(no subject)
Mar. 23rd, 2006 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingThe Guardian on Americans with guns:
Mr Martin had every right to his .410 (11mm) bore shotgun. Ohio does not require anyone buying any firearm to have a permit. Nor does the state require gunowners to have a licence, although some inner city municipalities have stricter rules. Most state legislatures considering gun legislation are seeking to relax the remaining controls.And who is Mr Martin, and why do we care?
"I just killed a kid," Charles Martin told the emergency services operator. "I shot him with a goddamn 410 shotgun twice."(Is there something in the water south of the 49th? Canadians have more guns per capita than Americans and many, many fewer gun-related crimes, injuries, and deaths.)
He had gunned down Larry Mugrage, his neighbours' 15-year-old son. The teenager's crime: walking across Mr Martin's lawn on his way home. Mr Martin opened fire from his house and then, according to the police, walked up to the wounded boy and pulled the trigger again at close range, killing him.
Neighbours said he would work himself into a rage if they mowed a foot over the invisible dividing line separating their gardens. "He was really warped on that stuff," one local resident said.
Even after killing a young boy, who was apparently running home to fetch a video game, Mr Martin, 66, seemed indignant. "I've been being harassed by him and his parents for five years. Today just blew it up," he told the operator. "Kid's just been giving me a bunch of shit, making the other kids harass me and my place, tearing things up."
"He's laying in his yard," Mr Martin said in a tone of calm satisfaction, as if he had just disposed of a dangerous animal.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:17 pm (UTC)I think that more canadians get taught how to use a gun properly while americans don't even read the instructions for cleaning them.
Plus we are violent and evil.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:22 pm (UTC)We've even got our own homegrown mob stabbings and machete murders and yes, shootings for stupid reasons.
But, really, the difference in the statistics on how COMMON those things are is frankly scary.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:28 pm (UTC)I do know one thing though.
No kids will be walking accross his lawn anymore.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:30 pm (UTC)And it won't be his lawn for long. He's got a 1st degree murder conviction coming.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:41 pm (UTC)He will plea to a lesser charge.
The system will support him until he dies of old age or prison beating. My tax dollars hard at work.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:43 pm (UTC)The people who most often push for more gun control are often the ones in possession of the statistics which lend credence to the stance that MORE gun control is not the answer to violent crime - or even crime committed with firearms.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:55 pm (UTC)The point was that you reference statistics from neutral sources, not ones with an incentive to skew the data to their own ends.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 09:45 pm (UTC)In events like this, it is merely a case of the person in question being mildly to extremely psychotic. The fact that you don't need to pass firearms safety training AT ALL to own firearms in many States is also a problem. That weeds out a lot of morons to start. Your average gun owner in the US knows less about safe firearms ownership and operation than an anti-gun type in Canada.
I can cite over 100 critical safety violations from one trip to a US gun range (outside of the professionals I was shooting with), and 2 safety violations from my visits to both military and civvie ranges in the last 5 years.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:30 pm (UTC)That having been said, I'd have a grand time burning it while he was in jail.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 10:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:45 pm (UTC)Since then, StatsCan swears the Canadian crime rate has dropped, but doesn't break it down by firearms much; only thing I can find skimming this is that one in seven robberies is now committed with a firearm. The Bureau of Justice Statistics is split up many different ways, thought I can't match robberies to firearms, but their 2002 assessment of homicide indicates it's also down.
Same pages give the homicide rate (again, not speaking to firearms) as 2 per 100,000 for Canada in 2004 (?looks like a 0.2 increase since 2003?) and 5.6 per 100,000 for the US in 2002.
And now I really have to get back to travel claims. Note that
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 08:11 pm (UTC)Viva Texas dude
Date: 2006-03-24 12:12 am (UTC)Please stop taking every opportunity to brag about your state, whether the boasts are based on fact or not. Saying that where you come from (or are) is better than where your readers is from is rude. Don't you know that?
BTW, Texans are amongst the most obese Americans. And America is one of the most obese nations in the world. Are you obese?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:54 pm (UTC)(Besides, shouldn't you be taking the guns away from all the wacky Floridians? They're better armed than the Ohio people, closer, and one whole hekc of a lot crazier. You start with them, we'll have Manitoba disarm Ohio.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:06 pm (UTC)If I recall MEN OF BLOOD correctly, Canada's murder rate is consistantly somewhat higher than the UK's and somewhat lower than the USA's. Oddly, we very rarely focus on our standing wrt the UK.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 08:04 pm (UTC)The link you yourself posted downstream might indicate why - the murder rate is higher in Canada than the UK, but trivially so. A 0.02% difference, in fact.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:26 pm (UTC)I suspect, though, that this guy was just nuts.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:46 pm (UTC)And Jacob: Why do Americans kill each other with guns in vastly higher numbers than in any other country?
Culture. Of. Fear.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:53 pm (UTC)http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_percap
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 08:57 pm (UTC)And Thailand, but they hardly count. Their national sport is beating the crap out of foreigners.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 10:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 11:07 pm (UTC)Of course, they *might* actually fit the definition. It's hard to tell.
Apparently I'm an idiot for leaving out two words.
Date: 2006-03-24 01:21 pm (UTC)If you guys want to parse grammar or be Nazis about two missing words, go right ahead. As usual, I'm an idiot, you guys are geniuses, and picking on people for accidentally leaving out a detail makes you so fucking smart.
Re: Apparently I'm an idiot for leaving out two words.
Date: 2006-03-24 01:46 pm (UTC)If you knew that already, sorry - didn't mean to jump on you.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:46 pm (UTC)I am not going to cry at the office.
Swear to god.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 09:32 pm (UTC)...but that's just me.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 06:46 am (UTC)Oh, we have one all right. But I think there's less of a "my right to pursue happiness overrides your right to breathe" attitude.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 11:55 am (UTC)