Another school shooting

[HeinBallz]

Why is this conversation still happening?  Is it because getting rid of every gun/bullet/bomb is actually easier than being a good parent or social role model?

What the hell is your point here?  What do you think the purposes of laws are?

Vague and unsuccessful attempts at controlling people.   Do laws actually stop people from being crap human beings?

Finally, you come out and say it.  I thought that's what you might be getting at. 

That's an absolutely Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!) argument by the way.

Was there any question that was what I was getting at?  Sorry for being so vague.  You know, you might have a better argument though, if you actually defended your statement with some logical response.  Resorting to: "That's Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)... You're Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)..." makes me think you're have to ability to think critically.

I was short with you because no rational person thinks that the existence of laws are without success.

There are tons of theories for laws that exist.  But for the present purposes, here's all the response that is necessary:  child molestation is illegal.  because of that, there are child molesters in jail who cannot molest children today because they're in jail.

You're comparing child molestation to owning a gun.  Inferring my suggesting of a meaningless law to control ownership of a firearm or ammunition is equal to me suggesting that no law should exist to prevent people from molesting a child is insulting, arrogant, and one of the most disgusting forms of social engineering I can think of.  You are either a disgusting person or guilty of making decisions based off of emotion rather than logical thought.

[Unruly]

And also, it is extremely difficult for legal citizens in Mexico to own firearms.  It looks like it is doing wonders for violence down there. 

[HeinBallz]

I'm done.  Good night.

[SkinnyBenny]

But almost anyone with a short fuse during arguments and access to a gun could.


(EMAWmeister and SB with a 1-2 clown shoe-ing of HeinBallz right now.)

[DQ12]

No, but you do help me clarify my point.  I'm saying that we can't 100% enforce laws that should be enforced.  The tremendous difference between driving drunk/domestic abuse and owning a controlled substance is with one there is intent to do harm to others - suggesting that owning a controlled substance or object (such as a bullet) is intent to do harm to others is ridiculous.  Not only would it be be unsuccessful - it would be a complete waste of time that clogs up the legal system.  Cops running down illegal bullets when they could focus their attention on people actually being hurt.

Are you suggesting that driving under the influence necessarily involves a specific intent to harm others?

You're comparing child molestation to owning a gun.  Inferring my suggesting of a meaningless law to control ownership of a firearm or ammunition is equal to me suggesting that no law should exist to prevent people from molesting a child is insulting, arrogant, and one of the most disgusting forms of social engineering I can think of.  You are either a disgusting person or guilty of making decisions based off of emotion rather than logical thought.

Forgive me for misunderstanding your argument then.  I asked you what you believed the purposes of laws were and you dismissed them as "vague and unsuccessful."

[star seed 7]

nothing stirs up the gun nuts quite like a mass shooting.

[HeinBallz]

The American public is not chalk full of 250 lb professional athletes. Belcher had serious issues, that's a poor example. Most people could not kill anyone on earth with a single punch.

I may be talking from my ass - but I see the act of reaching for a gun, taking aim, & pulling a trigger much less impulsive than punching someone in the face.  A 250LB professional athlete could kill someone with a single punch - It would be no less impulsive to reach for a knife and take a swing at someones head with it.

[Johnny Wichita]

I love Dlew. 

[SkinnyBenny]

But almost anyone with a short fuse during arguments and access to a gun could.


(EMAWmeister and SB with a 1-2 clown shoe-ing of HeinBallz right now.)

Then again, I guess Javon Belcher (who clearly regretted his impulse) and others like him would still get the job done if they didn't have quick and easy access to guns. All they would need to do to satisfy their rage to murder their girlfriends would be:
 
1) get out their laptops and connect to the internet
2) pull up Uhaul.com
3) wait for it to load
4) figure out what type of truck they would need
5) book that truck, most likely a few days later
6) drive down to their nearest U-Haul pick-up station
7) fill out the paperwork
8) drive it home
9) get back online and somehow locate a guy with a ton of fertilizer for sale around downtown Kansas City
10) negotiate a deal with that guy
11) learn how to build a bomb
12) leave the big city and drive out to the guy's farm in the U-Haul
13) load up all the fertilizer
14) drive back to his girlfriend's place
15) detonate said bomb to kill girlfriend over the argument that made him mad four days earlier

[shivvyman]

Regardless of the gun control debate or social/parental upbringing, I would just like to say this guy is a rough ridin' coward.

Have some nuts. If you want to go play billy badass, go pick on somebody your on size. Seriously, what does slaughtering kid's in a classroom prove? I don't think this guy was mentally ill and who knows what statement he was trying to make. Was he just pissed at the world? Coward. Right up there with suicide bombers.

[SkinnyBenny]

BTW, I love when people react to mass shootings by saying the classic, "If we take away guns it would be just as easy for some crazy person to build a fertilizer bomb and kill a bunch of people."  If it's really that easy, then why aren't more people doing it? The last time I heard of a fertilizer bomb causing a mass killing in America was 1994. Isn't it supposedly really easy? If it's just as easy, then why have I heard of zero of those types of mass killings in the last 18 years, but there have been probably over a dozen school shootings in the same amount of time? Oh right, because it's actually really really really really really really really hard to pull off. Way harder than causing mayhem with a gun.

Weird.

[Johnny Wichita]

Regardless of the gun control debate or social/parental upbringing, I would just like to say this guy is a rough ridin' coward.

Have some nuts. If you want to go play billy badass, go pick on somebody your on size. Seriously, what does slaughtering kid's in a classroom prove? I don't think this guy was mentally ill and who knows what statement he was trying to make. Was he just pissed at the world? Coward. Right up there with suicide bombers.

The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was also found dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, law enforcement officials said. Officials initially told NBC News the gunman was Lanza's brother, Ryan, who is cooperating with investigators and said Adam has a history of mental illness, according to a senior official.

[MakeItRain]

I'm confused about what the frequency and odds of being killed by gun violence has to do with whether or not something should be done about it.

it speaks to the relative danger these hypothetical gun control laws would be trying to prevent.  most laws regarding public safety are tradeoffs between personal liberty and public safety.  accordingly, it is impossible to rationally consider the benefit or harm of such laws without understanding both the rates of violence that might be prevented, and the magnitude of the liberties to be restricted.

the amount of innocent killed in relation to a perpetrator killed by someone defending him/herself is so out of wack I don't know how people can continue to use this as a rationalization for the widespread legalization of firearms.

i could care less about self-defense.  i care about personal liberties.  owning a gun wouldn't even make my top 20 of personal liberties threatened or restricted by governments, but that doesn't mean i think it should be given away.  i'm also against the cowardice that permeates our culture.  life is risky, it is impossible to remove all risk from our lives, and the insane pursuit of safety already causes us to be incredibly less productive, happy and wealthy than we could be.  gun control again, wouldn't even be on the top 20 (prolly top 100) of a list of our hyperresponsiveness to the perception of random danger, but it's a symptom of the same disease.

To your second point, that was valid half a century ago.  Now whether you are talking about the local police or a national army the weaponry that these people have are far more advanced and deadly than any weaponry a citizen protecting himself from the oppressor can have.  Should we let people have tanks and bombers too?  How will the Syrians use their guns when they have sarin bombs dropped on their heads?  Should they get sarin too?

i think small arms are still more relevant in warfare, and certainly in civil insurrection, than you suggest, but if you are correct, that is perhaps sad, but not a reason to restrict gun ownership.  yes, people should be able to have tanks and bombers.  dunno about sarin.

It's pretty easy to see the benefits of restricting guns because its been done in 1st world western countries with relatively large populations.

Cut the civil liberties bull crap.  No one is advocating banning all guns, I've said multiple times that sporting weapons are fine.  The right is a right to bear arms, there are already restrictions on what arms you can bear.  I can't buy a stealth bomber, I can't buy a tank, I can't buy a humvee with machine guns on it.  The right needs further restrictions.  All of our rights have restrictions.

[ChiComCat]

Why is this conversation still happening?  Is it because getting rid of every gun/bullet/bomb is actually easier than being a good parent or social role model?

+1


It sucks being a sane responsible gun owner and having one of my hobbies being threatened because of a few peoples horrible actions.

A person on facebook posted this:

If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.

They brought up an interesting point here. Because gun violence happens in a spectacular fashion it appears to be so much worse than 5-10 people dieing a day in car wrecks.

Unruly having a hobby is not collateral enough for me to be ok with mass shootings that are becoming more constant.

And also, it is extremely difficult for legal citizens in Mexico to own firearms.  It looks like it is doing wonders for violence down there. 

Completely irrelevant. Thining that is the only difference between Mexico and the US that contributes to gun violence is a ridiculous simplification.  Poverty, lack of law enforcement and corruption is what makes Mexico unsafe.

[sys]

It's pretty easy to see the benefits of restricting guns because its been done in 1st world western countries with relatively large populations.

i'm not well versed on the subject, but it is my understanding that criminologists, or whoever it is that studies these things, urge caution with re. to how transferable rates of gun violence would be across different countries/cultures with identical laws (but i'm perfectly happy to agree that there would be some reduction in gun violence).

Cut the civil liberties bull crap.  No one is advocating banning all guns, I've said multiple times that sporting weapons are fine.  The right is a right to bear arms, there are already restrictions on what arms you can bear.  I can't buy a stealth bomber, I can't buy a tank, I can't buy a humvee with machine guns on it.  The right needs further restrictions.  All of our rights have restrictions.

personal liberties, not civil liberties.  you call it bullshit, i do not.  i do buy slippery slope arguments, btw.  i see evidence for that as a pattern of behavior all around me.

[Bloodfart]

  I've been on the road all day and getting texts from from a truly distraught Mrs. Bf.  That guy was not human.  He couldn't be. 

[EMAWmeister]

The American public is not chalk full of 250 lb professional athletes. Belcher had serious issues, that's a poor example. Most people could not kill anyone on earth with a single punch.

I may be talking from my ass - but I see the act of reaching for a gun, taking aim, & pulling a trigger much less impulsive than punching someone in the face.  A 250LB professional athlete could kill someone with a single punch - It would be no less impulsive to reach for a knife and take a swing at someones head with it.

I understand that. But, in the moment, squeezing a trigger and slashing at someone's jugular with a blade are still different. It may be small, but there is absolutely a difference. Shooting someone is a relatively quick, painless action with dire consequences. Slashing someone is gruesome and horrific.

[SkinnyBenny]

Either way, how many people were killed in today's China slashing? Answer: not nearly as many as were killed in Connecticut.

[steve dave]

@Gawker: On Fox News, Mike Huckabee says the shooting happened because "we've removed God from our schools."

http://gawker.com/5968633?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

http://gawker.com/5968609/fox-news-blames-shooting-on-online-activities-gaming

[Domino]

I'm not even going to address this with a response.

Because I pointed out how absurd your rush to crime in your hyopthetical scenario was? Seriously, unless rich people go around with there sporting rifles, how are they going to get beat up for them? These aren't handguns we are talking about.

As to your second point - wouldn't that be an argument for restricting guns? If rates of violence are similar, but those countries have fewer fatalities, seems to be a favorable argument for limiting access to firearms.

You don't get it.  I'm saying remove guns from both equations.  Don't count gun deaths in a country that doesn't allow guns and compare it to a country that does allow guns.  That's like saying a person that never drives a car is less likely to die in a car wreck. 

If you can compare knife related violence in those countries to knife related violence in our country and see we're more violent with knife's - you can infer that we're more violent.  You can then ask how this other country reduced their violence - surely you can see that removing guns has no logical effect on knife violence.

Yeah no, you can't dodge this. Your ilk are the ones that like to point out outlawing guns wouldn't remove all of them, so it's stupid to try. When I point out numerous European countries have very strict gun laws, and much greater access to healthcare services and stronger social safety nets have far, far fewer gun deaths, you can't wave your hands and pretend they can't be compared to the U.S.

For instance, Canada actually has twice the assault rate as the U.S.:

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Canada/United-States/Crime

but the homicide rate in the U.S. is nearly 3 times greater:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[SkinnyBenny]

Oddly enough, a few minutes after I heard about the Connecticut shootings I thought to myself, "Welp...gonna be interesting watching HeinBallz try to twist THIS one around..."

[puniraptor]

Look what happens without guns:

http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-man-slashes-22-children-near-china-school-20121214,0,6383015.story

Notice the body count.

What the eff is your point man?  Should we compare the number of people killed with knives in China to those killed with guns in America?  We have 700,000,000 less people in America than they do in China. I'm willing to bet you anything that we have more gun deaths than they have knife deaths.  Name the terms and take the bet.

Second spree killing this week, the only thing that prevented more deaths in Portland was a jammed gun.  Were there multiple spree stabbings in China this year?

JFC you are on a rampage. My point was this dude went on a killing spree and since he only had a knife and not a gun NOONE GOT KILLED.

Sorry, I should have stated my point I guess.

[Stevesie60]

Look what happens without guns:

http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-man-slashes-22-children-near-china-school-20121214,0,6383015.story

Notice the body count.

What the eff is your point man?  Should we compare the number of people killed with knives in China to those killed with guns in America?  We have 700,000,000 less people in America than they do in China. I'm willing to bet you anything that we have more gun deaths than they have knife deaths.  Name the terms and take the bet.

Second spree killing this week, the only thing that prevented more deaths in Portland was a jammed gun.  Were there multiple spree stabbings in China this year?

JFC you are on a rampage. My point was this dude went on a killing spree and since he only had a knife and not a gun NOONE GOT KILLED.

Sorry, I should have stated my point I guess.

I think most everyone knew what your point was. MIR was just blinded by his hateful rampage, I guess.

[CNS]

BTW, I love when people react to mass shootings by saying the classic, "If we take away guns it would be just as easy for some crazy person to build a fertilizer bomb and kill a bunch of people."  If it's really that easy, then why aren't more people doing it? The last time I heard of a fertilizer bomb causing a mass killing in America was 1994. Isn't it supposedly really easy? If it's just as easy, then why have I heard of zero of those types of mass killings in the last 18 years, but there have been probably over a dozen school shootings in the same amount of time? Oh right, because it's actually really really really really really really really hard to pull off. Way harder than causing mayhem with a gun.

Weird.

Numbers heard on radio today: 

There have been 7 mass public shootings un the US this year. Most ever

There have been twice as many public mass shootings in the US since 1997 as all the mass shootings in our country prior to 1997.

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[BMWWcat]

"I can't buy a stealth bomber, I can't buy a tank, I can't buy a humvee with machine guns on it."

MIR, have to admit it would be effin' cool to be able to buy one of these though.

Eh, I'll take the tank to go pick up some milk...no biggie.