America - Gun Laws - 11 year old kills 8 year old

[Jasey]

I had no idea just how bad things are in America.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34450841

The headline is bad enough.

Read this near the end of the article and am gobsmacked !

"The Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit organisation that compiles data on gun violence in the US, says 559 children aged 11 or under have been killed or injured in the United States in gun violence so far this year."

 

[simonlpearce]

Colleague of mine showed this to me today. That's utterly insane!

 

[PerryGunn]

I had no idea just how bad things are in America.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34450841

Crazy isn't it... along with the reason he shot her... 'she refused to let him see her puppy'

 

[domsz4]

It certainly is eye opening. Without getting into a massive argument with any American citizen about guns etc surely its obvious current laws/gun control etc are not working.

I'm always sceptical of Internet memes and stats regarding anything but to sort of quote Obama from last weeks incident. When did it become acceptable as the norm and that nothing needs to be done?

 

[Carol M]

I can't imagine living in a country where the person standing next to you could be carrying a gun.
All I hear from my American pro arms friends is that it's their constitutional right to carry arms for self defence.
I totally disagree.

 

[GuidoK]

Their most used argument isnt that 'guns kill people' but that 'people kill people'.

If there wasn't a gun in that house, that girl would still be alive.

But there are so many guns in the US society (probably hundreds of millions), that pandora's box has been opened a long time ago...

 

[Jasey]

I can't imagine living in a country where the person standing next to you could be carrying a gun.
All I hear from my American pro arms friends is that it's their constitutional right to carry arms for self defence.
I totally disagree.

I was once working in New Orleans and had to go to a local 'dodgy' town for the night. The chief accountant offered me a gun in case i ran into any trouble.

I politely declined !

 

[PerryGunn]

I can't imagine living in a country where the person standing next to you could be carrying a gun.
All I hear from my American pro arms friends is that it's their constitutional right to carry arms for self defence.
I totally disagree.

The problem is that you can't disagree with their statement as the US constitution states 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed'

...IMO, they need to amend their constitution... there's something wrong when a country has more guns than people...

 

[philz4]

They will never ban them as there all frightened of their own shadows, its outrageous that children so young have access to guns, here we lock them up secure. they need to get these gun laws sorted instead of talking about it on the media my heart goes out to the parents.

 

[85genius]

I can't imagine living in a country where the person standing next to you could be carrying a gun.
All I hear from my American pro arms friends is that it's their constitutional right to carry arms for self defence.
I totally disagree.

The problem is that you can't disagree with their statement as the US constitution states 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed'

...IMO, they need to amend their constitution... there's something wrong when a country has more guns than people...

Whilst you can't disagree with the text you actually can disagree with the way it is currently interpreted and as such it should not mean every tom dick or harry can have as many guns as they want!

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2013/04/regarding-pesky-%E2%80%9Cwell-regulated-militia%E2%80%9D-2nd-amendment-what-exactly-did-it-mean

 

[PerryGunn]

I can't imagine living in a country where the person standing next to you could be carrying a gun.
All I hear from my American pro arms friends is that it's their constitutional right to carry arms for self defence.
I totally disagree.

The problem is that you can't disagree with their statement as the US constitution states 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed'

...IMO, they need to amend their constitution... there's something wrong when a country has more guns than people...

Whilst you can't disagree with the text you actually can disagree with the way it is currently interpreted and as such it should not mean every tom dick or harry can have as many guns as they want!

The problem is that, while anyone is free to disagree with their interpretation of it, the 'legal position' on the second amendment has been clarified by the US Supreme Court and, until/unless the law is changed they have the final say on the matter

On June 26, 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the United States Supreme Court issued its first decision since 1939 interpreting the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers an individual right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense. It also ruled that two District of Columbia provisions, one that banned handguns and one that required lawful firearms in the home to be disassembled or trigger-locked, violate this right.

So they basically say that individuals must be allowed to possess guns and anything that individual US States do to prevent this or force guns to be kept in a 'safe' condition so that kids can't shoot kids is illegal...

Well, what's the loss of a few hundred kids a year when it means that a redneck can own a larger selection of assault rifles than a small African nation... Madness!

 

[SeanConnor]

I can't imagine living in a country where the person standing next to you could be carrying a gun.
All I hear from my American pro arms friends is that it's their constitutional right to carry arms for self defence.
I totally disagree.

Well said! I spend quite a lot of time in the USA and I'm sick and f***ing tired of hearing this argument about the constitution.
Also the equally stupid one along the lines of "Well if the good guys had guns as well .... "

It's YOUR constitution my American friends , YOU can change it.