Not just another OP about unlawful shootings

[Euromutt]

This one's a little different, because it covers incidents in and around my old home town of The Hague, in the Netherlands. These are for this year alone, and are collected from the website district8.net. Note that these are only incidents in which a weapon was discharged. Format is date, city/town and between parentheses the street.

01-Mar-2009, Rotterdam (Herman Bavinckstraat): at least six shots fired, one wounded, one of several suspects arrested (http://district8.net/gewonde-bij-schietpartij-in-de-herman-bavinckstraat.html)

02-Mar-2009, Delft (Dakarhof): multiple shots fired, one wounded, two suspects arrested (http://district8.net/schietpartij-met-gewonde-dakarhof.html).

05-Mar-2009, Delft (Dakarhof): multiple shots fired, no known casualties, SWAT team deployed, seven suspects arrested (http://district8.net/arrestatieteam-ingezet-na-schietpartij-dakarhof.html#more-4014)

05-Mar-2009, The Hague (Oltmansstraat): multiple shots fired, one wounded, five suspects arrested (http://district8.net/politieberichten-6-maart-2009.html#more-5051)

18-Mar-2009, Rotterdam (Vierambachtstraat): multiple shots fired, one wounded, one suspect arrested (http://district8.net/schietpartij-vierambachtstraat.html#more-5266)

22-Mar-2009, The Hague (Harlekijneendstraat): multiple shots fired, one wounded, two suspects arrested (http://district8.net/schietpartij-met-gewonde-harlekijneendstraat.html#more-5346)

02-Apr-2009, The Hague (Weimarstraat): multiple shots fired, one Albanian wounded, three other Albanians brought in for questioning (http://district8.net/schietpartij-cafe-weimarstraat.html)

11-Apr-2009, Rotterdam (Poolsterplein): man opens fire in bar (apparently at random), then continues shooting outside, one dead, three wounded, shooter arrested (http://district8.net/dode-bij-schietpartij-in-rotterdams-cafe-poolsterplein.html#more-5870)

10-May-2009, Delft (Westvest): shooting incident, one wounded, one suspect arrested (http://district8.net/schietpartij-met-gewonde-westvest.html#more-6811)

10-May-2009, The Hague (Visafslagweg): two men on a scooter open fire on a car, one occupant wounded (http://district8.net/schietincident-visafslagweg.html)

15-May-2009, The Hague (Jan Luykenlaan): shots fired, no apparent casualties, no suspects (http://district8.net/schietincident-moerweg.html)

22-May-2009, Zoetermeer (Stephensonstraat): multiple shots fired at a car, no casualties or arrests reported; police suspect domestic incident (http://district8.net/politie-onderzoekt-schietincident-stephensonstraat.html#more-7277)

11-Jun-2009, Zoetermeer (Ruimtebaan): convoluted story involving a fight between a teenage boy and girl, the girl's brother threatening the boy with a handgun, and somebody else taking a shot at the girl's family; no casualties (http://district8.net/schietincident-ruimtebaan.html#more-8086)

15-Jun-2009, Delft (Chopinlaan): man (allegedly strung out on drugs) opens fire on the street with a repeating shotgun, three wounded, shooter arrested (http://district8.net/man-schiet-op-omstanders-chopinlaan.html#more-8280)

30-Jun-2009, Hoogvliet (Texasweg): man shot multiple times by his car and killed, one suspect arrested (http://district8.net/man-doodgeschoten-texasweg-hoogvliet.html#more-8871)

15-Jul-2009, The Hague (Abraham van Beyerenstraat): argument in street culminates in one guy pulling a gun and firing one shot, no casualties (http://district8.net/schietincident-abraham-van-beyerenstraat-den-haag.html)

22-Aug-2009, Hoek van Holland (beach): at the Sunset Grooves beach festival, several fights break out between supporters of rival soccer teams; when gunfire breaks out on the crowd, police respond; police gunfire kills one man and wounds two more, four more people suffer GSWs of as yet unknown origin (http://district8.net/schoten-gelost-op-dancefeest-hoek-van-holland.html http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/2009/9/3/030909_hoekvanholland_kogel.html)

06-Sep-2009, The Hague (Boekhorststraat): an incident of an yet undisclosed nature occurred in a house which reportedly contained an illicit cannabis-growing facility, in which at least one shot was fired; police were alerted when they saw three suspects fleeing the scene (http://district8.net/incident-boekhorststraat-den-haag.html)

I can't say with any certainty that this list is exhaustive. Even so, we have eighteen incidents involving unlawful discharges of firearms over a period of slightly over seven months, in an area about the size of greater Boston (inside the 128 beltway). And while this number of incidents might not be remarkable in a major American city, the key here is that these incidents took place in a country where it has been extremely difficult to legally own a firearm for ninety years. Moreover, the likelihood that any of these incidents involved a legally owned firearm is just about zero.

So in a country with tight gun control laws, surrounded by countries with comparably restrictive gun laws, how can all these incidents happen?

[imdjh]

1. Your news people suck. No mug shots? That's no fun.

[Euromutt]

4. No last names, either

The Dutch media have a voluntary code of conduct that is very respectful of criminal suspects' privacy. Though in any case that gets coverage outside the Netherlands, the full name and photo of the defendant is readily available in this day and age, so you get the rather silly situation that the Dutch media will be trying to hide a cat that's already well out of the bag.

[imdjh]

7. Canada plays the same game.

They have rules about what can be reported, but if it's more than a shoplifting charge, it will probably make it to the New York state press with details.

[Statistical]

2. 2% rule.

2% of population causes 50% of violent crime.

Thus even if you remove 100% of lawful firearms (a massive and expensive task) and prohibit all new sales and remove say 90% of illegal firearms that is MORE THAN enough for the 2% to remain armed.

As long as 2% of the population remains armed they will still have the ability to commit a substantial amount of crime with firearms. Of course they could still commit violent crime without firearms but to help the antis lets look at just violent gun crime.

Most laws would work if crime was either evenly distributed (even amount of people ranging from very violent to non violent), or normally distributed (most people commit small amount of violent crime, very few commit a lot, and very few commit none).

The reality is the distributed is massively skewed to one side.

2% of population commits 50% of violent crimes
95% of population will never in their entire lifetime commit a single violent crime.

So you can easily disarm the 95% but even a small number of illegal guns per capita will keep the 2% armed.

[imdjh]

8. I thought it was 3.6% commits virtually ALL violent crime.

Didn't we just have a big old flaming thread about that?

[Statistical]

10. Yeah depends on how much you want to move the slider.

Both are true 3.6% cause vast majority.
About 2% cause about half.

I am just using the 2% to indicate even if somehow you could disarm 98% of criminals and 100% of law abiding that would still mean HALF of all violent crimes the criminal had access to a weapon.

When one thinks about that it is the root cause of why gun control is a failure in preventing violent crime w/ firearms.

98% success rate is pretty amazing for a govt policy. However even IF (which I believe is impossible) we removed "magically" 98% of illegal firearms and all legal firearms (to prevent acces via theft, or fraud) there would be STILL be enough for the most violent to remain armed.

The uneven distribution of crime means that any policy that is not 100% effective in reducing firearms will not be very effective in reducing violent crime. Given that 100% success rate is a pipe dream it is unlikely gun control will ever have more than a token effect on violent crime.

[cliffordu]

3. You guys shore can't shoot.

[Euromutt]

5. True, but in their defense...

...there's nowhere for possessors of illegal firearms to practice. It's a very densely populated country, and I doubt there's a single place where you can fire a gun without somebody being able to see or hear you.

[cliffordu]

6. That's true. Perhaps I should spot them a few points based on that./.....

[imdjh]

9. Looks like there might be a range at Lijnbaansgracht 162 in Amsterdam

Of course, no one would be able to find it because the address is backwards and written in some unintelligible language.

[cliffordu]

12. And, everyone in Amsterdam is apparently stoned.

[imdjh]

13. They don't own guns anyway, bunch of granola heads. They deserve to be over-run.

[Euromutt]

17. Ranges are members only

You have to be a member of a gun club, and of the Royal Dutch Shooters Association, to even apply for a firearms permit, and consequently, you have to have a clean criminal record to join a gun club in the first place. The gun club does have a legal obligation to ensure that any weapons in the hands of its members are legal, so it's not like you can just stroll in with a firearm of dubious origin and not have any questions asked.

[Howzit]

11. "how can all these incidents happen?"

Obviously these guns were smuggled over the border from the USA.

























Is anything about the origin of these guns ever published? How about the fact that criminals that are willing to commit homicide aren't likely to follow "gun control" laws - does it ever come up in discussion?

[imdjh]

14. Ask Gene Wilder

[Treo]

21. Huh? NT

[Euromutt]

18. Some details are available in high-profile cases

It's known that the gun used to murder populist politician Pim Fortuyn was a Spanish-made Star Firestar M-43 (http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg113-e.htm) bought off a guy in a bar in Ede. The gun Mohammed Bouyeri (excuse me, "Mohammed B.") used to murder filmmaker Theo van Gogh was a Croatian-made HS2000 (sold in the US as the Springfield Armory XD)).

Most illegal guns in the Netherlands are smuggled in from eastern Europe, I think. Organized crime assassinations are typically carried out by hitmen from the former Yugoslavia; they travel up to do the job and bring their own guns with them (and take them back when they're done).

And no, there's not much note made of the fact that gun control only seems to work on those willing to abide by it. On the upside, though, since crime guns are almost universally illegally imported and possessed, nobody thinks that the answer is to further tighten restrictions on legal gun ownership.

[spin]

15. I suspect criminal drug gangs are responsible for some of the shootings...

Pressure to reform Dutch drug laws as gang violence grows

By the time the shooting ended, the A73 south of Megan was littered with bullet casings, and one man lay dead in his car with another sprawled wounded in the passenger seat.

The survivor refused to talk to police, even though a hired assassin had pursued his vehicle shooting at it without hitting for several miles before finally catching up and riddling it with automatic fire.

Commuters were horrified, but the murder in September was wearily familiar to detectives who have dealt with 25 gangland-style killings in suburban southern Holland over the past three years.

As usual, there was a cannabis connection. The assassin was a hired Bulgarian and his two victims, men in their twenties, had been involved with one of the thousands of cannabis "nurseries" which flourish out of sight in the attics, sheds and spare rooms of small towns – using Dutch horticultural expertise honed from years of growing tomatoes and tulips.

Billions of euros worth of cannabis is grown for export – much of it to Britain – in Holland's modern cannabis industry, which has come a long way since the days of penniless hippies growing pot on Amsterdam houseboats and opening "coffee shops" where stoner's could happily puff away in an atmosphere of dope haze, peace and love.

Now there is so much money and violence involved that Holland's police commissioner responsible for cannabis calls it a danger to Dutch society.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3997943/Pressure-to-reform-Dutch-drug-laws-as-gang-violence-grows.html

[Euromutt]

19. Oh, absolutely; though drugs-related doesn't always mean gang-related

The Dutch criminal circuit doesn't seem to be quite as organized as gangs in places like Chicago or Baltimore. The guy killed in the incident above was an independent operator, who basically ran a bunch of cannabis "nurseries" in the houses of people who owed him money.

Commissioner Daniel, along with the current coalition government, have it exactly wrong regarding what needs to be done, incidentally. The problem is that, while possession and retail sale of cannabis has been decriminalized, production and import has not. So while the "coffee shops" are tolerated as long as they stick to the rules laid down by the government (e.g. they're not allowed to have more than 500 grams of cannabis on the premises, no alcohol, no hard drugs, and no smoking tobacco either these days), there's no legal or even decriminalized source to supply them with merchandise. And because any good or service for which there is a demand but which is illegal ipso facto becomes vulnerable to (semi-)organized crime, that's exactly what happened with the production of cannabis.

The obvious solution is to legalize and regulate the production of marijuana; to bring it out of the shadows and out of the grasp of the drug gangs. Instead, Daniel and the Christian right-wing members of the coalition want to drive that part of the cannabis trade that's already in the open back into the dark. "Stupid" doesn't even begin to describe it.

[spin]

20. The U.S also needs to legalize and regulate the production of marijuana...

and some other drugs. The war on drugs was lost years ago.

[proteus_lives]

16. But...But....But...

Europe is supposed to a no-gun Utopia!


It's almost like if a criminal is determined to get a gun, they will. It's like gun-control laws don't punish them....but then who do they affect???

[Euromutt]

22. Communists

I'm not kidding, actually. Like quite a large number of other European countries, the Netherlands adopted gun control shortly after the end of World War I, primarily because after the Russian revolution of 1917 and the German revolution of 1918, the prospect of a lot of young men, experienced with firearms and with every reason to be angry at their governments (especially those that didn't allow many or all of them to vote), returning to civilian society made those governments very nervous that somebody might get ideas about how maybe somebody else ought to be running the country. I'm much inclined to call this a legitimacy problem on the part of the governments in question.

Be that as it may, you'd think that now the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is dissolved, and the threat of a Communist coup has abated, the gun laws could be relaxed, but apparently not.

[Statistical]

23. inertia

changing something generally requires a change in momentum.

There was a "reason" to ban firearms. It was critical and relevant for the times.
They were banned, the reason passed away.

Generally things don't get unbanned because "it is the right thing to do" it requires some sort of spark.

Take US Drug War for example, total failure but we dump billion after billion into it decades later.
It is obvious we are never going to "win the war on drugs". It take Police time, manpower, billions in legal costs, and then non-violent offenders fill up jail cells faster than they can be built. Violent offenders get sentence reductions and are released to go out and commit hundreds of violent felonies before they are caught again (and get reduced sentence due to overcrowding).

There is no logical evidence to continue down that path but we do.... inertia.

[Euromutt]

24. True; which is itself a good argument...

...for the idea that all statutory laws should have a sunset provision. At least that way, societal/governmental inertia will hamper the continued existence of laws that have ceased to serve a purpose.

[Statistical]

25. I agree with that without the sunset likely the AWB would still be active.

Too easy to pass off disinformation.

The media along with their friends in VPC and Brady Bunch would mock those who are trying to repeal it as "trying to give machine guns to felons".