OT: China Highlights Contrasting Gun Law
Papi_Chulo
Miami, FL (or the nearest big-booty club)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100318470
Just a few hours before a gunman walked into a school in Connecticut on Friday and slaughtered 20 small children, a disturbed man with a knife walked into a school in central China and attacked 22 children of about the same age.
Police and emergency services responded within minutes to the attack at the Sandy Hook elementary school. However, they were too late to stop the man, identified by US media as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, from taking the lives of 20 six- and seven-year-olds and six adults before turning his guns on himself.
Meanwhile, at the Chenpeng village primary school in a rural part of Henan province, not one person was killed even though the assailant, 36-year-old Min Yingjun, was able to wander the school attacking defenceless children for more than half an hour, according to Chinese news reports.
The stark difference in death tolls from these ostensibly similar atrocities has been greeted in China and among US supporters of gun controls as powerful evidence of the efficacy of banning guns. Firearms are almost entirely absent from Chinese society and Chinese police do not routinely carry handguns. According to data compiled by the UN office on drugs and crime, the murder rate in the US is more than four times the rate in China.
"Not only is it appalling that these shooting massacres keep recurring but the American government's inaction is also shocking," said Hu Xijin, chief editor of state-controlled newspaper Global Times. "Isn't this a human rights disaster? . . . I don't understand how American parents can put up with it." An editorial published by Xinhua, the official government news wire, said the "blood and tears" of Friday's victims "demand no delay for the US gun control."
In recent years, China has seen numerous school attacks involving crazed knife-wielding men. A string of six attacks between March and May 2010 left scores injured and at least 17 dead, most of them kindergarten or primary schoolchildren. Two months ago, a man with a machete killed three children and injured 13 others in a private day-care centre in southwest China.
Just a few hours before a gunman walked into a school in Connecticut on Friday and slaughtered 20 small children, a disturbed man with a knife walked into a school in central China and attacked 22 children of about the same age.
Police and emergency services responded within minutes to the attack at the Sandy Hook elementary school. However, they were too late to stop the man, identified by US media as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, from taking the lives of 20 six- and seven-year-olds and six adults before turning his guns on himself.
Meanwhile, at the Chenpeng village primary school in a rural part of Henan province, not one person was killed even though the assailant, 36-year-old Min Yingjun, was able to wander the school attacking defenceless children for more than half an hour, according to Chinese news reports.
The stark difference in death tolls from these ostensibly similar atrocities has been greeted in China and among US supporters of gun controls as powerful evidence of the efficacy of banning guns. Firearms are almost entirely absent from Chinese society and Chinese police do not routinely carry handguns. According to data compiled by the UN office on drugs and crime, the murder rate in the US is more than four times the rate in China.
"Not only is it appalling that these shooting massacres keep recurring but the American government's inaction is also shocking," said Hu Xijin, chief editor of state-controlled newspaper Global Times. "Isn't this a human rights disaster? . . . I don't understand how American parents can put up with it." An editorial published by Xinhua, the official government news wire, said the "blood and tears" of Friday's victims "demand no delay for the US gun control."
In recent years, China has seen numerous school attacks involving crazed knife-wielding men. A string of six attacks between March and May 2010 left scores injured and at least 17 dead, most of them kindergarten or primary schoolchildren. Two months ago, a man with a machete killed three children and injured 13 others in a private day-care centre in southwest China.
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31 comments
If our government tried to impose the kind of restrictions on us that the Chinese government imposes on their people, what do you think would happen? An armed populace is an effective deterrent to an oppressive government.
I do think there should be limits. I can't go out and buy a 40mm anti-aircraft autocannon, and that's probably a good thing. I don't know where you draw the line. It sounds like that guy's mom had a bigger arsenal than is reasonable.
And yes, I know the US isn't perfect either. But I'd rather live here with our gun laws than in China with theirs.
He shot no one.
Will you join my resistance cell when Obama brings in those atheist Muslim socialist overlords from his birthplace in Kenya and they enslave us white people? I bet you would make a top notch guerrilla.
Step 1 in the process of making America more Japanese would involve ending immigration and multiculturalism and there is little doubt, statistically, that this would do far more to lower our homicide rate, than banning guns.
Further, autopsies are regularly BS. In Japan, Yakuza/gangs kill privately and without guns. They take their time and beat someone to a bloody pulp. That means no public noise, no drive-by shootings by punks, and generally a quiet discovery of the body. Which means that the police can do their investigation quietly without the media getting in their face. If they find a perpetrator, then the autopsy will say homicide is the cause of death. If not, then the person died of a heart attack or something. It has everything to do with the "shame culture" - where the police themselves will be blamed if homicides increase. So amazingly - homicide rates always fall
1955 - 3000 homicides
1985 - 1800 homicides
today - less than 800
There is a reason that 100% of homicides in Japan are either:
1. solved
2. so shockingly public that they can't be hidden
At least they weren't killed with guns! Feel better now?
Or maybe taking out about 3,000 with box cutters?
Spoken like a ultra lib in front of the cameras. That wasn't my point at all at. Duck and hide when you're confronted with something that contradicts your viewpoint, I get it.
1. Stop the non stop media frenzy when these killings happen.
2. Require trigger locks on all weapons by their owner with severe
penalties if your gun is misused.
3. Improve gun registration and restrictions on gun purchases at gun
shows.
4. Severe penalties for the loss of a gun or having a gun stolen.
We've seen some stifling examples of right wing logic here. Rather than wait for actual serious discussion the wingnuts call the "libs" "gun grabbers" and put words in their mouths. Easy to argue against the othe side when you construct the other side's arguments, in'it it? Likelihood o' your fevered scenario happening in 'Merica? Not very high... But never let that get in the way o' a good strawman!
Other gems of logic are Samsung's "Japan has a low homocide rate for cultural reasons we can't emulate...plus it isn't really that low..." So, is Japan the only country with a murder rate lower than the US? 'Cos if it is you've got a point. If not, you're full o' shit. I think I smell some bullshit!
Perhaps I'm just missing some brilliant but subtle point you genius right wingers are makin'. Spell it out for us "libs". I'll give you a template:
It is POSSIBLE to kill people without guns so we should...
Possible answers might include:
A. Make access to guns totally unrestricted
B. give everybody a loaded gun at birth. A little one, of course, 'cos we don't wanna be all crazy...
C. Take everybody's guns away. Humiliate all former gun owners by making them wear a scarlet "G"
D. Restrict access to specific types of firearms
E. fill in your answer...
I'm looking forward to the erudite inner policy wonk o' da Jestie man. It strikes me that the concrete policy proposals we have are "do ????? 'cos it is POSSIBLE to kill people without guns" and "become Japanese". I'll stipulate that "become Japanese" is off the table. How should we fill in the question marks?
I promise not to run and hid from an opinion I disagree with. I may, however, point and laugh...
Totally contrary to my "baby's first Derringer" proposal. The big issue with Derringers is low numbers o' bullets. But giving a baby a TEC9 would be stupid...even I as a right wing nutjob acknowledge that... no, my plan was that new loaded guns of an appropriate size would come in cereal boxes. Crazy people like the school shooter would KNOW that all the kids in class would be packin', so the wouldn't attack 'cos they would know the little kiddies would kill them in a hail of gunfire. Oh wait, I think I see an issue...
So Jestie...can ya help us out? Help fix my proposal. Your slot in my Obummer resistance cell is hangin' in the balance. Oops, I'm a wing nut, so it should be "you're slot in my resistance cell..."
Some choice quotes:
"Others have noticed Drudge’s predilection for posting multiple tales of black “flash mobs,†especially on annual events such as Memorial Day and Black Friday.
The obvious weakness with these self-righteous complaints about Drudge’s editorial judgment is that he doesn’t invent these stories of mayhem, most of which (again) he lifts from liberal newspapers"
"And it’s so exhausting having to patiently explain that when Rush Limbaugh called Barack Obama “a Magic Negro,†he was simply quoting a black cultural theorist who’d used the expression (one with some provenance) to describe…Barack Obama. I’m nodding off just having to type all that. Again."
"I’d also bet fewer of them noticed a headline, lower down the page, but there just the same:
CHICAGOLAND: 10 shot, including 4 teens…
It turns out that the same day dozens of white women and children were murdered at Sandy Hook, ten African Americans had been wounded by assailants with firearms in one of the strictest gun-control cities in the nation.
Chicago could be said to experience a slow-mo Sandy Hook all year long, year in and year out, except the victims and the assailants tend to be black.
Neither the mainstream media nor Drudge’s excitable foes have expressed much outrage about this ongoing loss of life. Doing so might spoil their gun-control narrative."
One good thing, however, is that even though these things are more publicized, they are on the decline in numbers.
#2 sounds good in theory, but I don't think it would change much. #4 is just silly. Punished for being robbed? Come on.
Clubber makes a good point about addressing the cause, but I think that's considerably difficult to attempt let alone accomplish.
No matter what the simple point is that any solution that calls for taking away guns or placing incredible limits on them is not a solution at all.
Dick's making a change.
You state, "Clubber makes a good point about addressing the cause, but I think that's considerably difficult to attempt let alone accomplish." I will agree under today's standards. However, there was a time when the nut cases could be put away to protect society. Of course now, that is not PC.
Most every one of these events, we hear the same story, "I knew he was having issues, etc." That said, nothing is done till he does it himself and takes innocents with him.
Usually by the time the threat does surface, it is too late.
The BEST reason not to adopt China's government policies.
Actually, you reply to tittyfan was pretty reasonable, so I'll be clear. Here is my issue with your BS of "but mass killings don't REQUIRE guns." Yes...so what? Guns sure as fuck make killings of all sorts easier. So we have a problem -- too many crazy MFs can get their hands on guns -- and we should be addressing it. But then wig nuts come on with BS like yours... So you're either a wing nut who claims to be moderate or you've been taken in on this issue. Since you claim to be moderate I'll ask you to think...somethin' you claim I wouldn't do.
How do we address the problems of too many crazy folks with guns? We could:
1. Deal with mental health problems seriously, trying to identify folks like the shooter at CT (and CO and VA and...) ahead of times. Costs money. Only addresses the worst killings.
2. Try to keep guns out of the hands of people most likely to cause problems.
3. Outlaw specific types of weapons.
4. Outlaw guns altogether.
#4 ain't gonna happen in America. Not in the foreseeable future. So if you're worried about you're stupid and shouldn't have a gun or you're crazy and shouldn't have a gun. We already do #3 -- I can't go to Walmart an' get me no full auto AK god damnit -- so the argument there is *which* guns to outlaw. Personally, I don't think this is the biggest issue...but be honest and admit the issue is where to draw lines and not whether there SHOULD be any lines.
#2 is complex but it ain't gonna be address until nut jobs stop insisting that the gummint gonna deny dem der guns if we make screening more thorough and deny some crazy folk der sweet sweet firearms. As with everything the devil is in the details, but some sort of gun control (notice that control can mean "banning" or "denying gun ownership to nutjobs". -- whadya think is going to happen here in America). You've already said you're cool with titty's #3, so you should be cool with some version o' #2. You even want waiting period...you fuckin' liberal you. I don't care 'bout that, although it will take time to do checks so we would end up with a de facto waiting period. But I don't see an explicit need for that beyond the logistics necessary to screen out da nutjobs.
And #1 is jes' common sense. But we ain't gonna do it...to damn liberal
Wanna stop it? Root causes are important...but it is more important to say "we don't care about stable, law-abiding citizens having guns as long as they use them responsibly and secure them...but we don't want crazy folks to have guns". Then take that seriously and find ways of implementing. Is that too liberal for ya.
In a thread where the topic suggests that violent attacks in China aren't as deadly because they don't have guns my point was very clear if you actually thought about it. Unfortunately you took the predictable route.
Waiting periods have several benefits, and I know plenty of gun owners who don't have an issue with them. Banning weapons, even assault rifles, are not going to effectively prevent anything from happen. And as you said, it won't happen in this country in the near future. Not legal or feasible.
Detecting anyone with mental issues early on is something we should try to do, but again it's not really a simple thing to accomplish. Strict healthcare privacy laws and a litigious society only further complicate the issue.
So, should I let you scratch your head to figure out what is wrong with your logic? Maybe read this post for the word that I stressed and ask yourself if your argument actually addresses anything of relevance.
You know, I heard you shouldn't worry about drowning due falling overboard while at sea 'cos it is possible to drown in as little as an inch of water. And it is like totally fine to get all drunk and send texts while driving 'cos people sometimes have car accidents when they are stone cold sober. Yep, guns couldn't possibly have any impact upon the degree of damage done in violent attacks -- after all, it is POSSIBLE to injure or even...gasp...kill people without guns. Now that I know I bow to Jestie logic.
Correct, but don't confuse, as you say "Assault Rifles" with what the anti-gunners consider assault rifles.