Gay club attacked in Florida

[Bubbles]

If you banned guns in the USA tomorrow, it wouldn't make much difference.

There are so many in circulation.

The wrong person would still have access

[Aruntraveller]

If you banned guns in the USA tomorrow, it wouldn't make much difference.

There are so many in circulation.

The wrong person would still have access

Not true. If proper gun control laws were in place it would limit the availability to the likes of this person - who only purchased his firearms a few weeks ago.

But even if it it only stopped one death isn't it worth changing the law - or are you just not bothered about that one life?

[jakswan]

JHB response to Owen Jones.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/14/the-orlando-shooting-is-not-about-owen-jones-despite-what-his-ha/

Actually isn't there a question over if this was actually homophobic in nature. Muslim gets radicalised and goes somewhere where he knows a lot of people will be, being gay and having visited previously?

[Owlswing]

I hesitate to post this, it's so heartbreaking.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36520213

Rhiannon, Shaker

Actually being there the emotion was palpable. Even a couple of the coppers on duty at the end of Old Compton Street had tears in their eyes.

[Nearly Sane]

JHB response to Owen Jones.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/14/the-orlando-shooting-is-not-about-owen-jones-despite-what-his-ha/

Actually isn't there a question over if this was actually homophobic in nature. Muslim gets radicalised and goes somewhere where he knows a lot of people will be, being gay and having visited previously?

I could express what I think of JHB's piece but it defeats the support for those who suffered here
 I fundamentally disagree with the idea that expressing that this was anti LGBT in nature, either downplays the general terrorism, or the feelings others might feel or that it is playing the victim card but the people whom I might be arguing with are not the enemy. When confronted by suffering, and what we see as evil, we often mistake what the problems are. 


I'd ask only this of those who wonder about Jones's reaction. Watch the vigil in Old Compton St and elsewhere and think about those people who were there because they felt their community was being challenged. They no more said it was all about them, than Parisians who went to the Place de la Republique.

I have no difficulty feeling empathy with people but in part I was Charlie Hebdo not because of the similarities but the differences. I stood silently in George Sq last night, conscious that in the 35 years I have been going to gay clubs. I never went because other places were unsafe for me. That a mere year before I started going being gay was illegal in Scotland. That in the 80s and 90s we had a govt pursuing the obscenity that was Clause 28.


Yes, I have danced, partied and protested with my friends whose sexuality is their business, or should be, but i've always known that my straightness has got me a pass through life that they didn't have.


It's the birthday today of a friend who was killed three years ago. For years he felt he couldn't admit to being gay, frowned on in the macho West of Scotland. He hid it, and that hiding hurt him and others. Once he came out he became the joyous person he was meant to be. He died too young but he spent too long in a society that tried to kill the real him. I stood with many last night but John was in my heart.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

Thank you, thank you for bringing a tear to the eye of a macho west of Scotland idiot.

Your good friend,

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

If you banned guns in the USA tomorrow, it wouldn't make much difference.

There are so many in circulation.

The wrong person would still have access

How many guns do you and your family own?

[Brownie]

I agree Gonnagle, a very moving post.  Well done to those who stood in solidarity with gay people in Old Compton Street and other places last night, though they didn't do it for personal commendation, just wanting to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in support.

[Aruntraveller]

Most people can be trusted to shoot a gun safely without mowing down people.

Tragic as it is, more people die on the roads.

Perhaps we should ban cars, after all in the course of a year  they kill and maim thousands.

Some Americans are attached to their guns the way others are to their car.

Again it's not the car that's the issue, but the driver.

And also more on this Rose - because it is a spurious comparison:

Cars are designed to facilitate transportation.

Guns are designed to kill.

If you really can't see the need to limit one more than the other then there is nothing more that can be said to you.

[jakswan]

I could express what I think of JHB's piece but it defeats the support for those who suffered here
 I fundamentally disagree with the idea that expressing that this was anti LGBT in nature, either downplays the general terrorism, or the feelings others might feel or that it is playing the victim card but the people whom I might be arguing with are not the enemy. When confronted by suffering, and what we see as evil, we often mistake what the problems are. 


I'd ask only this of those who wonder about Jones's reaction. Watch the vigil in Old Compton St and elsewhere and think about those people who were there because they felt their community was being challenged. They no more said it was all about them, than Parisians who went to the Place de la Republique.

I have no difficulty feeling empathy with people but in part I was Charlie Hebdo not because of the similarities but the differences. I stood silently in George Sq last night, conscious that in the 35 years I have been going to gay clubs. I never went because other places were unsafe for me. That a mere year before I started going being gay was illegal in Scotland. That in the 80s and 90s we had a govt pursuing the obscenity that was Clause 28.


Yes, I have danced, partied and protested with my friends whose sexuality is their business, or should be, but i've always known that my straightness has got me a pass through life that they didn't have.


It's the birthday today of a friend who was killed three years ago. For years he felt he couldn't admit to being gay, frowned on in the macho West of Scotland. He hid it, and that hiding hurt him and others. Once he came out he became the joyous person he was meant to be. He died too young but he spent too long in a society that tried to kill the real him. I stood with many last night but John was in my heart.

Great post I agree its a travesty that people like your friend felt he had to hide who he was.

[Brownie]

It is a theory that some hold to, Trent, that allowing people to have gun licences and own firearms means the police know who they are.  Here where gun licences are few, there are plenty of guns owned illegally - and used.  Apparently (I've never tried!) it isn't difficult to obtain a gun, more difficult to learn how to shoot accurately.

Personally I am happy with the UK law on firearms.

[ekim]

Meanwhile, a few words from a pro gun journalist ........ "There's no obligation to be a victim."   I can't imagine what would happen if everybody carried a sub machine gun to a party.
http://tinyurl.com/hjv89kr

[Shaker]

JHB response to Owen Jones.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/14/the-orlando-shooting-is-not-about-owen-jones-despite-what-his-ha/

Hm. JHB article saying that the Orlando massacre isn't all about Owen Jones is all about ... Owen Jones.

Shurely shome mishtake.

[Brownie]

Perish the thought.
If I had a gun I'd spend my life thinking about it locked away in the cupboard and be too terrified to sleep, then I'd get rid of it.  Comparisons here with when I bought a rat trap a couple of years ago after my cat brought a rat in through the cat flap and it got loose.  I couldn't bear to look at the trap, never mind use it.  I put it in a cupboard and it still scared me so I gave it to a charity shop (in the meantime, the rat went out of the back door, cool as a cucumber).
I am not being flippant, I really do think firearms are terrifying except in controlled circumstances, like target shooting at a rifle club or clay pigeon shooting.

[Aruntraveller]

It is a theory that some hold to, Trent, that allowing people to have gun licences and own firearms means the police know who they are.  Here where gun licences are few, there are plenty of guns owned illegally - and used.  Apparently (I've never tried!) it isn't difficult to obtain a gun, more difficult to learn how to shoot accurately.

Personally I am happy with the UK law on firearms.

Yes I know the theory.

But hard facts:

UK: 0.23 Deaths from guns per 100,000

USA: 10.54 Deaths from guns per 100,000

That is 45 times (approx.) the death rate from gun crime in the USA compared to the UK.

Now I'm not saying it is a direct correlation - it clearly isn't (see Canada) but there is enough of a correlation to make tighter gun laws a priority in the USA. Anyone who doesn't think that is in that river in Egypt.

As for illegal ownership - yes it's a problem, but clearly not as big a problem as legal ownership is in the USA.

[Aruntraveller]

Harder and harder to bear:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/14/orlando-shooters-wife-knew-about-attack-plans-in-advance-didnt-warn-police/?

[Brownie]

Dreadful.

This was moving:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/13/je-suis-orlando-eiffel-tower-leads-the-world-in-rainbow-tribute-after-gay-club-massacre/

[Aruntraveller]

Another fine piece of writing I came across talking about homophobia and gun deaths:

http://attitude.co.uk/from-shootings-to-suicide-why-homophobia-remains-as-deadly-as-ever/

[Brownie]

It's a very good article.  This bit concerns precisely what we have been talking about:
 
"Gun laws in America are a throwback to an age that couldn’t have predicted the sheer growth in population size, the myriad ways vastly different people thrown together can find to hate each other, and the force of the media and the likes of Donald Trump which perpetuates the misery we inflict upon each other."

[Rhiannon]

Impressed to hear the head of homelands security talking about gun control being an issue of, well, homeland security. That might just make people listen.

[BeRational]

Perish the thought.
If I had a gun I'd spend my life thinking about it locked away in the cupboard and be too terrified to sleep, then I'd get rid of it.  Comparisons here with when I bought a rat trap a couple of years ago after my cat brought a rat in through the cat flap and it got loose.  I couldn't bear to look at the trap, never mind use it.  I put it in a cupboard and it still scared me so I gave it to a charity shop (in the meantime, the rat went out of the back door, cool as a cucumber).
I am not being flippant, I really do think firearms are terrifying except in controlled circumstances, like target shooting at a rifle club or clay pigeon shooting.

I have a gun and it is securely locked away at times.

In addition only I know where the keys are. It takes 2 keys to open the cabinet as well.

I see little chance of convincing US citizens to give up their guns.
They are deeply embedded in the culture. Trying to take them away is seen as a massive attack on their freedoms.

[Owlswing]

I have a gun and it is securely locked away at times.

In addition only I know where the keys are. It takes 2 keys to open the cabinet as well.

I see little chance of convincing US citizens to give up their guns.
They are deeply embedded in the culture. Trying to take them away is seen as a massive attack on their freedoms.

Using them takes away more that the victims freedoms!

[BeRational]

Using them takes away more that the victims freedoms!

But they care about THEIR freedoms. People suggesting they should not have guns might just as well suggest they take their children.

In my opinion the guns will stay.

[Rhiannon]

But they care about THEIR freedoms. People suggesting they should not have guns might just as well suggest they take their children.

In my opinion the guns will stay.

I think even in the States people might relinquish their assault rifles.

[Bubbles]

How many guns do you and your family own?

The U.K. and the USA are not comparable because we don't have vast numbers of guns already in circulation.

First they would need to take away the ones in circulation and dispose of them, and I can't see people giving them up willingly.