US: 30 shot at school, China: 22 knifed at school

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Syzygys, Dec 14, 2012.

  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Correct. But it can cure many of them.

    Doctors cannot cure all cancer. But it would be stupid to the extreme to say "therefore going to a doctor doesn't help cancer victims."

    If poor mental health resulted in only the person suffering it paying a penalty that would be true. But when it results in mass murder then society at large has a stake in ensuring that the mentally ill get health. That's why doctors can confine mental patients to hospitals against their will - because it's not just themselves who may suffer from their illness.
     
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  3. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I am? The statement I made concerns availability of mental health assistance. It says nothing about what psychotherappy in particular can and cannot do.

    If the core of it is genetic then your choices are suppression (which is always unhealthy), redirection (which may or may not work and takes a lot of continual effort), or venting (get it out of your system). If the core issue is learned but deep very deep rooted then addressing it might take a day or a life-time. Until it's addressed, your options are again supression, redirection, or venting.

    This does of course assume that people are accurately aware of their mental health, value it, and / or have a desire to invest the time to manage it. My experiences don't show most people as being in that category.
     
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  5. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. Given its lethal nature, who would risk not turning to medicine for help? Mental illness can be as tragic, as cruel as the worst of physical diseases.

    The other side of this is prevention. Considering the vast resources applied to "crime prevention" (if we actually believe that's what prisons and death chambers are) and for all the gold gone to preventing physical disease, little (if any) preventative mental health measures can be found.

    Cancer is a good comparison. In addition to its insidious nature, it certainly gets more attention in terms of prevention than mental illness does. It's merely a matter of perception. Physical disease is immediate, tangible, perhaps irreversible. Mental illness may be just as severe in all respects, but perhaps not as evident to the general public--until something very tragic reminds us of its hidden dangers.

    Prevention doesn't even necessarily involve psychotherapy. Presumably that's after the fact. Proactive measures might include methods of developing self-worth, teaching skills in mediating personality issues, and screening for the onset of true psychoses. Most of all, there needs to be way to stop the cynics and psychopaths from controlling public policy, and instead, turning the policy decisions over to the experts.
     
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  7. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Correct.
    Morality in society is arbitrary. It is the result of majority consensus. Sometimes, not even a majority.
    Insanity is, therefore, a highly subjective judgement.
     
  8. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    For example, taking guns away from everyone may be viewed as immoral by 51%, so it will be prohibited.

    49% may lobby for repeal of the Second Amendment, but to no avail. 51% would even be insufficient. In this case, 66% of Congress and 75% of the state legislatures would have to act. In other words, some moral decisions require a super-super majority.

    Carrying on a conversation with an imaginary friend is typical of one of several obvious objective factors. The issue as I see it is that we are not actually relying on mental heath science. We are not entrusting the policy to the experts. Today, everyone's an expert. Just as people who have no clue about economics want to regulate the Fed, people who have no clue about biology and climate science want to regulate education, and so on, people with no clue about mental health science want to proclaim their interpretations of the 2nd Amend. and the gun laws, and to cry about losing their precious assault rifles and large capacity magazines.

    What's basic to this, and universally understood in terms of morality, is selfishness, arrogance, indifference and cruelty. Stubborn, pig-headed self-interest will not have any decline until experts gain a larger role in controlling public policy. Until then, it's mob rule.
     
  9. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    And this type of thing I am really tired of hearing.
    You know, Bells, even South Park covered this type of thing. Will somebody please think of the Children!

    Gut, emotional reactions which don't stand up to comparison unless you consider an evolutionary compulsion. Obviously you and Asguard are as one on this, but I mean seriously, the boy almost sounds hysterical about it. It is a very unsophisticated argument, philosophically speaking, but a powerful one nonetheless... because everyone has children.

    There are 7 billion people in this world. 370-odd million in the USA alone.
    A few kids every once in a while is not a great loss, no matter how emotional you feel about it.
    Yes, if it was my kid, I'd be emotional. I get that. But I can not pretend I feel anything for a handful amongst billions if they're not mine.

    Seriously, get some perspective. Count the number of threads devoted to gun control as opposed to, for the sake of example, human trafficking. Child trafficking, to be specific. women, female children, what have you. Asian sweat shops producing your Nikes and t-shirts.


    And you're all up in arms (hah) about 20-odd kids at school who copped a bullet, or eleven.

    You want to get all emotional about something?
    Get emotional about something serious.
    But as long as you keep pecking at the small stuff, I'm not going to buy in.

    Every day I see something new in the papers, just one more way being human comes to mean more and more about serving some transient ideal society has.
    We're becoming more and more part of humanity rather than being human.

    Gun control?
    You're being controlled.
    Forced to look at and consider only those things you're told to. Count the posts. Count the threads. You're all a friggin' microcosm of controlled thought, and you all think this is a place where you can express your individuality.

    I don't like it. One of the most unique things about being human is individuality. And all I'm seeing is a mob mentality, swayed by issues the media deems to be important, in order to sell a few papers.
    Get angry about something real.

    For fuck's sake. You want to know what was going through this kid's head to make him hate so much?
    Just look at yourselves.
     
  10. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Stubborn, pig headed, self interest is exactly the thing which led to us being human to begin with.

    Where is the saturation point at which we all become worker bees subject to the final, all-encompassing ideal?
    What will we eventually give up entirely in order to feel safe?

    Human numbers aren't important anymore. What we become, eventually, is the final measure of success as a species.
     
  11. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    The Republican leadership has been perfectly mum on this important issue – kind of strange. But not really, according to former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough Republican leaders have informed him that they could not render a position on Newtown until the National Rifle Association lays out a position – talk about being in the pocket of a lobby. This is just another clear demonstration of what we all know. Our government is not ours, it’s owned by special interests like the gun lobby.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2012
  12. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Well someone has to.

    How many mass shootings does there have to be before they recognise that the current status quo is just not working?

    The US almost has as many guns within the civilian population than it has people, they keep pushing 'more guns less crime' line, and yet, the US is also in the top percentile when it comes to gun crimes.

    What does that tell you?

    Bullshit.

    Not everyone has children.

    Again, I ask, how many mass shootings have to occur before there is a recognition that having all and sundry be allowed to arm themselves just isn't working?

    What's the magic number?

    So you are more concerned about the loss of one's right to buy an assault firearm than you are about some "kids" being shot up in their school? I mean hey, it's no great loss if a a few kids get shot up in their classrooms every once in a while, is it? But put restrictions on assault weapons and you're all over it like a rash.

    I guess your priorities differ to mine.

    Get some perspective?

    You are bleating like an NRA sheep because there is mere talk of gun control when it comes to assault weapons and you ask me to get some perspective?

    Are you saying that mass murdering children is less important than child trafficking and sweat shops? Or should we only focus on what you deem is important and ignore the rest?

    After all, what's the slaughter of a few dozen kids?

    See, when you try to be funny, it doesn't really work, dearest.

    You don't think so many mass shootings is something serious enough?

    Indeed:

    "A few kids every once in a while is not a great loss, no matter how emotional you feel about it."​


    So when did you stop being human?

    When did you become an NRA sheeple?

    Oh please, get off your high horse.

    You are keeping this thread going as much as everyone else.

    I'm sorry, but 20 children slaughtered as they tried to hide in a corner of their class room is not "real" enough for you?

    So what should be be getting angry about? Because you and I both know that if we express anger at other subject matter, you will come out with the same hogwash and be all high and mighty and high brow.

    Yes, he probably thought "a few kids every once in a while is not a great loss"..

    Look at yourselves, indeed..
     
  13. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    As I've already covered, the statistics show that there is plenty more wrong with America than its guns.
    But no one wants to listen. You're all sold on a bandaid. You're like old folks in the USA watching drug company commercials and telling themselves "Yeah, I'll buy me some of that". You're trying to cure heart diease with a pill, rather than addressing the causes of heart disease.

    It never seems to occur to anyone that the American abhorrence for gun control is not born of a love of guns.

    I was referring to the emotional response, Bells. Not the literal content.

    Bells, Bells, Bells.... I'm not against gun control. I'm against control as a response to a human problem. I'm against your Answers.
    Please try to see that.

    Correct. You cannot fix humanity by controlling it.
    Gun control is not the issue. Control, in general, is the issue.
    Try to control me too much, and I'll be up in a tower with a high powered rifle along with the rest of them.
    Do you really not get that? Do you not see where these people are made?
    Everyone has a line. And in response to them, you draw more lines, and more lines, and yet more lines.
    One of these days you're all going to realise you're all trying to put out a bushfire with a blanket.

    Some revolutions are lauded, others deplored. But every single one of them was the result on some part of humanity trying to impose itself on another. That's the key. You're all trying to stamp out oppression in one form or another by applying more of it.

    Consider this: Everything you might hate about me, is what I hate about you.
    You despise my arrogance; I despise yours. The difference between us is that you disguise your own behind... a moral high ground. Arrogance might be displayed openly or hidden behind a moral majority, but it's the same thing.

    Those with the confidence of a moral majority are comfortable with it. Those who don't have that are the bullied child on a playground who might just lash out, someday.
    Like this kid did.

    Oh, I'm not sure our priorities are all that different. Our understanding of the solutions, though, are a different matter.

    Yes, I do. Partly because there is far more damage being done elsewhere, and partly because it's so easy for you to come to the conclusion that I'm an NRA sheep.

    No, Bells. I'm merely pointing out that some things are far more dangerous and current, yet seem to be largely ignored.
    The ones we concentrate on seem to me to be those we're exposed to more often.

    The ones that appear to have easy solutions. The ones more easily addressed, and are therefore worth more in terms of discussion.
    It doesn't occur to you that the majority of topics are based on headlines?

    Well it was to me. That's important, you know.

    I'm as human as you are. Perhaps, though, in a different way and with more focus.

    Know whats so special about being human?
    We're not ants. In spite of some of us trying to make us exactly that.

    Well... yes? I do feel perfectly comfortable in ignoring a week or so of responses, though. I'll get back to you, when I get a round tuit.

    Of course its real. Far more importantly, though, it's immediate.
    Flavour of the moment.... complete with survivor interviews and parent reactions.
    Go for the gut. Works every time.

    Yes, I probably will. I am, at the very least, somewhat consistent.
    Do you really not understand, Bells, that all of these incidents are just... "Oooh! Shiny Thing!"

    No, I don't think so. I very much doubt this kid went on a bender because he thought a few kids was no great loss.

    This killing was a statement, Bells. This was a very angry young man. Make no mistake about that.
    Now, he didn't leave a note, so we don't know what motivated him.

    But don't fall for the "insanity" thing. Or any other easy answer you think you have.
     
  14. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,608
    After a week of dead silence, the NRA finally makes a statement. I guess it took that long for them to contrive some "solution". Their "solution"? Turn America into a military police state. Station millions of well-trained officers with semi-automatic guns and body armor at every entrance of every bldg of all 100,000 schools in America during school hours. An elite and massive killing force exceeding in numbers all branches of the U.S. military. LOL! And who will pay for this? The federal govt and taxpayers. That's their solution. Wow...
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2012
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    On the "Culture of Violence"

    On the "Culture of Violence"

    "You know, Bells, even South Park covered this type of thing. Will somebody please think of the Children!" —The Marquis

    "Well, someone has to." —Bells

    We must, at some point, think of the children. Not in the goofy South Park way, in which everything is perceived as a predator of childly innocence, but in the broader sense that these are the next generation of our society, or of our human species.

    The problem, of course, is that I'm out of ideas.

    Well, okay, that's not everybody's problem; I'm neither Christ nor the sociological equivalent of Stephen Hawking. What happened in Newtown, though, just blew a huge hole in my longstanding backburner idea for gun control. By that idea, the gun owner would have to answer for allowing the gun into the shooter's hands.

    Nancy Lanza, though, is dead.

    However, we have crossed a threshold. Kevin Sullivan reported this week, for The Washington Post:

    When many people in Newtown count the victims in last week’s massacre, they tally 20 children in Sandy Hook Elementary School, plus six adult faculty and staff members. Few count shooter Adam Lanza’s first victim: his mother, Nancy. Police said that before he attacked the schoolhouse, Adam Lanza pumped four bullets into his mother’s head as she lay in bed.

    As this heartbroken town tries to process Friday’s horror, there is considerable anger toward Lanza’s mother. Her name is noticeably absent from many of the impromptu shrines, memorials and condolence notes placed around town.

    At the foot of the street leading to Sandy Hook Elementary, 26 Christmas trees stand to honor the dead at the school, each bearing the name of a victim, but no Nancy Lanza.

    Outside the Newtown Convenience and Deli in the town center, 26 small plastic Christmas trees with twinkling blue and purple lights stand next to a sign that says, “In loving memory of the Sandy Hook victims.”

    The University of Connecticut honored the shooting victims Monday with a ceremony before a men’s basketball game, with 26 students standing at center court holding lighted candles.

    “I am feeling that there is more anger toward the mother than there is toward the son,” said Lisa Sheridan, a Newtown parent.

    “Why would a woman who had a son like this, who clearly had serious issues, keep assault rifles in the house and teach him how to shoot them?” she said. “To deal with that, there’s a feeling here that we’re just going to focus on the 26 innocent people who died at the school.”

    In the end, Ms. Sheridan's question is valid, though I think any parent can sympathize with the cognitive dissonance. Swirling media reports include Nancy Lanza's sister saying the mother was preparing for some sort of doomsday, but also the suggestion that the apocalypse she faced was a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. We have also heard that Nancy Lanza home-schooled her son for a while, argued him out of joining the Marine Corps, and hoped to see him study engineering in college.

    But the problem goes much further than Nancy Lanza's decisions.

    In the political bluster, we hear about the "culture of violence", and it is something worth considering. But blaming pop media like video games, music, movies, and television is a cheap excuse. After all, if we're going to suggest video games and movies, why not consider the news media, whose approach to ratings includes trying to scare the hell out of people?

    Because the culture of violence becomes more apparent when watching societal reactions to life. Terrorists hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings? Gun sales spike. (What? You can't take your AR-15 on the plane with you ....) Barack Obama is elected president? Gun sales spike. President Obama does nothing toward gun control? Gun sales spike. The economy crashes? Gun sales spike. President Obama is re-elected? Gun sales spike. Mayans decide to skip the math until it's needed in another fifteen centuries? Gun sales spike. A disturbed man goes on a rampage in a Connecticut school? Gun sales spike.

    There is no problem facing this nation that can't be assuaged by buying guns. This is the real culture of violence in the United States, and you don't need Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Gordan Freeman or Max Payne. The American heritage includes oceans of blood, from revolution and conquest to labor and booze, Americans have long settled their problems with a hail of bullets.

    This is a society in which men settle disputes over dog leavings with guns. I mean, it's one thing to mock a real-life poop shoot, or the kind of moron who thinks a gun is a sex toy, or maybe the kind of idiot who thinks bees are a good reason to ... um ... well ... put buckshot in a .22 revolver and start shooting. To the one, you can see the punch line coming, right? I mean, how do you try to shoot bees out of the air with buckshot, and end up shooting yourself in the hand?

    The real culture of violence in the United States is the one in which guns are the solution for everything from canine feces to bees to proving one's manhood.

    Oh, yeah. And keeping the thrill in your sex life.

    A pattern begins to emerge.

    I remember a gun control discussion here at Sciforums some years ago, in which a gun advocate recounted the story of walking around some Indiana town and had to "show" his gun repeatedly. That's when it hit me how frightened of the world some of these gun nuts are.

    It's gotten to the point that some folks with guns are looking for reasons to use them. Certes, the shooting of Trayvon Martin made headlines, but did you know it happened again? There is a reason D. L. Hughley, actor and comedian, calls the stand your ground laws "a hunting license for young black men":

    The backstory was not an altogether surprising one: A group of five black teenagers were sitting in their SUV, blasting their music far too loudly. If I had to guess, I'd bet they were probably using foul language as well and generally acting the fool. I have no doubt that it was a complete nuisance to everyone around them.

    This time, the story played out a touch differently from the usual outcome. Michael Dunn, a middle-aged white male, decided to approach them and confront them about their noise. An argument ensued. That an argument would ensue is obvious to anyone: Kids who behave in a rude and obnoxious manner are generally not receptive to constructive criticism. The argument escalated, as these absurd street-arguments always do. That's when Michael Dunn took out his gun and shot up the SUV, killing one of the teens in the process ....

    .... No one likes kids blasting their crappy music. No one likes babies crying on airplanes either. But you don't get to kill them. If that were the case, Ice Cube would have signed my death certificate many years ago -- and for many of my childhood friends as well. So let's identify this law for what it is: a hunting license for young black men.

    Frankly, a hunting license would be an improvement over the Stand Your Ground law. Hunting is a very heavily-regulated sport. There are only certain times of the year where hunting is permitted, and the animals you kill have to be of a certain minimum size. Juveniles are not, generally, considered fair game (it's where the term "fair game" comes from). You can't bait your prey, either: they have to be given a fair shot.

    I was at a Florida golf course once where there was a different kind of nuisance: A fourteen-foot alligator had swam nearby. Clearly, this was a danger to the golfers and could not be allowed to stand. But that alligator -- a species not even close to endangered -- was captured and released elsewhere. Shooting it, which would have made us all safer, was still not legally permissible. But if it were a young black man hissed at a Florida citizen, his life would be possibly moot -- and legally so.

    There is only so much, at present, we can do in the U.S. to limit the availability of guns. The problem is not so much the Second Amendment itself, but how we've read it for the last seventy years. As the idea of a regular militia has declined, only the second half of the Second Amendment seems to have any relevance in the courts. This must change.

    Meanwhile, the craven need to own and use guns also needs to change. For many gun enthusiasts, the power to take life seems very nearly an identity complex.

    As with so many issues facing the American future, this is one that cannot be resolved anytime soon.

    Such as things are, I've now lived long enough to witness certain generational changes. To wit, fans of The Simpsons might remember the 1997 episode, "Lisa's Sax", which recounts the tale of how Lisa Simpson became a musician. The story also includes Bart's first day of school, and shows how a single day in the public schools turned a bright, eager young boy into a sad child who finally found identity in comedy and rebellion.

    That part of the episode would seem crazy to my daughter, yet it depicts a process very common to my own generation. I remember the descent in kindergarten, and how going to school weighed on me more and more until, in fourth grade, I simply started going through the motions. Many of my peers felt pangs of sympathy for a depressed Bart, walking into the house after his first day of school, unable to speak to his parents. But seeing the students at my daughter's school, and working in the classrooms, the difference between once upon a time and today is readily apparent to me. So much of what parents have criticized as flowery liberal destruction of the educational system seems to be having positive effects all these years later. My daughter and her peers look at school in an entirely different context. We'll see how much of that carries into high school and such, but for now it's an entirely different world. She's in fourth grade now, the year when I began my withdrawal from society, and she shows no signs of a similar decline. The difference inside the classroom is, if not shocking, at the very least disorienting to me. I still don't get it, but I do see the fruits of what people have been complaining about for the last thirty-some years. I have lived long enough to witness a generational transformation.

    To the other, this is a bit grim an outlook, to think that solutions to our gun crisis are thirty years away. And, in truth, it gets worse; this one will take longer.

    But we can make little headway on the idea of gun control and safety regulation until we address the underlying culture of violence. And that isn't movies or music or video games. Rather, it is this strange idea that guns are a solution to everything, and lethal force is an identity complex.

    We do need to think about the children, but we cannot reinstall childhood innocence the way we can an operating system. What damage is done is done. Parents across the country who are freaking out in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre are, in many cases, only further eroding the innocence they hope to protect.

    We must think of the children because we must transform our culture of violence. Our society will certainly survive another generation learning that the power to destroy human life is an identity complex, but the number of sacrificial lambs in the meantime? A staggering projection. It is not a healthy path for a society. The gun advocates' solution of more and more guns is no real solution. After all, it seems crazy to suggest that the one thing we need, as a madman is on a rampage and everyone is scrambling for cover, is a crossfire.

    As it is, there are places in this country where one can provoke a confrontation, and then kill in self defense. What happens, then, when everyone straps on and stands their ground?

    Our society will certainly survive another generation of violence, but there is no guarantee that it will not be maimed. Prevention is the best harm reduction theory, but effective prevention will also mean resolving whatever neurotic plagues drive the widespread belief in guns and violence as solutions.

    Real solutions will involve efforts spanning decades. As with so many American pitfalls, this hole is deeply dug, and it will be a hard climb back to the daylight.

    Meanwhile, I think of a dispute in New Zealand that involved three of the funniest words I've ever heard, "Assault with hedgehog". I can't say much about New Zealand, but I can easily believe chucking a hedgehog is the sort of thing that will get a person shot in the U.S. To the other, we recently had an assault with weasel in my area, and nobody got shot. In Seattle, a few years ago, a parking garage dispute apparently erupted into a crazy fracas involving fifty people; one woman was stabbed. The upshot there is that nobody, apparently, was carrying a gun. Fifty people strapping? That would have been a legendary "Mexican standoff". This is a society where people will shoot at bees, for heaven's sake.

    If all you've got is a hammer, they say, everything looks like a nail. And if all you've got is a gun?

    It seems everything looks like a target.

    Our culture of violence has to change. That's the only way out of this mess.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Sullivan, Kevin. "In Newtown, Nancy Lanza a subject of sympathy for some, anger for others". The Washington Post. December 19, 2012. WashingtonPost.com. December 21, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...425f1c-4a1e-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_story.html

    Hughley, D. L. "The Law and Unintended Consequences". The Huffington Post. December 5, 2012. HuffingtonPost.com. December 21, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dl-hugley/law-and-unintended-consequences_b_2246220.html
     
  16. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    The Marquis,

    Very good and well thought out answers there.
     
  17. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  18. Bells Staff Member

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    Yes, how wrong is it to assume that the gun violence issue may be somewhat attributed to guns and the ease in which they are readily available in the US...

    I will give you an example The Marquis..

    Lets just say that you live in the US. You are not legally allowed to purchase a gun from a gun store, because you have a criminal record. You can buy one second hand without any checks or you can go to a gun show and purchase a semi-automatic assault rifle without any checks.

    I think there is plenty wrong with that, don't you?

    The NRA, for all their complaint that there should be a national database listing people who are mentally ill, have failed to address the fact that in at least one state, they are trying to abolish even criminal background checks for the purchase of handguns:


    A bill pushed by the National Rifle Association to eliminate criminal background checks for many handgun buyers in Michigan was rejected by state lawmakers Wednesday, after a heavy lobbying effort by law enforcement officials, municipal leaders and gun control advocates.

    The bill would have repealed a state law mandating all handgun buyers pass a background check program run by the Michigan State Police, designed to block felons, domestic abusers and the severely mentally ill from obtaining a handgun license. Federal law bars felons from obtaining firearms, but does not mandate private sellers conduct criminal background checks on gun buyers.


    If we are to look at the cause of the "heart disease", I think one good place would be to look at why they are so obsessed with weapons in the first place and why the American culture is one that is so enshrined and enthralled with guns in general.

    Look at this forum as a perfect example and how people react to the mere mention of gun control. Reasonable and very intelligent people are up in arms at the thought that they might not be able to go to Walmart and purchase a semi-automatic rifle. Because apparently this is what sane people do in the States. But when I ask why they need such a weapon, no one has been able to respond.

    One offered a belief that while he believes in gun control, he does not feel comfortable with not having semi-automatics on hand in case there is a need to rise against the state or a revolution. And he was serious.

    So how does one combat this belief system that one can only be safe if one has a gun that can kill multiple people in a few minutes? How does one deal with that level of fear and paranoia?

    Then what is your solution?

    I have asked you this before and you have failed to be able to formulate a single response.

    What is your answer?

    Why do you assume he was bullied?

    Quite the contrary, his teachers, relatives and the people who went to school with him said he was not bullied. He just refused to associate or speak to anyone. He kept to himself.

    He was mentally ill and diagnosed as such.

    Since there is no control, his mother, a woman who was paranoid and thought the world was about to end, was able to amass a large array of weapons and she taught her sons to shoot.

    Now you believe preventing someone like her to amass such an arsenal is crossing a line because it is too much control. And we see the result of that kind of thinking in last week's shootings and in other mass shootings.

    Then what is your solution?

    And your solution is to shrug your shoulders, be lazy and say 'worse things happening elsewhere'..

    It would be like telling a rape victim that she doesn't really count because in other countries, women are gang raped by child soldiers..

    Yes, I keep forgetting that the light emanating from your backside is our guiding sun..

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    You may assume you have more focus. But your response is akin to angry old man yelling from his front porch without offering any solution. Just telling everyone else they are wrong doesn't cut it, my dear.

    Yes, I shall see you either in a day or a week.

    But it isn't immediate. How many other mass shooting has there been in the last 20 years in the US?

    This one is just one of the many others that have followed suit.

    And don't you understand that mass shootings in the US is no longer "Oooh! Shiny Thing!"?

    Columbine was an "Oooh! Shiny Thing!".. This latest one is more along the lines of "*Sigh*.. another one?"..

    And yet...

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/adam-lanza-motive_n_2329508.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
     
  19. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Simple technique for firing an AR-15 in rapid fire mode.This is without even being modified with a slide stock, which easily turns it into a fully automatic.


    http://tactical-rifle-blog.com/?p=98
     
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Nothing To See Here, Folks

    Nothing To See Here, Folks

    From The Huffington Post front page:

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    And the accompanying article for the main headline:

    This week, as mourners gathered in Newtown, Conn., to bury Sandy Hook Elementary's dead, and a nation renewed its debate over guns, the shootings did not stop. The Huffington Post spent the week tracking gun-related homicides and accidents throughout the U.S., logging more than 100 from Google and Nexis searches. This is by no means a definitive tally. In 2010, there were more than twice that many homicides alone in an average week.

    (Cherkis)

    At least one hundred people died in the United States as a result of gun violence in the week since the Sandy Hook massacre. And this is hardly the worst of weeklong periods in recent years.

    While there is much talk of mental illness, background checks, and fitness to possess and use firearms, let us consider two cases from Cherkis' article:

    On Saturday afternoon, a 3-year-old in Guthrie, Okla., died after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a gun he found inside his aunt and uncle's house. His uncle is Oklahoma state trooper.

    This reminds me of a tragedy earlier this year just north of where I live. A seven year-old girl was shot to death by her brother. It was an accident. The kids were left in the car, one child found the gun left behind by the parents, and, well ... the seven year-old daughter of a Marysville, Washington police officer died.

    These gun owners are cops. Nothing about background checks would have stopped that shooting.

    Cherkis also noted a bizarre road rage incident:

    A 20-year-old man shot and killed Veronica Soto, a young mother of two, in an apparent road rage incident on Thursday. Soto and her husband had gone out to a nearby Jack in the Box in the Houston area when they became involved in a confrontation with drivers in two other cars. The accused killer Mark Trevino, and the victim's husband pulled guns.

    "Investigators said Mark Trevino came to a stop, ran into his home on Addicks-Clodine, grabbed a rifle and started shooting. Soto was shot in the head. Her husband also pulled out his gun. 'They started shooting back and forth and the bullet went through the windshield, hit her and went out the back windshield,' said Matthew Soto, the victim’s brother-in-law," reported a Houston television station.

    Now, it's entirely possible that one of the shooters shouldn't have had a gun in the first place, but this also speaks to the idea of a culture of violence. Apparently, whatever happened on the road was worth shooting over?

    Well, there is an alternate narrative, as well:

    Vanessa Trevino, the suspect’s mother, said the bullet holes in her garage door and a stop sign tell a different side of the story.

    Trevino said her son got into an altercation with the Sotos at this convenience store, and that Soto’s husband pulled out a gun. When her son went home, she says Soto followed and opened fire on Mark and his brother.

    “This was self defense,” said Trevino. “My son did not go and shoot the lady down at her house. He’s not a cold murderer. He was defending himself, his brother and his house here. From his own property.”


    (KHOU)

    While Mr. Soto has not been charged as yet, Ms. Trevino's story still comes back to the culture of violence: What happened at the convenience store that was worth pulling a gun?

    Either way, though, it would have been better had the two settled their differences dueling with hedgehogs or dead weasels.

    Just ... you know. Just sayin'.

    A hundred people. At least.

    And it's true that some of those folks probably would have died, anyway, even if there were no guns available to the shooters. But, at the same time, it's hard to imagine a three year-old in Oklahoma accidentally bludgeoning himself to death with a baseball bat. And in Houston, maybe Trevino and the Soto husband could have stabbed each other to death with kichen knives, true. But at least then the combatants would have been killing each other. That is to say, I don't think I've ever heard of someone being accidentally stabbed to death at ten yards.

    The problem, of course, is that these are merely sacrificial lambs for the altar of the "Responsible Gun Owner". You know, like the cop who leaves his gun where a child can get hold of it. Or the average American who also happens to have a low threshold for enacting lethal defense.

    But, you know, a hundred people in a week? Nothin' to see here, folks. After all, as the NRA points out, the only solution is to have more people carrying guns in more places. Anything else, well, that's just making the problem worse.

    Right?
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Cherkis, Jason. "U.S. Shooting Deaths Since Sandy Hook Top 100". The Huffington Post. December 21, 2012. HuffingtonPost.com. December 21, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/us-shooting-deaths-sandy-hook_n_2348466.html

    KHOU. "FBCSO: 20-year-old shoots, kills mother of 2 in case of road rage". December 20, 2012. KHOU.com. December 21, 2012. http://www.khou.com/news/local/Mother-shot-dead-in-driveway-of-Fort-Bend-County-home-184255171.html
     
  21. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,955
  22. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,562
    Yes,thats nice, Tiassa.

    Now why don't you explain why y'all shooting each other. Folks elsewhere ain't.
    Y'think it's cause y'all can get a gun?

    Take out them varmints?
     
  23. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Because they can...

    And why are you speaking like a hick?
     

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