As we all know it’s a standard part of the American political debate that more restrictive gun laws will stop the terrifying spectacle of mass shootings. This has the merit, as an argument, of seeming plausible. If there are fewer guns out there then fewer people will go doollally with them.
It is not, however, as simple as that:
A man disguised as a police officer went on a 12-hour shooting rampage in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing 16 people on Sunday, in the deadliest such attack in the country’s history. Officials said the suspected shooter was also dead.
Authorities said the suspected gunman – 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman – disguised himself as a police officer in uniform at one point and mocked up a car to make it seem like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser.
Gun laws in Canada are restrictive. True, that might not meet the desires of everyone on the restrictive side but it’s certainly more than currently happens in the US.
That restrictive gun laws will stop massacres is, as yet at least, unproven.
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The shooter and the RCMP have history:http://archive.is/QpKxo
Blow them AWAY, Huxley!
They do seem to reduce murders with firearms in number, and the frequency of these horrors.
A reduction in HGVs logically will reduce the number of people run over by HGVs, but maniacs still seem to get hold of them and plow straight into crowds.
They do seem to reduce murders. But they don't reduce murders. Have you read anything by John Lott? "Maniacs" don't obey laws and won't obey the next one.
I scoured the news of the Nova Scotia massacre and there was no mention of Canada's gun-control laws, which should have prevented it (as indeed the law against murder should have).
I believe the argument is that more restrictive gun laws *reduce* mass shootings.
Not saying it does or it doesnt. But as Tim likes to say, you do actually have to ask the right question to get the right answer.
The *argument* may be that more gun laws reduce shootings, but the *drumbeat* is that they will stop them. You don't get a law passed by saying "This will take the scourge and...mitigate it a bit."
Yes, bad headline, perhaps. Although it doesn't matter much, as new gun laws neither reduce nor stop massacres. They effect a change on the prey and not on the predator.
Trudope has just banned 1500 different types of firearms. 10,000's Canadians now outlaws.
https://www.rebelnews.com/trudeau_bans_website_and_facebook_group_as_part_of_firearm_ban