latter. There were 1,824 gang-related killings in 2011. This total includes deaths by means other than a gun. The Bureau of Justice Statistics finds this number to be even lower, identifying a little more than 1,000 gang-related homicides in 2008. In comparison, there were 11,101 homicides and 19,766 suicides committed with firearms in 2011.

According to the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the number of gangs and gang members has been on the rise for some time now, increasing by more than one-third in the past decade. Between 2010 and 2011, for example, there was a 3 percent increase in the number of gangs, but an 8 percent decrease in gang-related homicides. If gang violence was truly driving the gun homicide rate, we should not see gang membership and gun homicide rates moving in opposite directions.

The most recent Centers for Disease Control study on this subject lends further credence to our claim. It examined five cities that met the criterion for having a high prevalence of gang homicides: Los Angeles, California; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Long Beach, California; Oakland, California; and Newark, New Jersey. In these cities, a total of 856 gang and 2,077 non-gang homicides were identified and included in the analyses. So, even when examining cities with the largest gang problems, gang homicides only accounted for 29 percent of the total for the period under consideration (2003-2008). For the nation as a whole it would be much smaller.

The 80 percent of gang-related gun homicides figure purporting to support Loesch's claim, then, is not only false, but off by nearly a factor of five. The direct opposite is necessarily true: more than 80 percent of gun homicides are non-gang related. While gang violence is still a serious problem that needs to be addressed, it is disingenuous to assert that the vast majority of our gun problem (even excluding suicides) is caused by gangs.

Gun advocates' blind focus on gangs, drugs and violent felons overlooks the larger gun problem facing America. It is irresponsible and disingenuous for some of us to brush off our staggering death toll from firearms merely as the product of gangs or even violent criminals. Recognizing America's high homicide rate for what it is -- a gun problem -- is the first step in solving it.

please read this nightmare, its not yo criminals

[Nightmare]

If there is no one telling the investigators it's gang related, they don't count the numbers, but they still could be gang related. People don't like to tell cops anything if they see a shooting occur. They fear a retaliation.

But the point I was making was America isn't grand theft auto where everyone is packing heat 24/7.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...death_rate
We're only 15th in firearm homicides per 100,000 population going by this(have to click homicides).
And going by the 11,000 gun homicides in your post, and our 320 million population, that's less than 0.01% of the US Population being crazy gun criminals. That is too tiny of a statistic to make it a major issue here. It's too late in the game to do anything anyways. Even a full gun ban would do nothing at this point.

Not sure where all this came from, since I wanted to talk about how the UK is Hunger Games 2.0 for not allowing pocket knives.

[Vanquish]

Not sure where all this came from, since I wanted to talk about how the UK is Hunger Games 2.0 for not allowing pocket knives.

In the link you provided yourself, we're the eighth lowest out of seventy-five countries. Don't criticise our system when your own statistics prove it's superior in effect to yours.
About your previous point to do with gangs - they are present here too in some lower class boroughs of London (probably in most countries too actually). Stabbings and shootings in areas where gangs operate are not really "common" in the UK, but they do happen and probably contribute significantly to the amount of gun/knife-related deaths in our country.

It's pretty much never heard of to read about a policeman shooting a man dead just because he's wielding a gun, in fact most police officers in the UK are not even armed (sometimes they carry tazers and that's it, but no guns unless it's a very special case). Similarly, we never hear about teenage maniacs driving around shooting people out of their car windows, and we never hear about school shootings (the latter of which is worryingly common in the US).

According to ABC News (american news service so it's not part of some america-hating organisation), there are 88 guns per 100 people and 10 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in the US. Out of the twenty-seven developed countries that ABC News studied, America was the worst for both gun possession and gun-related deaths. In stark contrast, Japan had only 0.6 guns per 100 people and 0.06 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people.

So don't bother trying to convince me that guns are a good thing, or that you can justify the public being allowed to have one. The only counter-argument you've put up is that you need to use a pocket knife for your work and then you condemn the UK for not allowing people to carry knives around in public, which is completely irrelevant to the previous discussion. And then you say "not sure where all this came from" - you derailed your own topic. There is a clear correlation between the amount of guns owned by the public in a certain country and the gun-related deaths in a certain country.
Regardless of whether or not it's homicide, it's still a death that was caused by a gun and could have been prevented if you removed the gun from the equation. There isn't any justification for using a gun to take a life, and the boundaries for what counts as "self defense" are repeatedly being (ab)used as an excuse to encompass borderline criminal activity.

The only part of your post I agree with is that it's "too late in the game to do anything anyway". You're correct when you say a full gun ban wouldn't stop the most determined gun owners or the amount of gun-related deaths, but that's because your country has perpetuated a culture that sees the use of guns as acceptable. And that just highlights how fucked up of a country America really is.

[+f0r3v3r+]

inb4

and


As much as I wanna put up my finger and say come here and take 'em from our cold dead hands...
I haven't ever owned a gun and I definitely don't think the availability of guns as it is today is a necessary facet of our country's survival...
But for many of us that already have trust issues with the government, your gonna have to get them to give their guns up first - never gonna happen...
So I am afraid we will keep experiencing these hard lessons indefinitely...
:(

[MorganKell]

USA #1. Accept this and move on. England land of the sissies and we know where the blame belongs, The Tudor Dynasty. Huzzah! Long live Richard III!!

[Nightmare]

Just want to point out that I'm anti-guns. Most changes proposed here are about mental health and magazine sizes. They want to prevent the major public shootings, and those would be helpful changes.

---

Vanq, what does someone do if a bad guy walks up to them and pulls out a knife in the UK? Obviously running/screaming is the best bet, even 'gun nuts' here say to do so if you can, but let's say the victim is alone and slow. Back to the wall.

---

The Tudor Dynasty. Huzzah! Long live Richard III!!

Wars of the Roses!

[Waffles]

Its disturbingly simple to acquire a firearm in the U.S.

I personally own 2 and don't do much with them but hunt and they're registered in a different state than where I live. I don't see the problem as people owning guns or even magazine sizes. The problem is the culture surrounding guns and their easy access.

Similar to a drivers license, you should be able to demonstrate safety with a firearm before being able to buy one.

Even with stricter gun laws, people will still find a way to get guns. However, reducing the number of gun ownership with stricter laws will limit the amount of guns that could be stolen or misused.

Running psychiatric evaluation would be a step in the right direction.

[Nightmare]

I personally own 2 and don't do much with them but hunt and they're registered in a different state than where I live. I don't see the problem as people owning guns or even magazine sizes.

What rifles do you have? :D

[1Cap]

123

[MorganKell]

You play a shooter and you're squeamish about guns? I am going to assume that's sarcasm. As for stricter laws... there will always be black-markets and criminal organizations to get guns for whoever wants them. Disarm a populace and you're putting trust in all the wrong places.

[Nightmare]

Guns are just to kill. If you have a gun you want to kill.

Someone breaks into your home. Who knows if he has a weapon? He's already breaking the law, so probably!

You pop out and shoot him in the leg. He falls and cries for mercy. You smack him in the head, hold him down and call the police. Gun protects you, bad guy not killed. Bad guy in jail.

[ExodusS]

How can you agree with the fact 4yo girls are receiving hello-kitty pink AR's for their birthday? Do you even know what I think about AR's? Fuck the logic, they ban French cheese for safety reason but you can carry a gun and dare to think this liquid shit can be called cheese.

edit: @nightmare, you don't need a real gun for that, and you can kill him even if you aim and hit the leg.

[X-Ray_Dog]

STOP !

Dont talk about guns here, please, dont!

Guns are just to kill. If you have a gun you want to kill.

Troll??

Guns are just to kill. If you have a gun you want to kill.

Someone breaks into your home. Who knows if he has a weapon? He's already breaking the law, so probably!

You pop out and shoot him in the leg.

Make sure that at least in the U.S., you shoot him while he is facing you. Anything entering him in the back is considered the bad guy trying to flee which to a cop means you were no longer in danger when you shot. That's why you never shoot a person fleeing from you, only when he's in attack.

[Nightmare]

Good point, XRD.