> Homicides involving firearms are less common in the UK compared to those involving knives. There were 29 homicides by shooting in the year ending March 2023, representing 5% of all homicides.
the UK (population 68 million) has 7 less MURDERS BY GUN IN TOTAL, than Texas (population 30 million) has CHILDREN SHOOTING PEOPLE, SUBCATEGORY: ACCIDENTAL.
It’s worth pointing out that the entirety of the UK fits into the footprint of the state of Oregon
Also, nations that are islands have a much easier time eliminating guns from their borders, once the populace agrees that they should be.
The sad part is that the U.S. has a huge population of people that still don’t think anyone else’s rights to the pursuit of happiness and peace take precedence over their constitutional right to own guns, and if Sandy Hook didn’t move the needle then I don’t see what will.
But even if they agreed to take that action my first two points pose a pretty impossible logistical task to actually remove guns from our society
> The sad part is that the U.S. has a huge population of people that still don’t think anyone else’s rights to the pursuit of happiness and peace take precedence over their constitutional right to own guns, and if Sandy Hook didn’t move the needle then I don’t see what will.
Sandy Hook is just one reason why I don't own a AR-15 or other semiautomatic firearms. I'm of the opinion that no civilian (police included) needs a semiautomatic.
But I've got a .30 lever-action rifle. I usually only load it at the range. I usually only fire it at the range. I've never even aimed my weapon at another human being, despite occasionally being tempted.
I see no reason why I should allow my rights to be abridged because other people abuse theirs. The needs of the many might outweigh the needs of the few, but I do not accept that they can outweigh the rights of the individual.
This already happens, actually. At the range I go to, you can rent fully automatic weapons and they'll walk it out with you, and for a non-trivial cost of usually $1/round, you can spray the range down. You can also rent a number of more conventional weapons to try as well.
guns could 100% be removed from our society if we decided to do it. as you said though, sandy hook sealed that forever, right? once we decided as society to accept mass slaughter of children there is nothing else left to move the needle.
but if we wanted to do it logistically we are capable of much bigger things than removing guns from society. give everyone X amount of time to return them and then make being caught with a gun punishable by minimum of 45 years to life. once the deadline expires make a few highly publicized arrest and that’s that…
Guns could be removed by passing a Constitutional amendment to repeal the 2A.
The thing is, the anti-gun people are simply unwilling to do this because their position isn't nearly as popular as they believe. There's nothing stopping them from going through that effort other than fear. If 80% of the population really did agree with them, passing an amendment to repeal the 2A should be a no-brainer for any politician that wants to get re-elected.
this would be 100% accurate if this was an actual election issue, real or spoon-fed by politicians. while 80+% may be fully against ownership what do you reckon is a percentage from that group that would vote for a candidate simply on that one issue alone?! I am ballparking less than 2% - perhaps only family and friends who lost loved ones to gun violence
If data is right and it pretty much is that ~80% of US population is for some sort of a gun control, then passing Constitutional Amendment would be a breeze.
If majority of these 80% of people were single-issue voters and this was THE thing they cared about, it would take few election cycles but eventually this issue would carry enough clout that things would get done... of course it never will be though...
It's ironic that the right to bear arms was kind of a British invention from the English Bill of Rights 1689 which got copied to the US. It goes to show that you can change things.
They are not fully banned here but about the only thing you can get without too much hassle in the UK is a shotgun and you need a license.
The 36 number is inflated, as it likely includes teenagers with intent.
For those downvoting the parent comment, please do some critical reading of the article. It's conflating "children of all ages" with "toddlers". This is an absolutely trash article.
I agree, to an extent. But when articles twist words and uses stats in places that are lies, I have issues with it as well. There's no reason to embellish this data.
How many traffic fatalities is too many? If we lowered the maximum speed of cars to 20 mph, and that reduced fatalities by 90%, would that be worth it?
> How many traffic fatalities is too many? If we lowered the maximum speed of cars to 20 mph, and that reduced fatalities by 90%, would that be worth it?
Traffic fatalities are reduced by reduced speeds, and countries in Europe tend to limit quite heavily maximum speed in urban areas so... Yes, reducing speeds to 20-30mph in most cases is worth it, the US should adopt that.
Highways can have increased speeds as they are designed for it, here in Sweden it's limited to max 90km/h in urban perimeters (~55mph) but sometimes down to 70km/h, up to 120km/h outside urban areas (~75mph). Unfortunately speed limits aren't the solution though, better driver education, better urban design which naturally limits speeds, and stricter enforcement/punishment of traffic violations all build up to safer traffic.
Traffic in the USA is murderous, reminds me much more of my native country (Brazil) than any other developed country I've ever driven at.
Considering how many are intentional shootings by children of all ages this is, this is a non-story the same way the sky is blue and water is wet.