Another US school shooting: Pennsylvania

[nino_savatte]

Anyone good at maths?

If Brixton (Lambeth) had the same murder/shooting rate as the US how many shootings would it have per year?

I'll start things off:

Gun deaths (homocide only - excluding suicide and accidents) in the USA in 1999 = 4.08 per 100,000

Population of Lambeth: c. 267,000

Therefore => 10.89 fatal shootings per year

+++++++++++++++++++

In the 12 months to August 2006 lambeth had 11 homicides although I can't tell how many of these were shootings as opposed to being stabbed with a knives or by other means.

(the "gun enabled crime" figure was 252 "Includes all offences involving a firearm. This will include offences where a firearm has been seen, or discharged/used. Both real, and fake firearms, and air weapons are counted within this category. Theft and handling offences are no longer included in the gun crime definition." link: http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php )

A load of school children die because some lunatic has an obscure grudge and a couple of guns and you come out with this shite? The simple fact is that there are more deaths caused, per year, by firearms in the USA than in any comparable country. School massacres are more commonplace than here in the UK or would you deny that? In fact, I can only recall one school massacre and that was at Dunblane.

The US needs a proper system of gun control.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Perhaps you have no shame.

 

[TAE]

150 people died in Iraq today, hundreds more injured and scarred for life, and a further 16 kidnapped.
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=9780

didnt make it to the news at all today.

You make it sound as if the violence in Iraq hasn't had any air-time at all.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

A load of school children die because of some lunatic has an obscure grudge and a couple of guns and you come out with this shite? The simple fact is that there are more deaths caused, per year, by firearms in the USA than in any comparable country. School massacres are more commonplace than here in the UK or would you deny that? In fact, I can only recall one school massacre and that was at Dunblane.

The US needs a proper system of gun control.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Perhaps you have no shame.

I'm happy for the balanced information.

Besides, some people go clinical when confronted with these types of things. Its a normal reaction for many. Let him deal any way that works.

Hell, I wanted to go find a nice, secure cave somewhere and crawl in.

 

[nino_savatte]

I'm happy for the balanced information.

Besides, some people go clinical when confronted with these types of things. Its a normal reaction for many. Let him deal any way that works.

Hell, I wanted to go find a nice, secure cave somewhere and crawl in.

You make him sound like Mr Spock.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

You make him sound like Mr Spock.

I'm sure its just the ears that give that impression.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

BTW, two more girls died overnight:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15113706/page/2/

On an unrelated note, a friend of a friend died in Iraq yesterday.

 

[Graymalkin]

this has some semblance to the l'Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal in '89. In both cases women (girls in this case) were deliberately targetted and the male students were allowed to leave.

 

[Loki]

Ah, forget it

 

[phildwyer]

The US needs a proper system of gun control.

The murder rate in the USA is the result of other factors than the high rate of firearm ownership. This is proved by the fact that countries such as Switzerland have higher rates of gun ownership to the USA but far lower rates of murder.

 

[Loki]

The streets of Switzerland aren't full of gun shops selling an array of impressive looking hardware and ammo, to almost anyone who walks in off the street and passes a few rudimentary checks. Canada would (maybe) be a better comparison?

 

[nino_savatte]

The streets of Switzerland aren't full of gun shops selling an array of impressive looking hardware and ammo, to almost anyone who walks in off the street and passes a few rudimentary checks. Canada would (maybe) be a better comparison?

Exactly and they don't have banks that give you a gun when you open an account with them.

 

[phildwyer]

The streets of Switzerland aren't full of gun shops selling an array of impressive looking hardware and ammo, to almost anyone who walks in off the street and passes a few rudimentary checks. Canada would (maybe) be a better comparison?

Gun ownership is compulsory in Switzerland. But your last sentence is correct: Canada, Cuba, France... there are plenty of examples proving that high gun ownership is not the cause of a high murder rate.

 

[Lock&Light]

Gun ownership is compulsory in Switzerland.

I presume that you mean compulsory for those who can be called up. It's certainly not compulsory for everyone.

 

[TeeJay]

A load of school children die because some lunatic has an obscure grudge and a couple of guns and you come out with this shite? The simple fact is that there are more deaths caused, per year, by firearms in the USA than in any comparable country. School massacres are more commonplace than here in the UK or would you deny that? In fact, I can only recall one school massacre and that was at Dunblane.

The US needs a proper system of gun control.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Perhaps you have no shame.

I didn't say that I am against gun control. I didn't say anything abou5t school massacres - the discussion had moved on to gun crime more generally, which is what I was talking about.

What have I said to be ashamed of?

Lambeth has IIRC the highest gun crime rate in London, if not the entire UK (Maybe parts of Manchester have worse? Maybe NI has worse?) and I quoted the figure for *all* homicides, which could well include domestic disputes and fist fights that went wrong, not just people getting shot.

I didn't say that Lambeth was worse than the USA or even at the same level: I simply provided some figures for people to think about - that the *worst* area in the entire UK is similar to the US *average*.

I don't see how this is disagreeing with you and I don't see anything I have said that argues against gun control.

Why don't you grow the fuck up and learnt to read properly (and think about what you have read) before having a froth-at-the-mouth fit and show yourself up to be an utter arse?

Or maybe you just enjoy being a hysterical prat? Tosser.

I might as well put you on ignore, although I am curious as to if you are going to manage to acknowledge that you have not bothered to read or understand my post - so I might wait for a post or two, before filtering out your moronic spoutings.

 

[spring-peeper]

I see this more of a problem with society in general than just on gun control. People are either missing the signs that someone is about to go "postal" or no-one cares. There must have been signs.

Recently, a young man opened fire on students in a local college around here. The youth had a violent blog, loved violent movies and then, one day, boom!!! It reminded me of the song "I don't like Mondays" when someone shot up a kindergarten class.

Dawson College was the first school shooting and then we have a series out of the States. Copy-cat crimes, a way to get attention so that someone will hear your side, even if only when you are dead, a society that doesn't care enough to reach out to someone in mental distress - for what ever reason, this is a disturbing way for people to show their unhappiness.

I hope this trend stops soon.

 

[Andy the Don]

Naomi Rose Ebersole, age seven
Lina Miller, age seven
Mary Liz Miller, age eight
Anna Mae Stoltzfus, age 12
Marian Fisher, age 13

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Gun ownership is compulsory in Switzerland. But your last sentence is correct: Canada, Cuba, France... there are plenty of examples proving that high gun ownership is not the cause of a high murder rate.

I agree. It's societal factors in the US that lead to the high murder rates.

 

[likesfish]

the swiss have fairly easy access to a vast range of firearms but tend not to slaughter one another with them.
its still failry easy to aquire a high power rifle in the UK and we don't tend to suffer from random snipers either.
twats with air rifles yes
its society and the easy access to firearms not a good

 

[nino_savatte]

I didn't say that I am against gun control. I didn't say anything abou5t school massacres - the discussion had moved on to gun crime more generally, which is what I was talking about.

What have I said to be ashamed of?

Lambeth has IIRC the highest gun crime rate in London, if not the entire UK (Maybe parts of Manchester have worse? Maybe NI has worse?) and I quoted the figure for *all* homicides, which could well include domestic disputes and fist fights that went wrong, not just people getting shot.

I didn't say that Lambeth was worse than the USA or even at the same level: I simply provided some figures for people to think about - that the *worst* area in the entire UK is similar to the US *average*.

I don't see how this is disagreeing with you and I don't see anything I have said that argues against gun control.

Why don't you grow the fuck up and learnt to read properly (and think about what you have read) before having a froth-at-the-mouth fit and show yourself up to be an utter arse?

Or maybe you just enjoy being a hysterical prat? Tosser.

I might as well put you on ignore, although I am curious as to if you are going to manage to acknowledge that you have not bothered to read or understand my post - so I might wait for a post or two, before filtering out your moronic spoutings.

This is a story about some horrific shootings in a peaceful Amish community and all you can come up with is a meaningless, if not irrelevant set of statistics relating to gun crime in the UK. You're not on the same planet as the rest of us -are you? Oh aye, you're fucking perfect.

I read your post, you ignorant sack of nitpicking shit. Go on, put me on ignore, that way I won't have to read your irrelevant bollocks. The trouble with you, Teejay, is that you think you know it all. You're a bully and a pest. You're petty and small-minded. Have you no thoughts on these shootings at all? Or is it the case that you think we're all just having another "pop" at the US?

Why don't you grow the fuck up and learnt to read properly

I think it's you who needs to grow up and since when did you ever read anyone's posts properly? You don't. Pot-kettle-black. Interestingly enough, you didn't once express outrage or disgust at these shootings as you admit here.

I didn't say anything abou5t school massacres

No shit, Sherlock, you have no heart as well as no brain.

You might want to have a think about the word "hysterical" before you dole it out willy-nilly, but you don't think, do you? Unless the thinking follows a particular path that leads to a particular outcome.

You're a fucking joke, son.

 

[bendeus]

Gun ownership is compulsory in Switzerland. But your last sentence is correct: Canada, Cuba, France... there are plenty of examples proving that high gun ownership is not the cause of a high murder rate.

This would lead me to conclude that Americans, for whatever societal or cultural factor you may wish to mention, are more predisposed to gun murder than other nations with a similar availability/number of firearms per capita. It would therefore follow that a ban on Americans carrying guns would benefit not only that benighted nation but also the world.

 

[Chairman Meow]

Two of the girls were sisters.

 

[TeeJay]

You're a fucking joke, son.

Son? I'm probably older than you are.

Anyway, enough from you. I see you refuse to engage with the points I made about gun crime in south London, preferring yet more hysterical mindless abuse.

Bye bye.

(PS Many hundreds - maybe thousands - of people get murdered around the world every day. Every single one of these deaths is a tragedy. The enormity of this should stop us from discussing some of the reasons behind it or getting it into perspective internationally. IIRC the leading murder rates are in Colombia, Souith Africa and Russia - although presumably Iraq is way ahead of them now, and places like Darfur and other parts of central africa probably don't even have any figures available)

 

[nino_savatte]

Son? I'm probably older than you are.

Anyway, enough from you. I see you refuse to engage with the points I made about gun crime in south London, preferring yet more hysterical mindless abuse.

Bye bye.

(PS Many hundreds - maybe thousands - of people get murdered around the world every day. Every single one of these deaths is a tragedy. The enormity of this should stop us from discussing some of the reasons behind it or getting it into perspective internationally. IIRC the leading murder rates are in Colombia, Souith Africa and Russia - although presumably Iraq is way ahead of them now, and places like Darfur and other parts of central africa probably don't even have any figures available)

I doubt that you're older than me, that's just wishful thinking on your part.

You have made no points other than to divert from the topic of this thread. The simple, statistic-free truth is that the US has more gun-related deaths than anywhere else in the world and school shootings are a farily common occurence there these days. You can come back with as many stats as you like in an attempt to refute me, but it would be a waste of time.

You can't discuss anything without resorting to stats and everyone else but you is "hysterical".

What is the auld saying? "Lies, damned lies and statistics".

 

[greenman]

I was at the gym last night, and they had Sky News on, and between 8 an 9 pm, I had little chance to avoid it . I haven't before seen them take up such a percentage of a news hour on one story... Apart from very brief sports reports and the weather, the whole hour was analysis, interviews and reportage of the shootings in the Amish School. Not being a regular watcher of Murdoch's propaganda channel, (other than to notice that when I am usually at the gym around that time there seems to be more of a variety of stories being covered) can anyone tell me if this is a regular occurence, and if not, suggest why this particular incident should evoke such an overkill journalistic response?

 

[Fruitloop]

ambulance-chasing ghoulishness and prurience?

 

[TeeJay]

This message is hidden because nino_savatte is on your ignore list.

 

[nino_savatte]

Thank fuck for that! Now I won't have to put up with your tiresome habit of posting statistics in response to my (or anyone else's) posts.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

They think the total will go up by one soon. One family took their six-year-old off life support and took her home with them.