Gunman reportedly takes hostages at bowling alley in Nuneaton

Well done for ignoring all of the questions I put to you and ignoring every counter point to what you’ve said below.



There are likely millions of illegally owned guns in the US, if you ban guns these millions of guns still exist and are all in the hands of criminals. The vast majority of crimes committed with a gun are committed using an illegally held gun. Reports estimate, even at the low end, hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of firearms in the US every year. If you ban guns the people who use guns defensively no longer have guns but criminals still do and this is before we even consider the huge black market that would open up and how many guns that would put into circulation.



As I asked previously, can you point to a law that would have prevented that here? You can buy semi automatic rifles in the UK, there’s no limit on magazine capacity and as far as I’m aware bump stocks aren’t illegal. We have very strict gun control yet Stephen Paddock could still have bought a semi automatic rifle, bought a large magazine and a bump stock and shot people here.

As for not thinking there’s a problem; put forward a suggestion on how the law can be changed and I’m happy to consider it.



I would, to some extent, agree but as I’ve already said there are already likely millions of illegal guns in circulation, a pretty big black market would arise as America clearly has an appetite for guns so that number would only grow. The difference is only criminals would have guns do the number of defensive uses would drop but the majority of firearm related crime already involves an illegal weapon so there’s no reason to think that would significantly drop.



Correct me if I’m wrong but he only uses two of the guns? As I’ve already said there is no law to prevent a person in this country buying a semi automatic rifle, a large magazine and, as far as I can tell, a bump stock. So which law would have prevented him doing that here?



So what you’re saying is because we have less gun crime it must be because of our laws, have you never heard the ‘correlation doesn’t imply causation’ maxim?



Even with our strict laws you can’t point to a law that would have stopped Stephen Paddock.



Well I don’t think you need a weapon that matches the threat exactly, the idea that the average person can defend themselves with a gun holds up regardless of what weapon an attacker has. Also when have I said someone should be able to ‘carry’ a gun? I’ve said that in the US it’s necessary to own a gun because of how gun crime is (what’s betting you pick up on this and choose to ignore me saying previously that most gun crime is carried out with illegal weapons).




Because there aren’t millions of illegal guns in the UK

Your argument contains a number of fallacies.
Firstly, as the NRA so often does, you say 'we can't do anything about gun control because too many people have guns', when the very reason so many have guns is because of the gun lobby and gun enthusiasts doing their utmost to ensure that there are as many guns as possible in society.

Secondly, you say 'the reason people need guns is to protect themselves against people who have guns'. I'm surprised you can't see the irony and how the better solution would be for no one to have guns.

It also plays on the 'good guy with a gun fallacy'. Personally I don't want a society in which we trust ordinary citizens with guns, but rather we leave it to certain police services, who are specially trained to handle such weapons.

When Stephen Paddock is shooting from a quarter of a mile away and 30 floors up, how do guns help people defend themselves?

Anything that can be used against an attacker, can be used by an attacker.

Thirdly, you suggest that I have said all we need to do is change the law. Clearly, a change in the law itself is not sufficient. It needs to be accompanied with effective enforcement. Criminals will break the law regardless, so you make it as hard as possible to get hold of such weapons by massively restricting their circulation in a country.

Finally, semi-automatic rifles can not be bought in the UK like they can in the USA.

Evidence?



How many time do I have to repeat this: there are millions of illegal guns, making guns illegal will not remove those guns from circulation. Yes I would agree nobody owning a gun makes everyone safer but the idea of removing all guns from circulation in the US isn't feasible. Whilst such a large number of illegal guns exist I think it is safer for people to have a gun in their home to defend themselves. Estimates on defensive usage of firearms tend to start at around 500,000 per year, almost fifty times the number of gun homicides and significantly more than the estimated 300,000 crimes involving guns.



Whilst you may not be one of them I find this argument funny. The people who tend to argue for banning guns are usually the same people who argue that the police in the US hunt black people like big game yet they're the only ones who should have guns? But to address your point, I would agree that it makes people safer if only the police, the problem is you can't hope to remove all of the illegal guns meaning criminals (the people statistics show are most likely to use a gun negatively) are the only civilians who have guns.

You also have to consider the legal implications of the second amendment. It was intended as a defensive measure against a tyrannical government. At a time when the US president is being compared to Hitler (who was a big proponent of gun control) it would seem protection from tyranny is essential. Citizens can't defend themselves from tyranny if the only people with guns are the army and police.



You're taking one scenario and applying it generally. The Las Vegas shooting is a one of a kind event. Look at the other significant loss of life mass shootings in the US, in many of those if someone had had a gun they'd have been able to shoot at the attacker and possibly lower the body count. Just because a gun wouldn't have protected people in one particular circumstance it does mean it's an effective defensive weapon. As I've already said, estimates tend to start at around 500,000 for the number of defensive uses of firearms each year.



So lets ban everything then.



This is so vague that there isn't really anything to debate. The government attempted to tightly restrict the circulation of cocaine yet Pablo Escobar had a zoo in his garden.



Well what do you mean by that? You can buy a semi automatic rifle in the UK, there is also no restriction on magazine

size and, as far as I can tell, nothing that bans bump stocks. The only difference is the size of round you can have in a semi automatic rifle.

Hey, the controls are supposed to stop these things, and gun crimes, but apparently we still have THOUSANDS of such crimes a year, but hey who would ever have thought a criminal wouldn't care about the law

It always amuses me when people use the second amendment, written hundreds of years ago as an excuse for why guns are needed today.

'Guns should be legal because they are legal'.

Society changes and evolves and the law should change with that. Homosexual activity used to be illegal but guess what, we changed the law.

We seem to get by just fine without guns. And you repeat the 'we need guns to protect ourselves from people who have guns' line again and again. Instead, let's make sure there aren't guns in the first place, no?

But of course, you use the fact that so many people have guns, as a reason for why nothing can be done about gun control.

In other words, let's reward the NRA and gun lobbies who've done everything they can to ensure gun ownership is as high as possible.

The same NRA who regularly claims after mass shootings like in Orlando or at Sandy Hook, that the real problem is not guns, but rather the fact that there aren't enough guns.

You continue to persist with the 'good guy with a gun' fallacy. Tell me, in the Orlando shooting, when a madman starts firing, is it safer if untrained members of the public whip out their guns and start firing in a state of panic?

Do we want teachers carrying guns to school with them? Do we want people taking guns to the cinema with them? Do we want people taking guns to churches with them?

The point is gun control stops a criminal (or criminal to be) from simply carrying a weapon and no one batting an eye. In the US if someone had a gun, even just a hand gun, no one would bat an eye. Sure maybe they'd wonder why it's out, but it wouldn't be til it's being used that people freak out. And the fight or flight response for humans is like most species, usually flight is the most dominant.
Most people wouldn't pull out their gun and instead would run to protect themselves. And with everyone having a gun, if people wanted to fight back, there's an extremely high possibility that innocent people would be caught in the blindfire as majority of the people with guns would not have had even close to any decent gun training and could have incredibly bad aim (because it's not as simple as aim and pull the trigger).

In the UK the moment a gun is even sighted, even before it's used, people are already running for safety and the police have already been called. Sure people still may get hurt, just like they would in the US which is incredibly sad, however luckily there isn't also a great possibility of being hit by a friendly who didnt have a good aim or shot the wrong person.

Also gun controls prevent it from being simple to aquire a gun. In the US there are a ridiculous amount of locations to buy a gun, to the point where a criminal doesn't even have to think "Oh no where can I get one". Especially when it's been proven a lot of locations selling guns don't even do background checks, and some don't even check for a licence.

In the UK, sure guns can still be acquired like in any country, but it's mostly limited to only the blackmarket. Which is still scary however at least they can't just walk down the road and aquire one with barely any effort or background check then stroll down the road with it without people freaking out and calling the police.

Excellent post.

I don't know why you're still banging on about concealed carry. I haven't advocated for concealed carry, I've also pointed out a couple of times that I haven't advocated for it yet you seem incapable of dropping it.

You're taking one scenario and applying it generally. The Las Vegas shooting is a one of a kind event. Look at the other significant loss of life mass shootings in the US, in many of those if someone had had a gun they'd have been able to shoot at the attacker and possibly lower the body count. Just because a gun wouldn't have protected people in one particular circumstance it does mean it's an effective defensive weapon. As I've already said, estimates tend to start at around 500,000 for the number of defensive uses of firearms each year.
.

I didn't say the second amendment is why guns are needed today. Do you not see the irony in a government taking away a human right intended to protect people from the government taking away their human rights? What makes it funnier is it's the only human right intended to give you a means of protecting yourself from the government taking your human rights.

Why is a gun less useful for defence today than it was in the eighteenth century?

As I said, if someone had a gun they may have been able to stop the shooter.

Since these incidents happened in a public setting, for someone to protect themselves with a gun, then you would have to carry a concealed weapon.

Since it seems that you support the notion of people protecting themselves with firearams to lower the body count of a mass shooting, then it means that also support the idea of concealed carry.

Discussing whether something is inherently a 'human right' is a subjective exercise, not an objective one. I don't think that the right to own a gun classifies as such at all. What you are trying to do is wrap the gun debate up in the emotive language of 'human rights', so as to make out that anyone who thinks they should be banned is 'violating your human rights'.

I consider the right of people to not have to live in a society in which access to guns is so easy and widespread, to be more of a human right. But even still, 'human rights' should be limited to issues of the severity of freedom from torture and unlawful killing ; and the right to a fair trial.

Personally i've never needed a gun to protect myself from the government, but maybe that's just me. Have you?

This just takes the debates to rather bemusing levels of paranoia. Whenever I see anyone say the public needs guns to stop a tyrannical government, I can't help but laugh.

It's amazing, we don't have guns in the UK and the government still hasn't turned into a tyranny!! How lucky are we!?

Right, because what we really want is drunk people in a club having guns on them so they can fire in a panic in a dark place? Or do we want teachers having guns at schools with them? The 'good guy with a gun' fallacy really is quite powerful.

The police and the police alone should be responsible for dealing with such events, rather than ordinary members of the public.

I didn't say owning a gun is inherently a human right, I said it is a human right in the US, that isn't subjective. You may think it should be a human right but at the moment it is.

It's funny that you think by referring to human rights I'm the one trying to paint people disagreeing as bad yet you'd happily say I don't support gun control...



Well thanks for sharing your opinions of what should be human rights, perhaps have a look into the difference between absolute and qualified human rights.

So because you or I have never needed a gun to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government that means no one does or ever will?

No one (outside of broken hearted Hillary/Bernie supporters) is claiming he US is anywhere near tyranny that doesn't mean it can't happen. You can also look at it more broadly to apply to foreign attack (the same policy as Switzerland) and to simple defence of property and self.

Do you want a literal answer to that question or was it rhetorical? The answer is you're incredibly lucky, you live in a liberal country where the government doesn't want to persecute you. I'm sure people in Italy and Germany felt equally fortunate in the early 20th century as did people in Iran in the early 1970s.

You don't research too well do you? Schools and bars are actually two places where concealed carry is not allowed in the state of Florida but if there were people there with concealed carry licences they would not have been 'untrained' as you erroneously suggested.

Amendments, including gun ownership are not necessarily 'human rights'. Unless you think limiting a president to two terms or prohibition in the 20s were 'human rights'
It's a constitutional principle for sure, but that doesn't make it a 'human right'.
Indeed by using such a term you've taken the debate off into a rather fluffy direction.

I'm not even sure what your point is anyway. Of course the constitution allows for gun ownership, but the constitution can be amended. Why does that mean they shouldn't ban guns? Or are you arguing that guns shouldn't be banned because they're a human right? It is a rather circular argument.

Because it's so unbelievably paranoid and absurd that it seems bizarre that such an argument is used in serious political discourse. It's like that guy who claims we're all lizard people. It's such a stupid and nonsensical notion that it seems perverse to debate such an idea and give it the credibility of being a serious argument.

But even in this weird dystopian fantasy, why stop at guns? If the government's a tyranny and comes at the people with tanks and war planes, shouldn't the public all be allowed a tank, a bomber jet and grenades? How is johnny working man going to defend himself with a handgun when the tyrannical government shoots at his house with a tank!?

We live in a society of law and order in which we entrust law enforcement officials to protect the public on their behalf. Thankfully we don't live in a kamakaze, Hobbsian system in which each man and woman is responsible for upholding the law through force, by themselves.

Protecting property is what the police are for.

And we have our Godwin's Law! Took a while.

Why limit it to firearms? This is why you need to research the difference between absolute and qualified rights. The right to bear arms is a qualified right, there are reasonable limits placed upon it. Banning all legal gun ownership or even allowing gun ownership for sport would not be a limitation of that right, it would be a removal.

You've gone for one of the really out there pro-gun arguments. 'Americans need guns because of Hitler...' or something.

Again, the notion that anyone in the UK or USA needs a gun to protect themselves from the government is just laughable. It's not going to happen and there is absolutely no evidence of anything to suggest that it will.

Yet the NRA suggested the problem was that there weren't enough guns. As they usually do after a shooting spree.Let's have guns in classrooms and clubs, yes? And shopping markets and just about every where else.

Because after all, what could make us safer from guns, than having more guns!?

I think something being explicitly referred to as 'the right of the people' in a countries constitution infers that it is a human right. As I asked previously you don't see the irony in the government trying to take away the only human right that enables you to protect your other human rights?

To some extent I'm arguing that. You shouldn't take away a human right from someone without solid proof that it will benefit society. I've provided you with more than enough evidence to dispel your certainty that banning legal gun ownership will reduce gun crime.

I think Hitler is quite relevant when you're talking about tyrannical government and gun control seeing as he was both a tyrant and banned private ownership of firearms.

No proof private gun ownership is a net negative, so even if you are right why ban it?

You've made the claim that legal gun ownership should come to an end yet you've ignored these statistics I've repeatedly given you. High estimates on the number of legally possessed firearms used in crimes are below 20%. So how would banning legal gun ownership solve gun crime? You'll no doubt say that those illegal guns started life as legally owned. How does banning private gun ownership remove the millions of illegal guns that already exist? While banning private gun ownership may prevent that number from growing why do you assume that, in a country so clearly obsessed with guns that there are more guns than people, a black market won't put up as already exists for drugs and as existed for alcohol during prohibition? As I've also pointed out to you estimates tend to start at around 500k on the number of defensive uses of firearms per year, some studies say the number is in the millions. If you ban legal gun ownership those defensive uses will no longer be possible. Further to that the number of crimes involving guns is around 300k which means guns prevent more crime than they cause. Further to that gun ownership has increased over time but gun crime has decreased so how can you be so sure that more guns equals more crime?

Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/#b1275833f7c7
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/27/new-evidence-confirms-what-gun-rights-advocates-have-been-saying-for-a-long-time-about-crime/?utm_term=.f3829bcd378d



https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent - "The Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council released the results of their research through the CDC last month. Researchers compiled data from previous studies in order to guide future research on gun violence, noting that “almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”

So we need guns to protect ourselves from people with guns?

Ah, there was me thinking the better idea would be for there to be no guns in the first place.

Your refusal to engage with actual points says a lot. I'll be more than happy to continue this debate once you've actually attempted to answer what I've actually said.

It's rather pointless engaging in a debate with people who believe we need guns to fight off the government.

When the government come to your house with a tank, what use will a gun be? But the idea that people in the U.K. or USA need a gun to stop a tyrannical government is so laughably paranoid.

The UK's system has always prevented such happening and there is absolutely no sign or credible evidence that it could happen. It has survived hundreds of years. I trust the UKs judicial and law enforcement system more so than I do ordinary citizens with guns.

Again, you talk about foreign invasion but I pose the same question. When foreign invaders take over and come in with their war planes and other war equipment, what use will ordinary people having guns be?

If you want to argue for gun ownership, fine. But don't do so on the laughable 'we need guns to protect ourselves from the government' line.

The question is whether we want to live in a society of law and order in which we entrust our specially trained law enforcement officials and judicial system with the responsibility of keeping the populace safe, or if we want a kamikaze justice system in which each and every person is responsible for upholding the law as they see fit.

We manage just fine in the UK without guns. If we can do it, why can't the USA?

I’ve also said people in the US should be able to own a gun for 1. Defence of their home and property 2. Because there’s no actual reason to make a them illegal. If you disagree on the tyranny part that’s fine, how about ignoring that and debating the two above.



Do you see how you’re creating a straw man again: where have I advocated for private gun ownership in the UK?

Tyrannical governments have popped up all over the world on multiple occasions. The people living in those countries would have found the suggestion crazy. While I would agree it’s incredibly unlikely in the US why not let people have guns just in case? You haven’t shown that private gun ownership is a net negative.



They fought off one of strongest militaries ever despite being woefully undermanned. Nearly two hundred years later they last a war to a bunch of under matched communists. If a foreign leader was crazy enough to invade the US having two hundred million armed citizens would be a huge benefit.



I’ve also argued it on several other grounds, you’ve simply chosen to ignore that. Clearly we’re never going to agree on the tyranny argument so let’s move on to my other reasons in favour of private gun ownership: 1. Self defence and 2. There’s no reason to ban it



Even in the best case the police won’t be at your house for 7-10 minutes. If a criminal, with one of the millions of illegally possessed guns, broke into your house are you naive enough to think you could defend your person, property and family for 7-10 minutes without a gun?

What do you mean by kamikaze justice system? You do realise you’re referring to a suicidal unit of the Japanese airforce from WW2? What I’m actually advocating is a middle-ground in the US, where the police are your first port of call but where you also recognise a lot of criminals are armed and sometimes you can’t wait for the police.



Because we don’t have millions of illegal guns in the hands of criminals.