Quote From: longwalkerAllow me to comment on this. The International Crime Victims Survey showed that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations. In England 26% of the population had been the victim of violent crime. Australia, who also took guns from its citizens, led the list with 30% of its population being victimized. The US did not even make the list. All types of crime are high in countries where the government has taken the right to carry a gun from its citizens. And who would want to live in a country where the police could not carry guns? I sure wouldn't be bragging about that. And don't get into that tripe about disenfranchised people. These are people who can not handle their anger or some perceived putdown to themselves. One thing that would protect our children is to send all teachers to a top notch gun safety course and teach them practical shooting so that they can stop these shooters before it turns into Columbine or Virginia Tech. An armed teacher at either one of those schools would have saved a lot of lives. The reason the crime rate is low in states that have given their citizens the right to carry a concealed weapon is because the criminals know we are not pushovers like in other countries. If these students knew that the teachers had guns and would not hesitate to protect the kids in their classes, we would see these shootings stop.
In reply to these comments. I do not defend the crime statistics, having worked as a pro active Police Officer for all of my career I cared about this on an hourly basis for just over 12 years. I cannot comment on the US figures for crime, don't you have a real problem in many of your cities with youth gun crime, drive by shootings? We are seeing the emergence of more guns being around, they come in from Eastern Europe but at the moment we are containing the problem by using specialist firearms teams.
Your solution to train and supply teachers with guns scares the hell out of me, is the problem that bad? Why stop at the teachers why not arm all the students. I had no idea people thought in such a way in the US. It does not seem to me like a mainstream view. Put me down as a coward because I would not want to carry a gun around with me whilst I was at home, I cannot imagine living that way.
My main point is that if guns are not so readily available, there would be less incidents.
