Texas biker gang shootout.

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18 years 7 months

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This has finally made me realise I’ve been wrong all along, and American society in fact needs more guns, not fewer. If only every man, woman and child were forced by law to carry a loaded gun at all times, then the good people at that market place could have gunned all those bikers down before they had chance to shoot each other. Everything would have been OK, and it would all be thanks to good ole guns. Seriously though, I just don't understand why a great country like America allows this madness to go on and on. (Lights blue touch paper and retires to safe distance)

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/police/biker-gang-shootout-leaves-dead-wounded-and-ongoing-investigation/article_85324d7b-8a10-5f98-9417-deb74e91480a.html

Original post

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17 years 5 months

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Kill em all, then kill em again ;) Nothing surprises me these days.. Well they'll only do it once.

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13 years 9 months

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What is it about WACO?, this is the 2nd shootout this town has had in the last few years, Mr Creosote, Congress gave the Country the right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment, however, before it was ratified, there should also have been a limit to the amount of guns an individual could own. It was only a few weeks ago on Nat Geo, that a gun collector wanted to sell his collection of over 250 guns, to a dealer.. They are now reaping what they sowed.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

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Why would a limit on the number of guns an individual can own make any difference? After all, we've all only got two hands and two trigger-fingers!

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Come on, are you guys really using the actions of a biker gang (hardly a representation of the typical American) and transferring it to all Americans?

Would you attribute the 7/7 bombings to all Muslims in the UK...or the actions of the IRA to all Irish?

Lincoln7..the WACO event is when federal cops tried to serve an arrest warrant to a religious cult leader (oh oh..let the anti-religion sentiment fly) for (IIRC) under age sexual contact.
He barricaded himself in his compound and when Mr. Clinton's attorney general lost patience decided to force the matter and the standoff became a shooting match.
Again, I wouldn't blame the average citizens of WACO for that...any more than I'd accuse ALL the residents of Hungerford of being murderers or everyone in Ipswich of being rapist killers.

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...there should also have been a limit to the amount of guns an individual could own.

The number of guns an individual can own surely isn't the issue here, as they can only fire one or two weapons at any given time (especially with sausage fingers). Surely a bigger problem would be with the quantity of ammo an individual can hoard. Even that argument is purely academic, as I doubt bikers would likely follow any laws regarding this matter, and I also doubt they are any good at maths. In fact, I wager that if they were good at anything they wouldn't be in a bike gang; perhaps the most visually obvious means of displaying your inferiority complex.

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Come on, are you guys really using the actions of a biker gang (hardly a representation of the typical American) and transferring it to all Americans?

Would you attribute the 7/7 bombings to all Muslims in the UK...or the actions of the IRA to all Irish?

..any more than I'd accuse ALL the residents of Hungerford of being murderers or everyone in Ipswich of being rapist killers.

Quite!!

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11 years 2 months

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Hi All,
Sorry to say this but isn't the sad truth about all this is they will never stop the illegal trade in guns no matter if the US constitution was changed there will always be Criminals and MB gang warfare as every criminal is stepping on every other criminals turf utterings such as " I say old bean do you mind awfully not doing that here" with the resulting mash up of various thug inc's and every cowboy wannabe wanting more and more of the illicit trade no matter what it be GUNS/BOOZE/PROSTITUTION/DRUGS OR PEOPLE TRAFFICKING etc.etc/etc.
The crim's will always come up with another way around obstacles that are placed in their way by the authorities, the Civi population are just collateral damage that mean nothing gone are the days when most crim's just took it out on each other in clandestine shootings. Even if the crim's are caught they get a life sentence it does not matter, they get looked after it's a risk they all take when signing up to whatever gang it's a way of life to most so now it's obviously going public again. :apologetic:

Geoff.

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13 years 9 months

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The 2nd could easily be altered to make obtaining guns, both legal and illegally,more difficult, but as long as the NRA has a stranglehold on certain Politicians, it will never happen..
And on that note, I will say no more.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

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The 2nd could easily be altered to make obtaining guns, both legal and illegally,more difficult,Lincoln .7

Jim
Altering the Constitution is NOT easy. It was designed that way. Somehow, I don't think you've studied the U.S. Constitution much. Not only does it have to pass both houses of Congress, it then has to be ratified by 2/3rds of the states within a specified period of time. And since many people see an abridgement of the second amendment as a big deal, (in other words many believe what starts off as a "sensible" limiting of hand guns would eventually turn into wholesale gun banning) that's not going to happen.

And to follow up to your original post..."What is it about Waco?" You do know the biker gangs were not from WACO?

Really, whenever there is U.S. we can count on a bunch of ill-informed Englishmen to tell everyone what to do.
Not everywhere in the world is like the UK...different people, different cultures, different politics. Get over it. :)

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The 2nd could easily be altered to make obtaining guns, both legal and illegally,more difficult,Lincoln .7

Jim
Altering the Constitution is NOT easy. It was designed that way. Somehow, I don't think you've studied the U.S. Constitution much. Not only does it have to pass both houses of Congress, it then has to be ratified by 2/3rds of the states within a specified period of time. And since many people see an abridgement of the second amendment as a big deal, (in other words many believe what starts off as a "sensible" limiting of hand guns would eventually turn into wholesale gun banning) that's not going to happen.

And to follow up to your original post..."What is it about Waco?" You do know the biker gangs were not from WACO?

Really, whenever there is U.S. we can count on a bunch of ill-informed Englishmen to tell everyone what to do.
Not everywhere in the world is like the UK...different people, different cultures, different politics. Get over it. :)

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Sadly I have to agree with your last paragraph JB.

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Really, whenever there is U.S. we can count on a bunch of ill-informed Englishmen to tell everyone what to do.
Not everywhere in the world is like the UK...different people, different cultures, different politics. Get over it. :)

Call it a misplaced sense of pastoral care.

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18 years 7 months

Posts: 1,376

Jim
Not everywhere in the world is like the UK...different people, different cultures, different politics. Get over it. :)

And very few places in the world have gun laws like the US, or the same appalling gun death figures. Coincidence? There are simply too many guns around,which inevitably means they will keep falling into the wrong hands with terrible consequences. And as for that old "anti-American" argument, that's simply not the case; sometimes it takes a good friend (and the US has never had a better ally) to tell us some unpalatable home truths.

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JB. It's one of the first signs y'know, when you repeat yourself, twice. You don't happen to have a few guns also do you?......:D
Jim
Lincoln .7

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Jim whatever happened to:
"And on that note, I will say no more.
Jim."

I thought you were a man of your word. :)

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And very few places in the world have gun laws like the US, or the same appalling gun death figures. Coincidence?

Actually, I think lots of places have gun-laws like the United States...

...some have better gun-death figures.....some much worse!

Maybe it isn't the guns? Maybe it's the Americans?

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...inevitably they will keep falling into the wrong hands with terrible consequences.

But why do we care? It isn't a schoolroom full of young children (this time)!

In all honesty, this story hasn't had the slightest impact on my life; I don't dispute that it is a personal tragedy for those involved and their families and friends, but me? Sorry, nothing.

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CD - you seem to imply that the deaths of humans and the examination of the reasons for the deaths are of no interest to you unless the humans are children. Or have I misunderstood?

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No, I'm not talking about interest, I'm talking about impact; and even if the victims were children (tragic though that would be) the impact on my life has been absolutely negligible.

This isn't the first mass shooting in the United States that we've discussed (at length) on this forum; there may be 'lessons' to be learnt but very few of them have any relevance for the United Kingdom. As has been pointed out, America is a different country with different laws and, perhaps more importantly, different attitudes.

And in terms of 'tragedy' this shooting incident, or any mass-shooting in the United States, would rank very, very low in terms of number of deaths, age of victims, frequency of occurrence and any other factors that pluck at our heartstrings. My contention is that its prominence is only really due to our shared language, our (presumed) familiarity with the country where it occurred and other factors that make us feel 'closer' to the incident; it is basically down to 'lazy journalism' as much as anything else.

Think I'm wrong? Well take as an indicator the number of posts given to this and other 'tragedies' on this forum; not only mass-shootings (although there are enough of those) but other incidents that involve great loss of life and possibly as many, or more, lessons to be learned.