There's a steady increase of applications for firearms licenses in Sweden. Kimmel was good and I agree with what he said but I understand why citizens in certain areas in the US and now in Sweden feel they need the protection of a handgun.

I grew up in a mental hospital in Asker, Norway, 20 minutes drive from Oslo. It is called Blakstad Sykehus, still right next door where I live now. My father was the gardener in charge in the mental hospital. They were growing all the vegetables and flowers, apples, strawberries, carrots etc, as needed in a large hospital, with several hundred people all taken care of in this hospital. Some patients were locked up, always, they were a danger to themselves or others. Others walked in fenced off areas, fences of 4 meters i.e. 14 feet high, like caged animals.

They were low on medication those days, in the 50's and 60's, so their minds were disturbed and they needed something to do. So they worked with the vegetables, worked hard, they called it therapy, and in some way, it worked to keep all their daemons a bit away. I was the third chilkd of six in a large family of eight, and there were several other kids in the area, of course. Some of my playmates were the patients, the mentally sick people. One had killed his own father, another was sent to the hospital because the rest of the family did not like him (true). There were murders and totally disturbed people. But they were all taken care of.

Growing up in a mental hospital in a large hospital makes something to you. You get to see a person behind all the rights and wrongs and weakness. One of my "best" friends of the mental patients was "Willy". He was fighting daemons always, he had to knock them down in the air, but he was still a kind, loyal and understanding person. He was brilliant with mathemathics, like me, he loved his calculus. He walked freely in the most peaceful and relaxing hospital area by the oslo Fjord, because they (the Hospital) had plenty of staff, and they had a large area where you could be ill in your mind but still you could move freely around between flowers, rivers, fjord, cats, cows and farms, while the daemons tried their best to destroy your mind. I lived on these premises for eighteen of my first living years.

If you are still around, reading what I am writing, you might ask, why am I saying all of this... I am busy, I am in Copenhagen, I should have published the Copenhagen live thread, and I should have taken care of the 230 still unread incoming e-mail I have right now. And I need to work 8 hours of my real work from my hotel room, plus send five postcards to my grandchildren. It is 9:20am and I will manage.

The reason why I write this is because I would ask people to be more tolerant. Don't always jump the easy solutions. Don't expect anyone to be sane. You may break a leg and you may break a rib and you may have cancer. Thousands and millions suffer from that. There are flods. Hunger. Earthquakes. Millons die and suffer from all sorts of trouble. Mental illness, whether it comes from a history, from brainwash, or from other reasons, is so ignored that it makes me sick, well almost.

You don't want to pay tax. I don't want to pay tax. You don't want rules. I don't want rules. May be 1% - 5% of all people have a mental issue, minor or major. We don't wan't to pay tax or change our laws so that all the mental problems are taken care of like the "normal" illnesses like breaking a leg or having a heart attack. So all the mental cases will be out there with you and me. We have to deal with it. We have to treat people with respect and understanding. Even at 3am when we are drunk and we are in a taxi queue and there are a hundred in the queue and only one taxi, and the guy next is saying shitty things about you, we have to be at our best, don't go for violence, but be understanding and forgiving.

Unfortunately the human mind is not built for forgiving and understanding. It is built for survival. So some of us will fight, and we will aim at any means there are to prove our rights. If there are guns or bombs or other material tools handy, some of us will use them.

Still, the world is a safe place. Of a saw family of four or five "children", may be one survive. The rest will be food for seagulls or other predators. Human beings have a safe life, even if the press try to scare us by these monster headlines about shooting and terror and fear.

FACT:
Few people are killed by terror. The chance of being hit by a car in traffic is many, many, many times higher, than being hit by a shooter from a hotel room in Las Vegas.

FACT:
There are millions and millions of weapons in the world. Most of them are used for elk hunting or deer hunting or personal protection. Then, some of them are used for the wrong purpose, to kill other people. Please DO NOT bring the political discussions about weapon laws or stuff like that to IORR. Then I will close the thread and I will may be close your posting accsess too, if you are being reported as offending by other IORR readers.

FACT:
Gun violence in the United States
[en.wikipedia.org]

Gun violence in the United States results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries annually. In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries (23.2 injuries per 100,000 U.S. citizens), and 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms" (10.6 deaths per 100,000 U.S. citizens). These deaths consisted of 11,208 homicides, 21,175 suicides, 505 deaths due to accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm, and 281 deaths due to firearms use with "undetermined intent". Of the 2,596,993 total deaths in the US in 2013, 1.3% were related to firearms.The ownership and control of guns are among the most widely debated issues in the country.

FACT:
WE CAN NOT AND WILL NOT DISCUSS WEAPON LAWS OR POLITICS HERE ON IORR.

Thanks for your understanding. This took an hour away from my schedule today, but it is important for me to inform rather than just delete posts and ban posters, which is easy, and very tempting, especially on show day...

Bjornulf

bv, Thank you for taking the time to tell your articulated story. Very eloquent, that's why I look forward to reading anything you post. Hopefully the next one will be about the extraordinary time you have tonight. And yes I'm back after my big disappointment in Hamburg. I'll try again in Dusseldorf and Arnhem at least. Best regards.

Guns, danger and violence related to hand guns or bombs in general is really all about mathematics, really. It is not politics at all. Fact is 1% - 5% of all people are mentally unstable at one or more moments in their lives. Add dangerous weapons to all people at all times, like guns, a knife, a bomb or something. The socalled protection is virtual. It is a "felt" protection. Not real.

If everyone around you is wearing a gun then the chance of being killed by a mentally unstable person is 10 or even 100 times bigger than being hit by a brain washed looser.

Just let the terrorists die as loosers and let us be in sad memory of those who died. But please do not use IORR to any campaigns in favour of guns. It will not be tolerated. Guns are made to kill. Nothing else. It does not make any sense to kill life. You would never hand out guns to people in a mental hospital? Right? So why would you hand out guns to the free world, where more than one out of a hundred are mental at all times? It is basic statistics, mathematics, nothing more. And you see it clearly in those countries who have liberal gun laws. It is all statistics. Not related to terror, but to laws and mathematics.

Bjornulf

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MileHigh

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black n blue
America is a mess and going down. The roman empire

No, in fact America is the greatest country in the entire history of the world. Sure it has its problems just like any other country has problems but America bashing is just a worn-out cliche. America and the West rule, and they have ruled for the past 400+ years. From the moment you open your eyes in the morning you see the benefits of Western Civilization and Western Culture everywhere you look. And this lasts until you close your eyes when you go to sleep. It's worth it to put these things in perspective sometimes.

Take the Red Pill.

I love America. I have family there, and I have been there several times, both as a tourist and on tour.

However, there are lots of things going on there that make me worried about my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my nephews and my niece.

In which way is America the «greatest» country, in your opinion?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-03 12:06 by DandelionPowderman.

Bjornulf wants this discussion to end, so I will just respond with a rhetorical question to make you think.

Why does just the state of California have the sixth largest economy in the entire world and what does that say abut America?

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MileHigh
Bjornulf wants this discussion to end, so I will just respond with a rhetorical question to make you think.

Why does just the state of California have the sixth largest economy in the entire world and what does that say abut America?

It tells me nothing, and I'm a business journalist. But I somehow doubt that people in, say, Riverside feel like they're on top of the world

However, I know that state particularly well, as that's where I have family.

If money was everything Trump would be a nice chap, too



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-03 13:19 by DandelionPowderman.

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MileHigh
Bjornulf wants this discussion to end, so I will just respond with a rhetorical question to make you think.

Why does just the state of California have the sixth largest economy in the entire world and what does that say abut America?

Flakes.
California's got the most of them
Boy, they got a host of them.

(F. Zappa)

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MileHigh
Bjornulf wants this discussion to end, so I will just respond with a rhetorical question to make you think.

Why does just the state of California have the sixth largest economy in the entire world and what does that say abut America?

Please do not take any gun control comments as critics vs the place you live in, in case you live in USA. It is possible to do 1,000 things right and one thing wrong. May be having a zillion guns around makes people rich and happy, may be that is the answer to your question.

Cuba has got one of the best education systems and one of the best heath care systems around, still they suffer a lot from economical lack of growth. Are they happy? Well their expected lifetime is the same as in Norway so they don't die from not being rich. Are they happy?

All of this is political discussions really. But handing out guns to mad people can never be smart. If there is someone in the world that can explain to me why all insane people could have guns then fair enough. It is about mathematics. Prove me wrong. It is more dangerous to have six bullets in the chambers with russian roulette than having just one. Liberal gun politics will mathematically increase the death rate. The numbers don't lie. So may be the side effects of being rich is you may be shot by an insane or unstable person, at a higher risk than in a place when nobody have access to guns, and they are poor.

PS. We could all have a zillion guns at home, no worries, if we were smart, sober, well behaved and we never had any mental issues. The problem is the fact that people drink, they snap, and they get mentally unstable. Then it is like giving a gun to a monkey. You don't know what will happen.

Bjornulf



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-03 16:28 by bv.

Humanity first found sticks and stones as weapons, then they became "civilized" and developed spears, swords, and knives. Next came the guns and artillery. The future is lasers and such. Mankind has been killing each other since the beginning of time, only now they have figured out ways to kill many and often by one person. Violence has always been entrenched in our civilization.

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The Sicilian
Humanity first found sticks and stones as weapons, then they became "civilized" and developed spears, swords, and knives. Next came the guns and artillery. The future is lasers and such. Mankind has been killing each other since the beginning of time, only now they have figured out ways to kill many and often by one person. Violence has always been entrenched in our civilization.

Yep. As Springsteen said "Adam raised a Cain......" - the first murderer

"No Anchovies, Please"

B.v is saying pretty much exactly what I was getting at yesterday.in America the powers that be decided a few years ago that it was cheaper to medicate crazy people and leave them on the streets rather than put them in a mental hospital it's why you only had these mass shootings in the last 30 years or so and before the 1960,s there were none.same country same laws, no mass killings.first one was 1962 and the guy had a brain tumor.its easy to point to a gun than to face what the government did to save money.its the people's fault,it's the guns fault never the truth.never, they just cover it up every time and people buy it.

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MisterDDDD
Jimmy nailed it (again). Very moving.

He did indeed. Is'nt this the kind of empathy you should hear from a head of state?

I'm still so shocked. Just the day before Depeche Mode played there, some friends where at that show, but are luckily all fine. Just how thin is the line sometimes.

Are there really people who believe "thoughts & prayers" alone will solve this horrible situation or do some think this is just a "price to pay"?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-03 20:02 by karimamilena.

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bv
Guns, danger and violence related to hand guns or bombs in general is really all about mathematics, really. It is not politics at all. Fact is 1% - 5% of all people are mentally unstable at one or more moments in their lives. Add dangerous weapons to all people at all times, like guns, a knife, a bomb or something. The socalled protection is virtual. It is a "felt" protection. Not real.

If everyone around you is wearing a gun then the chance of being killed by a mentally unstable person is 10 or even 100 times bigger than being hit by a brain washed looser.

Just let the terrorists die as loosers and let us be in sad memory of those who died. But please do not use IORR to any campaigns in favour of guns. It will not be tolerated. Guns are made to kill. Nothing else. It does not make any sense to kill life. You would never hand out guns to people in a mental hospital? Right? So why would you hand out guns to the free world, where more than one out of a hundred are mental at all times? It is basic statistics, mathematics, nothing more. And you see it clearly in those countries who have liberal gun laws. It is all statistics. Not related to terror, but to laws and mathematics.

Thanks a lot for that Bjornulf, couldn't agree more. I'm happy to live in a country, France, with very strict laws about guns. We (i should say they because i've never had or even touched a firearm in my whole life) have a lot of guns but people sometimes try to use this statistic in a dishonest way. In fact, most of our guns are riffles for hunting, which don't even shoot bullets but shot-cartridges for small animals like rabbits or birds. Not the kind of weapons you can use for a mass shooting. I don't know anybody who owns a hand gun (it's very difficult to get a license for that and less than 50 per year are delivered) and i don't know anybody who owns a semi automatic big gun (which is 100% illegal, not even talk about open carry).

The result is, except for the very tragic Bataclan terrorist attack, the average murder rate in Paris (2 millions people) is around 40 per year, and 70 per year for the whole Paris area. Around 750 murders per year for the whole 66 millions people country (one third by guns).
So my fellow americans, and don't get me wrong i love your country, i really love your country, name one big 2 millions people american city with such numbers??

One last thing, because i know it's a big issue in the USA. I've been driving a lot in my life, for different reasons. And i've been controlled maybe 15 times, driving license and insurance check, alcohol test, a couple of times because i crossed the speed limit. The cops have always been very polite, half of the time smiling. They never asked me if i had a gun, they never got nervous when i looked for papers in my pocket, my bag or the glove box. They never "feared for their life". They never asked me to keep my hands on the wheel. Because they know the statistics. And the statistics say that i don't have a gun, like almost every other drivers.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-03 20:02 by Jumpinjackflash59.

Bjornulf - Well said and thank you. Enjoy the show tonight.


sc uk

Rosanne Cash wrote an excellent opinion piece in the NYT re the power of (particularly country) musicians to affect change in the aftermath.

Rosanne Cash: Country Musicians, Stand Up to the N.R.A.
"For the past few decades, the National Rifle Association has increasingly nurtured an alliance with country music artists and their fans. You can see it in “N.R.A. Country,” which promotes the artists who support the philosophical, if not economic, thrall of the N.R.A., with the pernicious tag line “Celebrate the Lifestyle.”

[www.nytimes.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-03 19:57 by MisterDDDD.

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karimamilena

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MisterDDDD
Jimmy nailed it (again). Very moving.

He did indeed. Is'nt this the kind of empathy you should hear from a head of state?

I'm still so shocked. Just the day before Depeche Mode played there, some friends where at that show, but are luckily all fine. Just how thin is the line sometimes.

Are there really people who believe "thoughts & prayers" alone will solve this horrible situation or do some think this is just a "price to pay"?

Certainly not. Crying on national TV is not suitable for a president.

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Redhotcarpet

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karimamilena

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MisterDDDD
Jimmy nailed it (again). Very moving.

He did indeed. Is'nt this the kind of empathy you should hear from a head of state?

I'm still so shocked. Just the day before Depeche Mode played there, some friends where at that show, but are luckily all fine. Just how thin is the line sometimes.

Are there really people who believe "thoughts & prayers" alone will solve this horrible situation or do some think this is just a "price to pay"?

Certainly not. Crying on national TV is not suitable for a president.

Why is it not?

Look at the FBI stats on gun violence-Americas inner cities are an ongoing war zone.if you take away the gun murders from them the rest of the country is one of the safest on the planet.
State run media won't tell you that and mentally ill white guys fuel the headlines"crazy rednecks with guns,take em away"i cannot believe people still ger their information from television."make sure you get a camera shot of that blood on the concrete boys"

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karimamilena

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Redhotcarpet

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karimamilena

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MisterDDDD
Jimmy nailed it (again). Very moving.

He did indeed. Is'nt this the kind of empathy you should hear from a head of state?

I'm still so shocked. Just the day before Depeche Mode played there, some friends where at that show, but are luckily all fine. Just how thin is the line sometimes.

Are there really people who believe "thoughts & prayers" alone will solve this horrible situation or do some think this is just a "price to pay"?

Certainly not. Crying on national TV is not suitable for a president.

Why is it not?

No answer @redhotcarpet? What a pity. You can't even explain your thoughts or convictions in words but seem to insist that they are right. Think deeper, feel deeper.

I don't think you can simplify this incident with the label of "mental illness."

This shooter was well financed...
Hotel room in the perfect spot for multiple nights...
Tons of weapons and ammo...
More apparently at his home...
Plus chemicals...
AND he wired $100,000 to his girlfriend's family home overseas days before the killing.

More to come...I'm sure.

Brutal. @#$%& brutal.

That's interesting Kurt.somebody on this very site told me yesterday that it couldn't be compared to a regular terrorist attack because the guns are so "easily available " a guy like this could just be having a bad day and reek havoc.uh,no-
People who know nothing about guns think full automatics are legal in Nevada because of those rusty old pre-86ers the gun ranges let the tourists shoot full auto is a federal crime 5-10 years in prison for a first offense.this guy was nuts but well financed.maybe our first millionaire psycho killer.

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lem motlow
Look at the FBI stats on gun violence-Americas inner cities are an ongoing war zone.if you take away the gun murders from them the rest of the country is one of the safest on the planet.
State run media won't tell you that and mentally ill white guys fuel the headlines"crazy rednecks with guns,take em away"i cannot believe people still ger their information from television."make sure you get a camera shot of that blood on the concrete boys"

Yes, and there is a true reality disconnect out there in the media. One person calls it "the greatest lie of our generation." It's too hot an issue for here but I hope and pray that it gets resolved one day. This tragic incident should not be used as a vehicle for America bashing. Like I said before, watching the clips from within the crowd itself is devastating, and similar senseless and devastating things are happening every single day in America and although the press minimally reports it, and they are afraid to discuss the root causes.

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MileHigh

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lem motlow
Look at the FBI stats on gun violence-Americas inner cities are an ongoing war zone.if you take away the gun murders from them the rest of the country is one of the safest on the planet.
State run media won't tell you that and mentally ill white guys fuel the headlines"crazy rednecks with guns,take em away"i cannot believe people still ger their information from television."make sure you get a camera shot of that blood on the concrete boys"

Yes, and there is a true reality disconnect out there in the media. One person calls it "the greatest lie of our generation." It's too hot an issue for here but I hope and pray that it gets resolved one day. This tragic incident should not be used as a vehicle for America bashing. Like I said before, watching the clips from within the crowd itself is devastating, and similar senseless and devastating things are happening every single day in America and although the press minimally reports it, and they are afraid to discuss the root causes.

Ah, there we go: blame the blacks. That's what you want to say, right?

Man,that is one thin playbook.its like watching a bad football team-ok, here comes the run...now the short pass over the middle.-sleep inducing

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Kurt
I don't think you can simplify this incident with the label of "mental illness."

This shooter was well financed...
Hotel room in the perfect spot for multiple nights...
Tons of weapons and ammo...
More apparently at his home...
Plus chemicals...
AND he wired $100,000 to his girlfriend's family home overseas days before the killing.

More to come...I'm sure.

Brutal. @#$%& brutal.

Just because he was well financed, professionally qualified, organised and well equipped does not mean he could not have been mentally ill too. We'll know more in the coming days and weeks.

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lem motlow
Man,that is one thin playbook.its like watching a bad football team-ok, here comes the run...now the short pass over the middle.-sleep inducing

No playbook. You flat out blamed crime rates solely on inner city “war zones”...

...which is not true, as crime rates have been steadily declining for over 20 years. This isn't 1983 anymore.

You and Mile High are practically jerking yourselves off with the racial dog whistles. You brought it up...I simply pointed it out.

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Redhotcarpet
Crying on national TV is not suitable for a president.

Obama after Sandy Hook. It told me that he genuinely cared about the whole incident and wanted to do something to effect change, even if he didn't ultimately succeed (which wasn't his fault).

I'm not sure there was anything anyone could have done to have totally prevented the Las Vegas attack, however. But it could have been made much more difficult, and that's what we should be aiming for.

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keefriff99

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lem motlow
Man,that is one thin playbook.its like watching a bad football team-ok, here comes the run...now the short pass over the middle.-sleep inducing

No playbook. You flat out blamed crime rates solely on inner city “war zones”...

...which is not true, as crime rates have been steadily declining for over 20 years. This isn't 1983 anymore.

You and Mile High are practically jerking yourselves off with the racial dog whistles. You brought it up...I simply pointed it out.

You might want to look in the mirror for the wanking comment. Do you want to make the world a better place? Do you know what is more important than accusatory rhetoric and supposed righteous indignation and playing from an old and worn out rule book? The answer is the truth. Yes, the truth is more important than anything that you or I can say. And that's not your spin on the truth, we are talking about the actual objective truth.