From what Ive heard, its not fair to call either of them violent
It just seemed like an invitation to close-mindedness to me. Maybe a knee jerk reaction. Or probably I just didn?t like the language. If you take that last question of yours and substitute ?rational? for ?correct?, the alarms stop going off (though I still think that in most cases comparisons are not straightforawrd).
I guess Im done then.
That memorial service was all kinds of strange. The focus went from some strange, fake native american ball-tripping (seriously, I was expecting that dude to bust out with Muru’s Song from Balto 2), to token sympathy, to “and now, check US out!”. Too much cheering when mentioning someone’s death. That shit was weird. It should have been a lot more reverent, and poitics had no business being drummed up at that event. There should have been no “feel-good” crap going on. People were lost, this was supposed to be a gathering to mourn and say goodbye, not to put the spotlight on yourselves.
it should, but it won’t because we’re a nation of pussies and we’d rather have guys flip out and murder tons of people than hurt someone’s crazy ass feelings
We don’t have events like this occur every day. Personally, it seems like a pussy move to strip away everyone’s privacy a few levels on the off chance that small amounts of people, relative to our population, will die. Just like racism, shit like this is the fucked up price that we pay for our personal freedoms.
it’s a shame that it happened. Time for the death penalty.
That’s true, at the very worst, disturbed individuals would be getting professional help. But that begs the question, how many disturbed individuals would get counseling even if the few friends and family they have asked them to? Perhaps I’m just cynical, but I’m not sure how much we as a society can do to prevent nutjobs from going on killing sprees. Obviously, I’d LOVE to be proven wrong. But the solution will probably involve fixing a lot of the problems plaguing society, such as broken families, bad education, poverty, drugs, racism, Miley Cyrus, etc etc, not as simple as getting people the help they need. Its probably too late at that point.
I disagree, but this will turn into a religious debate over whether or not left wing christians are more fanatical than right wing christians. While that would be a fascinating conversation, those kind of topics are frowned upon here. Oh well. So agree to disagree.
The universe is random and utterly indifferent to human concerns. Bad things will happen. On a long enough timescale and with a large enough sample population, you have to expect the occasional aberration–the nutty lone gunman who goes on a rampage.
There is obviously an extent to which we have no control over this. Some things are inevitable. But that isn’t to say that we’ve done all we can to control the variables that are within our power. Even respecting the fact that some things are out of our control, I strongly doubt that there are no positive steps to be taken here that might lessen the chances of this sort of thing happening.
From what I’ve read, Arizona’s gun laws appear to be very weak and sloppily enforced. That might be a place to start. Gun control is a naughty term, but people need to get it out of their heads that it’s either ban guns or ban gun laws. There is a sensible middle ground somewhere.
Yeah, there are positive steps that can be done, but there needs to be a better approach to figuring them out. A lot of the times when these tragedies happen, there is always a knee jerk response to blame x, y, z that’s based more on emotion than facts. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think there’s a lack of good follow up in the majority of these situations.
There needs to be an extensive study done after every mass shooting such as this, run by a group of experts that look at the various variables involved and come up with a good plan for improvement. Then, lawmakers should read these reports and then base their policies on these findings. After every subsequent psychopath shooting, there should be follow up studies to see what worked and what didn’t, and tweak policy based on that. Problem is there are so many variables involved, that it will be hard to isolate them. Still needs to be done though.
Don’t get me wrong, blaming Sarah Palin and right wing conservative douchebags is awesome (I’m surprised they didn’t figure out a way to blame violent video games on this one) but there’s got to be some kind of systematic approach to these kinda issues.
And yes, agreed that a middle ground should exist regarding gun control.
They actually did blame video games and heavy metal while they were at it. Dragged out his postings on an online gaming community forum even.
LOL
/3 char
school needs reform. peoples self identity starts in school and with the peers. as it is currently with youths inexperience with dealing with social problems. all the feedback,good and bad becomes almost hardwired into a persons ego.
public schools need uniforms and strategies to stop the alpha kids from picking on these jared types. its not good for society to have such abused loners, or to have alpha humans fail to develop empathy either. (who go on to use their libel skills that they perfected on jared to make a career)
Everyone can agree that someone mentally ill and criminals should not be able to purchase guns. But the difficult part is whether we can honestly enforce any of these gun laws.
It’s already illegal for convicted felons to buy handguns. In most states you can buy handguns privately and you’re not supposed to knowingly sell to someone who’s a convicted felon. How are you supposed to really know? by asking them?!?!
In terms of limiting the mentally ill from buying firearms, this one will have the problem of invasion of privacy. Unless of course it had to do with a previous criminal act but then we’re going into the convicted felons category.
As bad as this whole thing is, guns aren’t the number one killer. Not even accidental gun deaths are remotely up there. Refer to Just Facts.
A surprising amount of data on private citizens is a matter of public record. While it would be sketchy for the government to directly intervene on the basis of some of this stuff, there are plenty of businesses that use background checks to evaluate a person’s competence and trustworthiness that take more than just criminal convictions into account. It’s a cinch that the skeletons in Loughner’s closet would be unearthed if he tried to rent a house or apply for a high-security job.
Loughner snapped semi-nude photos of himself with his weapon the night before the shooting.
No joke.
^Laws such as ones that prevent people who are mentally incompetent is alright though, others, not so much.
^That’s sort of questionable, 2nd amendment only intended for people to defend themselves or raise a militia if the government got out of hand. Just because the 2nd amendment mentioned nothing about gun control laws, doesn’t mean that they should exist.
My argument is only law abiding citizens will actually follow laws and criminals don’t give a fuck. Therefore gun control laws are only keeping weapons away from their intended recipients, while criminals are well armed. Not every citizen should be expected to go on a rampage because they get a more powerful gun or guns are more easily accessible. I’d think citizens being well armed would deter criminals in my honest opinion because you can expect people to be armed and dangerous at all times and not just helpless victims.
Someone having a gun could’ve easily prevented this tragedy from happening on the scale that it did, instead of somebody having to resort to tackling an armed gunman.
You know if people fought back against government force, they would be deemed terrorists, and people would believe that, because far too many people think the gov has their best interests at heart. And a legally armed citizenry being a better deterrent to crime makes too much sense for those in charge, who claim to be so much smarter than the rest of america. It’s like something out of a William Johnstone novel.
Logic used by gun law opponents.
The same logic, applied to all laws:
[quote=“goodm0urning, post:253, topic:117650”]
A surprising amount of data on private citizens is a matter of public record. While it would be sketchy for the government to directly intervene on the basis of some of this stuff, there are plenty of businesses that use background checks to evaluate a person’s competence and trustworthiness that take more than just criminal convictions into account. It’s a cinch that the skeletons in Loughner’s closet would be unearthed if he tried to rent a house or apply for a high-security job.
/QUOTE]
Fun fact, your “right to privacy” as defined in the constitution (and this is true of most of your rights) only apply to the government. You don’t really have those rights against a private entity. Take the papirazi, you don’t have a right to privacy against them, you do from that sort of thing from the government.
Most people forget this, or just don’t know it. Our rights are structured to prevent an over powered state, or state control, they mean very little when two private entities deal with each other. That’s mostly fair game, and that’s a good thing. It’s why we can enter into various contracts between each other that help us prosper.
Take a look at the right to bear arms, the government is limited here, but your landlord or employer can always contractually bind you not to have them on his property.
I’m not going to debate the merits of this, cause there is no point, it is what is.
Kinda wrong. The second amendment states no limit on gun control. And a militia can only be raised if every able bodied man of a certain age is armed. The country closest to us here is the Swiss where every man of a certain age has a fucking assault rifle so they can band together if needed and form up. That weapons have changed doesn’t change the original intent. You legally should be able to have an F-14 sitting in your backyard if you so choose. And for all the liberal crying over “what about citizens with tanks!” it’s mostly bullshit, who has the money to buy a tank? Corporations, and they are still protected by the government due to corporate personhood (which I do not agree with at fucking all) and legions of lawyers. So they don’t need it.
You’re using silly logic that comes from the left. This “well the constitution doesn’t say you have a right to an AK so you can’t have it” is just as stupid as when the right screams “show me where in the constitution it states seperation of church and state”. Neither exist, you have to go off the actual intent and original argument, which is that the ability to own and use weapons should be in the hands of the people. So we don’t have a situation like existed prior where only the elite had weapons and used them to bully the fuck out of the poor.
We shouldn’t let a few lunatics change that.
Funny thing is, several people had concealed weapons and that didn’t happen, I can explain why. Because when the cops fucking show up, they are shooting at whoever has the gun. When shots are fired and people are dieing it’s chaotic fucking situation, the last person you want to be is the sucker with a gun when the authorities show up. The concept of the lone armed gun owner fixing the situation is a bullshit fantasy that isn’t grounded in reality.
The problem is how you label the mentally ill. Is it Depresssion? Transexuallity is still set as a mental illness. I do not think that an extra qualifier is needed in gun laws. If a person is safe enough to walk the streets, they should be safe enough to own a gun. Anything more is punishing people with no history of crime based on what you think that they might do in the future.
goodmOurning, I agree, but at this point anyone who wants to really get their hands on absurdly ridiculous ammo clip/ gun will get it. Laws or not when people want it, they get their hands on it. I know gun owners and those in the hobby are passionate about their hobby. Me not so much.
However I am passionate about performance cars so I tried to put myself in the same area. Chrysler offers a 600+ hp Viper, and GM offers a 640 hp Corvette. In a country with 70 mph max speed limits, do we really need these two cars which go 0-60 in under 4 seconds and top out over 200 mph? No way. Are they fun to have? Yes. Because we can.
Granted in the wrong hands they will kill someone or several. The absurd high horsepower sports cars are designed for driving excitement, status, and all around feel good emotions they elicit owning such a thing. However, a semi auto with a 30 round clip to me seems more along the lines of anti personnel. They actually make snail shell shaped clips which hold more ammo for semi autos.
The reason I compared the sports cars with guns was because I didn’t want to be hypocritical in judging someone’s passion without reviewing mine in contrast because it too can become ridiculous. However, when someone’s passion revolves around what comes out the end of a barrel that is designed to blow the guts out of someone even wearing a bullet proof vest, I don’t know…
To each their own. I’m all for guns for home defense. Beyond that and they make me nervous to be around. A long time ago 60 minutes or 48 hours did a special on Eagle Claw hollow points. They were specifically designed to mushroom out on impact of soft tissue and shred a person’s insides more than a standard hollow point. I believe the question posed was why someone need ammunition like that. Someone correct em on that type of ammo, it was a long time ago.
This is stupid logic, most people don’t need laws to not murder and rape. Laws are in place to put penalties on items that would discourage those who are prone to act out in negative manner, they serve as a deterrant to the sociopaths among us.