Why snipers?

[Dillon 2,197]

Barry the only thing I can say now is Brisbane Australia is looking very attractive these days...I sure wish I was ware you are right about now. You guys don't have a third of the problems we have in the US...

[Guest dsflyer]

Yep, we are basically animals cursed or blessed (most likely both), with self-reflective consciousness. Western civilisation encourages us to deal with that concept alone and as individuals.Is that right or wrong?., as you say Barry who knows, who knows?Dan

[Guest]

>Could it not be argued that the fact that US society is awash>with legally available firearms is actually a major cause of>the problem?>>IanNo, you can't state that.Most of the people guilty of things like this had those weapons illegally anyway.Those same people living in other countries would also have illegal weapons.Take my own country for example. We have some of the strictest anti-weapons laws in the world (basically anything is illegal unless locked in a safe in a vault at a gunclub or with special dispensation for transport to a match elsewhere or from a store to a point of storage and even then you need a police license to not only own the gun but to buy it and to operate it as well).Yet just about every criminal has access to a gun, often weapons way more powerful than anything the regular police have (there's several assaults on armoured trucks a year here using rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles, several times a week someone is murdered using a pistol or machine gun, etc.).If law abiding citizens on the street were armed a lot of those crimes would be stopped or at least the criminal stopped before he could ever commit a crime again.Take the Columbine kids as a classic example. The anti-gun lobby uses them as their prime case to call for stricter laws (which under the US constitution are actually unconstitutional, something that may well come to bite some states if they arrest the wrong guy for keeping a gun around the house for self defense).But those kids broked 21 state and federal laws to obtain their weapons and build their bombs (which were made from materials openly accessible to anyone, household chemicals and the like using plans from the internet).They broke more laws using those guns. They also broke several school rules and state and local laws taking those guns to school.Had those laws not existed and some other students and or teachers been armed they'd have been shot and killed or disabled after firing their first few shots and only one or two people (apart from them) would have died instead of over half a dozen and the thing ended in minutes instead of dragging on for most of a day.In New Orleans it's a tad different now. The law abiding part of the city population has mostly left the city by now, those who still remain being those whe were woefully illprepared despite several days of warning and evacuation orders.That leaves the goons and gangsters who remained explicitly to exploit a situation where there are hundreds of thousands of empty homes full of expensive stuff and no police on the scene to hamper their operations (iow, burglar paradise) in control of the city. They tend to stay in control and to do that they have to make sure that law and order are not restored.That's why they shoot at aid workers and national guard helicopters.The same would happen anywhere where there's a strong gang culture (UK comes to mind though it's less organised there than in the US) no matter how severe the anti-gun laws are as those guns are obtained illegally across borders anyway.

[Orlaam 306]

Glad to see Bob and others understand that anti-gun laws don't work, and that criminals are criminals no matter what the books say. Countries without guns have a big problem that is starting to show itself in the UK, and will in time in Australia as well. Nevertheless, Dillon hit the nail on the head with most of it. Also, almost half of the police in N.O. walked away from their job soon after the hurricane troubles hit. At least 2 committed suicide. Others were seen looting stores, carrying CDs, computers, and toys that have no use in disaster recovery. The violence and sheer chaos was felt in the Superdome as well, as people gathered in the thousands to seek shelter from the high floods. One tourist from England reported a 7 year-old girl was raped, and the total number of rapes was at around 20 at last count. Several murders and other crimes took place in there too. Reports of one jail where the criminals got out and were holding their guards captive also surfaced. Many of these criminals took the police weapons and scaterred throughout the town looking for trouble. Most, if not all store were looted beyond belief. Some of the weapons were taken from places like Wal-Mart and homes, where looters stepped over dead bodies to take whatever they could. Unfortunately, the majority of the problems are a reflection of the culture in NO.Also, someone commented on illegal weapons making their way into the streets. While I'm sure some people stole weapons that look like military weapons, and a few of them coming from law enforcement (jails), the truth is the medai has no clue about firearms or what's legal. A gun to the media is an AK-47 or M16, but those are NFA weapons in the U.S., and require strict control for each owner. Not to mention they cost thousands of dollars just to purchase. A real full-auto M16, similar to the military version is at least $10,000 and requires a federal tax stamp of 200 dollars. This accompanied by serious background checks and paperwork. You can't even loan these guns to friends for a day at the range. Machine guns, as people like to call them, make up an elite group of firearms owners in this country and you won't find them in very many gun shops, if at all. It's an extremely expensive hobby and only 1 crime has ever occurred with a true NFA machine gun, and that was a police officer who commited the crime. Machine guns used in crimes like the LA bank robbery were illegally configured/modified to shoot full-auto by people who were already criminals and didn't care about laws.These so-called assault weapons shoot the same bullets as many hunting rifles. Some hunting rifles actually shoot bullets that are far superior in wound trama than a .223 or 7.62 round. The anti-gun lobby loves to disort the facts about guns, and 99% of the BS they spew is just that, BS.

[Guest]

>If I had to defend my property, I'd have to dig out my cricket>bat from the shed!>You're allowed to have one?Here in the Netherlands you can be arrested for posession of an illegal weapon if you keep a baseball bat (or cricket bat I presume, the sport isn't much played here) in your home in such a way it could be used as a weapon...If criminals know they're likely to be shot at, they will usually think twice.If a hood comes at you with a gun he's not going to be scared by your cricket bat, he'll just shoot you before you get in range to clobber him. Had you a gun you'd have had a fighting chance.And in the UK too the criminals DO have guns. They're top dog in their area precisely because noone else (including the police) has the firepower to stop them.

[Guest]

There is no sickness in western civilisation.It's the nature of the beast which is Man, without the inhibitions against selfish and destructive behaviour imposed by western (or most Asian) society he reverts to his animal self, caring only about his personal survival and the spreading of his genes to as many females as possible.This is no different from say baboons or most other wild animals. When group structure breaks down it's a free for all with the strongest male taking top place and breeding all the females.

[Guest]

Well said. Gun ownership stops or prevents several million violent crimes in the US each year. Only in a small percentage of those cases is the weapon actually fired.Of the 200 million (estimated) firearms legally owned by US citizens that means less than 1% each year is used in anger and 10% or so at most is actually fired in anger.The rest are effective in preventing crime simply by existing and are used for recreation, sports, and hunting, and as collectibles (a good percentage of those weapons are WW2 vintage and older weapons in private collections, kept in working condition and sometimes taken out but not meant for daily use).The criminals get their weapons anyway. With weapons outlawed here and in surrounding countries on all sides, criminals still have an uninterrupted supply of everything ranging from .22 pistols to anti-tank missiles.But law enforcement and the population at large have no means to counter that arsenal.Police have some Walter P.8 pistols, the average citizen has to make do with a Swiss Army knife or a letter opener...As a result many people are afraid to go out after dark, entire areas of major cities are effectively off-limits to law enforcement officers or anyone else who doesn't have permission from the local gang.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Jeroen,A cricket bat can hardly be classed as an "illegal weapon". It's a piece of sports equipment for Christ's sake. I have a full bag of golf clubs in my house, and I can guarantee you that any one of those irons could potentially kill someone. Does that mean that those golf clubs should be confiscated ?Chris Low.

[Donmo 6]

These are disturbed individuals. Rap and Hip-Hop may have some small part in it, but I doubt it. This type of thing has been happening in the U.S. for years, and has been occuring way before these types of music even existed, or even the video games of today that much is blamed on. I remember people shooting at firemen and garbage men back in the 60's. It is a display of power and authority. He who has the gun is in charge, IN THEIR MINDS. Their power is the weapon, as most would not be confrontational without the gun. The man in the tower on an Austin, Texas campus MANY years ago (1966) was not listening to rap at the time he was shooting students crossing the campus. It is convenient for the lawyers to blame their defendants actions on music and videos today, but if one looks back a few years, these actions occured in a time where todays "tools of corruption" didn't even exist.Don

[PLazarus 0]

When we saw law and order break down in Asia after the disaster of 26 December 2004, we saw people pulling together, helping each other. I was listening to the BBC reporters that had covered both disasters talking about the huge differences in what they found in the aftermath of these terrible disasters.In the US, I see the opposite... people fighting each other, looking after themselves only.This disaster has brought these sub cultures in to the spotlight for all the world to see.I find the US a very money orientated society with very little sense of social values and community spirit. This may not be true for all areas, but I have seen it in several areas I have spent time in.. Paul

[Dillon 2,197]

"Rap and Hip-Hop may have some small part in it, but I doubt it."I was waiting on someone to say this. This excuse has been the main reason for the decline of the music industry for years. Yes violence has been apart of the human culture since the dawn of man but not at this scale. Yes we've had evil dictators like Hilter but there's something distinctly different in what's going on in America these days when it

[Donmo 6]

Wow Dillon! I didn't say that. I was paraphrasing what was stated in one of ther first postings of the thread! My whole point was that this type of thing happened prior to the current society. This is not something new, and as was also said, sub-cultures have always existed. Lawyers have made the excuse of music and games a defence for clients who more than likely would have commited crimes if they never heard the music or saw the games. It is the disturbed person who listens to the music and plays the games. I could listen to the music and never want to kill or shoot at anyone, and so could you. Personally, I hate that type of music. IMHO, it lowers culture rather than raises it up, but where do we as a free society draw the line? There are also folks who want the Bible banned, and also Harry Potter. a really bad dude Youth? That is a whole different thing. They were not a sub-culture. Their goal was to be educated at a Nationalistic level, the exact same way we do in this country, even today. The ######'s were not a sub-culture. Neo-######'s ARE a sub-culture. Either way, GOOD kids will not kill others, no matter what they listen to. The ones that do kill, probably would have, even if they listened to Bach.Don

[Dillon 2,197]

Don I'll write this again for these are known figures since 1992..."Since this music has become the most popular forum of entertainment in the US the prison population in America has shot through the roof. For every 100,000 people in America 78,000 are in prison and 10,000 more have some record of some kind (BBC ran a story on this a few months ago. BBC also reported on the mass poverty in the United States)."You can't argue with the numbers...Don you ever heard the saying, "Bad company corrupts good character"???"Their goal was to be educated at a Nationalistic level"This sure makes more since for the sovernty of any nation concerned about it's future than the non-since I see in Hip-Hop and the resulting effect on the city streets like New Orleans...

[btacon 1,772]

Dillon, while you make many strong suppositions, I will not challenge them because your viewpoint offers many possible reasons for our cultural breakdown. Is it all music? No. Is it all wealth? No. Is it all poverty? Of course not, folks have been poor forever.On the other hand, to use an oft-quoted phrase from the past two weeks, all your individual elements found themselves in a "perfect storm" where each one fed upon and synergized the other, making it possible for a demonstration of our society

[Donmo 6]

"For every 100,000 people in America 78,000 are in prison and 10,000 more have some record of some kind."That's impossible! I live in a town of 100,000 people. We certainly don't have a jail holding 78,000 more! Sure bad company CAN currupt good. My point is that it (violence) happened PRIOR to this music and the games. Prior to this, people were hung from trees, shot, kicked to death, etc. before radio was invented, and way before Rap and H-H. Sure, it will affect some to do bad, but not all. Most will listen to it and do nothing bad. Some will hear it and do something. Some would have done something regardless if they heard it or not. Don