The Virginia Tech Shootings - A View From The UK Part 3
Would tougher gun laws make any difference?
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The amount of times I’ve heard and read this absurd sentence over the last week is unbelieveble. Yes, so a gun is an inanimate object and needs someone to pull the trigger, but if there weren’t the incredible amount of guns available, surely tragedies like Virginia Tech and Columbine wouldn’t happen.
The gun laws in Britain are vastly different to those in America, with strict controls over who can and can’t possess a firearm. In the U.S., pretty much anyone can walk into a gun store and buy a weapon, one that is capable of mass destruction. And that is exacly what Cho Seung-Hui did before killing 32 people last Monday. We know that no checks were carried out on him, and no questions were asked about why he wanted to own guns. What was he going to use them for, why did he need them? America is unique in that owning a gun is seen as a citizens responsibility, with the right to bear arms written in the constitution, the very fabric the country is built on. So it comes down to whether it’s the availability of guns, or Americans views on the ownership of them which is the problem.
In this country, it’s rare for someone to own a gun, and I personally don’t know anyone who does. The police don’t carry them, except for specialised units who are trained and highly skilled in the use of them. Even when they are dispatched to an incident, the weapons are locked down until they receive authority from a senior power in the police to use them. Compare that to America where any rookie cop can be in possession and use a gun with only the simplest basic training.
Criminals obviously do carry guns in the U.K., as anything is available if you search hard enough for it. But it’s much less common across Britain for a mugger or drug dealer to carry a gun than it is in the U.S.A. Unfortunately gun crime is on the increase in the over here, but even at it’s current rate it’s many many times lower per 100,000 of the population than it is in the States.
So does gun ownership amongst ordinary law abiding citizens increase the need for criminals to carry them, or is it the other way around. American gun lobbies will argue that an ordinary member of the public has a need to own a gun, and have it loaded and ready to use in his or her home in case an armed robber breaks in. But would that robber be armed if guns weren’t so entwined in the culture and available to every Tom, Dick and Harry?
The problem is now it’s really too late in my opinion for America to change. There are too many guns on the street, too many people who own them and feel they need to have them just in case. The country was born through violence and the right to bear arms has been in existence since then. When it’s part and parcel of the very essence of your culture, it’s virtually impossible to see a way back to humanity. Trying to ban guns in a country where they are as common as in the United States, would be like trying to ban smoking or drinking. They tried that, and look what happened. I always think it would be like the government attempting to ban the sale and use of tea in the UK, it just wouldn’t be possible, it’s there already and there’s no possibilty of it going anywhere.
Statistics show that in countries where there are less guns, and more stringent gun laws, there are less gun crimes. Common sense? Yes, but the N.R.A. and oganisations like them would have you think it’s wooly liberal thinking in a dangerous world. While I think America will have a near impossible job scaling back the gun problem, when tragedies such as Virginia Tech happen, it just makes me a whole lot happier to live in a country where I know guns are harder to come by, and are not the norm. I will rally against a loosening of the gun laws here until the cows come home, and if it ever happened, would sleep less easier knowing that my next door neighbour probably has a loaded gun in his bedroom.
While I can’t blame the Virginia Tech shootings on lax gun laws, I can see how it has contributed. Along with a need for a better healthcare system and support for wayward youngsters, America really needs to wake up, and consider how they want to react to VTech in a real sense, with laws being modified, opinions being changed, and a society being educated from top to bottom on how dangerous the gun culture is in the States.
Virginia Tech Shootings, Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui, Pop Culture, Columbine, Guns, Britain, UK, America, USA, Gun Law, NRA, Gun Lobby
April 26th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I think the NRA and people in the US take our Constitutional right to bear arms a little too far. It’s perhaps another example of an outdated law. It also never states what kind of gun we have the right to own. I definitely think automatic and semi-automatic weapons should not be easily obtained. Even weapons like the 9mm and 22 Cho had should be tougher to get.
I do think in order to obtain a weapon, you should go through more than just a simple background check. You should probably have to have a mental evaluation and mental background check. I also believe there should be some level of certification obtained. It should simply not be an easy task to obtain one. I own a gun myself, but it’s actually in my closet and never comes out. I just got it to go to the range on occasion.
I think the problem more than guns is actually ammunition and clips. They haven’t released to figures on how many clips he had in his back pack, but I can tell you that he had enough to kill every last person inside the building. They should somehow regulate the purchase of clips and ammo in my opinion. Possibly have a federal database where you have to register the amount purchased and it throws up an instant red flad when you are stockpiling massive amounts.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
A few things about this posting:
I don’t like how you posted a picture of an Uzi, as that gun /is/ illegal in the US. It’s rather inflamatory, especially as Cho used pistols, probably semi-autoomatic - but definitely not attaining the sustained (albeit extremely inaccurate) rate of fire of an Uzi.
The VT shootings aren’t necessarily a call for more stringent gun laws; if the gun laws had been followed, Cho would never have been able to purchase them: he had been ordered to a psychiatric facility by a court that had determined him to be a danger to himself and others in the past.
As to the fact that with more stringent gun laws there are less shooting deaths - yes, this is true. However, there are some more important facts to deal with.
1) If a criminal has a gun and is holding up a bodega, and the regular beat cop passing by sees him - and is not armed except with pepper spray and a baton - how is he supposed to suppress the crime? Guns are less common, certainly, even among criminals; however…
2) An armed society is a polite society. Imagine if one of the teachers in the building Cho had blockaded had a conceal-carry license! The massacre could have ended at 2 or 4 lives instead of 32.
3) It’s not so simple to get a pistol in the US. You can’t just walk off the straight and put down some benjamins. For pistols there is a 30 day waiting period where they are supposed to do background checks, look for psychiatric issues, etc. This procedure wasn’t followed in this case. Now, for a shotgun or basic .22 rifle, you can pretty much walk into Walmart and buy one. Good luck hiding your intentions walking onto campus with one, though.
4) Hunting is still enjoyed by many people. Venison isn’t sold in stores, and is extremely tasty - are you calling to ban hunting bows as well? In the right hands, they can be even more deadly than a firearm because they are completely silent. Maybe hunters should just use a pocketknife to bring home the deer/rabbit/whatever.
Which brings me to another point:
Morton Grove, Illinois, 25 years ago passed a complete ban on firearms for anyone but officers of the law. That’s right, you can’t even buy shotguns there. The city’s crime rate initially skyrocketed over 15%, and the county’s overall crime rate rose 3%. Right now its crime rate is 8% over the national average. 22,415 people live there, and its per capita income is $26,973.
Kennesaw, Georgia, in reaction to the Morton law, passed a resolution requiring each head of household to own a gun. This town is considered in the metro area of Atlanta, now, so keep that in mind as you read ahead. In 1982, it had a crime rate 11% higher than the national average and a population of just over 5,000 people. It’s 3.6% below the national crime rate, and has grown to a population of nearly 30,000 people. The per capita income in 2005 was $24,757. Usually the poorer a town is, the more crime it has - and by your logic, the more guns there are, the more violent crime there is involving guns.
I’m a staunch supporter of gun regulations, including screening, waiting time, rifling characteristic registration, certification classes at regular intervals, etc - but a vast majority of legally owned firearms are not used in violent crimes. It’s the ones that are stolen from owners who do not secure their weapons, and the ones that are bought on the black market that are used typically to commit violent crimes. Cho is an exception, because the place of business where he purchased his weapons did not follow the law when checking his background.
Don’t be so quick to dismiss gun ownership as a crime deterrent: the UK currently has a higher rate of burglary than the US. Many incarcerated burglars have said they were more afraid of finding out the owner had a gun and was awake, than getting caught by the police - and was a serious deterrent (many burglars would case the houses they planned to burglarize to see if the owner had a gun).
According to http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/crime0506summ.pdf the violent crime rate for the UK is 3.4%. The violent crime rate for the US is 2.1% - http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/viortrdtab.htm.
Just because you don’t have as many guns doesn’t make your country safer. I’m willing to bet that a higher proportion of the UK’s violent crimes are committed with improvised weapons, like bats, metal pipes, knives, et cetera.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
“Possibly have a federal database where you have to register the amount purchased and it throws up an instant red flad when you are stockpiling massive amounts.”
The only problem with that is that people can make their own bullets like my father does as it is much cheaper and you can tailor exactly how powerful the bullet will be. On top of that, does he go out and shoot people? No, he would never do such a thing unless he was being shot at himself.
Back on topic, I do agree that gun violence is pretty out of control here in America, people would find other ways of killing each other. If he had made pipe bombs to kill people instead of using guns would you have rallied against home improvement stores? Personally, if I didn’t already have guns of my own, I would sleep EASY knowing my neighbor had a gun.
When we enforced prohibition crime went though the roof as the bad guys were in control of alcohol instead of the government. Then when we introduced the Twenty First ammendment (the one that abolished prohibition) crime fell back down. The same thing would happen if guns were banned. It’s already been proven here in America. A town banned guns and another made every citizen have a gun. The results speak for themselves.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55288
I suggest you read that and stop trying to tell us what is best for us. I know our idiot president likes sticking his nose in other peoples business (iraq) but not everyone here is like him.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
By attacking the gun culture, are you not falling into the same trap that ensnares those who attack the gaming culture, or pop culture?
The problem is NOT the games… the culture… OR the guns.
PEOPLE are the problem. But, it’s much easier (and less risky) to go after those inanimate soft targets, than it is to point the finger at, say, those who shaped and influenced this killer more than anyone else in his life: his PARENTS.
Someone who wants so badly to kill, will find a way.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
I don’t think the problem lies soley with the gun culture. As illustrated above, blaming the gun culture is the same as blaming gaming.
If Cho had not had access to guns, he’d use a bomb, or poison, or some other means to exact his revenge.
The problem is if you’re going to have an open society WRT guns, the gov’t can’t do a half-assed job of checking those who are allowed to buy them.
There are hundreds of millions of guns in the US. The vast vast majority of them are never used in a crime. It is also true that while countries with less guns and strict control have less gun murder, they don’t do so hot with regards to contact crime.
You also had it right in your first thesis, all premature deaths are wrong. We lose vastly more people from heart disease, car accidents, falls, poisonings, etc. etc. Guns really are a minor player in terms of mortality risk.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
The people are the problem. People are always going to want to kill each other. for an example stabbings in Britain have been on the rise in the last few years. What are you guys going to do next legislate steak knives?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5366544.stm
April 26th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Are you all aware that 2 Ton guided missiles are available to be bought by members of the public????
A while back, a woman ran over her unfaithful husband with an SUV. When asked why she did that, she replied, “I don’t approve of guns”.
BTW, the Mini-UZI that is pictured above in this article, and all similar weapons, are illegal to import into the USA.
Automatic machine guns were outlawed by the National Firearms Act of 1934. I know that movies make it seem like they are all over the place. That is nonsense.
April 27th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Dave, if you switched the pic of the uzi to a picture of an AK-47 then you should be good. My uncle owns one. Wait, you didn’t hear that from me.
.
The one point I’d like to make about Columbine is if the parents of those kids knew what the hell their kids were doing then they might have found otu that their kids were stockpilling weapons and making home made bombs. I tried to hide beer from my dad and he found it, I’d hate to think what would of happened if he found a gun.
April 27th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
But Paul, the AK47 style weapons that you see in the USA are not military rifles. The AKs that are used in combat all over the world are Automatics (machine guns). The civilian models only shoot one shot at a time.
Just making sure everyone understands that.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Without wanting to get into a big fight on this topic I have to say one part of this post bothered me greatly. When you said,
“The country was born through violence and the right to bear arms has been in existence since then. When it’s part and parcel of the very essence of your culture, it’s virtually impossible to see a way back to humanity.”
I think that is a bit too strong of an attack on the USA. We fought against oppressors for our Freedom in the 18th century. The british were the cause of that violence. To say we need a way back to humanity is a little to condescending for a country whose people would be speaking German if it weren’t for the gun carrying Americans.
I am 37 years old and I am a US citizen since birth. I never owned a gun until this VA shooting and I went and bought one immediately after. Partly because of a desire for defense and partly because of a fear that extremists will convince my government to take away a right that has been guaranteed for over 200 years in this country.