CHARLTON HESTON dead at age 84 ...

[Dakine]

Mark,
it is indeed sad times  :(

Being British but spending most of last 7 or so years in US I have a better appreciation than many.

The UK is looking at anything 'termed' a weapon as a criminal act (truly who would carry around a Samurai sword, is'nt exactly stealth is it) but then (at least used to be able to) Sikhs are allowed to wear a sword to worship (again, was case, dunno bout now), can we say 'double standard'?!?!?!

I would venture that if violent crime PER CAPITA was studied between the USA and UK then very little difference would be noticed. USA does not have such a thing as an ASBO and I have seen Police/School Police deal with students (with consent) and it aint pretty!

Do we blame society? Do we blame Govt.? I would look more to upbringing and rules/punishment as this seem's sorely lacking these days.

[silentrage]

well sorry for again hijacking the thread, but since we've already gone this far :p

Looking at a few sources about firepower per capita and crime rate, it appears there's no corrolation.

Switzerland has the highest firepower per capita and 1 of the lowest crime rates in the world.

Canada is similarly high in firepower but low profile.

But what I don't get is people saying if teachers had guns these school shootings won't happen or won't be as bad.

Isn't this the same as saying if every country had nukes, then it would prevent nuclear wars between countries? How safe would you feel if this was the case? How safe would you feel if you knew everyone had a gun?
Personally I get nervous when someone like G.W. gets near a nail-clipper.

How about this perspective, if the criminals only had knives then they they couldn't have killed so many people in the same amount of time.
It might sound reasonable but it's still just a rhetoric, just like every other argument you hear all the time.
The debate is always, ban guns, don't ban guns, it never gets to the root of the issue, which is why do people commit crimes in the first place and how to make them not want to do it.


That being said, when you hear stories like these.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=e9f8bfe8-9047-4230-9fef-9d17af52930d
http://shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=67022
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2007/nov/10/sk-man-hurts-himself-trying-to-loosen-lug-nut/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334632,00.html
http://www.kmbc.com/news/15701029/detail.html


You really do wish that these $%&#wits only had access to knifes, if they're gonna kill, make them work harder for it, let them stab each other to death without randomly killing innocent people from 20 feet away.

I mean FFS the guy who got kicked out of a club and starts shooting randomly in anger, what a fcking tw@t, and his attorney has the balls to argue that he is well-mannered and from a nice family.
 I hope he enjoys the ass-pounding from large black inmates.

that's all I have to say

Sorry for the lengthy rant! :p