A killer shoots 5 people in a shopping mall at Espoo, Finland

i submitted this comment to the discussion below the article, which as you'd expect, immediately focused on gun laws:

"it doesn't take much common sense to realize that the tightening of gun laws affects ONLY law-abiding citizens. that's the problem that every proponent of strict gun legislation seems to be totally unable to grasp; only law-abiding citizens obey gun laws.... so, a nation of law-abiding citizens that cannot own, or legally carry guns is a nation of helpless victims.

i personally avoid most public places here in the US that designate a so-called "Gun-Free Zone"... you see, criminals and crazy people ignore these signs, or rather they read them as, "Helpless Victims Zone".

the Genie is out of the bottle, worldwide... criminals have guns and won't stop getting more, and even if they could only get knives, would anyone really want to be expected to defend themselves and their loved ones against a knife-wielding assailant armed only with a knife themselves? not i my friends, not i.

the problem is the criminal mind, and the criminally deranged mind, not guns."
 
James Murphy said:
i submitted this comment to the discussion below the article, which as you'd expect, immediately focused on gun laws:

"it doesn't take much common sense to realize that the tightening of gun laws affects ONLY law-abiding citizens. that's the problem that every proponent of strict gun legislation seems to be totally unable to grasp; only law-abiding citizens obey gun laws.... so, a nation of law-abiding citizens that cannot own, or legally carry guns is a nation of helpless victims.

i personally avoid most public places here in the US that designate a so-called "Gun-Free Zone"... you see, criminals and crazy people ignore these signs, or rather they read them as, "Helpless Victims Zone".

the Genie is out of the bottle, worldwide... criminals have guns and won't stop getting more, and even if they could only get knives, would anyone really want to be expected to defend themselves and their loved ones against a knife-wielding assailant armed only with a knife themselves? not i my friends, not i.

the problem is the criminal mind, and the criminally deranged mind, not guns."
Click to expand...

You wouldn't believe how much this exact issue is discussed around here at the moment because of the school shootings and cases such as this one. As one would expect, it has already come to the point of repeating the same arguments back and forth, no-one actually listening to the opposing side anymore. I'm pretty much with you on this one, though. Tightening gun laws is just another way to sweep the real problem under the carpet.
 
James Murphy said:
i submitted this comment to the discussion below the article, which as you'd expect, immediately focused on gun laws:

"it doesn't take much common sense to realize that the tightening of gun laws affects ONLY law-abiding citizens. that's the problem that every proponent of strict gun legislation seems to be totally unable to grasp; only law-abiding citizens obey gun laws.... so, a nation of law-abiding citizens that cannot own, or legally carry guns is a nation of helpless victims.

i personally avoid most public places here in the US that designate a so-called "Gun-Free Zone"... you see, criminals and crazy people ignore these signs, or rather they read them as, "Helpless Victims Zone".

the Genie is out of the bottle, worldwide... criminals have guns and won't stop getting more, and even if they could only get knives, would anyone really want to be expected to defend themselves and their loved ones against a knife-wielding assailant armed only with a knife themselves? not i my friends, not i.

the problem is the criminal mind, and the criminally deranged mind, not guns."
Click to expand...

+1
 
This doesn't appear to be a similar case to the school shootings, though. The killer wasn't a young lonely nerd this time, for example.

Either way, the guy was a goddamn fucking lunatic like the rest of them.
 
James said it best.

Tightening gun laws only really affects the people that SHOULD be allowed to have a gun and would be responsible with one, etc. The criminals, you know - the ones that don't give a shit about the laws?, will only try that much harder to not get caught with a gun they are illegally possessing, etc. And I'm not sure what the gov't/lawmakers are thinking, but tightening gun laws do nothing but piss off rednecks and also just make the illegal arms market even bigger...
 
I don't know the statistics on this, so I'm only speculating here - but there are always the gun-related murder/manslaughter cases that were carried out by weak, emotionally unstable legal gun-owners who just snapped (otherwise ordinary members of society, rather than "full-time" criminals, if you will); I can definitely imagine those people commit their crimes because of the easy availability of guns, and if they weren't as available legally, I highly doubt those people would go into the hood or out to some crazy anti-government revolutionary's cabin to buy one; in other words, I can definitely see how those types of cases would be reduced by stronger gun control, I guess the only issue is how large of a percentage of the aforementioned gun-related deaths they make up!
 
Metaltastic said:
I don't know the statistics on this, so I'm only speculating here - but there are always the gun-related murder/manslaughter cases that were carried out by weak, emotionally unstable people who just snapped (otherwise ordinary members of society, rather than "full-time" criminals, if you will); I can definitely imagine those people commit their crimes because of the easy availability of guns (they probably already legally own them), and if guns weren't as available legally, I highly doubt they'd go into the hood or out to some crazy anti-government revolutionary's cabin to buy one; in other words, I can definitely see how those types of cases would be reduced by stronger gun control, I guess the only issue is how large of a percentage of the aforementioned gun-related deaths they make up!
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While this may be true, there may also be a percentage of gun owners who have had their firearm for years (while being law-abiding citizens their entire lives), and one day decided to snap and go on a rampage.

I do think that our country in particular should have more uniform gun laws across state lines. In NJ we have a pretty rigorous application process. Mental health record check, criminal record check, fingerprints, letters sent to non-family members attesting to our integrity and character as a person and attesting that we are not alcoholics/drug users, etc.

If the above methods were applied all around the country, I believe it would have an effect on the amount of these crimes. In Texas, Utah, and a bunch of other states, you can walk in with barely any background check and walk out with a shiny new gun.

Now, I'm a member of the NRA and fully support law-abiding citizens to purchase guns and use them for sport and self defense, but I'm very much against useless laws that are proposed and passed by the anti-gun crowds who really have NO idea how they will affect crime.

My point is, if someone wants to go on a killing spree bad enough, they certainly will. As far as I know, in most European countries, obtaining a firearm is a pretty long and difficult process - I'm pretty sure it requires gun training and qualification...which I am cool with.

I know a lot of you Finns own rifles for hunting and the like, but this dude had a handgun, no? Is it still pretty hard to obtain a handgun in Finland? If so, then it proves my point.

There are plenty of flaws in the system, there is no denying that. The Virginia Tech kid had seen counselors at his school because he was fucked up in the head, but no one did anything about it. He legally bought his guns and did his thing.

I do think that concealed permits can be a good idea, but should be a selective process. If just one person had been armed and saw the fellow draw his weapon, the situation could have been avoided.

-Joe
 
J.DavisNJ said:
While this may be true, there may also be a percentage of gun owners who have had their firearm for years (while being law-abiding citizens their entire lives), and one day decided to snap and go on a rampage.
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I know, this was entirely my point, so I'm not sure why you put in the "while this may be true, also..." part ;)

J.DavisNJ said:
My point is, if someone wants to go on a killing spree bad enough, they certainly will.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm not sure of though, and that's what I was saying above - I really doubt the guy whose wife left him or the nutcase who shot up a nursing home after he got fired from his job would necessarily have been able to act on the passion that seized them in the moment unless they legally owned a gun; it's the ease of availability to otherwise ordinary law-abiding people (who are nonetheless guilty of making seriously bad decisions under a great deal of stress) that scares me, and I'll only say it's not an issue when someone shows me a statistic stating that those types of cases are only a small percentage of gun-related incidents!

That said, however, if every state forced people to go through a rigorous background check and waiting period, that would be satisfactory to me!
 
I take more of marcus's view on this - just looking at wikipedia briefly, great britain has one of the lowest levels of gun ownership and also has low levels of gun crime. sure there are shootings, but most stories of it are gang related rather than some nutcase who's let rip somewhere.

i know as gun owners joe and james have strong views opposing my views, but from my experiences (im half finnish) finland doesnt have the same kind of gun culture that america has.

i can also see racism going up after this, finland seems pretty far behind other countries in terms of tolerance to those who are ethnic minorities in finland. i noticed in one of the police interviews someone asked if it was a religious killing which I doubt they would have asked if he had a traditional finnish name and not a name like Ibrahim Shkupolli.

and sure if someone wants to kill someone that bad then they probably will no matter what, but if they have a gun they can end peoples lives pretty rapidly/efficiently - for instance, say if someone had a knife instead of a gun id be surprised if they could kill as many people in such a short amount of time without them getting away or someone intervening.
 
well I see a huge problem with developing blanket laws because a few people go on a rampage. Imagine if we did that with everything... "Okay, some people choose to drink and drive... so we're putting breathalyzer starters in everyone's car" or "people are going too fast on the highways so we make cars only able to go 65 max." the fact is, if criminals want guns, they get them. take NY for example... you guys have a crazy process for getting a concealed carry permit... but I'm pretty sure NYC has it's share of gun related violence.
 
ahjteam said:
Nope, you just need a buying permit and carrying permit (hankkimislupa and hallussapitolupa in Finnish) that you can get from the policestation with like filling in a few forms.
Click to expand...

Ah ok, so very similar to here actually. Do you know if there are background checks that you have to go through?

-Joe
 
Metaltastic said:
I know, this was entirely my point, so I'm not sure why you put in the "while this may be true, also..." part ;)



That's what I'm not sure of though, and that's what I was saying above - I really doubt the guy whose wife left him or the nutcase who shot up a nursing home after he got fired from his job would necessarily have been able to act on the passion that seized them in the moment unless they legally owned a gun; it's the ease of availability to otherwise ordinary law-abiding people (who are nonetheless guilty of making seriously bad decisions under a great deal of stress) that scares me, and I'll only say it's not an issue when someone shows me a statistic stating that those types of cases are only a small percentage of gun-related incidents!

That said, however, if every state forced people to go through a rigorous background check and waiting period, that would be satisfactory to me!
Click to expand...

It would be nice for me to see those statistics, but I'd also like to see some statistics of how many law-abiding gun owners that use their weapon (not necessarily firing them, but possible) to neutralize dangerous situations. Although we don't hear about these cases in the news very much, they certainly do happen:

http://www.thearmedcitizen.com/

-Joe
 
Machinated said:
I take more of marcus's view on this - just looking at wikipedia briefly, great britain has one of the lowest levels of gun ownership and also has low levels of gun crime. sure there are shootings, but most stories of it are gang related rather than some nutcase who's let rip somewhere.

i know as gun owners joe and james have strong views opposing my views, but from my experiences (im half finnish) finland doesnt have the same kind of gun culture that america has.

i can also see racism going up after this, finland seems pretty far behind other countries in terms of tolerance to those who are ethnic minorities in finland. i noticed in one of the police interviews someone asked if it was a religious killing which I doubt they would have asked if he had a traditional finnish name and not a name like Ibrahim Shkupolli.

and sure if someone wants to kill someone that bad then they probably will no matter what, but if they have a gun they can end peoples lives pretty rapidly/efficiently - for instance, say if someone had a knife instead of a gun id be surprised if they could kill as many people in such a short amount of time without them getting away or someone intervening.
Click to expand...

Well that may be so because of the laws that the U.K. recently enacted, which have crippled the chances of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves. People were forced to hand over their handguns (even historical antiques, which probably weren't even being fired anymore) and have them destroyed.



I won't get into the racism part as I don't know enough about the Finnish culture.

In regard to your last comment, this can certainly be true, but still isn't a reason for me to make gun ownership, handgun ownership in particular, IMPOSSIBLE for law-abiding citizens.

I'm all for stricter control (within reason), but outright bans are a no no.

-Joe
 
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J.DavisNJ said:
I'm all for stricter control (within reason), but outright bans are a no no.

-Joe
Click to expand...

I'll agree with this for handguns, but honestly, I don't see any real reason why a civilian should be allowed to own an assault weapon with automatic or even semi-auto fire and large magazines (and my reason for wanting to ban them is again related to my fear of the sub-category of criminals who were otherwise ordinary, law-abiding citizens, and "just snapped", grabbed their Bushmaster M4, and started tearing shit up)
 
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