Licking their lips and salivating over images of grieving Mothers and frightened children. More than 10,000 people were shot dead in the America last year – but 26, in one place, not just children, but infants even, oh and a suicide thrown in as well, let’s call it 27 – it’s Bansturbator heaven, to say nothing of Sky heaven. As unedifying as it is to watch Sky using these images of human emotion to fill their allotted time, listening to the inevitable ‘gun control’ lobby crawling out of their lairs and declaring ‘that something must be done, can we have a new law please’ is just as mortifying.
What is it about grief and death that makes the media and single issue lobbyists feel so free to exploit it for their own ends? We have had unending coverage of Jacintha Saldanha’s death, the high-profile MPs hugging her children, the Roman Catholic absolutionists out in their best party frocks announcing that she will have a memorial service in Westminster Cathedral, everybody milking the death of one nurse for their own ends. Was she the only nurse to die that week, the only Indian? The only person to be the victim of humiliation, the only person to take their life? Is it not sufficient that we are merely told the facts (and the facts would make a pleasant change from the speculation)?
Jacintha will be all but forgotten on the airwaves this week, for now we have new keywords driving the media agenda – Gun Control, 2nd Amendment, Right to Bear Arms, Newtown. Something like another 175 people will be shot dead in the US this week, but we shall hear nothing of them. Their local garage owner will not be phoned up by desperate researchers and invited to tell the world of his ‘feelings’ on hearing of the death of someone he never knew, never met; political lobbyists will be allowed to lay out their wares on multiple channels; Mothers will be encouraged to weep their grief for the world at large.
Many people have tried to explain to me the logic of ‘good killings’ and ‘bad killings’. I think I’ve got the terminology right now - Saddam Hussein killing tens of thousands of his own people was ‘bad killing’; a terrible thing, something that could only be put right by the Allied forces killing hundreds of thousands of the same people – these were ‘good killings’ – so much for the terminology, but the logic still defeats me; does the death feel any better if it is via ‘good killing’? You will just have to put me down as ‘not in favour’ of killing or the various methods used to achieve it.
I try to apply this terminology and logic to the gun control argument. Guns have been invented. A regrettable event, but one we are stuck with. There wouldn’t be an America if they hadn’t – the Bible alone wouldn’t have been much use against the bows and arrows of the Indians. So in a country which only exists by virtue of the use of the gun against people going about their legitimate business, the abolitionists now wish to denude the law-abiding of their weapons and leave the means of killing people solely in the hands of the criminals and/or law enforcement officers? Is there some guarantee that criminals and law enforcement officers aren’t subject to the same pressures, incitement, mental derangement, desire for fame or revenge, that those who perpetuate these schoolyard killings are afflicted by?
There are many countries in the world where all citizens have the ability to buy firearms; I live in one myself – France. Same sort of guns, same sort of bullets. They don’t take the opportunity to mass kill the contents of their local school. I used to live in another country where not even the police automatically have the right to carry guns – the UK. Yet we had the Dunblane and Hungerford mass killings. So not having the right to bear arms doesn’t rule out mass killings; having the right to bear arms doesn’t necessarily lead to mass killings.
Which leads me to believe that there must be some force at large in America, besides the ‘right to bear arms’, which creates the conditions in which these mass killings arise. Could it be, oh whisper it quietly, could it be the influence of the media? Not just the news media, but the influence of Hollywood, the constant glorification of killing, the video games; the knowledge that you too can ‘go out’ in a blaze of glory if you just manage to shoot more people, or someone even more famous, than the last guy?
Which brings me back to Jacintha. Are there not guidelines on the reporting of suicide by the media? Is there not a danger in the raising of this sad death to celebrity status rivalling the death of Princess Diana, that might tempt some overworked, underpaid and harassed nurse at Christmas time, traditionally a time when depression rears its head for too many, to think that a memorial service at Westminster Cathedral, the great and the good weeping over your death, and the citizens of the UK rushing to donate funds to your family might actually be preferable to making the best of the left over turkey for an ungrateful family and heading off in the cold for yet another night of emptying bedpans?
Oh for the days when we just had quiet, factual accounts of news delivered over the radio by a man in evening dress, instead of the insane ramblings of a half drunk garage owner who had no connection with the news beyond what he had heard on his radio…or Keith Vaz grandstanding.
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
{ 89 comments }
Our success assures the gun its ‘rightful’ place among us. It is a consequence of aggression and violence; such primal characteristics arising as early as the pre-DNA World.
On Radio 5 the morning the death of the nurse was reported, the breakfast presenters were talking about it, “stressing” that it would be totally wrong to draw any inferences (this was before it was confirmed as a suicide), then immediately went on to speak to someone from the Samaritans.
SKY carried a time line of the events in the USA. It took the SWAT team about fifteen minutes to deploy apparently. That’s an eternity when you are facing an armed man. The cops might come and shoot the killer later on or arrest them, but if they are keen on a mass killing, you have to look to yourself for defence. As the old saying goes “When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away”
If only one of the teachers was allowed ‘concealed carry’ it could have been ended much sooner.
Keith Vaz grandstanding is the most loathsome aspect of this sad affair. The Vaz is a curious, oily creature. He adopts the fake modulated tones of the Establishment which I suspect he abhorrs and despises yet exploits so relentlessly. Watching and listening to his “grandstanding” on the Commons Home
Affairs committee during the Murdoch and News International phone hacking affair made me quietly fume. I would give vent to a mighty rant at this point, but I suspect Leveson would be knocking on the door with a gang of state sponsored thugs and haul me down to the station for a good kicking. Pah! This country!
Gildas,
I totally agree. Just 1 thought, as Vaz cannot refrain from leaping on the nearest passing bandwagopn, would it be possible that when he rushes out to offer his invaluable support to the bereaved of Connecticut, the Border Agency could be persuaded not to let him back in the UK?
Delicious suggestion. Perhaps I could nominate Maria Miller to go with him?
He won’t go, sadly. No votes in it. Unless he gets a free ticket. And then he will.
Gildas, may I tap your working knowledge of the Catholic Church? Is it usual for a Mass to be sung in Westminster Cathedral for someone whom is widely believed to have taken her own life, given that suicide is considered a sin by the Church?
Astute point Brian – perhaps why the result of the inquest has been delayed?
I dont know is the answer Brian. I will reserach that. Good point
I was a bit bemused when Vaz popped up, but on reflection he perhaps did act as a politician of a democratic country should, insofar as he expressed some degree of interest in the people who his Parliament represents. It crossed my mind that if David Lammy had taken a fraction of the interest in the dilemma of the Duggan family, a couple of summers ago, the UK might have been spared the eventual consequences of the entire Establishment utterly ignoring the perplexed bewilderment of a family whose son had just been shot by the coppers under somewhat puzzling circumstances – and Lammy was actually the MP for Tottenham, so even had a duty to take an interest, but he didn’t, and we all know what happened in the end.
Given Duggan’s family aren’t exactly unknown to the criminal justice system themselves, it’s puzzling why it would puzzle them so…
@ Given Duggan’s family aren’t exactly unknown to the criminal justice system themselves, it’s puzzling why it would puzzle them so… @
Like the rest of the country, I had no idea who they were (and still know little). However it did become apparent that the son had been shot several days earlier and there had been little or no attempt by the forces of Law or Civics to communicate with them as to why, or what might happen next. I have no idea what the ettiquette is in such cases but even if my son was a bit of a tearaway I would guess I would like to think the police, having shot him, would make some effort to reassure me about the circumstances in which it had happened. Given the relatively recent history of Tottenham I would have also thought at the very least, the local MP, who was also of my ethnic grouping, might have thought it of significance enough to want to let me know that “no stone would be left unturned”. I have no idea whether the family of the nurse lived in Dawn Primarolo’s constituency or not, but I certainly agree that their local Bristol MP would have been more apt a parlimentarian than Vaz, MP for Leicester..
“I had no idea who they were (and still know little)”
Pillars of the local multi culti community…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8687403/London-riots-Dead-man-Mark-Duggan-was-a-known-gangster-who-lived-by-the-gun.html
@ “The Daily Telegraph can disclose the police saw him as a “major player” who was “well known” to them.” @
There are suggestions that Duggan didn’t even have a criminal record, but tellingly, Scarface was his favourite movie.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/elizabeth-pears/mark-duggan-saint-or-sinn_b_956901.html
The BBC’s Radio5 coverage last night was heavily slanted to the notion that American Gun laws needed to be changed. At the same time the news-DJ kept saying that we must regard these incoming reports he was broadcasting with caution, as there had been no *official statements* made yet, but the moment-by-moment news-cycle demanded he had to keep collecting “reports”. It’s just formalised twitter really.
So far as the gun laws are concerned the State apparently has some of the strictest rules in the USA, but it is the Federal Laws that the pressure is on to be changed. Given that Obama is a second-term President – if he believes that the laws need to be changed, well he has nothing to lose by changing them. Less talk and more action Mr. President – your Time has now and will not come again unless you fancy yourself as a Roosevelt.
The Coroners Court on the suicided nurse was opened and adjourned until next March. Seems we’ve got a long wait for the *official statement* and more than enough time for the Ickeolytes to get their story twisted and spiralled, and so be ready to rebut the *Cover-Up*, when the time comes. The News Cycle will always be peddled.
It would be very difficult for Barry to try to put any form of control on fire arms. Wouldn’t look good from the man who endorsed Fast and Furious.
“What’s Fast and Furious? Some film?’ says, well, most of the UK population. And, sadly, probably a lot of the US one too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious
Sorry, realised you were probably sarcastic.
Sorry, realised you were probably sarcastic.
Best to assume I’m always sarcastic…
To: JuliaM
Were you being sarcastic when you said that?
“What is it about grief and death that makes the media and single issue lobbyists feel so free to exploit it for their own ends?”
Because an appeal to emotion is likely to prove successful. Simply that. Nothing more.
We still haven’t learned that hard cases make bad law. And I’m really starting to doubt that we ever will. Maybe we’re as ‘evolved’ as we’re ever going to get?
Maybe we’re as ‘evolved’ as we’re ever going to get?
Some might argue that we’ve been on a downward slope for some time already.
I’m one that thinks that we started to go downwards about a century ago at the start of the Great War of 1914 – 1918.
Agreed, the decline is very obvious, though in technological terms you might extend the date closer to 1950′s, but that’s a minor quibble when we are talking millennia of evolution.
What does the sad death of the nurse tell us? That pranks can have unintended consequences and that some people may have unexpected sensitivities? What does the shooting spree in Connecticut tell us? It tells us that if you have a society in which guns are widely held, sooner or later an indaquate and mentally deranged person will get hold of one, and more, and do terrible damage. I did ponder whether I might opinion, in the light of the shooting, on what I might call The Nature of Evil. But in the end, I reached the conclusion that it was more an aspect of the banal. Just one more disturbed young man, a loser, unable to cope, and lashing out. That is what I suppose makes it even more awful. The sheer pointlessness of it. Will America change its culture and gun laws in response? Not in any meaningful way. The culture of theright to bear arms is inculcated in the very fibre of the constitution and the DNA of the nature, stemming from America’s revolutionary and anti tyranny perspective. That will not change, and the place is awash with guns anyway.
As for the media, they have a diffiult line to tread, but bad news makes for good ratings, and they do revel in it. This is news, and tragedy, as entertainment. Such is life.
I very rarely take issue with Gildas, but “…if you have a society in which guns are widely held, sooner or later an indaquate and mentally deranged person will get hold of one,..” is an incomplete picture.
Look at the UK, when the post-Dunblane hysteria led to the state (& ACPO) realising one of their longest-held desires, the total eradication of any sort of armed populace.
Nowadays, The Monk’s comment for the the UK should read “…if you have a society in which guns are widely held BY CRIMINALS, sooner or later an indaquate and mentally deranged CRIMINAL will get hold of one,…” and of course, the law-abiding are helpless and defenceless.
Perhaps I should expand: “Armed populace” (2nd para) = A population equipped with the means to resist a government and its acolytes who are determined to dictate and control.
Something like Afghanistan?
The problem in the US may not be gun laws so much as mental health laws. The dangerous people who are mentally ill tend to exploit loopholes formed out of a well-meaning intention to give the majority of mentally ill people who are not dangerous as much freedom as possible and also the desire to spend as little taxpayer money as possible on the care of the mentally ill. In too many cases the person has been known to be behaving “oddly” for a long time, but has not been assessed by an experienced mental health professional who would have known at once that the person was severely psychotic and a “danger to self or others”.
Absolutely correct. Anna makes the point that Hollywood is partly to blame for “glorifying” multiple murder, the point she missed is Hollywood’s depiction of mental health eg One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, we avert our eyes from mental health thinking removal of the severely disturbed from society is a cruel barbarous response, but if we wish to decrease these types of incidents then a serious review of treatment in the community needs to be done. Treatment in the community for this 20-year-old could have (pure speculation follows) involved him sitting at home, often unattended perhaps playing some shoot-em-up computer game endlessly, to a (reportedly) disturbed or immature mind could this then become his reality? Incarceration and treatment in smaller facilities need not be inhumane, it does however require expenditure and a willingness to be honest about what is best for society-at-large.
Similarly in nurse Jacintha’s case, would anybody now deny she was susceptible to severe mental stress? And that resources in one of the best hospitals in your nations capital were insufficient. Mental health is NOT the Hollywood depiction, wild-eyed, mouth frothing unkempt patients, they could be you or me under stress, hopefully we have family to help us. Access to diagnosticians needs to be very quick, or disasters may happen.
Whatever the truth is in these sad tales, we will never know. Multiple “experts” who were in such short supply previously to help this unfortunate young man will now expound endlessly on what “may” have been likely cause for his actions, law enforcement and politicians will choose their “experts” depending on what outcome they prefer to draft reports demanding action. A Dunblane response is in the offing, or in the case of Jacintha a cover-up is being prepared.
“Guns have been invented. A regrettable event, but one we are stuck with”
Oh I don’t know. Personally I believe firearms were, and are, the single greatest protectors of individual liberty. Remove them and we’d go back to the days of ‘the biggest, strongest and most aggressive gets/does what they want’, serfdom, feudalism (or a more up-to-date example – any Friday night on any high-street in Britain). Only a firearm allows the small, the weak or the old some means of defending against a larger, stronger or younger attacker.
To examine the US shooting rate is fraught with danger. How many of those shootings are ‘bad guy on bad guy’? (can’t use the colour form of that saying as it may be seen to offend someone). How many are suicides (who, of course, would never use another method if firearms weren’t available)? How many were people defending themselves from attack (whereas here in PRUK we would just become another statistic of the multi-culti paradise we live in)? Then of course if you look closely the figures tend to show a correlation with just which ‘culture’ is prevalent in the area – small town, predominantly western (see no colour again), areas show a lower crime rate than British cities.
As to the nurse, as one I have a number of observations. Why was a qualified registered nurse operating the switchboard (if she even was and didn’t simply answer a clinical area phone)? What exactly was the ‘response’ of management since (possibly having made a few mistakes in my time, having some experience of this) as worrying and embarrassing as this sounds, how much pressure (sacking, struck off, deported) was ‘mentioned’? Until that is known this ‘silly prank’ will remain nothing more than speculation and rumour and the press will act as they do – because apparently this is exactly what the majority of the public want (lurid tabloid headlines trump facts in the ‘minds’ of most today as sad a statement as any I’ve contemplated).
“How many were people defending themselves from attack?”
This is the problem. Although millions of people in the USA have guns, incidence of them using them successfully in self defense are remarkably uncommon.
This is the reason why petrol station owners and convenience stores and banks do NOT equip their staff with firearms to prevent robberies.
I lived in the USA for 20 years and I never owned a gun, nor was I ever in a situation where one might have been useful. During the course of my work I met many convicted killers, robbers, and sex offenders, albeit in a custodial situation, and spent many long hours in top security prisons so you can’t really say I led a particularly sheltered existence or that I am naive about crime, but I think many people grossly overvalue guns as a defensive measure. It would be better to equip everyone with cell phones so they could call 911 at one touch.
Well, the statistics are looking quite good, actually:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/self_defense_killings_in_us_nearly_aQicVMrF1TAP3Sv3BgqfCO
But yes. Better to dial 911. After all, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
326 so-called justifiable homicides in 2010, out of about 16,000 killings. That is about 2%.
Doesn’t seem like many to me taking into account that many will have been police shootings.
And how many of that 16000 were carrying themselves?
Jonathan
“incidence of them using them successfully in self defense are remarkably uncommon.”
I’d beg to differ! The ‘reporting’ of incidence of them being used successfully in self defence is remarkably uncommon in the MSM (but politically expedient). The other fact being that in many (if not most) instances of this type the person simply showing the weapon is sufficient to deter an attack. Less PC organisations, publications and research all show millions of safe sel-defence uses per year (and therefore millions less robberies, assaults, murders, etc.),
Meeting “many convicted killers, robbers, and sex offenders… in a custodial setting” is not exactly a realistic situation is it? Would you, I wonder, “grossly overvalue guns as a defensive measure” if you met them in a darkened alley, parking lot or in ‘their crib’ (without the benefit of a captive criminal and a number of custody officers ready to defend you)? Consider on meting such amoral ‘customers’ what exactly would allow you to walk away unharmed if they decided your pay-packet that week (or possessions, clothes or your life) was just what they wanted? Unless your name is Bruce Lee or Jason Bourne the only answer is a firearm, no (NB movie scenes aren’t even close to real life)?
“petrol station owners and convenience stores and banks do NOT equip their staff with firearms to prevent robberies” because they would then find themselves legally liable for all those spurious ‘damages’ claims by injured criminals and their families, and in the majority of self-owned businesses they not only arm themselves but allow staff to do so as well, fact!
911? Seriously? The oft quoted saying ‘when you have only seconds, the police are minutes away’ has an amount of truth (and will always be so as long as we don’t each have a personal copper). So you recommend that when a woman is attacked and faces rape she says ‘hold on a moment whilst I dial 911, then would you be good enough to wait until the officers arrive’?
The point of the original article is that in a society where guns and violence exist, these incidents happen exclusively in areas where the perpetrator KNOWS that no one else will be armed. Does that not show that even the criminals (and allegedly insane) can see how effective a deterrent an armed populace is? Grossly over-valued, no, grossly misrepresented.
How effective is it? have a look at how the crime stats have been affected by the carry laws in Washington recently (every state, city and town to allow concealed carry has seen a massive reduction in all types of crime – who’d have thunk it!)
‘…Although millions of people in the USA have guns, incidence of them using them successfully in self defense are remarkably uncommon.’
Not true… Please check your facts. Statistically, you are rather more likely to survive an attack if you are armed yourself, than if you are not. What is not as common, and certainly, was not as common 20 years ago was the factor of a gun owner CARRYING (not merely owning in a drawer at home somewhere) a lawfully held firearm for self-defence. They may have and do have many guns at home, but, statistically, amongst the section of the population who are lawfully carrying their firearms when trouble arrives, those persons have a far higher chance of survival.
Gun here gun there. He could have had as much succes with an ice pick. (Ask Trotsky for details.)
I have a Lochaber axe, a Wiking broad axe (similar), and a collection of various large bladed weapons, here.
I reckon, IF I was in that frame of mind, I could take out half a shopping center with any one of them, before anyone even THOUGHT to call the police.
(And just THINK of the “street cred!” …… “Man takes out shopping center with Lochaber axe!”)
I could injure a damn good few with a walking stick.
Guns, or any other weapon, are not the problem. It is what makes the perp TICK, is the problem.
And THAT we will never cure.
Oh, and worth to note, HE HAD THOSE WEAPONS ILLEGALY!
His MOTHER, as it is reported here, was the legal owner.
As soon as he took those weapons out of the house, they were IMMEDIATELY ILLEGAL!
Once again, ILLEGAL weapons are the problem.
But the bleeding hearts would argue that if guns were banned, his mother wouldn’t have had them in the first place…
The SECURITY is the problem. NOT the ownership.
As I say, a person who is intent on doing such a thing, will find MANY, and ANY means to do so.
His mother would have had a handy set of knives in the kitchen though…
Yes, but there is a terrible irony here that (according to recent press reports) the mother, Nancy Lanza, was stocking up on guns and food, because she believed that the end of civilization would be upon us any day and that she would need to use these guns to defend her family’s food supply against the predations of her hungry neighbours (armed with tin openers, I assume) but this plan literally backfired when she was killed with one of the guns by a member of her own family, who apparently was not the only fruitcake in the house.
“not the only fruitcake”………that is a very unkind depiction of the mother (and by implication the son) based on very flimsy evidence. Very much unlike your usual serious comments.
There is a political agenda at play after this tragedy, and I fear you may have been succumbed to it.
I don’t really know what the political agenda is supposed to be. This is not reported just in the Daily Mail.
Apparently the information about her being a “survivalist” came from an interview with an aunt. I am not sure who did the original interview, but it is widely requoted in reputable media. For example:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/15/1170520/-School-killer-s-mom-was-something-of-a-survivalist#
At least as a theory it has the merit of offering an explanation as to why a very affluent woman (reportedly receiving over $300,000 annually in alimony) living in a town that has been called “the safest place in America” owned a collection of guns and rifles of this type. Of course they might have been used for hunting, or just for target shooting, which is an Olympic sport, but then again, maybe not.
Reply to Jonathon Mason 19:09 comment (the reply”button” seems to disappear after three or so comments)
The political agenda is the major subject of the landlady’s commentary-gun control. Your comment described ownership of guns and stocking of food supplies by a sane person as the actions of a “fruitcake”. Given recent and ongoing failures of government departments to provide assistance and maintain lawful control after Hurricane Sandy (less than 100 miles from her residence) I would suggest that her actions were considered and sensible. The “end of civilization” comment juxtaposed with “fruitcake” does not fit what are sensible preparations in the face of government ineptitude.
That she was a single mother in a rather secluded sub-division no doubt entered into her decision to own personal protection handguns, her ownership of rifles may or may not have been for protection, the single over-riding fact is that they were all legally owned in a jurisdiction that has strict ownership laws.
As somebody who professes to have worked in the mental health field, I found your comments unkind, but that no doubt occurs when you use the dailykos as a source of reliable news.
@Cascadian
“Your comment described ownership of guns and stocking of food supplies by a sane person as the actions of a “fruitcake”. Given recent and ongoing failures of government departments to provide assistance and maintain lawful control after Hurricane Sandy (less than 100 miles from her residence) I would suggest that her actions were considered and sensible.”
Oh come on, Cascadian. These are the actions of a person who is paranoid.
Then we disagree, at one time the received wisdom was to be prepared to survive disaster for 72 hours, by which time it was reckoned government agencies could “get their act together”, judging by the response to Sandy it does not seem reasonable to plan for survival supplies of less than 10 days and an absence of policing for similar lengths of time.
I note, with disappointment you fail to address the usage of “fruitcake”, which was the crux of my comment.
@Cascadian
Yes, it makes sense to have a few days supply of food, water, candles, matches flashlight batteries, or even possibly a weapon when you are expecting bad weather. I do the same myself as I live in the Dominican Republic where the power and water supply is never assured and hurricanes a threat in season. But that doesn’t seem to be what was reported here based on some remarks by the woman’s sister in law in a number of media sources about her being a “prepper”.. Daily Kos was just a random link that seemed to have a decent summary, but plenty of other links to the same underlying story are available. Fruitcake is an old-fashioned English term that means someone who is a nutcase (can also mean a homosexual, but that is not the intention here). The phrase is “nutty as a fruitcake”. but “a fruitcake” alone is widely understood.
Fruitcakes, which usually contain dried fruits such as currants and raisins, plus nuts, are popular in England along with a cup of tea,
I live close to an earthquake zone and a volcano, and also have emergency supplies. Are we both now subject to tittle-tattle and gossip that we are “preppers” so that people can call us paranoid and fruitcakes?
Do you not see that once that gets going it would be easy for governments to seize guns because we are potentially unstable?
@Cascadian
“Do you not see that once that gets going it would be easy for governments to seize guns because we are potentially unstable?”
Well probably there are certain types of guns that ought not to be in private hands, because of the danger of them getting into the hands of the unhinged. Here in the Dominican Republic there are armed security guards everywhere with long guns, but I don’t think they have magazines that allow them to fire off a whole load of bullets without reloading.
The United States has one of the highest rates of gun death in the world and something like 50% of households have guns, so the argument that an armed population leads to a lower rate of gun violence seems to be false. The problem with nearly all these massacres is that people who are not sane get hold of deadly weapons and run amok with them. The solutions probably lie both in reform of the mental health system and in restricting certain types of weapons from general distribution.
@Jonathon
I tend to agree that there should be no need for automatic weapons in the hands of the citizens and hunters, however since the US government has been complicit in distributing them to Mexico how do they make the argument for a ban? The major problem is that recent history of rioting in the US (and UK) has shown that the police vacate the area and leave the citizens to deal with the rioters as best they can, if you are caught up in that scenario and do not wish to be a victim it does not seem improbable that you might want all the killing power you can muster. Single shot weapons will not perform that function well.
In a perfect world I would agree with your two recommendations, but with very much emphasis on the mental health component, problem is the world is not perfect and why should law-abiding citizens potentially be at a handicap to well-equipped criminals?
Having lived in Florida, you will be well aware of the problem with crime (especially shooting death) statistics, these tend to be exacerbated by drug feuds and highly concentrated amongst black-on-black crime. Strip those factors away and it is common to find that communities with few restrictions on legal firearms have very much fewer serious crimes, cities (particularly) with restrictions or bans on firearms have very high serious crime statistics. This is counter-intuitive but easily verifiable-Chicago,Washington DC and Newark amongst others being particularly bad.
If the USA wanted a real conversation on solutions to reduce shooting deaths, they would need to contemplate banning ownership of guns by a majority of the black community, I don’t think they are ready for that kind of honest conversation, particularly in Obama’s administration.
Mindlessly pointing to people who have the good sense to prepare for major disasters is not likely to produce the results you desire.
‘…We have had unending coverage of Jacintha Saldanha’s death, the high-profile MPs hugging her children’.
Did anyone else have a queasy ‘Jimmy Savile flashback moment’ watching Keith Vaz getting ‘up close and personal’ with the late Mrs. Saldanha’s daughter?
What on earth is Vaz getting so personally involved for? This is a personal tragedy for the family but just why have several high profile persons chosen to involve themselves to such a very great level? What are their reasons?
It is all deucedly odd. Anna is spot on in this. A private matter has been made extremely public. Funeral Mass at Westminster Cathedral even for a clearly caring nurse? It takes ‘muscle’ to organise an event of this nature, so… why? Where will Mr. Vaz be viz a viz this family this time next year? I, for one, cannot see what advantage there is to be exploited in this case, but perhaps I am not party to all the facts.
As regards Gun Control, I am afraid that, whatever the actual statistics, Obama, a second term President, who cannot be re-elected had already indicated some of his preferences in this regard and I know for a fact that the gun owning community in the USA were praying for Romney to win, his other manifest shortcomings notwithstanding.
Never have I seen Obama so moved. Twice now, in the last two days, he has stated publicly that this time ‘something must be done’ about firearms in the USA. I do not think that the Americans can expect a rational review of the situation, driven as it is at present by raw emotion, but it is also clear that when the Second Amendment was passed – CURIOUSLY ON 15 DECEMBER 1791 that none of the legislators at that time could envisage, even in their wildest imaginings, that one day an ordinary US citizen could now legally possess the equivalent firepower of an entire platoon, or greater, the incredible advances in technology creating increasingly more lethal firearms, without consequently more stringent controls on their possession.
I am no gun control nut, by the way, but it is very difficult to see the open grief etched on all the faces on our television sets without feeling a great deal of empathy. I do not think either that it is time in the USA for the National Rifle Association to produce another Charlton Heston style “from my cold, dead hands” type speech.
It may not be fair, rational or reasonable for a radical reform but reform is clearly ‘in the air’.
It is a fact, of course that firearms cannot kill without human interaction, but it is also true that in the USA and in other countries, deranged individuals have used firearms to mount a rampage style assault, and their possession of these items have enabled these persons to increase their body count. Look at our own history of mass shootings and one can see a ‘knee jerk’ reaction to gun control, with thousands of completey innocent individual shooters suddenly deprived of the means to enjoy their lawful pursuits. No mandate was necessary, the Government merely amended the Firearms Act 1968. I think that, notwithstanding the large and vociferous shooting lobby in the USA that Obama will now fight tooth and nail to restrict private citizen’s access to some types of firearms.
It is no panacea, of course and is in some respects, a risible solution to subject the masses to stringent controls, in answer to what is clearly a very disturbed individual’s demonstration of his particular hatred, but I personally think that this shooting is a ‘tipping point’ and that the die is now cast.
Frankie, Glad you said that, I just watched Vaz with his arm round Jacintha’s 14 year old daughter, kissing her on the head….and queasy is the only word to describe my emotion.
Ditto
I don’t watch TV and only allow myself small doses of Radio 4, so I was spared the yuk experience at first hand.
However, I think this was more a case of brown-on-brown (rather than old sleaze-ball-on-young-woman) love designed to let us all know that it takes someone from South Asia to “represent the pain” of a South Asian family.
So I wouldn’t place Vaz in the over-populated paedo pigeon-hole, I’d slot him in with his smug and rotund colleague Diane Abbott among the divisive racists.
Yup, totally agree Meisson. Divisive Racists – good phrase!
XX A private matter has been made extremely public. Funeral Mass at Westminster Cathedral even for a clearly caring nurse? It takes ‘muscle’ to organise an event of this nature, so… why? Where will Mr. Vaz be viz a viz this family this time next year? I, for one, cannot see what advantage there is to be exploited in this case, but perhaps I am not party to all the facts.xX
To take “our” eyes “off the 8 ball.
How much reporting has there been about the fact that in response to “patriot” (U.S, & German.) deployment in Turkey, the Russians have given, within hours, the Syrians their latest “patriot defying” missile systems?
Or is some nurse, no matter HOW good she was, more important?
For the MSM, the answer is obviously “Yes”.
WHY?
“I, for one, cannot see what advantage there is to be exploited in this case, but perhaps I am not party to all the facts.”
Perhaps the oleaginous Vaz thinks that the ever gullible British public will remember this and forget: His support for that convicted policeman Disae, his close friendship with the fake lawyer who he took with him on official missions, and his fiddling of expenses. Or perhaps the comments above about the way he comforted the nurse’s daughter have substance, who knows?
A man kissing a 14 year-old girl on the forehead now leaves people queasy? Given that the actual evidence for Savile’s alleged behaviour is not exactly conclusive (except in the eyes of the Paedo Police) I think it’s a bit rich to suggest the same sort nonsense about someone like Vaz. He’s evidentially guilty of wanting to be seen as a political leader within his skin-deep ethnic group but that is all. If he was French he’d likely kiss people on both cheeks.
Perhaps I did not express my feelings as well as I could have. Had Savile replaced Vaz in the news item of Vaz with the nurse’s daughter, and this have been archive material, the MSM would have been presenting this as further evidence of Savile’s misdeeds would they not? That said, I still find that Vaz has an uncanny ability to make my skin crawl
Vaz reminds me of Gerald Kaufman with regards to his teflon tendencies. It is puzzling to me just now, how Vaz and Margaret Hodge seem to have dominated some of the key parliamentary committees just recently – especially now Mensch has resigned. I guess the “best” of the Tories and Liberals are consumed by the need to govern the country, and have little spare capacity left for these parliamentary bodies. But then I’m baffled how Bercow remains in post; the present government is determined not to make any waves within the House itself, it seems.
“It would be better to equip everyone with cell phones so they could call 911 at one touch”
No, it would not. Sadly by the time the first cop arrived, everyone who was to die that day, was already dead.
You imagine you are summoning help, but what you are really saying is “I am about to be murdered. I am defenceless and cannot fight back as I am denied the means to do so. Please come and investigate my death, have some political stooge call me ‘brave’ regardless of whether I died bravely or crying like a lamb to the slaughter.
Have your cellphone by all means but please don’t deny me ‘concealed carry’ as I wish to fight back effectively rather than make a futile gesture. I also don’t want the bastard to be sure if I am carrying or not. In that way, he won’t be sure if you are carrying either.
fewer armed citizens more aggresive socialism. Nervous politicians are good politicians.
With regard to “Media Cool”, I also noticed that the BBC Radio Five reporters kept using the term: “Shooter”, as opposed to “crazed killer”, or the more telling “mass murderer”.
I was listening to one commentator last night remarking that the real problem in America wasn’t gun control, it was “Mental Illness”. I suppose that’s a lefty version of “Guns don’t kill people. People do.”
It is the COMBINATION of the two that are so deadly. Although mentally ill people can be hospitalized if they are “a danger to self or others”, this rarely happens until AFTER they have done something, and almost never because they have the potential. Assessments of danger to self and others don’t really take into account potential to commit mass murders, because most mentally ill people have a hard enough time brushing their own teeth or remembering to buy toilet paper, never mind organizing a mass murder.
If an affluent family takes a child to a private child psychiatrist, he is rather unlikely to recommend that they be locked up. In Florida there is now, for some reason I don’t understand, a law that doctors are not allowed to ask families if there are guns in the house. Go figure!
* something like 50% of households have guns *
“Male gun ownership peaked in 1990, with 52.4 percent of U.S. men reported personally owning a gun, but this dropped to 33.2 percent in 2010. Female gun ownership peaked in 1982 at 14.3 percent and dropped to 9.9 percent in 2010.”
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/04/26/One-third-of-US-households-own-guns/UPI-46991303850331/#ixzz2FL2CDmSw
One of the things about the “Mental Health” argument that bothers me is that so far as I am vaguely aware, no professor has ever fully explained a single one of the various mass shootings that has occurred, so what chance is there that can be relied upon to predict who might be the next one? I think if I was American I’d be staistically more worried about the mental health industry than the firearms industry.
From a practical point of view, the main issue with guns is that you can kill a lot more people, very qickly, than you can with a knife.
The mental health issue is really the crux of the argument, and since the mental health of us all can vary on an hour-by-hour basis, we have to be careful to define the problem as serious and persistent mental health challenges and that once these are diagnosed should prohibit ownership of guns.
Locked storage of guns have some beneficial effect but I am willing to bet that the guns in Connecticut would have been securely stored. Gun ownership is a very serious undertaking, but most of the tragedies we hear are not of responsible owners indeed most murder weapons are stolen (as in this instance).
Most gun owners fall back on the argument that their guns are needed for instantaneous use and should not be locked up, I think it is time to review that, and accept locked storage as well as trigger locks. That will slow down some thieves, it is not by any means a solution, a 100% airtight solution is not available, just like automobile usage (the most lethal thing we use daily) we are reliant on others to operate them safely and considerately.
@ since the mental health of us all can vary on an hour-by-hour basis, we have to be careful to define the problem as serious and persistent mental health challenges and that once these are diagnosed should prohibit ownership of guns. @
Psychiatric evaluation required you mean? That might mean many people who want guns will be put off applying…..
@ most of the tragedies we hear are not of responsible owners indeed most murder weapons are stolen (as in this instance). @
The only answer to that then is that nobody can have guns so that nobody can steal them.
In the UK now we have regulations on the carrying of knives: http://www.goxplore.net/guides/Knife_law_(UK)
I was walking to a friend’s house with a pair of garden shears to help them clip their grass the other day, and it crossed my mind that I might well be acting suspiciously to a policeman. Fortunately we never see any policemen, so it wasn’t a problem.
In response to Furor Teutonicus on December 17, 2012 at 14:26. I have a link for you, the US does NOT have the highest murder rate Sir, according to population numbers…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/10/world-murder-rate-unodc
US United States of America 15,241 5% 2009 National police
BTW Anna Raccoon, I love your blog!!
Thank you-it is not even close is it?
If anything, I was quoting. But… I can not find the post….has it been removed?
I am 99,99999% convinced that I did not say that, and NEVER would.
IF you can prove different….
I am not trying to wriggle out, I am just interested WHERE the post has gone to……
It may not have the highest murder rate, but it clearly has a kind of ‘Third World’ profile looking at that map.
People who actually think that arming teachers would solve school shootings are a little bit crazy and we shouldn’t be afraid of saying so. Having a libertarian attachment to lack of gun control is one thing, being willing to sacrifice small children to assault weapons in order to maintain purity of the faith is quite another.
“willing to sacrifice small children to assault weapons”………The standard of English usage at the BBC has certainly deteriorated in recent times, I did not realise quite how drastic it was. Perhaps you can expand on the sacrificial rites at Newtown and how frequently the gods require these sacrifices.
As to the third world profile, perhaps the progressives might wish to analyze the statistics and determine the section of the population responsible for the majority of shootings and propose a policy to reduce the mayhem. Let me make it easy for you, the Wall Street Journal researched this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304830704577496501048197464.html
I look forward to hearing a proposed resolution.
Nice sidestep there. I am talking specifically about spree shootings, and particularly about assault weapons. If you have anything sensible to say about that, and why it is legitimate for civilians not in a war zone to own them, do please spill.
And what on earth is the point of giving a link to articles behind a paywall?
No sidestep, my dancing skills are notoriously bad, and if you adjusted your spectacles, you would see I have had plenty to say about the subject-perhaps too much! Some of it might even align with your thoughts.
In this instance I was attracted to misuse of the word sacrifice, a well-worn tactic for progressives.
Also, I see no reference to assault weapons or spree shooting in your original comment, only murder rates, third world profile, and arming teachers.
No paywall from where I accessed it, that’s unfortunate because it was a well-documented article.
Some years ago I had some responsibility for an industrial site in RSA where we did not permit personal arms to be brought on to site. (company policy was however that we should have arms in case of unrest) Staff brought between 30 and 120 firearms to work daily, mostly revolvers and automatic pistols. We provided gun safes on site.
To see a young woman take a powerful handgun from her bag on entering work is quite disturbing.
I think it’ll take a long time to change attitudes.
XX To see a young woman take a powerful handgun from her bag on entering work is quite disturbing.XX
Really?…… Tell more…. Ooooohhhh!
Sensible woman, the crime statistics in South Africa are horrendous.
I suspect I might also be armed if resident now.
This was in the ’80′s when Black on White violence was uncommon away from the borders. The point I was making is that the casual acceptance of the day to day availability and visible carrying of lethal weapons as normal is something we are just not used to. We shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of changing people’s attitudes elsewhere.
During a strike and a bit of excitement at the factory gate, one of my people tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘don’t worry Mnr, any trouble I’ve got this’, and produced the largest and longest barrelled revolver I’ve ever seen.
I’d already been very careful about giving out the pickhandles and radios.
People seem to have forgotten Peel’s exhortation:
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
We are all responsible for our own safety. Your colleagues understood that even in the 80′s.
XX produced the largest and longest barrelled revolver I’ve ever seen. XX
Toll! But it is, after all, only six shgots.
You have an intent crowd, they will push the sheep foreward and wait until you have to reload.
Haoiness is a belt fed weapon!
XX The United States has one of the highest rates of gun death in the world and something like 50% of households have guns, so the argument that an armed population leads to a lower rate of gun violence seems to be false. XX
No. The only surprise is, that it is not HIGHER.
Comments on this entry are closed.