Yet another mass shooting...

ideogenous_mover said:

I'm an independent, and I've never felt very strongly about regulating arms until no one can have anything. I personally think we don't have strong enough self defense laws, but I don't want to vote for republicans.

On Ukraine: for a long time, I thought we should stop providing arms to them to prevent nuclear war, but recently I've seemed to change my mind, after reading about too many atrocities from the Russian side. But I think there is probably a sizable risk of a nuclear war, or of that nuclear power plant blowing up, if things don't cool down somehow

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If the free, civilized world yielded to nuclear blackmail, then that would set a precedent of giving tyrants impunity.

cOLTER said:

Self-defense from the consequences naive Leftist is the perfect comparison. Of course, the truth pisses you off!

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What's the ratio of thwarted criminals to dead school children? The truth is far more harm has been done than good, but keep running your tongue along the length of your gun's barrel.

Sedim Haba said:

The problem is the complete lack of mental health services in this country.
We not only have the worst health care in the 1st world, but the worst mental health care.
Ignoring the problem won't make it go away, and that's the current plan it seems.

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There seems to be a sizable demand for that, but I do wonder why.

Well I guess what I think, is that there might be front-end issues, and back-end issues. If it is actually true that people are statistically getting angrier, or showing whatever behavioral signals might lead to this kind of thing, then we have to wonder why that might be so, and if something can be changed, on the front end.

The opposing argument, if it is viable, and I don't know since I'm not a psychometric expert, is that the population has been static in disposition, but that this problem just appears more prevalent as population has scaled upward, where in reality something like this was always proportionally there

cOLTER said:

Thats true but we live in a society of stupid people who blame the gun and not the gunman. The same administration that is desperately arming Ukrainians against Communist aggression wants to disarm Americans against criminal aggression.

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Can't have a gunman without a gun. The rest of the free, civilized, first world nations don't have these problems, nor do they seem to envy or desire our gun culture. They're not routinely knee-deep in dead school children like we are. Far more innocent people are killed by guns than are saved by them.

Father Heathen said:

What's the ratio of thwarted criminals to dead school children? The truth is far more harm has been done than good, but keep running your tongue along the length of your gun's barrel.

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I don't own a gun and I don't care that my neighbor does.

Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. .

Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.

60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed.

Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.

Father Heathen said:

Can't have a gunman without a gun. The rest of the free, civilized, first world nations don't have these problems, nor do they seem to envy or desire our gun culture. They're not routinely knee-deep in dead school children like we are. Far more innocent people are killed by guns than are saved by them.

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The rest of the world doesn't have the degenerate, violent, drug addicted, godless culture that America has.

cOLTER said:

I don't own a gun and I don't care that my neighbor does.

Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. .

Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.

60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed.

Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.

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Why are European cities typically safer than American ones?

Father Heathen said:

Why are European cities typically safer than American ones?

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Not as many criminals.

cOLTER said:

The rest of the world doesn't have the degenerate, violent, drug addicted, godless culture that America has.

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Most of Europe is "godless" (as in secular/non-religious) and yet doesn't have these problems on the scale we do. Same with being "degenerate" if you're referring to sexual liberty.

cOLTER said:

Not as many criminals.

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Or not as emboldened or dangerous.

Father Heathen said:

Or not as emboldened or dangerous.

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Recidivism rates remain quite high for career criminals in the U.S. Citizens have the right to defend themselves against them.

Father Heathen said:

Can't have a gunman without a gun. The rest of the free, civilized, first world nations don't have these problems, nor do they seem to envy or desire our gun culture. They're not routinely knee-deep in dead school children like we are. Far more innocent people are killed by guns than are saved by them.

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I'm going to go a slightly metaphoric tangent, pardon me. I like to read about un-contacted tribes and pre-modern lifestyles, and things like that. I just got done reading a sizable book on the Amazon, for example. Across the world, it seems that human society started off, or in rare cases continues to, wield deadly tools for purposes of daily hunting.

So when you think about it, for the majority of the last 200,000 years, all humans have lived with something like a bow and arrow very close at hand. And if they were to socially succeed, they all had to respect such tools, and they all had to know never to haphazardly threaten others with them, and their individual and tribal lifespan may have been largely based on respecting their tools and much as possible. Or, perhaps if they had a strong enough culture of respecting the tools, it wouldn't take as much effort, and the tribe would generally be more peaceful

The point is, our modern weapons are nothing but scaled up bows and arrows. If people are misusing modern tools, I might argue that no, we shouldn't have them. But we shouldn't have them, because somehow we don't understand what these newer things really are, socially and culturally. And maybe who should have them, is not understood, because maybe it takes someone who really knows how much more complicated and deadly these tools are, than older tools, for that person to appropriately have them, and not misuse them.

Again, all of our ancestors had to live with potentially dangerous tools for a long time. A very long time. Maybe we shouldn't have other kinds of tools. Why should humanity have nuclear power, if they do war around a nuclear power plant? Maybe they shouldn't have that either.

cOLTER said:

Recidivism rates remain quite high for career criminals in the U.S. Citizens have the right to defend themselves against them.

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Our prison system sucks and only hardens criminals rather than rehabilitate them.
I'm not against self-defense, but there are other means.
We're the only first world country where mass shootings are a routine thing. Why pretend this isn't a serious problem?

A sad story. It is an indictment of the perpetrator. It is no reflection on society at large.

ideogenous_mover said:

I'm going to go a slightly metaphoric tangent, pardon me. I like to read about un-contacted tribes and pre-modern lifestyles, and things like that. I just got done reading a sizable book on the Amazon, for example. Across the world, it seems that human society started off, or in rare cases continues to, wield deadly tools for purposes of hunting.

So when you think about it, for the majority of the last 200,000 years, all humans have lived with something like a bow and arrow very close at hand. And if they were to socially succeed, they all had to respect such tools, and they all had to know never to haphazardly threaten others with them, and their individual and tribal lifespan may have been largely based on respecting their tools and much as possible. Or, perhaps if they had a strong enough culture of respecting the tools, it wouldn't take as much effort, and the tribe would generally be more peaceful

The point is, our modern weapons are nothing but scaled up bows and arrows. If people are misusing modern tools, I might argue that no, we shouldn't have them. But we shouldn't have them, because somehow we don't understand what these newer things really are, socially and culturally. And maybe who should have them, is not understood, because maybe it takes someone who really knows how much more complicated and deadly these tools are, than older tools, for that person to appropriately have them, and not misuse them.

Again, all of our ancestors had to live with potentially dangerous tools for a long time. A very long time. Maybe we shouldn't have other kinds of tools. Why should humanity have nuclear power, if they do war around a nuclear power plant? Maybe they shouldn't have that either.

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When I was in High school it was common for the parking lot to have pickup trucks with a gun racks and hunting rifles. Nobody shot up the school! The culture changed! people changed!

Father Heathen said:

Our prison system sucks and only hardens criminals rather than rehabilitate them.
I'm not against self-defense, but there are other means.
We're the only first world country where mass shootings are a routine thing. Why pretend this isn't a serious problem?

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By the time criminals end up doing hard time soooo many people have tried to help them! From teachers, family members, coaches, councilors, juvenile detention programs etc! If a person is sitting in their home when a home invasion takes place, its just not their responsibility to get into a phycological debate and "fix" the criminal mind that wants to harm and steal from them.

If you think that >you< can fix or rehab repeat offenders, then forfuksake do it! Give us your magic formula for convincing criminals to behave because man has been misbehaving since the dawn of civilization! Cain wacked Able dead! No guns!

Shaul said:

A sad story. It is an indictment of the perpetrator. It is no reflection on society at large.

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It is if there is a pattern. Healthy communities don't have a pattern of people murdering multiple people at once.

I am for gun ownership, specifically responsible gun ownership. I own a firearm (as well as other projectile weapons). But it's ridiculous to allow an unregulated armed population if there is something contributing to a pattern of violence.

cOLTER said:

By the time criminals end up doing hard time soooo many people have tried to help them! From teachers, family members, coaches, councilors, juvenile detention programs etc! If a person is sitting in their home when a home invasion takes place, its just not their responsibility to get into a phycological debate and "fix" the criminal mind that wants to harm and steal from them.

If you think that >you< can fix or rehab repeat offenders, then forfuksake do it! Give us your magic formula for convincing criminals to behave because man has been misbehaving since the dawn of civilization! Cain waked Able dead! No guns!

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What factors do you suppose contribute to crime?

Shaul said:

A sad story. It is an indictment of the perpetrator. It is no reflection on society at large.

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Yet it's unique and routine to our society.

cOLTER said:

When I was in High school it was common for the parking lot to have pickup trucks with a gun racks and hunting rifles. Nobody shot up the school! The culture changed! people changed!

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Exactly! When I was growing up, my family taught me that weapons were something to respect and be responsible for. But now we have people like Ted Nugent leading the NRA and politicians putting out media glorifying guns in a way that makes them seems like an end to problems.

Guns are no longer hunting or defensive weapons, they are symbols of power in a culture of uneven classes and lacking strong community support.