Guns, violence, and Europe
 

The recent mall shooting here in the US has me intersted in gun laws in Europe and over all crime stats there. Anyone from Europe have any comments or stats to share?

if no one had guns no one would need guns. try to kill more than one or two people with a baseball bat.

interesting links:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...-with-firearms

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...rms-per-capita


i wouldn't go to south africa :2 cents:

Yeah, you don't normally hear of drive-by stabbings.

Or Thailand for that matter!

i was surprised about that - since i wanted to go there next year. :disgust

Me too. Columbia and South Africa I can understand for obvious reasons. But Thailand?

In South Africa more people are killed with machetes that are killed with guns in the U.S.:2 cents:

Scary stats...

As far as I know the most gun assaults happen in UK where it's illegal to posses a gun.

I always wanted one but wouldn't want to wear it anywhere, it's too dangerous and I know that as far as I am usually very calm I can also get a blackout once upon a time.

Also, as one of my favourite authors Geoffrey Canada confirmed, your self confidence raises pathologically and you are more likely to get involved in serious conflict while having a gun.

The stats will be nowhere so close to US, US rules in armed assaults per capita.

Here if you are an idiot, jerk and worthless person, it's is still enough social help to keep masses of trash out of serious crime.

imagine what would happen if they all had guns :upsidedow

They would make a lot of noise and probably shoot themselves more than what they are shooting at.

Well here gun crime seems to have settled down no more battles in the street and I think the last shooting was a year ago.

The first time I went into the angling shop here I shit myself glocks, Klashnikovs, pump action shotguns on the wall and the ammo sitting on the shelf.

No wonder the gun crimes low here with the police and private security firms having a shoot to kill and dont worry about the questions later policy.

I think those numbers are a little off, especially for those third world contries.

I believe even to the local statistic numbers with about +-50 pct. tolerance, as far as I have gone through the process how these stats are taken :2 cents:

I don't have much to back it up, but from experience, I've found that areas with less restrictive gun laws have less criminal and accidental shootings due to it being more common to own them. Meaning if its acceptable and common to own guns, more people are educated on their proper use.

Now, that's a large assumption mostly because there are always jackasses who go out and buy one because they can and choose to figure it out as they go rather than educate themselves.

Its a hard one - things have gone too far in the US.

Good people need guns to protect themselves from from the bad people with guns.

I dont think we have reached that 'critical mass' in the UK. If we crack down now we can avoid the mess the US is in.

There's no guns and violence in Europe. Only free love and legal prostitution. :thumbsup

Well said I think switzerland still has the lowest gun crime in Europe because it is compulsory to do weapons training at least thats how it used to be

A well armed society is a polite society.

What most pro-gun people fail to admit, or even realize, is that it is *because* of the gun laws that bad people have the guns. So it's a vicious circle that will never end:

-> More guns bought by citizens means more eventually find their way into the hands of criminals (or insane people who shoot up malls)
-> Leads to more gun violence (by criminals)
-> More desire and perceived need by citizens to protect themselves

Unfortunately, in the U.S. there's really no way of going back. If the laws were changed prohibiting citizens to purchase or own guns, violence would skyrocket as the only ones with guns would be criminals, eventually. So unless they first get the guns out of the hands of criminals and remove illegal firearms from society, and *then* stop gun sales altogether...

(Read: Ain't going to happen)

Removal of all guns isn't the answer though. I own many guns and enjoy shooting them, but I'm an educated owner just like millions of other people in this country are. I'm all for required education when purchasing a gun, I think education would work better than just removing them all together. If for you no reason but your last point. Crime would skyrocket when criminals know that people couldn't defend themselves.

Not to mention, if citizens aren't allowed to defend themselves, who is left to do it? The police are busy enough dealing with all the nonsense that goes on in a normal day, so unless they are able to respond to my call that there is someone in my home with a gun within 10 or 15 seconds, I would rather just take care of it myself. Not to mention, most cops can't shoot for shit.

Would agree with that Ma D :thumbsup

Every time a shooting spree comes up in US media, the same old questions are asked. The current mall shooting has the same ingredients - unbalanced person who has "rights" to carry a weapon and has easy access.

The unnerving bit is that any gun owner can become "unbalanced" at any time in their life - so plenty more shootings to come....

I lived 10 years in South Africa up untill December 2006, I have NEVER EVER heard of anyone killed with a machete and the pic is definately not taken in South Africa.

As for guns - millions of them + millions of illegal ones and the highest murder rate with guns/per capita in the World.

This is a complex conversation... as most of western Europe has disarmed their populations for decades/centuries AND it is part of their agenda to indoctrinate their children into believing they are "bad". The US had to arm both the UK and France during WWII. After the war the governments of these nations confiscated the guns. The German armies could not have entered France if they were armed to the teeth (see Switzerland below). It is the mindset of, "Government will clothe, feed, and protect you". If you are threatened by another human, stop, call the police, and wait.

In Switzerland, all males over the age of 18 are part of the militia (no army) and have a fully automatic weapons in the house. Yes, fully automatic military style weapon(s) with thousands of rounds of ammunition. Switzerland does not have the "gun issues" that we have... if you believe we have "gun issues".

The question you should be asking is, "What country in Europe has more people drugged up on anti-depressants and allows these people to have guns?". Almost all of these recent shootings were done by people on Prozac and had access to firearms.

-dd

For full disclosure I have fully automatic machine guns, pistols, shotguns, and rifles. I would not live in a country or state (long term) that banned gun ownership. Guns are not the problem... people are.

I thought I knew everything about WWII but never gave consideration that entire populations were armed because of the war. The landscape must have been littered with firearms; What in the world did they do with them?

And they allow citizens to own full automatic weapons in Switzerland? I never knew this. Wow.

Read this:

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0794d.asp

Allow?

It is the -> DUTY <- of all able bodied Swiss males.

The Swiss do not take their liberty and sovereignty lightly. The main bridges, roads, etc. into Switzerland are wired with explosives at all times.

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/Swissin...05&sid=4123773

So as an invading force you are confronted with:

1. Once you enter Switzerland they will blow the bridges and roads - you can not leave

2. All able bodied men are armed with machine guns and they can shoot



-dd

Are you going for dumbass comment of the month or something?

Omaha, Nebraska:

http://www.ketv.com/newsarchive/14785654/detail.html

"A friend of Hawkins, Shawn, told KETV NewsWatch 7 said Hawkins had been on antidepressants. He was staying with friends in Quail Creek, the friend said, and he said Hawkins had recently begun bouncing from job to job and making "some bad judgment calls." Shawn said he was shocked to hear it was the man he calls "Robbie." Shawn said he had heard through the grapevine on Wednesday that Robbie was suicidal."


Virgina Tech Shooter:

http://www.newstarget.com/021798.html

"The Chicago Tribune reports that Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 fellow students in a shooting rampage, was taking antidepressant drugs. This is not the first time a school shooting rampage has been linked to antidepressants. The infamous Colombine High shootings took place almost exactly eight years ago, and the shooters in that rampage were also -- you guessed it -- taking antidepressant drugs."


Red Lake Highschool Shooting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/na...partner=rssnyt

"On Friday, as Tammy Lussier prepared to bury Mr. Weise, who was her nephew, and her father, who was among those he killed, she found herself looking back over the last year, she said, when Mr. Weise began taking the antidepressant Prozac after a suicide attempt that Ms. Lussier described as a "cry for help."


Columbine:

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9904/29/luvox.explainer/

"Reports surfaced Wednesday that one of the gunmen in the Littleton, Colorado, school shooting, Eric Harris, was rejected by Marine Corps recruiters days before the Columbine High School massacre because he was under a doctor's care and had been prescribed an anti-depressant medication."

Awesome read really - thanks for the link. I've often wondered why the Nazis didn't go and take their chocolate. Now I know.

It's not the gun but the man behind it, people kill people, guns and knives are harmless...

So to protect the idiots from themselves and the people on the other end
of the gun it's better to restrict ownership of guns...

b.t.w. My country isn't even in the nationmaster list......that could be of 2
reasons...we're either smart enough not to kill eachother or because we have
very strict fire arms laws....I'll let you decide on this one :winkwink:

I have never seen a gun here in norway... lol

is that an opinion or a fact? sounds like bullshit :2 cents:
dont be such a fucking retard, research your facts, there is no way in hell england has moer gun assaults than usa, what a fucking moron you are :1orglaugh
IMO we are noway near the stage of america, the only reason you think its bad is because you read alot about it in the media and on tv. whenever someone dies it will be in the newspaper near the front. and its occasionaly that happens.

The media is spinning it well. No way is gun crime here bad, have you ever even seen a handgun while walking around in the past 10 years? likley answer no. I certainly havent. only come across legal hunting shotguns.

ha, i thought so. seems to be some fake stats in this thread.

People seem to miss the point that it isn't the guns that are killing people. It is crazy, unstable or pissed off people killing people. Sure it does make it easier for some loonies to kill more people from time to time, but if they really want to kill people they will.

Personally I like knowing that if someone is trying to kick down my door at 3am that I have a means of dealing with them other than calling 911 and hoping that they show up before some crazy is in my house messing with my family.

Ah and now we have a REAL moron / moron crash in here! As far as I believe this was a thread dedicated to EUROPE AND FIREARMS, do you know where Europe is? it's that huge bunch of different states with weirdly speaking people over the Atlantis.

My source was something as a magazine for firearms and shooting that I read way back in 92 /93 if I remember well, there were pushes to restrict the legal posession of guns at that time.

And it actually showed that almost no legally held guns are used in armed assaults, and UK where it's totally illegal had serious armed assaults crime rate.

is that enough for another moron reply? The good thing is that I am going to doublecheck that so that you made an idiot of yourself will actually educate me. :2 cents:

Ok I confirm it had to be a super biased article, according to these stats there is a bunch of countries in front of UK in Europe.

Gunners will always advocate the possession of guns.

Actually my country is no.12 in the world !

DON'T FUCK AROUND wankers or I'll wipe you out!

LOL

it's anyway kavkaz and former yugoslavia guys who do the most killing around here so it's a totally non sense statistics btw...