Is it time for Red Flag laws?

[LesPalenik]

It's interesting that murders by knife in London now exceed murders by gun in New York. Maybe England needs to confiscate all knives. You'll be able simply to chew what you want off the leg of lamb. Nasty how those knives go out on the street and stab people.

Most definitely, when you look at the last two months.
However, the year to date numbers show 50 killings in New York, and 47 in London. In 2017, New York had more than twice as many murders (290) than London (116).
So either London is getting worse by the day, or the last two months were an exception. There is also a possibility that the bad apples from the Big Apple are moving to UK.

[Manoli]

It's interesting that murders by knife in London now exceed murders by gun in New York. Maybe England needs to confiscate all knives. You'll be able simply to chew what you want off the leg of lamb. Nasty how those knives go out on the street and stab people.

Interesting - why?
Disingenuous at best : that was for February 2018

Your premise seems to be:
knives can kill, guns can kill - knives are prevalent..
so there’s no reason to limit guns and even less reason to do anything about it.

Profound thinking.

[pegelli]

Bearing arms is protected by the American Constitution.  There is no Constitutional protection to drive a car or hunt.  Each State makes up its hunting and driving license rules as it sees fit.  Often, the anti-gun argument is that many weapon types are not useful for hunting.    But that argument is a non-sequitur because the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting.  It gives you the right to be armed to defend yourself personally and to use your arms against a tyrannical government.  When dictators take over their countries, they don't confiscate guns to prevent people from hunting.  They do it to protect themselves from their own people.  That's what the 2nd Amendment is all about.

I don't see why a consitutional right to bear firearms is in contradiction with demonstrating competence in bearing/using these firearms.
I'm sure the lawmakers at the time didn't intend this right to be misused by some lunatics against a perfectly competent and non-tyrannical government or their other law abiding citizens.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I don't see why a consitutional right to bear firearms is in contradiction with demonstrating competence in bearing/using these firearms...

Every one of those "lunatics" would have passed any firearms competence test with flying colors. Your point?

[pegelli]

Every one of those "lunatics" would have passed any firearms competence test with flying colors. Your point?

Improve the test

[DP]

I'm sure the lawmakers at the time didn't intend this right to be misused by some lunatics against a perfectly competent and non-tyrannical government or their other law abiding citizens.

I am sure founding father didn't mean for colored people and women to have a say in anything and yet...

[pegelli]

I am sure founding father didn't mean for colored people and women to have a say in anything and yet...

That's why there were some subsequent amendments to cover that, no reason that new developments can't be included in new amendments.

So even if they were OK for lunatics to have firearms (which I believe to be a stretch) the real question is if we are OK with that today?

[Alan Klein]

I don't see why a consitutional right to bear firearms is in contradiction with demonstrating competence in bearing/using these firearms.
I'm sure the lawmakers at the time didn't intend this right to be misused by some lunatics against a perfectly competent and non-tyrannical government or their other law abiding citizens.

There already are laws preventing lunatics getting weapons. The problem is identifying who's a lunatic and who isn't. Usually they have to shoot up a bunch of people before we realize that they are crazy.

[pegelli]

There already are laws preventing lunatics getting weapons. The problem is identifying who's a lunatic and who isn't. Usually they have to shoot up a bunch of people before we realize that they are crazy.

So wouldn't it be a good idea to enforce the laws and improve the tests beforehand? I understand you can still walk into a gun show and buy guns without any checks whatsoever. So the law you are referring to seems teethless.

[Alan Klein]

So wouldn't it be a good idea to enforce the laws and improve the tests beforehand? I understand you can still walk into a gun show and buy guns without any checks whatsoever. So the law you are referring to seems teethless.

Most of the people who used guns illegally in mass shootings got them legally. They didn't buy them in a gun show. The issue is how do you declare a person insane who is insane without making it prohibitively difficult for a sane person to buy a gun without violating his constitutional rights? 

Criminals, who use guns to commit crimes like holdups, but aren't mass murderers, get their guns illegally.  No law is going to stop that.  It's the 99.9% of gun owners who use their guns responsibility that the laws restrict.  The concern of these people is that the truth is that people who want to "protect" the public by imposing seemingly reasonable restrictions have more harsh, but unstated objectives.  That's to take away guns entirely from the public.  That's their real aim.  So guns owners fight any restrictions knowing that any restrictions will lead to a slippery slope of total gun confiscation.  They're right of course. 

[pegelli]

Most of the people who used guns illegally in mass shootings got them legally. They didn't buy them in a gun show.

Really? Got any credible data on that?

The issue is how do you declare a person insane who is insane without making it prohibitively difficult for a sane person to buy a gun without violating his constitutional rights?

Just try harder to get some system in place, a teethless law doesn't do anybody any good. 

Criminals, who use guns to commit crimes like holdups, but aren't mass murderers, get their guns illegally.  No law is going to stop that.  It's the 99.9% of gun owners who use their guns responsibility that the laws restrict.  The concern of these people is that the truth is that people who want to "protect" the public by imposing seemingly reasonable restrictions have more harsh, but unstated objectives.  That's to take away guns entirely from the public.  That's their real aim.  So guns owners fight any restrictions knowing that any restrictions will lead to a slippery slope of total gun confiscation.  They're right of course.

Agree, getting guns out of the hands of US citizens is far beyond the point of no return and if that's what you want I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that it seems there's always an excuse to do nothing about improving the controls to make sure the guns get used properly by "good" people who know what they are doing.

[RSL]

one month one city... compare London for many month and with say 3 times less populated Chicago ?

And why, exactly, should I do that. The population of London is roughly the same as the population of New York. Guns keep going out on the street in New York and shooting people. Knives keep going out on the street in London and stabbing people. More knives go out in London and stab people than guns go out in New York and shoot people. Sure I could compare London with Chicago, but why? Why not compare London with Podunk? It would be just as logical.

[RSL]

Anybody reading about the boost the gun panic is giving gun sales and NRA memberships? Both are beating earlier records during earlier gun panics. ROTFL

[Tim Lookingbill]

Every one of those "lunatics" would have passed any firearms competence test with flying colors. Your point?

Improve the test

This looks like an improvement... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN952f_jn8E

Love the movie.

[Rob C]

A 78-year-old pensioner in England has been arrested under suspicion of murder for stabbing a much younger man who, with a companion who apparently fled, broke into the pensioner's house to rob. One of the wannabe thieves was armed with a screwdriver...

Seems to me that the house should be considered sacred, that anyone breaking in deserves anything they get thrown back at them for their efforts. It's the one place where I believe guns shoud be allowed, and allowed to be used. No need for war weapons there; all close-range stuff and a pistol perfectly good and more easy to deploy that a rifle that could more easily be wrestled away from the user.

Rob

[KLaban]

Anybody reading about the boost the gun panic is giving gun sales and NRA memberships? Both are beating earlier records during earlier gun panics. ROTFL

As a victim of knife crime I perhaps have an increased awareness of the impact of such crimes on both the victims and their families. I have no answer to the spiralling gun and knife attacks and certainly wouldn't pretend otherwise. The more people who own and carry weapons the more people who feel the need to own and carry weapons: and so it goes on.

Rolling on the floor laughing about increased gun ownership seems a tad perverse.

[texshooter]

Guns keep going out on the street in New York and shooting people. Knives keep going out on the street in London and stabbing people.

Let's not leave out London's epidemic of acid attacks.  I hope that brand of cultural enrichment does not catch on in the States.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4016850/acid-attacks-uk-treatment-victims-burns-sufferers/

[LesPalenik]

Guns, knives, and vehicles.
In Germany, the gun laws are very strict, so most mass attacks are committed by cars or trucks.
The latest this morning -  4 dead, many injured (at this time, the reported number of the injured persons fluctuates between 20 and 50). Motive still unknown, but today it was the 1 year anniversary of the Stockholm terror attack in Sweden in which a truck was used to plow down people. Although this driver killed with the truck, he managed to acquire a handgun which he used to kill himself.

Several people were killed and more than 30 wounded after a man drove a small truck into a group of people in the center of the western German city of Münster on Saturday.
The driver, who hasn’t been identified, shot himself after ramming the vehicle into a huddle of people in front of the Grosser Kiepenkerl restaurant in the historic center of the city, a police spokesman said.

https://twitter.com/ExperienceGER/status/982639434549157888/photo/1

https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-police-say-people-killed-wounded-in-incident-in-central-munster-1523114122

[Alan Klein]

Pieter: Regarding Les's post, why do they allow insane people to drive in Germany? They should have better licensing criteria.

[LesPalenik]

Pieter: Regarding Les's post, why do they allow insane people to drive in Germany? They should have better licensing criteria.

Actually, to make such a run, the driver makes it without a proper driver's licence. Also, in the 2016 Berlin truck killing, Anis Amri the Tunesian, who by the way used 14 different identities and collected multiple welfare claims, didn't bother to get a truck driving licence. Similarly, in 2001, four men flew Boeing 767's without pilot licences. They were not even insane.