YES I AM AWARE of the effects of lead poisoning, it may have been a major cause

of the fall of the roman empire.

perhaps the little smiley was not enough to indicate I was being tongue and cheek

it was supposed to be silly.

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No lead poisoning is the result of violence not the cause :)

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Could this be a reason?

Yes, lead poisoning could really be a cause of violent crime

It seems crazy, but the evidence about lead is stacking up. Behind crimes that have destroyed so many lives, is there a much greater crime?

At first it seemed preposterous. The hypothesis was so exotic that I laughed. The rise and fall of violent crime during the second half of the 20th century and first years of the 21st were caused, it proposed, not by changes in policing or imprisonment, single parenthood, recession, crack cocaine or the legalisation of abortion, but mainly by … lead.

I don't mean bullets. The crime waves that afflicted many parts of the world and then, against all predictions, collapsed, were ascribed, in an article published by Mother Jones last week, to the rise and fall in the use of lead-based paint and leaded petrol.

how about mandatory gun safety classes in junior high so the kids know at least

how to unload and clear chamber should they wind up with a gun for what ever

reason, so they don't become dangerous.

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http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-shooting-spree-illustrates-global-gun-violence--190043649.html

While the United States has the highest per-person percentage of gun ownership in the world, according to Reuters, the Philippines has a much lower gun-ownership ratio. There are a mere 4.7 guns for every 100 Filipinos and there are 3.9 million privately licensed firearms in the Philippines. In the United States, there are 88.8 guns per 100 people and 270 million in the country, reports GunPolicy.org, a web site hosted by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

Despite those numbers, the Philippines has a much higher gun-related homicide rate than the United States.

According to the most recently available data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there were 8.9 homicides per 100,000 people in the Pacific island archipelago in 2003, while in the United States there were 3.3 homicides per 100,000 people.

Gosh, you think the issue isn't the ready availability of guns to law abiding citizens that is the issue?

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high power air guns come in sizes up to taking down a full grown moose

at 1600 lb but talking about these has been deemed other so

I have started a thread HIGH POWER AIR THE OTHER GUNS and have moved it there

so if any one is interested please go there.

IIRC those rifles are also single shot.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

high power air guns come in sizes up to taking down a full grown moose

at 1600 lb but talking about these has been deemed other so

I have started a thread HIGH POWER AIR THE OTHER GUNS and have moved it there

so if any one is interested please go there.

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Once again, I ask, do we have mental health experts here?

We do actually, but they have not posted in this thread. Boiling it right down, it seems to me that Americans have guns for mainly two reasons

1. Because they can
2. Because they feel that they need to for personal protection

Just because the constitution gives you the right to bear arms, doesn't mean that you have to. Also if you feel threatened 24/7 you might want to live in a safer country. I can understand farmers living in rural areas hunting for food, but not city dwellers packing a piece as normally as putting on their shoes each day. Its a way of life that Americans have grown up with.

If I was the President I would be going out to meet ordinary people to find out why they carry guns in the first place. If I was told for protection, then I would want to find out what was wrong with my society. We had a shock report in the UK last year that suggested that 60% of 10-15 year olds carried knives. Urgent questions are being asked as to why?

The only answer and the way forward is to restrict as far as possible the ownership of guns to sane people ...

Once again, I ask, do we have mental health experts here?
Do you not realize some people are not able to be diagnosed for years?
Or that some can be "mentally healthy" and then begin to exhibit mental illness?

Cops (in the US) are perhaps the most psych tested people. Cops abuse their wives at a much larger rate the the population in general. Cops are taught that violence is the answer to most conflicts. Think a bit. What is the problem?

A reasonable question, and we could go round on the reasons, but that wasn't the point of my questions. I am thinking of the general population. Not just police officers.

The US jurisprudence system requires the prof of wrong doing before the law can

intervene so any thing done to pre select bad people to bar gun ownership would

be on the face of it illegal.

Less so for the mentally ill but they have rights to.

So you are just left with criminals and it is already illegal for them

reference the system is broken bellow.

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The only answer and the way forward is to restrict as far as possible the ownership of guns to sane people ...

Once again, I ask, do we have mental health experts here?
Do you not realize some people are not able to be diagnosed for years?
Or that some can be "mentally healthy" and then begin to exhibit mental illness?

Cops (in the US) are perhaps the most psych tested people. Cops abuse their wives at a much larger rate the the population in general. Cops are taught that violence is the answer to most conflicts. Think a bit. What is the problem?

A reasonable question, and we could go round on the reasons, but that wasn't the point of my questions. I am thinking of the general population. Not just police officers.

Cops (in the US) are perhaps the most psych tested people. Cops abuse their wives at a much larger rate the the population in general. Cops are taught that violence is the answer to most conflicts. Think a bit. What is the problem?

You have maybe highlighted one part of the problem.

sadly the testing mostly only happens in large police departments,and also the

aversion of most police to report other police, look at the resistance to dash

cam's until the police saw how effective the footage could be in front of a judge.

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Cops (in the US) are perhaps the most psych tested people. Cops abuse their wives at a much larger rate the the population in general. Cops are taught that violence is the answer to most conflicts. Think a bit. What is the problem?

You have maybe highlighted one part of the problem.

The only answer and the way forward is to restrict as far as possible the ownership of guns to sane people ...

Once again, I ask, do we have mental health experts here?
Do you not realize some people are not able to be diagnosed for years?
Or that some can be "mentally healthy" and then begin to exhibit mental illness?

Cops (in the US) are perhaps the most psych tested people. Cops abuse their wives at a much larger rate the the population in general. Cops are taught that violence is the answer to most conflicts. Think a bit. What is the problem?

---

The only answer and the way forward is to restrict as far as possible the ownership of guns to sane people ...

Once again, I ask, do we have mental health experts here?
Do you not realize some people are not able to be diagnosed for years?
Or that some can be "mentally healthy" and then begin to exhibit mental illness?

something else to ponder is that high power air guns do not fall under the

jurisdiction of the BTAF so have vary few regulations.

Full auto and suppressors are legal for instance as an example.

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I don't agree that you can become addicted to firing guns in the same way that you can become addicted to drugs. It is also important to understand the difference between addiction and dependence.

Drug dependence means that a person needs a drug to function normally. Abruptly stopping the drug leads to withdrawal symptoms. Drug addiction is the compulsive use of a substance, despite its negative or dangerous effects.

A person may have a physical dependence on a substance without having an addiction. For example, certain blood pressure medications do not cause addiction but they can cause physical dependence. Other drugs, such as cocaine, cause addiction without leading to physical dependence.

Tolerance to a drug (needing a higher dose to attain the same effect) is usually part of addiction.

People with psychological or psychiatric disorders or other personality defects, often need the bolstering self respect effect that they feel owning a gun gives them. There is a case for banning all ownership of guns and restricting then to only being used at licensed gun clubs where they will be securely stored. But of course these clubs with a cache of guns would soon become the target of criminals.

The only answer and the way forward is to restrict as far as possible the ownership of guns to sane people, whilst realising that some will always slip through the net. Minimising the risk as far as possible is all we can practically do. America shoots itself in the foot (pun intended) because of its historical redneck attitude to gun ownership. All the while that they have that psyche, and their belief in it, nothing much will change.

No-one is suggesting that the Constitution shouldn't be respected for what it is, but is it still relevant in the 21st Century? Have Americans got the guts to ask themselves that? They might be the most powerful nation on earth, but it doesn't mean to say that they always get it right.

this is dancers room mateo

about 95% of "gun crimes" are performed with a gun that has been obtained illegally. therefore, gun crimes won't really decrease by not allowing law abiding citizens to carry guns.
It's just like drugs. Ya just abuse them and obtain them illegally

I'll explain this again.
You cannot equate drug prohibition with gun prohibition because guns are not addictive.
The reason it is so easy to get hold of illegal guns is because there are so many legal ones in circulation and no proper monitoring of where they end up.

I'll explain again ...
http://www.cncguns.com/
All you need is a garage and some metal and wood working tools. No different than a meth lab.

...and would probably be relevant if most gun deaths weren't committed by previously law abiding citizens or if people would desperately try to get hold of guns because they are addicted to them or you had a whole subculture of gun pushers selling guns for cheap outside schools to get young people addicted.

Studies conducted at both the local and national level indicate the overwhelming majority of murders are committed by people with previous criminal records. Even a significant percentage of homicide victims themselves have criminal records

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...and would probably be relevant if most gun deaths weren't committed by previously law abiding citizens

cite please - note not being caught/convicted doesn't make you previously law abiding, e.g. Al Capone before he was convicted of tax evasion ...

or if people would desperately try to get hold of guns because they are addicted to them

you would be shocked how many have a psychosexual relationship with them

or you had a whole subculture of gun pushers selling guns for cheap outside schools to get young people addicted.

Outside? Why would they go outside when they are already inside attending the school?

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this is dancers room mateo

about 95% of "gun crimes" are performed with a gun that has been obtained illegally. therefore, gun crimes won't really decrease by not allowing law abiding citizens to carry guns.
It's just like drugs. Ya just abuse them and obtain them illegally

I'll explain this again.
You cannot equate drug prohibition with gun prohibition because guns are not addictive.
The reason it is so easy to get hold of illegal guns is because there are so many legal ones in circulation and no proper monitoring of where they end up.

I'll explain again ...
http://www.cncguns.com/
All you need is a garage and some metal and wood working tools. No different than a meth lab.

...and would probably be relevant if most gun deaths weren't committed by previously law abiding citizens or if people would desperately try to get hold of guns because they are addicted to them or you had a whole subculture of gun pushers selling guns for cheap outside schools to get young people addicted.

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Reality Internet Personality

Interesting opinions blog in the Wahington Post.
Stop the gun madness

“Normal,” however, is tragically unacceptable. In 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans. Most of the deaths were suicides; a few were accidental. About a third of them — 11,078 — were homicides. That’s almost twice the number of Americans who have been killed in a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Britain, by comparison, the number of gun homicides in 2010 was 58. Here we’d consider that a rounding error.

What explains the difference? Well, I spent a few years as The Post’s London bureau chief, and I can attest that Britain has the same social ills that we have — crime, unemployment, alienation, racial strife, mental illness. Britain also has a powerful, rural-based constituency determined to protect the right of hunters to spend weekends blasting away at shadows in the woods. Gun-loving Brits are no less passionate than gun-loving Americans.

edit] I am now reading the link in that article. It is well worth a read.

Some questions that are in it

What are the health risks of having a gun in the home?

How many road deaths would there be if safer cars, driving laws and roads had not been introduced?

What are the differences in gun crimes and deaths between two very similar close cities, Seattle and across the border in Vancouver B.C.?