It's called a constituency. It's the body of people that vote candidates into office and pressure from this electorate often curries influence with a representative as a result, especially if the issue at hand has to do with public safety, of all things.

One thing's for sure, though.
If you don't write messages or join activist group(s) that will present your message to government, then you're basically screaming at a wall.

Why do political parties subcontract out survey companies to call their constituency? They do it to see what they can get away with and what they probably can't get away with. Don't give into apathy like you've been programmed. Your votes and concerns do matter.

Guns don't make peaceful countries violent, they just make violent ones even more violent.

As far as this shooter, as they almost always are, they may have been programmed by some hate group.

Most "lone wolves" that carry out acts like these have some affiliation with a hate group or militia, yet the proponents of this hate that coerce these troubled individuals are only made culpable in extremely rare cases.

It seems pretty fucked that if you have a cross on your website and claim to be "christian" like a lot of these white power militias and hate groups, then you're somehow not treated like Charles Manson for pushing the buttons of the psychopaths that commit abhorrent crimes like these.

A primary repeat offender is Dr.William H. Pierce (dead since 2002) who wrote the homespun terrorist hate-book, The Turner Diaries which unfortunately still carries great influence. Some of his recent followers include bombers Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph, the guys in Texas that dragged the black man behind their pick-up until he was dead, and the guy in L.A. that gunned down eight at a Jewish daycare center. The url for his genocidal National Alliance organization is www.natall.com. Their symbol is an upside-down peace sign.

If you're appalled at Pierce's thought and his followers (which are growing by the day), please support the Anti-Defamation League.
Their site is www.adl.org
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Pierce.asp

school shootings are shocking and all, and scare people, and make for very good drawn out infotainment on the news.

so 19 school shootings in the last 10 years?
around 100 people killed in school shootings in the last ten years?

when it comes to the bigger picture, BIG FUCKING DEAL.

1 in 5 americans die from heart disease of some sort
1 in 7 americans die from cancer.
1 in 84 die from motor vehicle accidents
1 in 314 die from firearms assault.
1 in 5134 die in ACCIDENTAL FIREARM DISCHARGE

ban cars before guns. ban alcohol before guns too.

it was just the fact that if someone where to try something then they might think twice and they wouldnt get away with it.

i realise that when someone is crazy or drunk/high then they dont really care but in some circumstances it has made me feel slightly better.

totaly agree with you on what you said about gun crime etc.

Ok, my point here is that if you strictly compare the amount of crime that is gun-related and takes place in the USA to the violent crime that is commited in England, you'll find the the only real difference is the size of the two nations (just an example, it could have been France,Italy, Spain, Germany etc etc). The suggestion of joining an activist group is more practical than simply writing letters, and that is because it implies that some sort of pressurizing campaign is taking place. The next problem that arises is if such campaigns are consistent, numerous and truly influential in the course of law-making that will lead to more strict gun ownership regulations. After more than 5 such examples of mass shootings, it is perfectly normal to see these activist groups as ineffective. What does this tell us? That there aren't enough incidents (and victims) to seriously ban private ownership of guns alltogether. It also poses the problem of banning an instrument of death when you are in a war situation that uses more potent machines of mass destruction to annihiliate its enemies. How are you going to eliminate the thought of violence ,when the very same example that is shown on the news is that of a country that uses violence when rationality runs short?

tell that to the parents of someone who got shot at school.

Sure, but do you think that making guns legal would have no effect whatsoever on street crime in England?

i can't even believe this. generally i'm appreciative of your posts florya, but not here i guess. like i mentioned, do we ban fertilizer because it was allegedly what mcveigh used to kill more people than all those 20 school shootings combined? and we're talking 19 murderers out of how many millions of people in the united states? i dont feel its fair for my constitutional right to be abolished because of 19 out of 250,000,000 people. do you? don't even get me started on the amount of crooked cops... it's bad enough that in the our bill of rights has been mostly washed away since Bush came into office, anyone who's trying to abolish the 2nd amendment may as well be cut from the same cloth of crappy elected officials that rushed the previously-drafted patriotic act thru congress after 9/11. i'm a paeceful person. if i want to go out in the desert and blow stuff up, why shouldn't i be allowed to? my gov't can detonate nuclear bombs that cause cancer rates to rise for decades after the fact, but you don't think i should be allowed to shoot a bullet into a beer can?

whomever said media coverage fuels this problem is dead on. a recent school shooter, point in case from last year:: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...hool_shooting/




and if you DO join those groups, you'll be put on no-fly terrorist-watch lists.



pretty much couldn't agree more, though i don't own any firearms at all and have no interest in hunting.

Not particularly. The method of killing would change, but the murder would still take place.

Edit-Demon

yes i am not that keen on saying that either but i think in this case it would apply.

Well, as anyone can see from my other post, I believe that most mass murders are committed by hate group followers. There is also a growing amount of troubling evidence that our own goverment is involved. The politics of totalitarianism only work if people are kept in fear, you see. So far, I am the ony one exploring this side of the tragic events, thus far. My initial guess is the perp shot at groups of people where there were whites "mingling" with other races. This might explain why the attacks were carried out in two phases as he searched for new victims.

Back in the old days, they just had their skinheads on the streets to spread terror and hate. Nowadays, these hate groups have attracted wealthier and more intelligent followers, many with arsenals and homemade explosives at their disposal. They also continually threaten that if their tools to create new followers, (if their free speech is ever taken away or websites taken down, literature banned) then they will stage a violent uprising in the U.S.
I personally feel it's an empty threat and that they should all be put out of business immediately regardless of free speech issues.

Simply stated, if your group or religion espouses mass murder, then that group should not be allowed freedom of religion or speech in the United States of America. You read about my beef with the second amendment earlier, here's my gripe about the first.

Of course, any tampering with the constitution should be overseen with great care by We the People in order to protect the freedoms we do have, that goes without stating. It worries me how little people pay attention in general, so any changes to the Bill of Rights would naturally be trepidatious territory for that reason.

i'd also like to point out that almost 100 years ago, many social ills were blamed on DRUNKENNESS in the United States. This was followd by 13 years of prohibition. Lot of good THAT did!

I dunno, an arsehole with a knife is a big worry, but an arsehole with an AK47 is a fucking disaster waiting to happen.

Yeah, our country is overrun with AK47s...

In the United States

Private ownership of fully-automatic AK-47 rifles is tightly regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. The Gun Control Act of 1968 ceased importing of foreign-manufactured fully-automatic firearms for civilian sales and possession, effectively halting further importation of civilian accessible AK-47 rifles. In 1986, an amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act stopped all future domestic manufacture of fully-automatic weapons for civilian use.
However, machine guns manufactured domestically prior to 1986 or imported prior to 1968 may be transferred between civilians in accordance with federal and state law. Several Soviet and Communist Chinese rifles made it into the U.S. during the mid-1960s, when returning Vietnam veterans brought them home after capture from enemy troops. Many of these were properly registered during the 1968 NFA amnesty.
Nevertheless, several states have laws on their books outlawing private possession of fully-automatic firearms even with NFA approval. Certain semi-automatic AK-47 models were banned by the now-expired Assault Weapons Ban of 1994–2004.






yay wikipedia.

That's a different kettle of fish, though. True, i'd ban any sort of propaganda that incites violence, simply on the ground that if you give freedom of speech to such groups, their violent ways will take it away from others.

If i was gonna killed, i'd rather be shot than stabbed. Tha way you would have less chances of feeling any pain.

it took me 3 minutes.

with a dial-up connection.

13 years ago.

However, machine guns manufactured domestically prior to 1986 or imported prior to 1968 may be transferred between civilians in accordance with federal and state law.

You seem to miss that part. There are plenty of automatic weapons circulating to go around. The ban on assualt weapons expired in 2004 anyway. Of great concern is that there are immeasurable amounts of handguns already in circulation and (literally) tons more being produced at alarming rates every day. It's a fucked situation that our government refuses to address.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/...0409130630.asp
the now-expired Assault Weapons Ban of 1994–2004...
Before the ban elapsed in 2004, automatic rifles sold at guns shows were primarily purchased without the firing pins. These are obtainable on the black market, usually from the dealer on the sly. Hell, I think you can easily just order the firing pins for whatever make and model from Soldier of Fortune magazine.

Well, the amount of ignorance that humans are happy to live with is appaling, American or not American. Especially in this time and age. The fact that people treat human life with such disregard is a sign that society in general is way too rotten and contradictory to truly sustain harmonious living between people. Moral of the story( and then i'll shut up on the subject, i promise) is that unless you truly change society at its core, these kind of things are inevitable.

My point being, people act like automatic weapons are available at the local grocery store. They're not. Nor have they ever been used in any of these school shootings, to my knowledge. I'm not sure what you thought I was implying when I said "yeah our country is overrun with AK47s" but I was referring to something I mentioned earlier which is that people, especially Europeans, seem to that guns are readily available in the US. Automatic weapons, as you succintly described, are certainly not readily available and you'd have to be a devoted firearms enthusiast to seek one out.

True story: A knife wielding maniac threatened to kill me on the bus last night (apparently I look gay!). The gentlemen sitting next to me thankfully wrestled the knife away from the fucker and I'm still alive to tell about it.
Fuck a bunch of weapons.

Personally, I blame Judas Priest.

I don't know why anyone would defend gun ownership.

You cant carry fertilizer around on your person and use it instantly. The point about guns is its BANG and thats it, dead, its a million times easier. If you are going to do a Columbine you are clearly gone in the head and the deed has nothing to do with the weapon you are using; you will achieve your goal no matter what. Guns are easy.

Ok theres a study called the Milgram experiment that i imagine many of you are familiar with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
This is a study based on conformity and authority obedience and such, but i want to focus on another aspect of it.
"In the variation where immediacy of the "learner" was closest, participants had to physically hold the learner's arm onto a shock plate, which decreased compliance. In this latter condition, 30% completed the experiment"
My point about this is that when you hold a gun it is psychologically easier to kill someone, you just pull the trigger, you can do it on impulse and thats it. When you stab someone, there is more proximity, more physical aggression. And i think that a gun reduces the amount of anger and aggresion needed to kill.

And i want to point out that though im in England im not going to try and make points about american culture or society that i dont understand, im just talking about guns in the hands of anyone.

The purpose of a gun is to kill and injure, this is not the purpose of a car.

i see what you're saying, but this is not the case with today's massacre and the columbine shootings.

both, as mcveigh's alleged fert bomb, were planned out weeks or more in advance.

the school shooting killers did not just pick up a gun aimlessly and decide to go on a shooting spree. it was planned out. just like mcveigh's action.

guns may be "easier" but that's just a misperception.

not entirely true. a gun is just a chemical reaction resulting in a discharge. (let's keep the orgasm jokes out of this thread...) they are no different, ultimately, than fireworks, which ARE much more controlled, can be essentially used for similar purposes (i've been hit with a bottle rocket in the stomach, not pretty), but i don't think you'd say that fireworks main purpose is to kill and injure, they are to entertain. firearms are sport, just like i can take a baseball bat and smash your face in.

Milgram
We Do What We're Told
I remember the Peter Gabriel song from So

The main concern is handguns. As any hunter will tell you, handguns are designed to be easily concealed and kill people.

They should be highly regulated.

Rifles, less so. The main practices that need to stop right away are classifieds for guns and gun shows.

McVeigh...I resent that someone mentioned that we should ban fertilizer or heating oil or whatever as their idea of a sarcastic joke.
Quote me on this: I think you're a bag of fertilizer for making the comment.

As I posted before, McVeigh is alleged to have had ties with the National Alliance and other hate groups, and some allege, with the CIA.

Who do you think killed all those black kids in Chicago and Atlanta in the '80s?

It was right-wing terrorists. Probably with ties to our government.


again:
As far as this shooter, as they almost always are, they may have been programmed by some hate group.

Most "lone wolves" that carry out acts like these have some affiliation with a hate group or militia, yet the proponents of this hate that coerce these troubled individuals are only made culpable in extremely rare cases.

It seems pretty fucked that if you have a cross on your website and claim to be "christian" like a lot of these white power militias and hate groups, then you're somehow not treated like Charles Manson for pushing the buttons of the psychopaths that commit abhorrent crimes like these.

A primary repeat offender is Dr.William H. Pierce (dead since 2002) who wrote the homespun terrorist hate-book, The Turner Diaries which unfortunately still carries great influence. Some of his recent followers include bombers Timothy McVeigh & Eric Rudolph, the hicks in Texas that dragged the black man behind their pick-up until he was dead, and the nutjob in L.A. that gunned down eight at a Jewish daycare center. The url for his genocidal National Alliance organization is www.natall.com. Their symbol is an upside-down peace sign.

If you're appalled at Pierce's thought and his followers (which are growing by the day), please support the Anti-Defamation League.
Their site is www.adl.org
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Pierce.asp

Thats what i said, it was premeditated, they would find a way of doing it if you banned guns.
I dont think its a "misperception" that guns are easier at all, i think the example i gave illustrates this; Its a proximity thing. Its easier for people to shoot someone dead than beat them to death with a bat or stab them to death. The example i gave showed that "normal" people were less capable of behaviour that endangered the life of others (again i hasten to add im not focusing on the obedience aspect of it) when it involved an act of physical aggression - Guns require less aggression therefore its easier for "normal" people to use them to kill.

Youve made my point for me there; Guns are designed and developed to kill and maime, they have no other purpose. Fertilizer, bats, bricks, fucking dildos, you can use them all to kill but they arent as efficient and easy (psychologically and physically) to use as guns. I feel im repeating myself here, i think i shall have to go.

There's some truth to all this, but it really sounds to me like you're on autopilot, because this is not an all-or-nothing issue.
But maybe that's just me because I've heard this view so many times...this tired old clap-trap that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," when both cases are clearly true to an extent and there is no black and white on the issue, i.e., People kill other people with guns. Bumper sticker-isms fail to negate the truth, sorry.
In relation, and to demonstrate that I am no stranger to the issue, I used to live not far away from Kennesaw, Georgia, where it's the law that you must own a firearm.

Look, if you really want to keep your guns and at the same time
eliminate a lot of the gun crime in America here's what you do:
You do something (hell if I know what...at least talk about it to others) about our government importing cocaine directly into this country and all the gang culture it has spawned that use the guns to kill people, many of which are often innocent bystanders. And much of it, Rob, is coming in right over Texas' airspace.
You demand that guns are to only be sold by licensed gun dealers and that the Wild West days of gun shows are fucking over!
Another thing you do is personally lobby to help shut down these hate-groups.
You also must advocate more regulation of handguns, not only for people trying to obtain them, but additional regulation for the manufacturers.
Of course, it takes money to overcome inherency and create change. Therefore, you put a ceiling on how much gun manufacturers can charge in the U.S. and you simply start taxing the shit out of both domestic gun manufacturers and those that are importing them; they can afford it. Besides, it would be just the tip of the iceberg as far as what these gun manufacturer fucks truly owe society. Also, the cost of a gun wouldn't rise because of the price ceiling and thus this wouldn't necessarily encourage more black market sales.

I find your suggestion of a required training course in firearms safety for all citizens just a little tiny tad extreme.

right on.

my main problem with banning / regulating guns is the government. it's the whole "give and inch / take a mile" thing coupled with their extreme inability to manage jack_shit. I'm not sure I would trust someone to manage something they have a vested interest in perpetuating.

although I do think that further regulation would be helpful against random killings, the type of people that are actually intending on using guns for crime will simply buy it for $50 from the "dude down the street" or someone who did (another product of the CokeWARZ).

those guns usually come with the serial numbers already filed off. regulation won't stop that at all.


I'd also like to state that I have never owned a gun and I never intend to.

My stance on guns is as follows:

There are some places in the world I would feel safer being in if I was armed. However, I don't think I'd actually shoot someone unless there was no alternative, i.e. my life/another person's life were at stake.

The difference with school shootings as opposed to regular shootings:
A. Young people have their lives end or forever altered.
B. It tarnishes the idea (dead by now) that parents can feel safe sending their kids to school.

That is enough to put some new laws on the books.

I have no problem with you wanting to put a bullet into a beer can (actually I do, but that's a different argument) What I'm suggesting is that the gun you use to shoot that beercan is stored in a place that makes it difficult for you to use it when you've had enough of shooting beercans and decide to start shooting anyone that's pissed you off in your lifetime. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to own or shoot a gun, just that it need to be controlled in a responsible way.

As for Tim McVeigh, you're right, he did use common farmyard fertilizer to make his bombs, but that's not an argument for banning fertilizer, it's an argument for controlling it. One very simple way of doing this is to ask the person who wants to buy 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate to prove that they need it for agricultural purposes. If they can't, don't sell it to them.

The thing with fertilizer is that it is made to be used to fertilize farmland, an unfortunate side effect is that it can also be made in explosives.

The gun on the other hand, was designed with one thing in mind - killing.

I really can't see why there is an argument against at least some form of gun control in the US. The equivalent of yesterdays massacre happens every week in the US - 32 children killed in individual acts of gun related violence every week. That's 1600 per year - roughly the same rate as your soldiers are being killed in Iraq.

If it's your right to bare arms, then it's your right to get shot dead whilst attending college aswell.

I still say that the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had SOMETHING to do with it.

you can ban guns but you cant ban mental illness personally i think anyone who needs to own a gun is a dick head with a small .. um brain

And yet how many gun related deaths are completely unneccessary and/or intentional and would not have happened if the assailant hadnt had easy access to one? Thats not rhetorical, i actually dont know, but id guess its a significant percentage, and im inclined to think that even if only like 5% fell into this category its a cause to change things.