The horrific shootings in the US may or may not produce some restrictions on the gun culture there, but they provide a renewed warning of the dangers here. Australia has experienced a substantial reduction in gun deaths since John Howard bravely introduced severe restrictions in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre. But the gun nuts, aided and abetted by people like Campbell Newman, have been chipping away at those restrictions ever since.
It’s time to take a clear stand on this. There’s no reason why anyone should be allowed to own a handgun. Their sole purpose is to kill people. Those who need handguns for their work (like police officers[1] and armored car guards) should have them checked out at the beginning of each shift, checked back in at the end, and kept securely locked away when not in use. Farmers and professional shooters need rifles and shotguns, but anyone else who wants to use deadly weapons like these should seek psychiatric treatment. Anyone outside these categories found with a weapon designed to kill people should be assumed to have that end in mind and locked away from the rest of us until they can show that it is safe to let them out. And, obviously, military weapons should be confined to the military.
Undoubtedly, criminals will ignore the law – that’s why they’re criminals. But in a situation where only outlaws (and police) have guns, the possession of a gun will permit an easy conviction in cases where crims might otherwise get off.
fn1. As UK experience shows, there’s no reason for the majority of police to carry guns. That should be limited to trained specialists.
John Quiggin 
Even the case for farmers owning guns is weak.
I have livestock and own a gun, and use it occasionally but could easily do without it, if good systems were in place.
As mentioned on the other thread:
Where there are more guns there is more homicide.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html
Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.
In the US, across states, more guns = more homicide.
In the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
These seem like sensible constraints PrQ. As a matter of interest, there’s a statistically significant corellation between domestic violence leading to a killing with a gun in the US and being a police or prison officer.
There’s no reason for anyone to carry a gun, outside of work in the security business, or possibly, a farmer or professional shooter, in some circumstances.
oops: correlation
Who, besides police and armed guards, is presently allowed to possess handguns anyway?
I agree for the most part. I would probably allow for sports shooting (target shooting), some very limited rural gun ownership (farmers) and professional shooters who go after feral animals. The latter two groups need only long guns not hand guns.
I am not a target shooter but I would not proscribe target shooting. However, target shooting hand guns and long guns should be strictly limited in design, fire rate and magazine capacity. In addition all target shooting guns should be kept in locked facilities at safe locations and require dual unlocking by two keys held by separate persons. Indeed, more restrictions might be necessary. In addition, it should be a crime to keep a gun at any residence, carry a gun in public or take a gun to any place of work, education or care or to any park, reserve or national park. Farmers would lock their gun in a safe-cabinet in a shed or barn.
I’m not entirely sure why I would not ban target shooting. I think I just accept that afficiandos of a discipline, who practice it properly, ought to be able to follow their passion. After all, would we ban archery and fencing?
@Uncle Milton
Any nutcase in America.
Uncle Milton, in Australia, lots of people can get firearm ownership. Primary producers, “sports” shooters, certified business people, collectors etc.
There are still lots of unnecessary words in Australian legislation, which (studies indicate) leads to unnecessary homicides.
An an old target shooter here ~~ think Olympics ~~ the establisher of a ‘small bore rifle club’, a contestant in the Queens Shoot, the child of a inveterate hunter (rabbits, foxes, goats – Sth Aust 1950’s – I hated it at the time but see the value now), I loath ‘guns’ in the hands of *anyone who is outside of a highly disciplined environment.
Consider the trigger for these posts:
One of the versions of the US Constitution states in full;
“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”
(As ratified by the States, and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State.
Wikipedia ~~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)
I feel that the (US) National Rifle Association (NRA), and, by association, the US Supreme Court, has assumed a very twisted take on this text. The importantly conditionalising lead-in to that oft-quoted text, “the right . . (to) . . bear arms shall not be infringed” . . is the opening phrase “A well regulated militia being necessary . . “.
Having any nut-case able to gain possession of a potentially appallingly destructive fire-arm is not my interpretation of a “regulated militia”. Ask any ex- or current military person for their opinion on this matter!
One of the three things I give Australia’s Prime Minister Howard credit for was for his introduction of firearms control legislation, after Australians experienced the horror of a troubled person having been able to lay hands on fire-power that must ONLY be in the hands of a ‘well regulated militia’, or an Army. Like ours. (Such control. Such discipline. Such *intelligence.)
Can the current US President echo our exemplar, Mr Howard?
President Obama was a fine lawyer, and seems a fine person. Let’s hope for ‘their’ sake that he can make firm the US’s move in the direction of community rationality, the move that only one other in that benighted country has had the guts to attempt to make, President Clinton, et al. To restrict firearms by all means possible, and with no sunset clause.
And let’s pray that our fine men continue to express their natural aggression, aggression fundamentally expressed as the ability to defend their brood at all cost, by one-on-one clean contestation between (almost) physical equals, so that only they get hurt, and so that hurt can be a mark of honour, not a reason for those men to be in the slammer for the rest of their lives.
I hope. Earnestly.
@iain
Yes, but I asked about handguns in particular. I’m happy to be corrected if wrong, but I don’t think any member of the public can simply buy a handgun at their nearest Walmart (equivalent).
I hadn’t heard that General Disaster is siding with the gun nuts in Qld. That suggests that the chances of gun reform here (to undo those bad changes) are slim.
But Prof Krugman suggests that the Democratic Party coalition is so strong now that it can beat the National Rifle Association in the US.
He argues that rural whites who would never side with a supposedly Kenyan socialist atheist Islamist anyway have been, well, “outgunned”:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/whistling-past-the-gun-lobby/
Wishful thinking?
@Uncle Milton
Only at Walmart Supercenter, not all nearest Wallmarts are Supercenter. Every third Wallmart is.
@Jen Cluse That Bill of Rights and 2nd amendment has been a hindrance to America. What was once appropriate given a certain set of circumstances has been used inappropriately by succeeding generations in different circumstances. Whole sections of the community have been stuck in a time warp having their lives constrained by fears held by the forebears hundreds of years ago. It really is time for them to move on.
As Adam Winkler shows:
http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/
After the rise of civil rights agitation and black nationalism in the 1960s, the NRA was strongly in favour of stringent gun control.
The collapse of the Black Panthers in the 1970s encouraged the radical wing of the NRA to wrest control of the organisation in the very same cause of anti-government self defence as the black Panthers. In othe words, the NRA became the White Black Panthers!
I wonder if the real Black Black Panthers were to re-form, America would get a raft of gun control.
This eventuality would be a powerful test of whether and to what degree the US is really “post-racial”.
In NSW you can not just go out and buy a handgun. If you want one you need to go through a very long process and surrender a lot of rights such as allowing the police to enter your home without a search warrant.
The current reports indicate that most (if not all) the people shot in the recent US event were shot with an automatic assault riffle.
If you are white skinned you are only half as likely to be murdered by a gun in Australia than you are in the United States.
Quiggin you need to check your facts before writing such drivel.
http://www.reasonorforce.com/2010/08/australian-gun-ban-facts-statistics.html
In every country where guns are banned violence has increased.
@rog
A “hindrance”?? Who do you think you are? That bill of rights is the only thing that has kept the socialists from destroying our republic. Australia seems could benefit from a dose of freedom if this is the way you people think.
how refreshing to see people that dont live here discussing how we should live. remember that chicago,newyork and a slew of other places have very stringent gun policies. guess what? “gun homicides” and violent crime are statisticly worse there by far. while tradgedy is going happen no matter what i dont blame the tool i blame the user. since this forum is made of people that already have a anti gun agenda i most likely wont be back to see if this posts or how badly you try to prove me wrong by posting pretty graphs or stats.
have a nice day! its a fine snowy day here in northern arizona where i still have the right to defend myself, use a gun to target practice or collect investments. goodday sheeple
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847
“how refreshing to see people that dont live here discussing how we should live. ”
Umm, you appear to be describing yourself and “Libertarian woman”, since you claim to live in Arizona and you are commenting on a post about Australian gun laws.
@Libertarian Woman The right to shoot wont stop people thinking and acting like socialists.
I think we should closely scrutinise people who buy matches and petrol. Did you know that in Australia you can buy petrol without ID or any background checks or any meaningful limits on the quantity or frequency of purchases. Nobody even asks what you are going to do with it. The same with matches. You can get them even in supermarkets. Some places even sell matches and petrol. It’s a joke!
So “Libertarian Woman” would have opposed Ronald Reagan’s disarming of the Black Panthers?
@ Lolbertarian Woman
At first I was sympathetic and approached your article with an open mind. That was changed when I started reaching the bottom, which is all categorically wrong. And I quote:
“The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it. While the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns. Criminals in Australia now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws ONLY adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens.
Take note my fellow Americans, before it’s too late! The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them of this history lesson. With guns, we are ‘citizens’. Without them, we are ‘subjects’.
One final statistic…
Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 170 million ”
You’re a kook. That is rubbish. “Gun control” did not cause 170 million deaths. Criminals will not “always” arm themselves with guns; they will do so in America where there are a lot of lazy, negligent gun owners and there are ample pickings.
For the first part, with the pretty graphs and statistics, Australia has a much smaller population than the US, laws change all the time, the data was in an upward trend before the gun “ban”, etc etc. I just wish you clods would remove the hyperbolic “freedom rah rah rah” BS so that the data could stand on it’s own merits (which as I have said, is not great).
“Libertarian Lunatic” would be a more appropriate tag.
Loony Libertarians;
(1) Lie.
(2) Make up statistics.
(3) Deny empirical evidence.
(4) Take all their spurious “facts” from the Murdoch Press, Fox, shock jocks and hate jocks.
(5) Have no idea about disciplines like science, maths and statistics.
(6) Derive ethics via solipsism (only the self exists).
Loony Libertarians cannot be reasoned with. They do not respond to science or logic. They do not understand that morality requires regard of the other as well as regard of the self.
Don’t waste your time. Deride and ostracise is the only approach to be used with the more flagrant Loony Libertarians like SATP and Libertarian Woman. It’s best to summarily dismiss these loonies and get on with educating those who are actually educable.
Note: I don’t regard TerjeP as a Loony Libertarian. Part of the reason is that TerjeP’s politics clearly proceed from a different and better spirit than that of the Loony Libertarians.
@TerjeP
Errm yairs.
What right does the government have to prevent me from purchasing 300kg of ammoni*m n*trate to fertilise my small but sadly barren inner suburban back yard?
It’s a disgrace.
@TerjeP
Many objects and substances can be purchased which are dangerous and destructive or can be put to such uses. The list is endless. A screwdriver, a kitchen knife, a baseball bat, a shovel, a lump of wood, a bottle of acid or a plastic bag with a drawstring can all be used to harm or kill. A car can be used to harm or kill by design, negligence or other malfeasance. Notice how difficult it is to get a car licence now. It requires one hundred hours of tuition and then a comprehensive test and then years on a provisional licence. But all of these goods have valid and useful purposes.
In practical terms and at law, certain goods are regarded as too dangerous to be freely purchased. In most cases this is because these goods have no purpose other than to take human life. I suspect even you do not want to see high powered automatic weapons, grenades, rocket launchers, APCs, and tanks made available for free public purchase. Or even large quantities of detonators and high explosives for that matter.
So it is clear even you would draw the line at some point. The argument is thus not about whether to restrict some goods. The argument is about where to draw the line. The clearest line is between goods with a legitimate peaceful purpose and goods with no legitimate peaceful purpose. (In some cases, guns and explosives have legitimate peaceful purposes but their use is highly controlled – e.g. mining explosives.)
On the grounds of logical discrimination for peaceful purpose your point is invalid.
I don’t think it’s worth responding seriously to glibertarian snarks like the one Terje posted.
I speak as a farmer and son of farmers, with no mystique for me about the proper ownership and use of firearms, and I mostly agree with you. Single shot rifles are a necessary tool of the trade for farmers for humane destruction of stock and vermin control, and the public land/outback hunting community mostly do little harm, sometimes do some good (though mostly vastly overstated) in controlling feral pigs, goats, foxes and dogs. They only need bolt action rifles for this. Shotguns are for killing ducks and birds and I have a problem with this, but accept that my views aren’t supreme, people do seem to enjoy it without massive harm. Semi-automatic and automatic weapons and all handguns have one design purpose, and that is to kill people. They should all be banned outright – but in effect they mostly are, the gain from this move wouldn’t be great. Still worthwhile though.
If by “farmer” you mean “rural landowner”, then yes, full support.
I don’t know the detail of Oz gun laws, because I’ve only owned guns in NZ. There, you’re not allowed to fire a gun within 200m of a dwelling unless you’re in a rifle range. Which makes it pretty much impossible to fire one in an urban area. But NZ is full of pest animals and some of them really need guns to control (experience talking, I don’t like guns but didn’t feel I had much choice).
What they do have in NZ is rental gun lockers at police stations. You pay an annual fee, the cops look after your gun. If you want it, you wander down and show ID etc, they hand it over, you bring if back afterwards. In a 24 hour manned station, that’s available 24 hours (hunting often takes place at unsocial hours). I love that system, because it means I don’t have to fork out for a proper gun safe, and it makes owning a gun and living in rental accommodation much easier. And I don’t have to worry about gun theft.
The hassle is that manned cop shops in rural areas can be few and far between. But if, like me, you’re travelling to the property from a city, you’re bound to go through a town on the way that has a cop shop.
If you want to control dangerous equipment, I think starting at the top of the death toll is the place to start. Motor vehicles, specifically. Kill someone while using one, even accidentally, and we should deal with the driver more vigorously than saying “oh no, you must feel awful”. “Show cause” would be an excellent thing.
True. I only did it because TerjeP has some ideas worth engaging on in other areas. Oh, and the other reason is that it is amusing to see how easy it is to logically refute such snarks.
Well the difference there Terje, is that you cannot burn down twenty eight houses in just a few minutes with a can of petrol and a box of matches. And one cannot be a “sniper aresenist” picking off houses from a thousand feet away. It is also very difficult to conceal can of accelerant in ones pocket. This is not a parallel risk.
Yes people are killed by arsenists and that is also evil.
As a Sporting Shooter, and former police employee, does John Quiggan have qualifications that deem I need psychiatric treatment ??
Tell that to the members of the Australian Olympic and Paralymic Shooting Teams.
Should they, by John Quiggans assessment of their Sporting choices deem to be committed ??
I think a lot of the people making comments on gun Control need to take a deep breath, and to look at the current firearms legislation, and the requirements that LICENSED Sporting Shooters like myself have to comply with, BEFORE making uninformed commentary.
ie: Gun Registration
Firearms Licencing
Firearms Safekeeping
etc etc etc
Once you understand fully what a Licenced Shooter has to go through, then you will be in a position to place sensible commentary.
PS 1: Unlicensed Shooters and holders of Unregistered Firearms will not be worried about any
“gun control”.
PS 2: I understand if this comment does not appear, or does so in a highly edited manner, due to
my views differing from the blog owner.
PS 3: Funny how Economists have views on everything as well as Economics.
Ross Garnaut – Climate Change
Tim Flannery – Climate Change
John Quiggan – Climate Change and Gun Control
@TerjeP
You’re being grandiose and silly again. If it became fashionable and legal for young men to carry tactical nuclear warheads on their hips we might expect you and even some of more serious libertarian nut jobs to go rushing into the weapon control camp after a couple of adverse events. Yes? No?
It’s all a cost-benefit trade-off. In this case, the negative effect of allowing access to weapons that allow efficient killing of people is matched against the “right” to own anything. And if people started fire-bombing schoolrooms full of children we would reasonably expect the “right” to bear petrol containers to be looked at too.
People become so habituated to their own talk of rights that they come to believe that they are “out here” properties of the world rather than what might more accurately be referred to as group hallucinations, commonly believed narratives, or by that sweet French expression folie à plusieurs (madness of many). This is not to dismiss shared narratives, they have clearly had radical impacts on human welfare – and indeed may the basis of our species’ wild successes and failings – but to argue that their value lies not in the intensity of their habituation or emotional resonance with particular groups of individuals but in the benefits they bring to human welfare. If this line is correct, then the real argument should be that periodically sacrificing a few dozen school kids is fair value for the utility and pleasure of assault rifle ownership. For some reason, this is an argument I haven’t heard bandied about with much intensity, or even at all, it all comes down to these fantastic “rights”.
(Sorry, John.)
Personally, I find that the act of beating someone unconscious so I can pour petrol on them satifies my urge to kill.
ah yes you have a point JQ but when you use the USA as a talking point it is my right to chime in on your rant. no? you as a self professed leftist (socialist-democrat) are following in the footsteps of mau zedong, pol pot and hitler himself. does that not disturb you? if the world didnt have evil tyranical people i would gladly give up my arms but since it isnt all butterflies and rainbows i will keep my arms. make me fear for my life or anothers and i will unzip em faster than you can say liberal/communist/socialist.
a thinking man can do just as much damage without a gun. believe me.
OK, now here’s the latest moronic drivel from the RW zealot media. Some other nutbar apparently wanted to shoot up a mall in Portland but he was challenged by a concealed carry holder and another crisis was averted. Therefore, guns save lives. This is the kind of stuff that makes you wonder whether half the population has been secretly drinking turpentine.
It’s the old “heads I win, tails you lose” game. Criminals will always commit murders so you can have that one, but guns also provide freedom, that one’s for me. So society is say 20 people better off according to their reckoning while their opponents is the cause of the 27 killed the other day.
“What about gun control leading to no massacres? Why can’t I claim that none of these incidents have occurred due to legislation? Society will therefore be 27 + 20 (say) people better off?”
BEEP BEEP BOOP
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@Jim Birch
“It’s all a cost-benefit trade-off”
Exactly. I don’t like imposing on gun owners, but I dislike gun violence a lot more.
It seems to me that the main advantage of gun control is that it reduces the scope for accidents and impulse killings, rather than premeditated shooting rampages.
However I did read an argument that having guns widely available ‘primes’ people for violence, making the idea of shooting someone more psychologically accessible.
Uncle Milton @ 4 & 9, it’s possible (although not easy) to legally own handguns in Australia. (I only know about SA in detail, but the other states have broadly similar restrictions.)
To be licensed to own (or even shoot) any kind of firearm, you have to do a course in gun safety then, on passing it, wait for at least 14 days to get approval from the police to get a license. They do a pretty stringent check.
To be allowed to own handguns, you need to join a gun club, do a further safety course (usually through the club), then, on passing it, spend the next 6 months as an active club member before being able to apply for a permit to acquire a handgun. This will be limited in calibre to .22 (or an air pistol). After another 6 months as an active club member, you can buy bigger guns, although there are further restrictions on calibres greater than 9 mm. Handguns can only be used at an approved range, and must be kept in a gun safe at all other times.
Every time you want to buy a gun of any sort, you have to apply for a permit to acquire, which takes at least 14 days to approve so the police can check you all over again.
So, the only people who can be bothered are those who (like me) enjoy target shooting.
Will – most massacre style events end because some other party with a firearm arrives to either terminate the perpetrator or to pursued them to stand down or suicide. Sometimes it is the police, sometimes it is a member of the public. Either way it is to be warmly welcomed. When it is a member of the public who is already on hand the body count tends to be vastly lower than when police are the final solution. The police simply can’t be everywhere. We ought to deputise lots of people in society with life saving skills. Sometimes that will mean giving CPR before the ambulance arrives, sometimes it will mean stopping a criminal before the cops arrive.
My view that the law needs further tightening largely reflects this case in which a delusional paranoid legally acquired six guns, which he used to kill or wound a number of fellow-students at Monash University. Although the law was tightened in the immediate aftermath, it’s been relaxed in various ways since then
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monash_University_shooting
Terje @ 38, you’re just making s**t up. These massacres usually end when the police arrive (if the killer hasn’t already topped himself), sure, but police officers are trained to shoot.
I know from personal experience that it’s quite difficult to hit a stationary target at a known range with a handgun, let alone a target that’s moving around and shooting back. I guarantee that if an armed member of the public returned fire, the death toll would be higher, not lower.
I’ve notice no one mentions the Swiss and Scandinavian situation with respect to an armed population. Marksmanship is one of the national sports o the Swiss going back to the time of William Tell. Mind you every Swiss male is expected to undertake the necessary military training on the use of their firearms and to keep their state issued rifle ready to defend the country. Much of the original USA constitution was sourced from the Swiss so the current Swiss situation was probably what the second amendment was hoping to achieve. It seems to have gone of the rails somewhere along the line and the well regulated clause has been forgotten.
Mind you, both the Swiss and the Norwegians have had mass shootings in recent years so there is a still a price to be payed in innocent lives for having a well regulated militia.
@Libertarian Woman
Your link quotes John Steinbeck approvingly.
Are you aware that John Steinbeck was a member of several communist front organisations?
@Sporting Shooter
You will note;
1. Prof. J.Q. did not censor your post.
2. Sporting shooters are not in serious danger of losing that pastime.
3. Many advocates of gun control (like myself at post 5) do not want a ban on target shooting.
In fact, apart from defined occupations and maybe collectors with weapons rendered inoperational, all other members of the public wishing to own a gun should be compelled to join a registered shooters club, undergo vetting by club members, the police and criminal and medical checks. Then undergo a licenced training and gun safety program before applying for a gun licence. Further limits should be placed on where the gun is permitted to be stored.
If “Economists have views on everything as well as Economics” then that means they are just like the rest of us. In fact, being an informed citizen means having views on a wide range of topics in order to make an informed choice at election time and at public meetings, forums etc.
It’s true that the United States does not have the highest firearms-related death rate in the world. Here are some countries that do worse than the US in this respect:
South Africa, Philippines, Mexico, Panama, Brazil, Colombia, Swaziland, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, El Salvador. (NB: Not a complete list of countries as not all report)
Interestingly, Canada — a substantially English-speaking country with an advanced economy in close contact with the US — has about half the death-rate per 100,000 (4.76 v 9.00) as the US, and of this half, about 77% (3.72/4.78) are suicides. A little more than 63% of the US rate are suicides (5.75/9.00)
Final thought of the day:
Looking into my crystal ball in the wake of the Newtown tragedy and Obama’s address, I can forecast guns and ammo being sold out all across the US of A as nutbars of all varieties once again stock up before Obama implements his “upcoming gun ban” to lead the States into a Maoist dictatorship, or whatever. Interesting to note that the most vocal about arming themselves to escape government tyranny are also keen on a lot of other loony ideas, such as the gold standard, anti-vaccination and birtherism. The Newtown gunman’s mother was one of those Doomsday whackos. Given the self-reinforcing nature (crisis leads to paranoia and gun ownership) of this particular worldview I sadly do not expect the rate of these incidents to decrease.
I’m pretty happy with the way gun laws are at the moment in Australia. I’m not sure tightening them further would do anything to reduce our already low rate of gun-related homicide. I certainly wouldn’t argue relaxing them though.
In the US at the very least they should reinstate the assault weapons ban. It’s appalling such things are legal.
Having said that, there are times an armed civilian uprising against a totalitarian state is justified, and it’s naive and complacent to pretend otherwise. The chance of such a government coming to power is low, but they havoc they wreak when they do is so extreme that it can’t be ignored. You might think the days when we had to worry about this sort of thing are over, but the chaos in southern Europe at the moment says otherwise. If the political party Golden Dawn looked like it had a real shot at power in Greece, I would totally support a paramilitary decapitory strike in the middle of the night on all of its leaders by Jewish partisan groups.
Will (and others), there were ammunition shortages (particularly in handgun and medium-sized rifle calibres) in Australia just after Obama’s first election – the US manufacturers were looking after their primary market, who were apparently terrified by the thought of a man of colour in the White House …
I think there was also a fenzy of gun’n’ammo purchase leading up to the recent election.
oops … accidentally posted.
The homicide rate with a firearm in the US is roughly four times that of Canada (0.76 v 2.98)
When one divides the number of privately owned small firearms by the number of residents, the US has 88.8 per resident and Canada 30.8. There’s no really good correlation between guns per individual and homicides using firearms though. Some developing countries have very high mortality rates and quite low gun ownership within the population. Finland has slightly higher gun ownership rates than canada but about 1/3 the mortality of Canada and 1/12 that of the US.
Plainly, gun homicides are multi-factorial. Plainly, homicides by the police count in the figures so in substantial part the nature of policing is an issue. Crime associated with the distribution of drugs is lower in Finland and Canada than the US and control of turf is enforced in the US with guns. One suspects that this is a factor in some developing countries too. Of course, wide availability of guns does make gun-based violence more technically feasible. This may not simply reflect lax gun laws in the US, but the comparative ease with which contraband can be moved across the borders of the US.
Firearms rules are far stricter than in the US. Gun registration is of longstanding and so are gun safes. Semi-Automatic weapons must be stored in the gun safe in an inoperable condition and with the firing bolt stored in a separate secure place.
The rules in Finland are similar and also one has to have legitimate reason to own a gun (apart from “self-defence”) sports or hobby shooting, a professional need, etc and the applicant must prove that he or she is actually using firearms for the stated purpose.
Many of spree killings (not just those in the US) appear to be an elaborate attempt at stylised suicide — the “blaze of glory” exit — hence the combat gear and other accessories. Commonly, there are elements of the “family annihilator” (to use the US term). Spree killers often start their sprees by killing parents and other close relatives. This strongly recommends family and general social dysfunction as a significant predisposing factor. Paranoia and persecution complexes are also a persistent theme, and again, it’s easy to see how the mythology of the US — born out of the struggle against tyranny, and founded on the rights of the individual creates a template for those suffering from existential or socio-spatial angst to become criminally delusional. The 2nd Amendment is close to a cultural credo for angst about the government and the community more broadly. In a country that does so poorly in education, the welfare of individuals in school and at work and in mental health more generally, easy access to guns simply opens the door to random violence. Yes, people are the killers of people, but people with guns have an advantage in killing people over those who don’t. Suicides are imulsive acts. Guns should not be in the hands of people who are inclined to act on impulse and who feel threatened by others.
@Sam
Well yes, but that is not what we are discussing here. An armed uprising against a totalitarian state would be justified, but seriously difficult. Totaliatarianism arises in circumstances where the opposition is atomised. Putting together an armed uprising would be hard because whether there were guns about to be had or not, organising would be very difficult. Armed uprisings against a well-entrenched state power are a desperate thing, attempted when nothing else is plasuible and this too is improbable.
In any event, these “autogenic massacres” are not “political” in the usual sense of the term but manifestations of rage combined with a willingness to self-harm and often associated too with narcissism and megalomania.
The odd thing is, a large number of US citizens who are very vocal about needing freedom of gun ownership to protect their nation from tyranny are often also quite vocal about insisting that they already live under tyrannical government, which rather undermines their point as obviously their freedom of gun ownership did nothing to prevent it.