The USA and guns - again

[Harrowby Hall]

An eight-year old girl has been shot dead by an eleven-year old boy in Tennessee. She was a neighbour and she had refused to let him see her puppy. He shot her with his father's shotgun.

So far this year, 559 children have been killed or injured in the USA by firearms.

What horrifies me here is that it was a shotgun that had been used. This implies premeditation, preparation and intent. No doubt, the Usual Suspect will pop up with some anodyne comment suggesting that it was not the gun's fault.

More power to President Obama's desire to see greater - much greater - gun control.

[Owlswing]

An eight-year old girl has been shot dead by an eleven-year old boy in Tennessee. She was a neighbour and she had refused to let him see her puppy. He shot her with his father's shotgun.

So far this year, 559 children have been killed or injured in the USA by firearms.

What horrifies me here is that it was a shotgun that had been used. This implies premeditation, preparation and intent. No doubt, the Usual Suspect will pop up with some anodyne comment suggesting that it was not the gun's fault.

More power to President Obama's desire to see greater - much greater - gun control.

I am sure we will see the "guns cannot kill people on their own" argument that it takes aperson to MAKE the gun kill.

The NRA nutters cannot see that if the gun was not there it could not kill ever.

There will be at least two regular posters on this Forum who will champion this view.

There is a video on Facebook, I do not have the link to hand but will post it if I can find it, in which a gun shop is opened offering guns for "first time buyers.

The video shows people going into the shop and asking for guns for, usually, protection and the man behind the counter shows them various guns and gives the usual sales shpiel, but then looks at a label attached to the gun and tells the customer the history of the weapon.

Every single gun in the shop had been used in the shooting of innocent kids, at schools and in the home, accidental and premeditated murders.

The looks on the faces of the customers is priceless! The shop sold not one single weapon but converted quite a few people to the inadvisability of gun ownership.
 

[Enki]

This is the video. It's only three and a half minutes long, and worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aenzVnHC3A

[floo]

The gun culture in the US makes it a sick society, imo!

[Samuel]

Lord of the Flies comes to suburban USA. Most upsetting.

I simply can not understand the objection to gun regulation in the face of incidents like this.

[Owlswing]

This is the video. It's only three and a half minutes long, and worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aenzVnHC3A

Thanks enki - I tried to find the . . . . . .  thing for over an hour and still couldn't.

[Owlswing]

Two posts from the Canadian member for the Tea Party!

Anything Obama does MUST be wrong!

[Owlswing]

Dearest matty,
I don't do tea, I do coffee. Only a fool would think a politician gets it right all the time and a bigger fool would go after people that point out a president's or prime minister's shortcomings.

. . . or who does the same for posters on this Forum?

[Owlswing]

Nobody around here is a head of state. Nobody around here has people electing them into the highest office of a nation. What goes on around here is nothing that can effect a nation. Dear matty, you can't be trying to line up voicing ones disagreements with a politician and your picking and whining at Hope?

No. Not at Hope, Numbnuts!

[jeremyp]

I really wish Obama would stand up and lecture his city of Chicago when there is mass killings and gang shootings. He won't because the gun laws he helped write and enact as a senator in Illinois have failed. Any other mass shooting and he jumps in front of the cameras and lectures Americans. Yet he, as president, has brought NOTHING forward.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-chicago-shootings-and-homicides-in-september-20151002-htmlstory.html

Do you agree that this tragedy would not have happened if the father of the boy had kept his shotgun properly secured?

[Owlswing]

I really wish Obama would stand up and lecture his city of Chicago when there is mass killings and gang shootings. He won't because the gun laws he helped write and enact as a senator in Illinois have failed. Any other mass shooting and he jumps in front of the cameras and lectures Americans. Yet he, as president, has brought NOTHING forward.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-chicago-shootings-and-homicides-in-september-20151002-htmlstory.html

Obama's failure on gun crime in his home town.

http://absoluterights.com/obamas-failure-to-address-chicago-violence-is-a-failure-to-every-black-person-in-america/

So, what you are saying is that Obama is the only U S President who has done nothing to curb gun ownership and gun related non-law enforcement deaths.

[Owlswing]

Please show me where exactly I wrote such a thing Matty. Many politicians have failed on gun control, duh.

Then why have you only posted about Obama?

Why have you not noted the spectacular failure of ANY US President since 1945 to clamp down on gun ownership and thereby gun deaths?

I see a hint of racism in your only referring to Obama!

[Aruntraveller]

I see a hint of racism in your only referring to Obama!

Nah - not racism - just republicanism.

And although they do sometimes walk hand in hand I don't think so in Johnny's case.

[Harrowby Hall]

Please show me where exactly I wrote such a thing Matty. Many politicians have failed on gun control, duh.

Then why have you only posted about Obama?

Why have you not noted the spectacular failure of ANY US President since 1945 to clamp down on gun ownership and thereby gun deaths?

I see a hint of racism in your only referring to Obama!

Johnny's tilt at President Obama fails to recognise the constitutional position of the president of the USA.

The president - any president - is constitutionally powerless to restrict gun ownership. It requires legislation and Congress enacts legislation. Thanks to the total seperation of powers, all a president can do is propose.

As long as Representatives are having their pockets filled by organisations such as the NRA then nothing will be done about the disease of gun ownership.

[Hope]

As long as Representatives are having their pockets filled by organisations such as the NRA then nothing will be done about the disease of gun ownership.

Note that, contrary to common assumption both here and in the States, it isn't only Republican Representatives who "are having their pockets filled by organisations such as the NRA".  There are NRA-sponsored/supported Democrat Representatives as well.

[Sriram]

http://us.cnn.com/2015/10/10/us/tamir-rice-shooting-reports/index.html

****************

The police shooting death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy with a pellet gun was reasonable, two experts say in reports prepared for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor.

Tamir Rice was killed by an officer in training outside a Cleveland recreation center in November 2014.

S. Lamar Sims, the senior chief deputy district attorney in Denver, wrote one of the reports and concludes Loehmann's decision to shoot Rice as he approached the officers was "objectively reasonable"

****************

[Owlswing]

http://us.cnn.com/2015/10/10/us/tamir-rice-shooting-reports/index.html

****************

The police shooting death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy with a pellet gun was reasonable, two experts say in reports prepared for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor.

Tamir Rice was killed by an officer in training outside a Cleveland recreation center in November 2014.

S. Lamar Sims, the senior chief deputy district attorney in Denver, wrote one of the reports and concludes Loehmann's decision to shoot Rice as he approached the officers was "objectively reasonable"

****************

Ypur point is?

The kid was holding a pistol and pointed it at the cops!

If you were the cop would you stand there and let the kid shoot you, or even possibly shoot you?

If you would you are an even bigger idiot that I took you for! In fact I would escalate you status from idiot to doom-brained wanker.

[Aruntraveller]

http://us.cnn.com/2015/10/10/us/tamir-rice-shooting-reports/index.html

****************

The police shooting death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy with a pellet gun was reasonable, two experts say in reports prepared for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor.

Tamir Rice was killed by an officer in training outside a Cleveland recreation center in November 2014.

S. Lamar Sims, the senior chief deputy district attorney in Denver, wrote one of the reports and concludes Loehmann's decision to shoot Rice as he approached the officers was "objectively reasonable"

****************

Ypur point is?

The kid was holding a pistol and pointed it at the cops!

If you were the cop would you stand there and let the kid shoot you, or even possibly shoot you?

If you would you are an even bigger idiot that I took you for! In fact I would escalate you status from idiot to doom-brained wanker.

Except if you read the report he wasn't pointing the gun at the cops. A small point - but relevant I think.

The gun was in the waistband of Tamir's pants. Sims writes that in the video it appears the boy's hands moved toward his waistband but it is unclear if he reached for the gun.

[Owlswing]

http://us.cnn.com/2015/10/10/us/tamir-rice-shooting-reports/index.html

****************

The police shooting death of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy with a pellet gun was reasonable, two experts say in reports prepared for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor.

Tamir Rice was killed by an officer in training outside a Cleveland recreation center in November 2014.

S. Lamar Sims, the senior chief deputy district attorney in Denver, wrote one of the reports and concludes Loehmann's decision to shoot Rice as he approached the officers was "objectively reasonable"

****************

Ypur point is?

The kid was holding a pistol and pointed it at the cops!

If you were the cop would you stand there and let the kid shoot you, or even possibly shoot you?

If you would you are an even bigger idiot that I took you for! In fact I would escalate you status from idiot to doom-brained wanker.

Except if you read the report he wasn't pointing the gun at the cops. A small point - but relevant I think.

The gun was in the waistband of Tamir's pants. Sims writes that in the video it appears the boy's hands moved toward his waistband but it is unclear if he reached for the gun.

And you would be willing to take that chance? If it was your life? Especially with the number of guns in the hands of America's teenage gangs!

I am just glad that U K cops are not routinely armed except at points of entry and exit.

[Aruntraveller]

And you would be willing to take that chance? If it was your life? Especially with the number of guns in the hands of America's teenage gangs!

I am just glad that U K cops are not routinely armed except at points of entry and exit.

Not quite sure what you are arguing for there. As one point is more than a little contradictory to the other. Anyway there seems to have been a failure of communication in this case as:

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Loehmann and Garmback, according to recordings that law enforcement released.

[Owlswing]

And you would be willing to take that chance? If it was your life? Especially with the number of guns in the hands of America's teenage gangs!

I am just glad that U K cops are not routinely armed except at points of entry and exit.

Not quite sure what you are arguing for there. As one point is more than a little contradictory to the other. Anyway there seems to have been a failure of communication in this case as:

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Loehmann and Garmback, according to recordings that law enforcement released.

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Loehmann and Garmback,

So asf ar as thgey knew IT WAS A REAL GUN!

[Aruntraveller]

And you would be willing to take that chance? If it was your life? Especially with the number of guns in the hands of America's teenage gangs!

I am just glad that U K cops are not routinely armed except at points of entry and exit.

Not quite sure what you are arguing for there. As one point is more than a little contradictory to the other. Anyway there seems to have been a failure of communication in this case as:

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Loehmann and Garmback, according to recordings that law enforcement released.

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Loehmann and Garmback,

So asf ar as thgey knew IT WAS A REAL GUN!

Are you not reading my posts. Note the phrase "failure of communication". If your son was killed by the police because of a failure of communication - wouldn't you be even a little bit pissed off?

[Owlswing]

And you would be willing to take that chance? If it was your life? Especially with the number of guns in the hands of America's teenage gangs!

I am just glad that U K cops are not routinely armed except at points of entry and exit.

Not quite sure what you are arguing for there. As one point is more than a little contradictory to the other. Anyway there seems to have been a failure of communication in this case as:

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Loehmann and Garmback, according to recordings that law enforcement released.

Information that the gun the caller saw was probably not real and that the person holding it appeared to be a juvenile was not conveyed to Loehmann and Garmback,

So as far as they knew IT WAS A REAL GUN!

Are you not reading my posts. Note the phrase "failure of communication". If your son was killed by the police because of a failure of communication - wouldn't you be even a little bit pissed off?

Knowing the situation with regard to the police in the US and young men of colour wouldn't you do more to ensure that your son didn't go out on the streets with a gun of any sort real or imitation.

I am not going to blame a death due to a lack of parental responsibility on a lack of communication. If it had been my son I would be trying to find a very deep hole in which to hide before my wife , the boy's mother, got hold of me and wondering how the hell to ask her if she knew he was out carrying a "gun".

Do not go around blaming the cops, even US cops, for the deaths of gun-toting teenagers. It is that kind of "they are only kids" attitude that has spawned a generation of teenagers who have no respect for anything or anyone - least of all the law!

[Nearly Sane]

Yep, cops always right cos they cops

[Owlswing]

Yep, cops always right cos they cops

Don't talk rubbish.

There have been, over the past year or so more eveidence than is useful that theer are US cops who are gun-happy when it comes to teenagers of colour.

However, the prevalence of gun-ownership, legal and illegal, in the US will continue to increase the number of avoidable deaths by ginshot.

Not all cops are trigger-happy, not all teenagers are innocent victims.

In the US - if you carry a gun in public you are making a target of yourself regardless of the reason you might have for carrying a gun.

The only thing that will, with any certainty, reduce the number of gun deaths in the US is the repeal of ten Second Amendment and the NRA will fight that to the death of the last member of the NRA.