Why do people oppose gun laws?

Surely our experience of the last couple of years in this country is that mass killing does not require legal firearms. You can kill just as many defenceless people with a van or a kitchen knife.

Islamic terrorists have murdered scores of people in this country with vehicles, and scores of people in continental Europe with illegal firearms. Legally held weapons would appear to be irrelevant.

If terrorists simply adapt to laws preventing them from legally obtaining firearms - why would anyone believe that a potential school shooter wouldn't simply do the same?

Restriction of certain types of firearms might be desirable, but it is not solving the problem that is being asked.

We do have guns.

Comparing the US and country's with strict gun control, the difference in mass shooting numbers is substantial. I don't know how many were legally owned guns in the mass shootings but if guns are readily available to be purchased or with a greater number in circulation, easier to get one's hands on - that certainly increases the chance of such a shooting.

Put yourself in the position of someone living in the United States - a society saturated with firearms - where your perception is that criminals are generally armed.

Your perception will be that if your legal firearms are removed, you will become figurative cattle to any criminal who will be completely unaffected by a ban on firearms.

Also, put yourself in the mentality of someone who is wedded to the idea of the Constitution. The 2nd Amendment is there to protect people from tyranny. This may seem bizarre to us - but they don't see it like that. It seems circular to us, but the sort of oppression they fear would be something like the Federal government moving to take people's weapons away - and they have these weapons for that very reason. The larger rationale (which I think has some merit) would be that if they would remove one Constitutional Freedom, there is nothing preventing them removing others.

Assume for a second that all legal firearms were removed. There would probably still be school massacres - although sure, there would probably be fewer - but every single day the news would be saturated with reports of murder, home invasion, rape and so on and the implication would be that people were left defenceless. A society can't tolerate that kind of constant barrage of bad news. It would be like getting rid of speed limits or making all drugs legal here- regardless of the long term, the short and medium term would be intolerable and political suicide.

The scenarios are too terrible to contemplate. If a school shooter is forced to use different tactics, who is to say how lethal they would become? Lock themselves in a classroom with 30 6 year olds and a knife? Drive a van through a sportsday? Set fire to a school? You don't know. You're assuming that murderers are not capable of adaptation.

All this also assumes that a person with such intent would not simply obtain an illegal firearm.

There's a thing called Statistical likelihood. These things are possible, however:

'Setting fire to a school' - extremely unlikely it would go unnoticed. Fire alarm?

'Driving a van through a sportsday' - Sportsdays are usually held in fields away from roads or in halls, it would be pretty obvious if a car was heading towards you. - Very unlikely

'Lock themselves in a classroom with 30 6 year olds and a knife?' - Would take a lot of effort and planning to walk unnoticed through a school. - Very Unlikely and history says it almost never happens in the UK.

Way easier to just pick up a gun and go for it. That's likely and US statistics show it. UK gun crime will never be zero, but it's far, far lower than the US.

I will concede that Vans are becoming more of a weapon recently, however even then. The London bridge attacks are dwarfed by the recent US School shooting in terms of death toll. Bollards have been put up on London Bridge.

With Vans, you have to have a learners permit, licence, proficiency test, not to mention insurance. There are several layers of complexity with it that again decrease the likelihood of someone going to the bother of actually doing all that.

There's a thing called Statistical likelihood. These things are possible, however:

'Setting fire to a school' - extremely unlikely it would go unnoticed. Fire alarm?

'Driving a van through a sportsday' - Sportsdays are usually held in fields away from roads or in halls, it would be pretty obvious if a car was heading towards you. - Very unlikely

'Lock themselves in a classroom with 30 6 year olds and a knife?' - Would take a lot of effort and planning to walk unnoticed through a school. - Very Unlikely and history says it almost never happens in the UK.

Way easier to just pick up a gun and go for it. That's likely and US statistics show it. UK gun crime will never be zero, but it's far, far lower than the US.

I will concede that Vans are becoming more of a weapon recently, however even then. The London bridge attacks are dwarfed by the recent US School shooting in terms of death toll. Bollards have been put up on London Bridge.

With Vans, you have to have a learners permit, licence, proficiency test, not to mention insurance. There are several layers of complexity with it that again decrease the likelihood of someone going to the bother of actually doing all that.

They care more about their enjoyment of guns than the lives of innocent people. It really is that simple.

Yes, but you can't carry them on your person at any time or else they are illegally obtained.

So not really.

Unlikely doesn't mean not gonna happen.
We shouldn't settle for probably not gonna happen instead of not gonna happen at all.

This has no bearing whatsoever.

Take the Florida shooting - the killer used a rifle. Concealed carry would have been impossible and also have required a CC permit, and open carry is not allowed in Florida.

Yes, in the US.

I'm talking about the UK.

School shooters do exactly this. They walk through schools shooting people. Why would it be more difficult with a knife than with a gun?



This is a nonsense. Environmental measures like bollards are pointless. You cannot protect people from vehicular attacks with bollards - the killer will just switch to an alternate target. The queue at Madame Tussauds, or any one of a million other soft targets in the country.

The main issue is proliferation. A gun attack in any country - even the US is relatively difficult to do - because not everyone has a gun, ammunition or the ability to use them. Pretty much everyone can drive a car.



Are you actually a serious person?

Let's say I'm a terrorist in the UK or Israel, or a person intent on vehicular homicide in the US.....you think I'm going to be concerned with insurance for the car or van I'm going to use to murder people with?

You're saying that you can't carry a gun here. Well, you can't carry a gun in Florida - but he did.

This is the heart of the issue. What exactly is it that you want? Restrictions on guns, or a ban on all guns?

Not all states have banned and removed their guns, that's part of the problem.

Total ban on all firearms and forced removal if necessary. Sure it would be hard, maybe even impossible. It would statistically decrease crime levels if done properly though.

All you have to do is compare UK and US gun crime levels per capita to see the enormous difference.

Also, put yourself in the mentality of someone who is wedded to the idea of the Constitution. The 2nd Amendment is there to protect people from tyranny. This may seem bizarre to us - but they don't see it like that. It seems circular to us, but the sort of oppression they fear would be something like the Federal government moving to take people's weapons away - and they have these weapons for that very reason. The larger rationale (which I think has some merit) would be that if they would remove one Constitutional Freedom, there is nothing preventing them removing others.

There's already precedent for amendments to the constitution to be revoked - the 18th amendment bans alcohol, the 21st reverses it. The 2nd amendment was, until relatively recently, seen as protecting the right of the individual states to armed militias, rather than for individuals to arm themselves. In any case, in the instance of civilians vs the government, the government has a lot more powerful hardware at its disposal!

The reality is that there are lots of terrible arguments in favour of gun ownership, because people are more concerned about keeping their guns than reducing levels of violence. Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle in the USA and it's unlikely that situation could be reversed. Some of the posts in this thread about police response times and the like are nonsense - I've spent three years living in America and never felt the need to carry a weapon.

I should probably add that I'm not actually averse guns, I was in the military and have done a reasonable amount of shooting. However, the situation in America is just lunacy.

This video shows a pro-gun lobbyist nicely tie himself up in knots...

There is simply too much to debate, and the problem is the whole issue has become hijacked by people wanting to make emotional political points - blaming "Republicans" and all sorts of bizarre claims.

The starting point has to be - "what are you actually suggesting?"

What does gun control mean to you? Does in mean restrictions on some types of firearms, restrictions on purchase, or are you looking at a total ban on civilian held firearms?