View Full Version : 17 More Dead Kids
Strike For The South
02-15-2018, 21:18
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-shooting-parkland-florida-high-school-n848101
You know how I know the world is unfair? Charlton Heston lived to be 84 and these kids were murdered before they could drink. Make no mistake, this is acceptable to the NRA and its backers. There solution, if they ever move beyond "thoughts and prayers" is simply to arm more security around the school. In an ill fated coincidence, the school had an armed guard but the two paths never crossed.
We Federal gun control. Hell I would take enforcement of gun control already on the books.
Always relevant, unfortunately.
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1823016659
The fetishist approach of part of the American society to an obsolete document is embarrassing. It is related imo to the deification of the... Founding Fathers (what an absurd title for our modern standards).
It may have been stellar back in the day (which I doubt, check the advantages given to rural elites), but times change, as do societies. A modification here and there is not going to cause an Armageddon, I speak from experience.
Montmorency
02-15-2018, 22:47
So, the shooter is a wannabe brownshirt. :shame:
White Supremacists Claim Nikolas Cruz Trained With Them; Students Say He Wore Trump Hat in School (https://www.thedailybeast.com/nikolas-cruz-trained-with-florida-white-supremacist-group-leader-says)
Nikolas Cruz, the man accused of killing 17 people in a Florida high school, was a member of a “white separatist paramilitary proto-fascist organization,” the group told The Daily Beast.
Cruz, 19, is accused of opening fire inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Prior to the shooting, he trained with the Republic of Florida, the group’s captain Jordan Jereb said (as first reported by the Anti-Defamation League). The RoF seeks to create a “white ethnostate” in Florida, according to its website, a view that Cruz supposedly shared.
“I know he knew full well he was joining a white separatist paramilitary proto-fascist organization,” Jereb said.
Last year, an alleged school shooter in New Mexico also expressed alt-right ideology online, as The Daily Beast previously reported.
Cruz “seemed like just a normal, disenfranchised, young white man,” Jereb said.
While no motive has been described by police, Jereb speculated that Cruz may have allegedly committed the massacre out of hatred for Jews or women.
“There’s a very real sense of feminism being a cancer. That could’ve played into what he did, but we have female members of RoF,” Jereb said, adding that “we’re not a big fan of Jews. I think there were a lot of Jews at the school that might have been messing with him.”
Jereb said Cruz belonged to a RoF “cell” from Clearwater and drove up with members to Tallahassee to do paramilitary training. RoF was recently operating in Tallahassee and attempting to court new members, according to a local news report from last year. The group posts videos of training montages on the internet with members in fatigues brandishing weapons.
“I’m not trying to glorify it, but he was pretty efficient in what he did,” Jereb said. “He probably used that training to do what he did yesterday. Nobody I know told him to do that, he just freaked out.”
Cruz received at least one of his guns through the white supremacist group, according to Jereb.
“I think somebody bought him a Mosin–Nagant, but that’s bolt action. He had a semi-automatic in the school,” Jereb said.
Cruz bought the AR-15 rifle authorities say he used at the school in February 2017, the ATF said in an affidavit filed Thursday.
Listen, some argue there is moral justification in "punching Nazis" because they represent a "clear and present danger" to life and limb; punching them is an act of self-defense. I don't buy this line of thinking because it extends the logic of pre-emptive attack too far. One is not, for example, justified in tracking down and shooting someone because you saw them hanging around your house, maybe scoping it out for a home invasion. Neither declaration of intent nor logically-surmised intent go far enough to trigger a right to self-defense, at least as far as interpersonal violence goes.
These militias are a clear and present danger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz1PhLX4qBA
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/do-composite-gunner-youtube-2.jpg?strip=all&quality=100&w=750&h=500&crop=1
HopAlongBunny
02-15-2018, 23:51
"Thoughts and prayers"; what policy is reduced to when you ignore the data.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-16-2018, 00:28
There is a huge confluence of factors, culturally and politically, at play here. My quick comments here will not be exhaustive, but please consider the following:
A shiny new "gun control" law will accomplish little to nothing, no matter how heartfelt the sentiments behind it. There are approximately 270 million firearms in the United states, and between 6 and 8 million AR-15 or AR-15 style firearms (the type associated with this latest tragedy) depending who is doing the estimate. There are more unregistered firearms than their are illegal border crossers (a number we are told simply cannot be deported as it is beyond capability). With 300 million citizens and a total population of more than 327 million, we have about 4 firearms for every 5 people in the USA.
If we abolish our quaint Constitution (which guarantees personal ownership of weapons so as to allow for a militia and for the individual citizen to oppose tyranny based on the unprovable belief that an individual is entitled to rights and that government must be limited and should not curtail them unless mutually agreeable to all) and go to a government fiat system as is the norm for humanity, even going so far as to abolish the ownership of firearms (or requiring all legally owned firearms to be stored at a public armory and redeemed when, and under what conditions authority sees fit to establish), there will still be millions of guns "loose" in our society.
So unless you are of the belief that we can change the second amendment and then confiscate/criminalize etc. all of those who try to keep their weapons, we are pretty much stuck with the conditions that now obtain regarding firearms, firearm ownership, and the accessibility of weapons.
After all, Switzerland is nearly as awash (per capita) with firearms as we....and you do not see the same rate of firearm murders. The mere presence of firearms in a society does not, of itself, beget more gun violence. There is still the choice to use that firearm with violent intent that is central to the issue.
The issue is our culture, not our gun laws. Prior to 1900, a very high percentage of households in the USA had firearms. That percentage has gone down significantly during the 20th century. Yet the violence has increased. In WW2, fewer than 20% of our infantry forces would actually shoot at the enemy with intent to do harm. Most only fired their weapons to make noise or suppress enemy fire. Our current military stats suggest that 80% or more of our current infantry will engage with intent to do harm. Something has happened between 1950 and the present to make our culture much less unwilling to shoot and kill someone. THAT is the concern.
Alexander the Pretty Good
02-16-2018, 01:10
Your overall post is correct Seamus, but I have two nitpicks. 1, violence is probably down from before 1900, although I would say the nature of that violence and how we relate to it has also changed dramatically. 2, the numbers you are citing from WW2 are ultimately from SLA Marshall, who basically just made up numbers for his book. I'm not sure there's actually a good reason to believe his ratio of fire ideas. Interestingly the US military believed it and changed training methods to counteract this believed deficiency in American infantry.
In the 50s and 60s you could buy an M1 carbine, a semi-auto milsurp rifle with a 30 round mag for like $100. Where were all the school shootings then? I think the seeds of our current societal sicknesses had already been planted by then, but we still (on the whole) much healthier at the time.
Montmorency
02-16-2018, 01:31
After all, Switzerland is nearly as awash (per capita) with firearms as we....and you do not see the same rate of firearm murders. The mere presence of firearms in a society does not, of itself, beget more gun violence. There is still the choice to use that firearm with violent intent that is central to the issue.
Switzerland has onerous militia-oriented gun regulations (https://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/switzerland.php).
The mere presence of firearms in a society does not, of itself, beget more gun violence. There is still the choice to use that firearm with violent intent that is central to the issue.
As 'Western culture' tells us, the blade itself incites to violence (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts). There are several interpretations possible, but none congenial to mulishness.
The issue is our culture, not our gun laws. Prior to 1900, a very high percentage of households in the USA had firearms. That percentage has gone down significantly during the 20th century. Yet the violence has increased. In WW2, fewer than 20% of our infantry forces would actually shoot at the enemy with intent to do harm. Most only fired their weapons to make noise or suppress enemy fire. Our current military stats suggest that 80% or more of our current infantry will engage with intent to do harm. Something has happened between 1950 and the present to make our culture much less unwilling to shoot and kill someone. THAT is the concern.
The WW2 studies were too binary. It's reasonable to conclude that almost everyone at some points would shoot to kill, and at other points would avoid doing so. There would not have been a large proportion either of pure quasi-pacifists or of pure psychotic killers. I don't think changes in the post-Vietnam military, which includes the all-volunteer transition, are readily identifiable with broad cultural changes (not in that direction), nor with increasing mass violence contemporaneous with decreasing interpersonal violence today.*
I don't like to get involved in debates on gun policy or 2nd Amendment hermeneutics - Protip: It's the hybrid model (https://www.socsci.uci.edu/lawforum/content/journal/LFJ_2008_palzes.pdf) - but two things for debaters to keep in mind:
1. Any gun control legislation must be understood as part of a program meant to change the unfavorable long-term conditions, which did not always obtain, and with time may be shifted. That the signing of a single statute does not magically resolve any issue is no argument against the drafting of statutes; it's an argument for comprehensiveness.
2. The standing judicial interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is very new (not much older than Scalia's tenure). In interpreting the 2nd Amendment, and whether it really was meant to have anything to do with personal firearm ownership for purposes of personal self-defense, consider what the Founders themselves (https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2013/04/gun-rights-1780s-and-today) had to say about it, and the much more specific versions most of the States adopted in their Constitutions.
And you know what's fecking funny? Very specific gun rights are already protected in most state constitutions, so forced interpretations of the federal Constitution is not even necessary. It's already failed to protect the states from subjugation to the federal government. And consider that the very ones who bleat about needing guns to defend us against government tyranny are the most likely to be co-opted as the paramilitary or enforcers of a tyrannous government. Either their guns are useless and they are swept away, or the illegitimate government enjoys its security by the stake of those selfsame.
More than anything the gun problem in the USA can be identified as a problem of gun zealotry, gun worship, and the NRA priesthood. That's the heart of it, and I can't imagine what's to be done about it. In the meantime, debating the issue is almost as idle as debating WW2 alternate timelines. Gun control is impossible because gun zealots refuse to discuss the possibility of constitutionally-valid gun control, Heller and Kafka eat your heart out.
*For changes in military culture after WW2 and Vietnam, here is one book (that I haven't read):
http://a.co/ehzhVkH
Always relevant, unfortunately.
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1823016659
The fetishist approach of part of the American society to an obsolete document is embarrassing. It is related imo to the deification of the... Founding Fathers (what an absurd title for our modern standards).
It may have been stellar back in the day (which I doubt, check the advantages given to rural elites), but times change, as do societies. A modification here and there is not going to cause an Armageddon, I speak from experience.
https://i.imgur.com/thy22f6.png
Shaka_Khan
02-16-2018, 02:22
A shiny new "gun control" law will accomplish little to nothing, no matter how heartfelt the sentiments behind it. There are approximately 270 million firearms in the United states, and between 6 and 8 million AR-15 or AR-15 style firearms (the type associated with this latest tragedy) depending who is doing the estimate. There are more unregistered firearms than their are illegal border crossers (a number we are told simply cannot be deported as it is beyond capability). With 300 million citizens and a total population of more than 327 million, we have about 4 firearms for every 5 people in the USA.
I agree with you about there already being too many firearms in the USA for a total ban to work right away. However, it shouldn't be too easy to obtain a firearm as it is in the USA now.
After all, Switzerland is nearly as awash (per capita) with firearms as we....and you do not see the same rate of firearm murders. The mere presence of firearms in a society does not, of itself, beget more gun violence. There is still the choice to use that firearm with violent intent that is central to the issue.
There are also countries with strict gun laws that don't have gun crime problems. Examples are Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
This shouldn't be about guns, it should be about people picking on someone. My condolences
A shiny new "gun control" law will accomplish little to nothing, no matter how heartfelt the sentiments behind it. There are approximately 270 million firearms in the United states, and between 6 and 8 million AR-15 or AR-15 style firearms (the type associated with this latest tragedy) depending who is doing the estimate. There are more unregistered firearms than their are illegal border crossers (a number we are told simply cannot be deported as it is beyond capability). With 300 million citizens and a total population of more than 327 million, we have about 4 firearms for every 5 people in the USA.
.........
So unless you are of the belief that we can change the second amendment and then confiscate/criminalize etc. all of those who try to keep their weapons, we are pretty much stuck with the conditions that now obtain regarding firearms, firearm ownership, and the accessibility of weapons.
The second amendment doesn't need to be changed but we absolutely need new gun control laws. It should not be easier to buy guns than it is to buy alcohol. The current supply of guns makes new regulations pointless at first but you have to start somewhere. No one required licenses and inspections for cars at one point until it became clear that it was absolutely necessary.
Additionally this is something that should be done at the federal level. The 2nd Amendment shouldn't change depending on which state I'm in. If I'm moving from State A to Z and pass through B it'd be stupid to be possibly breaking the law in the states in between.
People should need to apply for a license for firearms, register all their firearms and have that right able to be waived if they are criminals, have violent mental problems, or a history of documented family abuse. In the US Military if someone is documented as committing domestic violence that Service-member is no longer allowed to handle weapons or munitions and their career is essentially ended as it should be. That same person has no hindrance as a citizen though from buy similar weapons that we use in the military (just lack burst and automatic fire).
After all, Switzerland is nearly as awash (per capita) with firearms as we....and you do not see the same rate of firearm murders. The mere presence of firearms in a society does not, of itself, beget more gun violence. There is still the choice to use that firearm with violent intent that is central to the issue.
The issue is our culture, not our gun laws. Prior to 1900, a very high percentage of households in the USA had firearms. That percentage has gone down significantly during the 20th century. Yet the violence has increased. In WW2, fewer than 20% of our infantry forces would actually shoot at the enemy with intent to do harm. Most only fired their weapons to make noise or suppress enemy fire. Our current military stats suggest that 80% or more of our current infantry will engage with intent to do harm. Something has happened between 1950 and the present to make our culture much less unwilling to shoot and kill someone. THAT is the concern.
To change the culture we need to start by making firearms a serious thing. Owning and storing a firearm should be treated with the seriousness and forethought it deserves. They are not toys and should no longer be treated as such. Someone that wants something for home defense should first go through training, not merely purchase a rifle or pistol. Someone wanting to hunt should do the same. People with mini-arsenals should be allowed to do so but that should also then fly a red flag in some sort of database to ensure said person is first of all sane, doesn't engage in criminal activities and so forth. When parents own the weapons that a student uses to commit crimes or shoot up a school that parent should be liable as well.
As for the constitutionality of such policy I'd point to the second amendment itself.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
It's hard to keep a well regulated militia if we have zero understanding of the safe usage and storing of peoples arms. Hell you could even tie gun ownership to militia use, can't own a firearm if you don't volunteer as a member of the state militia and meet it's standards and regulations. At the very least you could make the purchase of anything beyond a revolver, bolt-action, or muzzle loader something that requires a long line of checks and licenses.
The mass of guns in the US would make the regulations pointless at first but buy back programs, changing attitudes, and most importantly education might change it so it's not like it is now 20 years from now. Doing nothing helps no one.
The way the Swiss treat their guns in relation to military service is more in line with what our founding fathers wrote down far more than the ludicrous arsenals people maintain without limit today.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/bearing-arms_how-gun-loving-switzerland-regulates-its-firearms/43573832
Regulating firearms in gun-loving Switzerland
“What is decisive is not so much the number of weapons as the number of people who have access to a weapon,” he said. “Some people have real arsenals, but what really matters is access to at least one weapon."
All 26 cantons keep track of the guns held within their borders as well as the ammunition. A seller of a hunting rifle, for example, must report the sale and the name of the owner to cantonal authorities.
Ammunition and guns must be stored separately and securely.
Carrying a gun in public requires a license that is only issued if the applicant proves they are qualified. The applicant must demonstrate a need it to protect themselves against existing dangers and must also pass an exam on violent crime laws and proper gun handling before being allowed to carry.
A carrying license allows for the concealed carrying of a handgun. Unloaded weapons being transported to the shooting range or hunting field do not require such a carrying license.
EDIT: I'll just point out I'm an NRA Life Member and its affiliated Hawaii Rifle Association. I own 3 rifles, a shotgun, and one pistol. I use them for hunting and culling my sheep herd and occasionally to shoot cans on a friends ranch land.
This shouldn't be about guns, it should be about people picking on someone. My condolences
The acceptable recourse shouldn't be blowing away a bunch of completely unrelated other people.
rory_20_uk
02-16-2018, 10:42
This is the USA's sick culture. It would take a long time and a massive amount of public will to rectify, neither of which are present.
The solutions are pretty easy to write down:
Massive tax on all weapons and bullets; restrict categories of both further.
Ban all advertising.
Enforce (and improve) all checks.
Remove most carry licenses - if you're in certain areas (such as cities) there is never a need for a .50 pistol.
Gun amnesties & destruction of captured weapons.
Violent crimes lead to immediate confiscation of all owned weaponry, removal of license and an inability to get a new one. Only able to rent guns in highly restricted environments such as on the property of their gun club.
And try to get through their thick skulls they're not living in 1870 in the Mid West.
There's millions of them unaccounted for so this would take probably over a decade to get to the point where most are either "proper" hunting weaponry owned by people who want to hunt or inactivated curios.
But it won't happen. Thoughts and prayers etc. Almost that ends up on autocomplete.
~:smoking:
spmetla, people who do this don't expect to survive it, they just want to inflict maximal harm before getting killed, it's their revenge on the world.
In general, chools can be horrible cruel places for some, I don't like how this Always becomes a discussion about weapons, teachers should be made more observant
Agent Miles
02-16-2018, 15:13
Another wasteland thread of rhetoric.
The world changes every day and we should react. Those groups that are mocked for their thoughts and prayers also offer solutions. Students at school needn't be fish in a barrel. Parents need to ask, "What should we do to secure our child's school?" and then pay to fix the problem. The nation has 20 million veterans. We can secure our schools.
The Dems had 8 years to seize all the guns in the U.S. but didn't. Apparently all of the liberal base forgot that little point. The police can never be everywhere but criminals can be anywhere. That's why people have an actual need, not only a right, to defend themselves. If all the law-abiding citizens were disarmed, criminals would still have firearms. Also, dear intellectual geniuses on the Left, people can make an automatic firearm from scratch in their garage over a weekend. With simple tools and a box of sheet metal its possible to fashion a working M3 submachinegun from WW2 by hand. It's also possible to 3D print a bump-stock, silencer and 30-round clips. So all of your laws and regulations won't stop a criminal/terrorist/POS from doing what they do. Tougher gun control laws are a fool's paradise. Please cry your crocodile tears in silence while the rest of us do a security analysis of every school and hire some guards...armed with guns.
Another wasteland thread of rhetoric.
The world changes every day and we should react. Those groups that are mocked for their thoughts and prayers also offer solutions. Students at school needn't be fish in a barrel. Parents need to ask, "What should we do to secure our child's school?" and then pay to fix the problem. The nation has 20 million veterans. We can secure our schools.
Yes, veterans!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT5Lw-6PayI
Tougher gun control laws are a fool's paradise. Please cry your crocodile tears in silence while the rest of us do a security analysis of every school and hire some guards...armed with guns.
Why not increase the budget of the army even further and place tanks in schools? Every criminal can get some sheet metal and build himself an armored car in his garage that makes him impervious to your armed guards. We all know this will happen because of all the even more numerous amok runs and school shootings in European countries with unarmed populaces where sheet metal M3s are regularly used. :rolleyes:
My thoughts and prayers go out to your argument.
CrossLOPER
02-16-2018, 16:58
Another wasteland thread of rhetoric.
The world changes every day and we should react. Those groups that are mocked for their thoughts and prayers also offer solutions. Students at school needn't be fish in a barrel. Parents need to ask, "What should we do to secure our child's school?" and then pay to fix the problem. The nation has 20 million veterans. We can secure our schools.
The Dems had 8 years to seize all the guns in the U.S. but didn't. Apparently all of the liberal base forgot that little point. The police can never be everywhere but criminals can be anywhere. That's why people have an actual need, not only a right, to defend themselves. If all the law-abiding citizens were disarmed, criminals would still have firearms. Also, dear intellectual geniuses on the Left, people can make an automatic firearm from scratch in their garage over a weekend. With simple tools and a box of sheet metal its possible to fashion a working M3 submachinegun from WW2 by hand. It's also possible to 3D print a bump-stock, silencer and 30-round clips. So all of your laws and regulations won't stop a criminal/terrorist/POS from doing what they do. Tougher gun control laws are a fool's paradise. Please cry your crocodile tears in silence while the rest of us do a security analysis of every school and hire some guards...armed with guns.
So how would this have prevented the Las Vegas shooting?
Montmorency
02-16-2018, 17:51
spmetla, people who do this don't expect to survive it, they just want to inflict maximal harm before getting killed, it's their revenge on the world.
In general, chools can be horrible cruel places for some, I don't like how this Always becomes a discussion about weapons, teachers should be made more observant
Cruz used the fire alarm to increase the death toll, to get the school body moving and unprepared for this type of disaster.
After shooting enough, he dumped his weapons and ammo and blended in with evacuating students, visited a McDonalds.
He later surrendered himself to police.
It does not look like he intended to go down that day. He is a terrorist like Dylann Roof.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/15/how-florida-school-shooting-unfolded/344040002/
Also, he's displayed psychopathic traits (like going after small animals and pets) for years. The time to intervene was years ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fla-shooting-suspect-had-a-history-of-explosive-anger-depression-killing-animals/2018/02/15/06f05710-1291-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html?utm_term=.60646553e671
And again, Miles is 100% wrong.
rory_20_uk
02-16-2018, 18:05
Cruz used the fire alarm to increase the death toll, to get the school body moving and unprepared for this type of disaster.
After shooting enough, he dumped his weapons and ammo and blended in with evacuating students, visited a McDonalds.
He later surrendered himself to police.
It does not look like he intended to go down that day. He is a terrorist like Dylann Roof.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/15/how-florida-school-shooting-unfolded/344040002/
Also, he's displayed psychopathic traits (like going after small animals and pets) for years. The time to intervene was years ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fla-shooting-suspect-had-a-history-of-explosive-anger-depression-killing-animals/2018/02/15/06f05710-1291-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html?utm_term=.60646553e671
And again, Miles is 100% wrong.
As far as I am aware he is not a terrorist since he is not using terror to further a political agenda.
"Intervene"? What intervention would have made a difference in a country so awash with guns? Unless there are pre-crime laws where he can be locked up for the safety of society.
~:smoking:
Montmorency
02-16-2018, 18:58
As far as I am aware he is not a terrorist since he is not using terror to further a political agenda.
"Intervene"? What intervention would have made a difference in a country so awash with guns? Unless there are pre-crime laws where he can be locked up for the safety of society.
~:smoking:
Intervention of the psychological or social services sort, when he was manifesting extremely problematic behaviors (before high school).
I'm getting ahead of things, but that my impression of what the details so far point to, that he perceived some enemies (minorities, women, etc) beyond individual animosity, and wanted (and planned for some time) to strike a blow at them in a public way. Most school/mass shooters off themselves (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/keeping-kids-safe/200908/kill-and-die-suicide-and-school-shooters) when the rampage ends; perhaps those who don't are more likely to be politically or ideologically driven. It's nothing more than tentative, but this millenium is giving researchers so much to work with.
https://www.livescience.com/55076-science-of-mass-shooters.html
Lone-wolf terrorists are less likely to be suicidal than public mass shooters in the U.S., Lankford told Live Science, but many lone wolves suffer from mental-health problems or personal crises that echo those seen in public mass shooters. A terrorist is defined as someone who uses violence in pursuit of political aims, whereas a public mass shooter is generally driven by more personal motivations.
However, these categories can blur and overlap, said Lankford. For example, the shooter who killed African-American congregants at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, ultimately was not charged with terrorism but rather a hate crime. That was a controversial decision, as many saw his desire to start a "race war" as a political motivation.
Another wasteland thread of rhetoric.
The world changes every day and we should react. Those groups that are mocked for their thoughts and prayers also offer solutions. Students at school needn't be fish in a barrel. Parents need to ask, "What should we do to secure our child's school?" and then pay to fix the problem. The nation has 20 million veterans. We can secure our schools.
Hiring guards everywhere is the solution? I guess that might work but you'd essentially be admitting that our security situation is like a third world country. In Iraq and Afghanistan I saw local police with Kalashnikovs guarding schools and public buildings to protect themselves from crazies, are we now in that same boat?
The Dems had 8 years to seize all the guns in the U.S. but didn't. Apparently all of the liberal base forgot that little point. The police can never be everywhere but criminals can be anywhere. That's why people have an actual need, not only a right, to defend themselves. If all the law-abiding citizens were disarmed, criminals would still have firearms. Also, dear intellectual geniuses on the Left, people can make an automatic firearm from scratch in their garage over a weekend. With simple tools and a box of sheet metal its possible to fashion a working M3 submachinegun from WW2 by hand. It's also possible to 3D print a bump-stock, silencer and 30-round clips. So all of your laws and regulations won't stop a criminal/terrorist/POS from doing what they do. Tougher gun control laws are a fool's paradise. Please cry your crocodile tears in silence while the rest of us do a security analysis of every school and hire some guards...armed with guns.
Why would they seize all the guns in the US? While there are SOME that advocate that it has never been the policy of the Democrats to do so. Despite 30 years of hearing about how Clinton and Obama are gonna sweep in with UN forces and disarm the US it never happens, it's just a scare tactic and right wing propaganda.
Yes, people can make weapons at home, but how many do? How many have 3D printers and machine shop tools? Not that many. There will always be illicit firearms but we should't make it even easier by having no system of licenses and documentation. I'm a farmer and have access to all sorts of fertilizers that can be used to make explosives but I don't nor do most farmers.
Regulations and laws mean that criminals and terrorists can't just go to Walmart and buy their weapons or ammo to commit crimes. Yes, they'd be buying off the blackmarket but that at least puts them in the realm of being watched by the ATF and FBI.
Your doing a security analysis of every school? You're gonna hire enough guards and ensure they are all properly trained with firearms? How many guards per capita do we need then? Are we putting up barbed wire and metal detectors at all schools too? You yourself point out that the police can't be everywhere. Do we mandate active shooter training and the issuing of firearms for all public employees? Are you and your crew gonna pay the additional taxes that would be required to do this, because it's not gonna be cheap. Not to mention that future of prevalent checkpoints and armed guards everywhere is more appropriate for Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, not the US.
US citizens have a right to bear arms. Just like with free speech that right comes with responsibilities, let's make gun ownership require the seriousness and forethought that such a right requires.
In general, schools can be horrible cruel places for some, I don't like how this Always becomes a discussion about weapons, teachers should be made more observant
I agree that schools can be terrible. Hazing and bullying are terrible problems that are made even worse by the ease of doing so online with zero teacher/parent oversight. Teachers should be more observant but so should parents. If kids are being picked on going down the path of some sort of extremism the parents would probably be the first to notice. Plopping a kid in front of the TV or computer instead of engaging them and finding out about their way doesn't ease the problems of feeling isolated.
Montmorency
02-16-2018, 21:51
Spmetla, for some people its consistent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz1PhLX4qBA
They can watch this video, and it wouldn't trouble them if it were in Beslan, Russia; Peshawar, Pakistan; or Parkland, Florida. It's not a question of casualty count either, it just doesn't trouble them in an actionable way. They feel comfortable. They can defend themselves, they believe. Now if you try to hinder their self-defense, sure they call you crazy, humming "I'm the only one I got" as they go.
But Corporal Grampaw can't make it on Social Security alone, so hand him an M-4 (to cut down on training) and set him to patrolling the hallways. Two birds one with stone there. They only believe in effective, rights-preserving solutions.
US citizens have a right to bear arms. Just like with free speech that right comes with responsibilities, let's make gun ownership require the seriousness and forethought that such a right requires.
Related to that it's also not quite true that having more sensible gun laws and by far reduced gun crime have to come with a completely disarmed population. A simple look at Wikipedia shows that even supposedly "soft" countries like Norway, Germany, Canada and France have around 30 guns per 100 citizens in private hands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
And yes, we can also have tragedies like the one with Breivik or various mass shootings here and there. The difference is that the US have already had 29 or so this year and most of these other countries haven't had a single one (that I know of). In comparison, the amount of people who die from gunshots is simply significantly higher in the US.
The point being that gun ownership in the US appears to be off the charts, but also that a complete disarmament of the population is not even necessary to significantly reduce the number of gun deaths per year. Not eliminate it perhaps, but a 95% reduction or thereabouts would seem quite significant and mean thousands of people wouldn't get shot every year in the US.
Just look at the numbers for 2018: http://www.gunviolencearchive.org
1,875 dead people and we're only in mid-February... and 30 mass shootings already...
For comparison: http://www.rp-online.de/panorama/deutschland/27-menschen-starben-durch-registrierte-schusswaffen-aid-1.3964297
Germany had 57 deaths from gun shots in all of 2017, 27 of these from registered guns. Germany has a population of ~82 million people
The US had 15,590 deaths in 2017 and a population of ~320 million people.
It shouldn't take a genius to see that the numbers don't quite scale. It's 0.71 gun deaths per million people in 2017 in Germany and 48.72 in the US... Meanwhile Germany still has ~30% of the guns per pop as the US do compared to 1.4% the gun death rate per million people.
The solution of throwing even more guns at even more people (especially potentially unstable veterans, who are apparently among the groups most likey to start a mass shooting themselves, without wanting to disrespect them) is surely not going to work.
By the way, just for "fun", compare the 2017 US figure to ones from a war zone: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269729/documented-civilian-deaths-in-iraq-war-since-2003/
I know and it absolutely sickens me. I think some want more attacks like this to justify their bunker mentality waiting for the day to prove themselves. There is justification for being armed for self defense, heck the police response time for my sister during a home invasion was about 90 minutes and I'm glad her husband was armed and able mexican stand off the guy away. If we make licenses and regulations necessary the same law abiding citizens that are armed now will remain so, it does however make it more difficult for potential terrorists and criminals to acquire firearms.
The far right in this country keep telling themselves that we are the most free and that we're the only ones with guns when its so completely far from the facts. Taking tests to own and use something with the deadly potential like a firearm makes sense just like taking a test to drive a car. It doesn't hinder ones rights to do so, it just requires more caring than going to Walmart and producing ID to show your over 18.
Since 9/11 white right wing extremists are killing far more Americans than Islamists are each year and somehow I'm labeled a left-wing liberal (despite being patently not one) for wanting to do something about it.
Montmorency
02-16-2018, 22:40
Here's a nice video on German gun (weapons) control:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0-J2pYLCvI
Tangentially, there are a lot of videos of armed German police being surprisingly judicious in their use of force:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k21se4UOC-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlcquEbJCec
rory_20_uk
02-17-2018, 17:39
Intervention of the psychological or social services sort, when he was manifesting extremely problematic behaviors (before high school).
Sure, in a developed country with a functioning health service. The USA doesn't fit that category.
Next you'll be expecting the police to be mentally balanced before they are given a gun and badge - where would it end??!?!?
~:smoking:
a completely inoffensive name
02-18-2018, 22:57
Another wasteland thread of rhetoric.
The world changes every day and we should react. Those groups that are mocked for their thoughts and prayers also offer solutions. Students at school needn't be fish in a barrel. Parents need to ask, "What should we do to secure our child's school?" and then pay to fix the problem. The nation has 20 million veterans. We can secure our schools.
The Dems had 8 years to seize all the guns in the U.S. but didn't. Apparently all of the liberal base forgot that little point. The police can never be everywhere but criminals can be anywhere. That's why people have an actual need, not only a right, to defend themselves. If all the law-abiding citizens were disarmed, criminals would still have firearms. Also, dear intellectual geniuses on the Left, people can make an automatic firearm from scratch in their garage over a weekend. With simple tools and a box of sheet metal its possible to fashion a working M3 submachinegun from WW2 by hand. It's also possible to 3D print a bump-stock, silencer and 30-round clips. So all of your laws and regulations won't stop a criminal/terrorist/POS from doing what they do. Tougher gun control laws are a fool's paradise. Please cry your crocodile tears in silence while the rest of us do a security analysis of every school and hire some guards...armed with guns.
This is why America will fall as a great power.
Montmorency
02-18-2018, 23:21
Who says phones don't belong in schools?
Student reporter interviews classmates hiding from gunman in Florida high school (http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article200242224.html)
NRA members need to take back their organization from the manufacturers.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-19-2018, 19:10
Again, our culture has always been "awash with guns." When we founded ourselves, the weapons available in peoples homes were at or near military grade weaponry and the ownership thereof was not simply allowed, but expected and required. All males from 16 to 60 were liable for service in the militia save for a few who, by virtue of the oaths associated with their profession (clergy and doctors), could opt out of such service. Outside of urban areas, it was common for most of the women to have basic skills with those same weapons as well. There was no federal prohibition against the ownership of artillery either, and artillery was commonplace on ocean-going ships owned by US citizens and organizations. Current restrictions on weapon ownership in the USA (bans on use/carrying in numerous public areas, licensure requirements for concealed weapons, difficulties and added costs to purchase automatic weapons, extremely high taxes for all modern "destructive devices" in excess of .50 caliber) mean that restrictions on weapons currently are at the highest point they have ever been in US history (excepting, possibly, the machine gun ban, though that is arguable).
Homicide rates in the USA have, with some years of exception, always been higher than those of other Western culture states. For example, during the stretch when Canada and the USA both had a "Wild West" the homicide rate per 1000 in the USA was about 4 times that of Canada. Between 1865 and 1940, a notable percentage of these homicides were lynchings, sometimes in the service of a rather informal justice process, but more often as a means of expressing racism. Note that our current murder (all degrees) rate of 4.88 is higher than virtually all of Northern, Southern, and Western Europe. The Caribbean, Africa, and South America are all far more murder rife. In general, the New World is far more murderous than the Old World. Prima facie this suggests that a firm rule of law coupled to a largely disarmed population yields fewer murders. However, that combination itself represents a dramatic difference in cultural values.
Again, this concern is, to my lights, NOT a gun control issue. There is a cultural problem here that will not be alleviated by some "restriction" on gun ownership.
In this specific case, we now have learned, the system should have worked. The FBI's bureaucracy failed to forward a report as to the dangerousness of this shooter for action by the Miami office. Spurred by this mass killing, other reports in the system were fast-tracked and 4 persons detained (at least one of whom was a virtual certainty to have become a similar attack). There are certainly things that can and should be improved in spotting and disarming those persons most at risk of this sort of thing (and there are, almost always, warning signs that were ignored or not acted upon). Nothing wrong with honing this.
Restrictions can alter the culture though. Do you oppose people needing to get trained on firearms, registering their weapons and having a license that periodically needs to be re-upped? Require proper safe storage with ammunition separate. Guns are a serious matter and should be treated as much.
Like I pointed out with cars, there was a time when no one needed drivers licenses, cars didn't need to have seat belts. Cars, just like guns have changed technologically. Cars can go faster and the roads are setup to allow that. Semi auto guns are now common place where bolt and lever actions were the norm until the 1980s outside of surplus military sales (usually veterans purchasing M1 Garands or carbines). Car culture changed with the times but also together with regulations (on licensing and the car industry).
We also had a culture of cigarette use, government taxing, restrictions on where you can smoke and education on the health risk together have created a culture that's actually quite hostile to smoking in public now. The 'war on tobacco' took about 30 years to change America's culture. A similar war against gun violence would probably take decades as well.
The above will not stop all these mass shootings but could spur a culture of responsibility and seriousness into guns as opposed to them being grown boys toys. For those that want to own and shoot guns and their children to do the same being forced to teach their kids safety and storage, the rules and regulations to pass a licensing test. If we create a culture in which all legal gun owners are for the most part well trained, store their arms securely, and there are more safeguards against 'loonies' stocking up for a private war then perhaps in the future these types of events will focus on the enforcement aspect and not the guns themselves.
Montmorency
02-20-2018, 00:15
Again, our culture has always been "awash with guns." When we founded ourselves, the weapons available in peoples homes were at or near military grade weaponry and the ownership thereof was not simply allowed, but expected and required. All males from 16 to 60 were liable for service in the militia save for a few who, by virtue of the oaths associated with their profession (clergy and doctors), could opt out of such service. Outside of urban areas, it was common for most of the women to have basic skills with those same weapons as well. There was no federal prohibition against the ownership of artillery either, and artillery was commonplace on ocean-going ships owned by US citizens and organizations. Current restrictions on weapon ownership in the USA (bans on use/carrying in numerous public areas, licensure requirements for concealed weapons, difficulties and added costs to purchase automatic weapons, extremely high taxes for all modern "destructive devices" in excess of .50 caliber) mean that restrictions on weapons currently are at the highest point they have ever been in US history (excepting, possibly, the machine gun ban, though that is arguable).
Homicide rates in the USA have, with some years of exception, always been higher than those of other Western culture states. For example, during the stretch when Canada and the USA both had a "Wild West" the homicide rate per 1000 in the USA was about 4 times that of Canada. Between 1865 and 1940, a notable percentage of these homicides were lynchings, sometimes in the service of a rather informal justice process, but more often as a means of expressing racism. Note that our current murder (all degrees) rate of 4.88 is higher than virtually all of Northern, Southern, and Western Europe. The Caribbean, Africa, and South America are all far more murder rife. In general, the New World is far more murderous than the Old World. Prima facie this suggests that a firm rule of law coupled to a largely disarmed population yields fewer murders. However, that combination itself represents a dramatic difference in cultural values.
Again, this concern is, to my lights, NOT a gun control issue. There is a cultural problem here that will not be alleviated by some "restriction" on gun ownership.
In this specific case, we now have learned, the system should have worked. The FBI's bureaucracy failed to forward a report as to the dangerousness of this shooter for action by the Miami office. Spurred by this mass killing, other reports in the system were fast-tracked and 4 persons detained (at least one of whom was a virtual certainty to have become a similar attack). There are certainly things that can and should be improved in spotting and disarming those persons most at risk of this sort of thing (and there are, almost always, warning signs that were ignored or not acted upon). Nothing wrong with honing this.
America's crime rates are not out of line with those of other first-world countries. It's just the lethality of crime. The lethality of crime is accounted for by guns (which in turn must encourage a more maximal, paranoid, ruthless approach by criminals, police, and bystanders).
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9217163/america-guns-europe
A landmark 1997 study actually tried to answer this question. Its findings — which scholars say still hold up — are that America doesn't really have a significantly higher rate of crime compared to similar countries. But that crime is much likelier to be lethal: American criminals just kill more people than do their counterparts in other developed countries. And guns appear to be a big part of what makes this difference.
[...]
They found, pretty definitively, that the conventional wisdom was wrong. "Rates of common property crimes in the United States are comparable to those reported in many other Western industrial nations, but rates of lethal violence in the United States are much higher," they write. "Violence is not a crime problem."
[...]
Why does this happen? It's not because, as you might think, American violent criminals are just more likely to kill people. "Only a minority of Los Angeles homicides grow out of criminal encounters like robbery and rape," they find (there's no reason to believe the pattern would differ in other cities). So even if it could be shown that American robbery and rape rates are across-the-board higher than those in similar countries (which doesn't appear true today), that still wouldn't explain why America has so many more homicides than other countries.
Again, Zimring and Hawkins's LA data was revealing. "A far greater proportion of Los Angeles homicides grow out of arguments and other social encounters between acquaintances [than robbery or rape]," they find.
This is where guns enter the story. The mere presence of firearms, according to Zimring and Hawkins, makes a merely tense situation more likely to turn deadly. When a gang member argues with another gang member, or a robber sticks up a liquor store, there's always a risk that the situation can escalate to some kind of violence. But when people have a handheld tool that is specially engineered for killing efficiently, escalation to murder becomes much, much more likely.
And indeed, that's what Zimring and Hawkins's data found.
"A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar," they explain. "A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime fifty-four times as deadly in New York City as in London."
Guns, not criminality per se, are the problem.
Gun control works and has worked on the state level.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/nyregion/florida-shooting-parkland-gun-control-connecticut.html?
In the aftermath of the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 20 children and six educators were killed in 2012, state lawmakers in Connecticut set out to draft some of the toughest gun measures in the country.
They largely succeeded — significantly expanding an existing ban on the sale of assault weapons, prohibiting the sale of magazines with more than 10 rounds and requiring the registration of existing assault rifles and higher-capacity magazines. The state also required background checks for all firearms sales and created a registry of weapons offenders, including those accused of illegally possessing a firearm.
[...]
Analyses by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence show that, with few exceptions, states with the strictest gun-control measures, including California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, have the lowest rates of gun deaths, while those with the most lax laws like Alabama, Alaska and Louisiana, have the highest[...] State officials say Connecticut has experienced the fastest drop in violent crime of any state over the last four years.
[...]
In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a law a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook that is, in some respects, stricter than the one in Connecticut. The New York law not only bans the sale of assault weapons and imposes universal background checks, it also prohibits both the sale — and possession — of magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. And it requires mental health professionals to alert the authorities about at-risk patients who should not be allowed to buy a firearm. As of Feb. 8, 77,447 people deemed to be dangerously mentally ill had been added to the database.
Pointing to Chicago or Baltimore presumes that their laws have not reduced gun deaths, and is largely an indictment of the (lax) gun laws of adjacent states. Find the optimal gun control bundles and apply them. Review in 5 or 10 years, add another layer and replace the least worthwhile elements. We have reason to believe (https://academic.oup.com/epirev/article/38/1/140/2754868) that policy bundles, as opposed to single policies, are successful in reducing firearm deaths.
I haven't looked specifically into the Clinton-era policies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_control_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration), including the Assault Weapon Ban, but I have my suspicions...
Spmetla has it right. Politics is not always downstream from culture (http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2011/08/22/politics-really-is-downstream-from-culture/). Change the laws, and the behaviors and attitudes will follow. If gun maximalists want to go hard, we must go even harder.
(There's an argument (https://psmag.com/social-justice/why-some-members-of-the-far-left-advocate-against-gun-control) out there that elevated gun control is unacceptable because it would be used to target black people. This is misplaced. Of course it will be used to target minorities, that's what regularly happens; that's what has happened before (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/10/gun-control-racist-present-171006135904199.html). It's not a special function of gun control that police and courts abuse POC. The existence of racism means we need to address racism, not place a moratorium on all new laws or law enforcement until the day racism is over! Anyway, if gun-control advocates are correct a diminished gun market and gun culture will in turn make police encounters with POC less fraught and dangerous, since police can step down their aggression in the arms race with criminals, and vice versa. Not to be construed as an association of POC with crime, but a simple syllogism that if both criminals and police are less violent, and POC continue to have disproportionate interactions with police for any reason, POC will be subjected to less police violence.)
Ouch. unlike most I don't dislike Trump, but using this for his vendetta with the FBI is really low, according to him they must have been too busy with Russian meddling with the elections.
CrossLOPER
02-20-2018, 18:26
Again, this concern is, to my lights, NOT a gun control issue. There is a cultural problem here that will not be alleviated by some "restriction" on gun ownership.
Under the current system, every day someone can buy a gun and cause a massacre. There is absolutely nothing stropping them from getting powerful rifles and modifying them to eject death at a rate that simulates automatic fire without actually being automatic. They can have as many rounds and as many guns as they like, so long as they are the "good guy" or a "law abiding citizen".
Please explain to me how this is a functional system.
Montmorency
02-21-2018, 01:17
So apparently the "proto-fascist" guy I quoted above was lying about prospective gunman Cruz being a member of the militia, and then complained that the media tricked him into making the claim.
But in fact it was pre-planned by 4Chan Nazis - or something?
How many layers of lies does it take to get to the center of the lying Jew media?
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/16/florida-shooting-white-nationalists-415672
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vbp37y/white-supremacist-tries-to-walk-back-made-up-story-about-nikolas-cruz-blames-media
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/02/16/chronicle-white-supremacist-pr-crisis-and-making-hoax/219415
Seamus Fermanagh
02-21-2018, 02:41
Rigorous gun control laws would cut down on the number of guns in circulation. It seems likely that there would be a concomitant reduction in the number of deaths from accidental shootings, spur of the moment family arguments, and possibly suicides. It is also possible that the number of mass shootings would decrease because of the greater difficulties in acquiring weapons and/or the tools to modify existing weapons so as to enhance their rate of fire. The statistics noted above by Montmorency would certainly support such assertions.
My concern is what about US culture makes this kind of crime in any way appealing? How can we be developing so many persons who are functionally amoral/asocial to the extent that they stop viewing these other persons as people? These are not crimes of vengeance, however misplaced. As a lecturer, I run that risk and some few of my colleagues over the years have been killed for giving a student a failing grade. Where does the random strangers thing come into it? This latest mass shooter wasn't much as a student, but could read and write and politely wait in line at McDonalds. He was informally fostered to another family and was, apparently, clean and neat and participatory with that new family. How can such an individual slip gears into killing people with no personal meaning or threat to him?
How can we be developing so many persons who are functionally amoral/asocial to the extent that they stop viewing these other persons as people?
Well, with so many politicians (and people who vote for them) who think survival is optional for people who can't afford healthcare by themselves, who don't care about climate change as long as they can't profit from it and who support businesses even in cases where doing so kills people indirectly or drives people into some kind of wage slavery, I'd say the sentiment is quite deeply rooted...
Going out to shoot directly at people is by far not the only or even most effective way to kill them. And certainly not the only amoral/asocial thing one can do either. :shrug:
Seamus Fermanagh
02-21-2018, 05:08
Well, with so many politicians (and people who vote for them) who think survival is optional for people who can't afford healthcare by themselves, who don't care about climate change as long as they can't profit from it and who support businesses even in cases where doing so kills people indirectly or drives people into some kind of wage slavery, I'd say the sentiment is quite deeply rooted...
Going out to shoot directly at people is by far not the only or even most effective way to kill them. And certainly not the only amoral/asocial thing one can do either. :shrug:
But these mass shootings were less common during the 50s when we were rabid commie haters, blithely racist, and healthcare was almost always on your own nickel. You used your soapbox time well, but the issues you ID don't fit our mass shooters.
a completely inoffensive name
02-21-2018, 07:19
But these mass shootings were less common during the 50s when we were rabid commie haters, blithely racist, and healthcare was almost always on your own nickel. You used your soapbox time well, but the issues you ID don't fit our mass shooters.
There wasn't any MRI machines in the 50s.
But these mass shootings were less common during the 50s when we were rabid commie haters, blithely racist, and healthcare was almost always on your own nickel. You used your soapbox time well, but the issues you ID don't fit our mass shooters.
There's many reasons. Biggest one is probably the rise of the internet. It allows people to escape into their own world and find people that are like them. People pick on you and you want to kill them, I'm sure there's a group for that. You find pleasure in sick things? you can find a group for that and just hate the world for not liking what you love.
For dangerous people with a fetish for killing, the internet feeds that too. Now you can watch snuff videos, shootings, convenience store robberies and anything else you want until you're no longer satisfied by watching but want to do. Picked on in school? you can within seconds find all the mass shootings that have happened and look at those shooters as heros or at least comrades. None of the above was possible in the 50s. When there were serial killers they made the news, then there was follow up coverage and then it went away. There were no secret online shrines built to those serial killers.
Additionally gun culture has changed. It's become a massive consumer product, there are magazines, TV shows, all gun stores now stock a wide variety of guns and accessories. Plenty of my friends spend a lot of time and money planning for their next new 'purchase'. Up until the 80s most people bought simple reliable weapons, bolt and lever actions, revolvers and so on. Perhaps they were more popular because they were 'American' and seen in the plethora of Westerns that were made then. Also typical for the period, former servicemen purchased surplus weapons of the kind they trained on, M1 Garands, Carbines, and M14s were popular for a long time until the Vietnam generation led to the rise of the AR-15's popularity. Remember in the 80s and 90s when in movies the only people that had arsenals and AR-15s were usually crazy vietnam vets living out of buses in the woods?
The NRA has also changed its stance, up to the 70s they were usually helpful in crafting sensible legislation. They just like the Republican party have changed into something unrecognizable with its past. They've stoked the fires against any legislation so much that they are backed into a stance that any regulation is unconstitutional.
http://time.com/4431356/nra-gun-control-history/
The 1930s crime spree of the Prohibition era, which still summons images of outlaws outfitted with machine guns, prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to make gun control a feature of the New Deal. The NRA assisted Roosevelt in drafting the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act, the first federal gun control laws. These laws placed heavy taxes and regulation requirements on firearms that were associated with crime, such as machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencers. Gun sellers and owners were required to register with the federal government and felons were banned from owning weapons. Not only was the legislation unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court in 1939, but Karl T. Frederick, the president of the NRA, testified before Congress stating, “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.”
There's also the general shift in how people work together and interact. Up until the 60s, Americans were 'joiners' we joined Boy Scouts, Rotary Club, formed athletic teams with our friends. We as a nation no longer 'join' anything unless they send a magazine or it's involvement involves Facebook likes. We don't even have select-service to draw people into the military that used to be the great american melting pot. Actually getting together with different people with only one common interest happens less and less. It could be part of the problem created by the 60s counter-culture in which all organizations and authority was to be not trusted. The book "Bowling Alone" was a very detailed look into this aspect of modern life. It could be why people are so completely unsatisfied with life and need to binge things or search for religion or meaning in a world with no real 'purpose' anymore.
As for what makes our mass shooters so different it's really just that ours have easy access to very powerful weapons. Every other first world country has similar problems to what I've outlined above, the difference is we make it far too easy to buy weapons with extremely deadly potential. How was a 19 year old kid able to buy so many guns? He didn't seem to be a hunter, wasn't part of a shooting club, so why should it be normal for a kid to stockpile weapons.
You can't legislate away kids being bullied or people having mental problems. You can however draft legislation that at least makes it less easy for folks to buy guns and blow people away.
It's also really easy to get here though, there is a large remnant stock of weapons from the Balkan-war, if you want an AK from me now I can have it tommorow, 500 euro should do, assasinations with automatic-weapons are all the craze over here between drug-gangs. The deeper problems I can go with though
https://i.imgur.com/FEdshlo.jpg
Seamus Fermanagh
02-21-2018, 19:33
There's many reasons. Biggest one is probably the rise of the internet. It allows people to escape into their own world and find people that are like them. People pick on you and you want to kill them, I'm sure there's a group for that. You find pleasure in sick things? you can find a group for that and just hate the world for not liking what you love.
For dangerous people with a fetish for killing, the internet feeds that too. Now you can watch snuff videos, shootings, convenience store robberies and anything else you want until you're no longer satisfied by watching but want to do. Picked on in school? you can within seconds find all the mass shootings that have happened and look at those shooters as heros or at least comrades. None of the above was possible in the 50s. When there were serial killers they made the news, then there was follow up coverage and then it went away. There were no secret online shrines built to those serial killers.
Additionally gun culture has changed. It's become a massive consumer product, there are magazines, TV shows, all gun stores now stock a wide variety of guns and accessories. Plenty of my friends spend a lot of time and money planning for their next new 'purchase'. Up until the 80s most people bought simple reliable weapons, bolt and lever actions, revolvers and so on. Perhaps they were more popular because they were 'American' and seen in the plethora of Westerns that were made then. Also typical for the period, former servicemen purchased surplus weapons of the kind they trained on, M1 Garands, Carbines, and M14s were popular for a long time until the Vietnam generation led to the rise of the AR-15's popularity. Remember in the 80s and 90s when in movies the only people that had arsenals and AR-15s were usually crazy vietnam vets living out of buses in the woods?
The NRA has also changed its stance, up to the 70s they were usually helpful in crafting sensible legislation. They just like the Republican party have changed into something unrecognizable with its past. They've stoked the fires against any legislation so much that they are backed into a stance that any regulation is unconstitutional.
http://time.com/4431356/nra-gun-control-history/
There's also the general shift in how people work together and interact. Up until the 60s, Americans were 'joiners' we joined Boy Scouts, Rotary Club, formed athletic teams with our friends. We as a nation no longer 'join' anything unless they send a magazine or it's involvement involves Facebook likes. We don't even have select-service to draw people into the military that used to be the great american melting pot. Actually getting together with different people with only one common interest happens less and less. It could be part of the problem created by the 60s counter-culture in which all organizations and authority was to be not trusted. The book "Bowling Alone" was a very detailed look into this aspect of modern life. It could be why people are so completely unsatisfied with life and need to binge things or search for religion or meaning in a world with no real 'purpose' anymore.
As for what makes our mass shooters so different it's really just that ours have easy access to very powerful weapons. Every other first world country has similar problems to what I've outlined above, the difference is we make it far too easy to buy weapons with extremely deadly potential. How was a 19 year old kid able to buy so many guns? He didn't seem to be a hunter, wasn't part of a shooting club, so why should it be normal for a kid to stockpile weapons.
You can't legislate away kids being bullied or people having mental problems. You can however draft legislation that at least makes it less easy for folks to buy guns and blow people away.
Thanks. this was the kind of cultural assessment I was looking for. Not saying I agree, but I want to re-read this one and ponder a bit, so thank you.
EDIT: Better still on the re-read. I had thought of the internet component, but not of the "joiner" issue. Interesting.
The constitutional purist in me (any mentally competent adult can own any weapon) is being forced to consider the impact of 1) the Constitution was written when states were relevant. We now have only a Federal Governance system. We either need to revert to a more state-centric model, or recraft things to correctly reflect the more federalized model, and 2) the ubiquitous access to the internet is having the kind of impact Doug Adams predicted in his books when he mentioned the Babble Fish (he said a universal translator would INCREASE conflict as we all now KNEW what the others were saying of us -- The internet is not bringing us together in one big happy world so much as onanistically balkanizing us as we restrict our message intake to what we already agree with (obviously, many are using it positively, but people usually selectively listen and the internet only intensifies this effect).
Thanks. this was the kind of cultural assessment I was looking for. Not saying I agree, but I want to re-read this one and ponder a bit, so thank you.
EDIT: Better still on the re-read. I had thought of the internet component, but not of the "joiner" issue. Interesting.
The constitutional purist in me (any mentally competent adult can own any weapon) is being forced to consider the impact of 1) the Constitution was written when states were relevant. We now have only a Federal Governance system. We either need to revert to a more state-centric model, or recraft things to correctly reflect the more federalized model, and 2) the ubiquitous access to the internet is having the kind of impact Doug Adams predicted in his books when he mentioned the Babble Fish (he said a universal translator would INCREASE conflict as we all now KNEW what the others were saying of us -- The internet is not bringing us together in one big happy world so much as onanistically balkanizing us as we restrict our message intake to what we already agree with (obviously, many are using it positively, but people usually selectively listen and the internet only intensifies this effect).
States are still relevant but in a economy and culture where people move so often they become less relevant. For things like health care, guns, and a number of other issues they just add another level of bureaucracy and legal issues that now makes it less efficient. So many States now depend of federal programs that of course that makes the lower level less important (Freeways, University funding, State level DoD).
The current grid lock in politics in my mind is more a problem with our majority rules system in Congress. The majority gets to decide who's chair of all the committees, what topics are to be discussed and at the state level get to implement gerrymandering. If the majority rules system were somehow curtailed it would mean the parties wouldn't need to have the Big Tent approach. The Democrats could in theory split in to a Democratic party and a Socialist party, the Republicans could encourage the tea-party wing to break off and form their own party (Christian Nationalist Party?). The need to actually form coalitions as the more parliamentarian systems do instead of just pushing for enough seats to take control and dictate policy might help matters.
For the constitutional purist in you just remember we were warned about the dangers of factions (political parties). How would you feel about removing the ability to directly vote for Senators? I'd like it if it were back to State Legislatures to appoint Senators because it would make them less subject to populism and would allow the States to appoint Senators that might actually be good technocrats too instead of just good campaigners.
It is odd how the internet has made people more connected and more alone at the same time. You ever had dinner with friends that just look at their facebook feed on the phone? It's irritating as hell and makes it a real difficult effort to hold any sort of conversation.
As for the firearms thing, my cellphone text alert from Hawaii County has let me know that the local police have had to arrest two students in two different high schools that were threatening to shoot up their schools online as well. I'm sure there are similar copy-cat threats being made throughout the country.
Glad to hear that Trump has finally done something more than tweet about this latest incident though. Hopefully it actually leads to real action instead of just rhetoric as we had after the Las Vegas attack:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-holds-listening-session-students-mass-shootings/story?id=53245367
Trump holds listening session with students on mass shootings
For his part, President Trump offered the gathering an opportunity to grieve and to be heard by the powerful. He was joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
“We are going to do something about this horrible situation that’s going on," Trump said. "We will figure it out together.”
That something, he vowed, would include strengthening background checks.
The president's proposed 2019 budget could potentially roll back federal grants aimed at helping states report to the national background check system.
Trump also said he would soon be speaking with a gathering of the nation's governors and would discuss school safety.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-22-2018, 02:29
States are still relevant but in a economy and culture where people move so often they become less relevant. For things like health care, guns, and a number of other issues they just add another level of bureaucracy and legal issues that now makes it less efficient. So many States now depend of federal programs that of course that makes the lower level less important (Freeways, University funding, State level DoD).
The current grid lock in politics in my mind is more a problem with our majority rules system in Congress. The majority gets to decide who's chair of all the committees, what topics are to be discussed and at the state level get to implement gerrymandering. If the majority rules system were somehow curtailed it would mean the parties wouldn't need to have the Big Tent approach. The Democrats could in theory split in to a Democratic party and a Socialist party, the Republicans could encourage the tea-party wing to break off and form their own party (Christian Nationalist Party?). The need to actually form coalitions as the more parliamentarian systems do instead of just pushing for enough seats to take control and dictate policy might help matters.
For the constitutional purist in you just remember we were warned about the dangers of factions (political parties). How would you feel about removing the ability to directly vote for Senators? I'd like it if it were back to State Legislatures to appoint Senators because it would make them less subject to populism and would allow the States to appoint Senators that might actually be good technocrats too instead of just good campaigners....
I've argued in other threads that I believe that the 16th through 18th amendments were all poor choices. We've only repealed the 18th (prohibition of alcohol).
The state legislatures and governorships are, of course, not without importance and I recognize that I was indulging in a bit of hyperbole in my earlier post. Too many legislatures, however, are adding their layer of laws and regulations mostly with an eye on recouping as much federal money as possible by conforming to federal guidelines. County school systems do the same thing with federal guidelines on education. We've ended up, all too often at least, with a state support apparatus doing the day-to-day work of enacting the federal plan.
Also, the gerrymandering in most state houses is atrocious -- and all too often that redistricting seems to be the only thing that the national parties give a crap about.
BOTH the 16th and 17th amendments contributed to this. Direct federal taxation, not apportioned among the states, lets the federal level do as it wills with little consultation with the states and limited oversight every 2 to 6 years from an electorate that chooses ignorance and then votes their ignorance. When taxes were apportioned among the states, the states were a LOT more involved with their reps in Congress because they had to fund whatever their reps had agreed to (or been outvoted trying to stop). The 17th exacerbates this by making ALL Senators beholden only to 50%+1 of their state electorates and only every 6 years. Admittedly, even when it was passed, most states had moved or were moving to direct election as their selection method of choice, but that should have remained just that, the choice of the state.
As it is, the state level of governance doesn't seem to improve the lot of their electorates and serves to worsen the consistent implementation of law and regulation from the "real" source of power -- the unelected bureaucracies of DC with their "must improve our fiefdom" organizational agendae (this is, by the way, an almost inevitable concomitant of bureaucracy, I am not talking conspiracy theory crap here. Weber was correct about their advantages in an ideal form, but life is not ideal and organizational politics is as inevitable as the inevitability of Marxism is not).
Montmorency
02-22-2018, 02:44
The social theorizing is interesting to an extent, and there are many questions I can't begin to even think to ask, but for the narrow question of "why were mass shootings less common in the past?" the answer may be much simpler than it seems at first blush.
No supporting evidence, but wasn't violence more endemic to society in the 1950s, in the sense of being a common and accepted mode of interaction between men and women, parents and children, men in general? Maybe there were more mass shootings than there are now - that just didn't become mass shootings by our standard because the weapons used were less lethal and the people less concentrated. How many mass shootings were there in all the centuries before the 20th? Not communal violence, not the mythical cowboy standoffs, but genuine lone-wolf mass shootings? It just wasn't possible. Now it is.
As long as we're plugging speculation, I would say these or parallel factors - in addition to the Internet/other communication channels as noted by Spmetla - are what have allowed international terrorism to really become a phenomenon. Didn't Marxist terrorism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_terrorism) only really take off in the 1970s and 1980s? This is all continuous trends, until it can no longer fly beneath notice.
As a lecturer, I run that risk and some few of my colleagues over the years have been killed for giving a student a failing grade. Where does the random strangers thing come into it?
Also, damn.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-22-2018, 03:14
The social theorizing is interesting to an extent, and there are many questions I can't begin to even think to ask, but for the narrow question of "why were mass shootings less common in the past?" the answer may be much simpler than it seems at first blush.
No supporting evidence, but wasn't violence more endemic to society in the 1950s, in the sense of being a common and accepted mode of interaction between men and women, parents and children, men in general? Maybe there were more mass shootings than there are now - that just didn't become mass shootings by our standard because the weapons used were less lethal and the people less concentrated. How many mass shootings were there in all the centuries before the 20th? Not communal violence, not the mythical cowboy standoffs, but genuine lone-wolf mass shootings? It just wasn't possible. Now it is...
I think you are underestimating the lethality of firearms available from the turn of the 20th forward, as well as explosives and other tools for killing en masse. The worst school killing was with explosives, not a gun. The Camden walk of death in 1949 involved only a handgun. The mobsters of the 20s and 30s had lots of automatic weaponry (suggesting that such could have been found. Yet the rash of mass shootings we now experience isn't simply a question of accessibility of semi-automatic weaponry. Such weapons have been available for the last 50-60 years. But only in the last 30 or so do we see these kinds of events becoming comparatively frequent.
Why now and not in the turbulent 60s? Why is 2001-2018 so much more rife with such events than was 1972 - 1990? Even if I grant that semi-automatic weapons are more accessible now than a century ago, it still does not address why it is more common now than it was in the 1980s? Your position on gun control cannot be the sole answer (setting aside the Constitutional issues currently under debate). There is more to it than that.
Also, damn. To be fair, the only colleague I have known personally to have been murdered was murdered by his ex wife. I was using colleague in the larger sense with my earlier comment. I did learn of three different graduate faculty (all STEM types) who were murdered by students after awarding them failing grades in graduate school. Two shootings and one death by ballpeen hammer.
Montmorency
02-22-2018, 03:26
Reposting from ""F*** You, I Like Guns." (https://agingmillennialengineer.com/2018/02/15/fuck-you-i-like-guns-2)" Mind the quotation marks.
I’ll start. I’m an Army veteran. I like M-4’s, which are, for all practical purposes, an AR-15, just with a few extra features that people almost never use anyway. I’d say at least 70% of my formal weapons training is on that exact rifle, with the other 30% being split between various and sundry machineguns and grenade launchers. My experience is pretty representative of soldiers of my era. Most of us are really good with an M-4, and most of us like it at least reasonably well, because it is an objectively good rifle. I was good with an M-4, really good. I earned the Expert badge every time I went to the range, starting in Basic Training. This isn’t uncommon. I can name dozens of other soldiers/veterans I know personally who can say the exact same thing. This rifle is surprisingly easy to use, completely idiot-proof really, has next to no recoil, comes apart and cleans up like a dream, and is light to carry around. I’m probably more accurate with it than I would be with pretty much any other weapon in existence. I like this rifle a lot. I like marksmanship as a sport. When I was in the military, I enjoyed combining these two things as often as they’d let me.
The fact is, though, when I went through my marksmanship training in the US Army, I was not learning how to be a competition shooter in the Olympics, or a good hunter. I was being taught how to kill people as efficiently as possible, and that was never a secret.
As an avowed pacifist now, it turns my stomach to even type the above words, but can you refute them? I can’t. Every weapon that a US Army soldier uses has the express purpose of killing human beings. That is what they are made for. The choice rifle for years has been some variant of what civilians are sold as an AR-15. Whether it was an M-4 or an M-16 matters little. The function is the same, and so is the purpose. These are not deer rifles. They are not target rifles. They are people killing rifles. Let’s stop pretending they’re not.
With this in mind, is anybody surprised that nearly every mass shooter in recent US history has used an AR-15 to commit their crime? And why wouldn’t they? High capacity magazine, ease of loading and unloading, almost no recoil, really accurate even without a scope, but numerous scopes available for high precision, great from a distance or up close, easy to carry, and readily available. You can buy one at Wal-Mart, or just about any sports store, and since they’re long guns, I don’t believe you have to be any more than 18 years old with a valid ID. This rifle was made for the modern mass shooter, especially the young one. If he could custom design a weapon to suit his sinister purposes, he couldn’t do a better job than Armalite did with this one already.
This rifle is so deadly and so easy to use that no civilian should be able to get their hands on one. We simply don’t need these things in society at large. I always find it interesting that when I was in the Army, and part of my job was to be incredibly proficient with this exact weapon, I never carried one at any point in garrison other than at the range. Our rifles lived in the arms room, cleaned and oiled, ready for the next range day or deployment. We didn’t carry them around just because we liked them. We didn’t bluster on about barracks defense and our second amendment rights. We tucked our rifles away in the arms room until the next time we needed them, just as it had been done since the Army’s inception. The military police protected us from threats in garrison. They had 9 mm Berettas to carry. They were the only soldiers who carry weapons in garrison. We trusted them to protect us, and they delivered. With notably rare exceptions, this system has worked well. There are fewer shootings on Army posts than in society in general, probably because soldiers are actively discouraged from walking around with rifles, despite being impeccably well trained with them. Perchance, we could have the largely untrained civilian population take a page from that book?
I understand that people want to be able to own guns. That’s ok. We just need to really think about how we’re managing this. Yes, we have to manage it, just as we manage car ownership. People have to get a license to operate a car, and if you operate a car without a license, you’re going to get in trouble for that. We manage all things in society that can pose a danger to other people by their misuse. In addition to cars, we manage drugs, alcohol, exotic animals (there are certain zip codes where you can’t own Serval cats, for example), and fireworks, among other things. We restrict what types of businesses can operate in which zones of the city or county. We have a whole system of permitting for just about any activity a person wants to conduct since those activities could affect others, and we realize, as a society, that we need to try to minimize the risk to other people that comes from the chosen activities of those around them in which they have no say. Gun ownership is the one thing our country collectively refuses to manage, and the result is a lot of dead people.
I can’t drive a Formula One car to work. It would be really cool to be able to do that, and I could probably cut my commute time by a lot. Hey, I’m a good driver, a responsible Formula One owner. You shouldn’t be scared to be on the freeway next to me as I zip around you at 140 MPH, leaving your Mazda in a cloud of dust! Why are you scared? Cars don’t kill people. People kill people. Doesn’t this sound like bullshit? It is bullshit, and everybody knows.
Yes, yes, I hear you now. We have a second amendment to the constitution, which must be held sacrosanct over all other amendments. Dude. No. The constitution was made to be a malleable document. It’s intentionally vague. We can enact gun control without infringing on the right to bear arms. You can have your deer rifle. You can have your shotgun that you love to shoot clay pigeons with. You can have your target pistol. Get a license. Get a training course. Recertify at a predetermined interval. You do not need a military grade rifle. You don’t. There’s no excuse.
Let’s be honest. You just want a cool toy, and for the vast majority of people, that’s all an AR-15 is... Some people are good with this stuff, and some people are lucky, but those cases don’t negate the overall rule... Be honest, you don’t need that AR-15. Nobody does. Society needs them gone, no matter how good you may be with yours.
Another thought: Gun maximalists, as I said before, are more likely a threat than a bulwark to the commonweal in the event of government tyranny, but there's an interesting association. This type of person frequently denigrates the idea of civic engagement, civil disobedience, activism, and protest, as a process or response to the inaction or malpractice of the government. 'Those whiny libby libs? They don't know what they're doing, and fine for the government to suppress. Gun owners though, they're the heroes, the ones somehow keeping tyranny in check. You don't have to do anything in particular, or act exemplary and accountable to society, just be a badass gun owner and probably ready to shoot at the Feds once the UN troops have landed...'
I think you are underestimating the lethality of firearms available from the turn of the 20th forward, as well as explosives and other tools for killing en masse. The worst school killing was with explosives, not a gun. The Camden walk of death in 1949 involved only a handgun. The mobsters of the 20s and 30s had lots of automatic weaponry (suggesting that such could have been found. Yet the rash of mass shootings we now experience isn't simply a question of accessibility of semi-automatic weaponry. Such weapons have been available for the last 50-60 years. But only in the last 30 or so do we see these kinds of events becoming comparatively frequent.
Why now and not in the turbulent 60s? Why is 2001-2018 so much more rife with such events than was 1972 - 1990? Even if I grant that semi-automatic weapons are more accessible now than a century ago, it still does not address why it is more common now than it was in the 1980s? Your position on gun control cannot be the sole answer (setting aside the Constitutional issues currently under debate). There is more to it than that.
To be fair, the only colleague I have known personally to have been murdered was murdered by his ex wife. I was using colleague in the larger sense with my earlier comment. I did learn of three different graduate faculty (all STEM types) who were murdered by students after awarding them failing grades in graduate school. Two shootings and one death by ballpeen hammer.
Hold on, though. There's a clear difference in technology available, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Maybe not mentioned in the thread, but the 1930s were a strong decade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act) for federal gun control (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_Act_of_1938) just because of the prevalence of such weapons, and bringing up gang/Mafia shootings in their context is unfair - killing secondary to criminal enterprise is a separate issue.
As for why it didn't start or explode in the 1980s, I don't have a good answer beyond spmetla's: mass media making it look like a viable trope for whatever mental disposition(s) unite these people.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-22-2018, 04:54
...Hold on, though. There's a clear difference in technology available, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Maybe not mentioned in the thread, but the 1930s were a strong decade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act) for federal gun control (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_Act_of_1938) just because of the prevalence of such weapons, and bringing up gang/Mafia shootings in their context is unfair - killing secondary to criminal enterprise is a separate issue....
I brought them up to indicate that such weapons were in existence and that some could get hold of them. I was not including the criminal element in the discussion. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was certainly a mass shooting, but obviously does not connect to this discussion. Sorry if I was confusing in how the point was used.
Such weapons have been available for the last 50-60 years. But only in the last 30 or so do we see these kinds of events becoming comparatively frequent.
Why now and not in the turbulent 60s? Why is 2001-2018 so much more rife with such events than was 1972 - 1990? Even if I grant that semi-automatic weapons are more accessible now than a century ago, it still does not address why it is more common now than it was in the 1980s? Your position on gun control cannot be the sole answer (setting aside the Constitutional issues currently under debate). There is more to it than that.
They've been available but not in the same quantity. If you went back in time to the average gun shop in the 50s and 60s they'd be stocking primarily hunting rifles and shotguns because that was the market. People didn't buy military weapons for hunting and there wasn't this cult following for military weapons that buy them for home defense or to resist the government. ARs and other mid caliber semi autos are actually far more dangerous for home defense than pistols or shotguns because such fast yet light bullets pierce walls more easily.
People buy a lot of AR-15s now just because it's a fad rifle with lots of accessories, there's really zero purpose to owning them. I understand the appeal for collectors and sports shooters but there are too many that truly 'love' the AR15. The vietnam era M16A1s were such crap that even former servicemen didn't like them due to unreliability, poor ammo, and that it craps carbon all over the bolt with each shot. From a gun lovers point of view the rise of popularity of the AR15 as opposed to far better and more reliable assault rifles is unusual and probably tied more to the being seen on TV in the hands of American Servicemen fighting the GWOT. Some people are stocking up for the fight against the islamist hordes that they think are coming.
These guns have been available for decades but not available in every gun store as it is now. The gun-lobby campaigns that the M4/AR-15 variants are the modern day equivalent to the musket don't help dispel the cultish love for the ARs.
As for the gun regulation aspect. If these kids had access to shotguns, hunting rifles, and pistols instead they'd still be able to inflict plenty of damage and carnage but just because these are less capable weapons there would be far fewer wounded and dead. Rapid fire, low recoil, weapons with large magazine capacity and quick reload just make it very very easy for anyone to cause a lot of carnage. SMGs, pistols, and manual action rifles/shotguns are just no where near as capable of shooting a lot of people in short order.
As for why now and not the turbulent 60s? Well there were plenty of assassinations, lynchings, and wars going on for people to 'partake in'. Every racist that just wanted to fight blacks or communists could go to Africa and join one of many European led mercenary groups. Every militant anarchist could do the same in africa or in latin America. Our mass murderers and psychopaths had an outlet in an 'acceptable' environment.
One thing that might help is if we stop just calling these school shootings and consider them acts of terrorism. If Timothy McVeigh has used an assault rifle instead of a bomb would he be less of a terrorist? I know that typically you need political motives for it to be terrorism but isn't just instilling fear and terror into teachers, students, and parents terrorism? I do know on the racial/religious side that if these shooters doing it were muslim we'd all label it terrorism. Being labeled a terrorist over a school shooter might not seem like much but it might help.
Back to the 'joiner' issue, it's also part of our lack of any real sense of community. I'm not a christian man but I see the value that was to be had in everyone going to church or some sort of event every week in the way it built a sense of community. Do people really engage like that anymore? Company picnics and sporting events are uncommon for getting to know your colleagues out of work. Teachers generally don't engage parents and students outside of work or extracurricular activities. Everything has become far more insular. Go to school or work, do your tasks, then go home and either hang out with friends or binge on social media. People feel less and less inclined to talk about their problems in general to folks that are not immediate family.
As for why now and not the turbulent 60s? Well there were plenty of assassinations, lynchings, and wars going on for people to 'partake in'. Every racist that just wanted to fight blacks or communists could go to Africa and join one of many European led mercenary groups. Every militant anarchist could do the same in africa or in latin America. Our mass murderers and psychopaths had an outlet in an 'acceptable' environment.
That does seem somewhat logical, but wouldn't that apply to other countries as well? Or do you think the USA have a much higher number of such people per capita than other countries?
Of course it applied to other countries. No shortage of other countries providing mercenaries and revolutionaries in the third world.
Though I guess it was not even really just the third world though, the Irish troubles, Bader Meinhof Gang, Vietnam war, Algerian war, Malaysian intervention, Cypriot war. The middle east had the war in Yemen, the Lebanese civil war. There was a conflict for every almost nationality and religion to fight if they wanted to.
The more idealist folks went on hippy trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. For the smarter misfits they could just look at the leaps and bounds in space and underwater exploration and join those causes.
For people depressed like Nikolas Cruz, they could be raving alcoholics if they wanted, get addicted to new drugs about which the risks were little known, beat their family members to feel better about themselves or gang up against any minority and take their internal rage out on them. For dangerous people they were able to unfortunately vent their anger and depression in so many different ways that was sadly tolerated at the times.
CrossLOPER
02-23-2018, 06:24
People buy a lot of AR-15s now just because it's a fad rifle with lots of accessories, there's really zero purpose to owning them.
Sounds like someone can't afford the 100000 lootboxes you need to buy to get enough crafting material for "jagged clit piercing" skin with the lifetime kill counter attachment.
Taken from elsewhere.
On the playground, a child starts hitting another child with a big stick. Do you:
a) Give everyone Sticks to equal it out.
b) Give those adapt at stick-fighting, Sticks, to defend everyone else.
c) Remove the Stick.
Strike For The South
02-23-2018, 17:38
As it turns out, the armed guard "took a position outside". He has since resigned his post. Now, I am not going to pass judgement on a man for not giving his life for a job that almost certainly paid too little. "Freezing" can happen to anyone, gun fights are hardly what you see in the movies. It simply serves as another illustrative point about how bonkers it would be to arm teachers. Other than the fact it is unethical to ask a teacher to become a solider.
Before we talk about what steps to take as far as gun control, we have to examine the absolute failure that was local and federal law enforcement in this case. The local PD fielded 23 calls in 2 years regarding Cruz as potentially dangerous and did nothing. The FBI fielded calls and did nothing. Cruz bought weapons before and after these calls. If we are going to be allowed guns, we need some sort of apparatus that will at least flag a suspect like this.
I am sure one of the walls of texts have pointed this out but the NRA is funded by gun manufactures and very much would like to sell two guns over one. Fear makes business boom and they have perfected it post Columbine. Dana Loesch is a total scumbag and I hope that all the money is worth the moral void in her soul.
At the bare minimum we can start with two positions the NRA supports (bump stocks and a comprehensive background system) and go from there. We can't just let people like Rubio ride this thing out.
Montmorency
02-23-2018, 19:51
Dana Loesch pointed out some limitations of background checks at the Town Hall. Not mentioned is how the NRA's lobbying and litigation is responsible (http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/27/brady.update/index.html) for some of these limitations.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Requiring police to conduct background checks on would-be gun buyers is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Friday, striking down a key part of the Brady gun control law.
The decision, however, did not cover another controversial portion of the law, which requires a waiting period of up to five days before someone can buy a handgun. The court said it was not addressing that issue and there was nothing to stop authorities from voluntarily conducting a background check during the waiting period
...
Friday's ruling also did not deal with the portion of the law which directs the federal government to create a national system for instant background checks by late 1998. Until then, local authorities can still conduct background checks on their own.
"The federal government may neither issue directives requiring the states to address particular problems, nor command the states' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court.
"Such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty."
Scalia's opinion was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
...
Citing the Constitution's 10th Amendment, which protects state and local governments from certain federal interference, they maintained that Congress overstepped its authority when it directed local law enforcement officials in their duties.
Dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Writing for the four, Stevens said the background check requirement "is more comparable to a statute requiring local police officers to report the identity of missing children to the Crime Control Center of the Department of Justice than to an offensive federal command to a sovereign state.
"If Congress believes that such a statute will benefit the people of the nation ... we should respect both its policy judgment and its appraisal of its constitutional power," Stevens said.
Devastatin Dave
02-24-2018, 09:00
“Shall not be infringed”. Go “Find” Youselves.
“Shall not be infringed”. Go “Find” Youselves.
"well-regulated militia" found yourself! :rolleyes:
Btw, can't you remove or change the second amendment? Most countries can alter the constitution with 2/3rd of the vote in parliament or so. With 80% of the people wanting stricter controls, an actually representative congress should have the votes. Germany passed universal marriage in a similar fashion last year. Of course that necessitates that the USA are actually a democracy and not an oligarchy.
rory_20_uk
02-24-2018, 16:08
Taken from elsewhere.
On the playground, a child starts hitting another child with a big stick. Do you:
a) Give everyone sticks to equal it out.
b) Give those adapt at stick fighting Sticks to defend everyone else.
c) Remove the stick.
That really is the simplest way of demonstrating the insanity of thinking giving everyone weapons is a good idea.
Japan has exceptionally low levels of gun violence and guns are very restricted.
In essence if Americans are happy to have this many deaths, then so be it.
~:smoking:
ConjurerDragon
02-24-2018, 16:21
"well-regulated militia" found yourself! :rolleyes:
Btw, can't you remove or change the second amendment? Most countries can alter the constitution with 2/3rd of the vote in parliament or so. With 80% of the people wanting stricter controls, an actually representative congress should have the votes. Germany passed universal marriage in a similar fashion last year. Of course that necessitates that the USA are actually a democracy and not an oligarchy.
Germany did not do it that way and I find that problematic.
The right to "universal" marriage has been created by a simple federal law of the Bundestag
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/ehefueralle-129.html
The problem with that is that the german basic law/constitution was not changed.
The part of the basic law that the family has to receive special protection is only interpreted differently in the meaning that "family" is no longer just man+woman but a few other combinations (and by far not "universal" as everyone involved still have to be human, above a certain age, willing and not related too close to each other).
I find that problematic as at the creation of the basic law everyone only considered family to be the traditional one. At that time open male homosexuality was even prohibited by german law and quite a few men served jailtime for it which should emphasize the view of the time.
In the decades after the creation of the basic law the german high court has, several times, found that the family that has to be protected is the male+woman one that is supposed to be the smallest cell of the state, provide offspring and so on.
So - for a honest change, IMHO, a change of the basic law would have been necessary. That requires extensive and long discussions in the Bundestag because it needs a 2/3rd majority to pass such a change and would have needed votes of the opposition too. Something that would have shown that the whole of society would support such a change.
Instead a simple law was passed that needs only a simple majority and that shortly before elections so that it looks like a strategic ploy by Merkel to take some arguments of the opposition from them, that they could have used in the election campaign.
In essence if Americans are happy to have this many deaths, then so be it.
Is it not so that the 20% who are happy with it are forcing the other 80% who are not to swallow the status quo?
Germany did not do it that way and I find that problematic.
It did, I was referring to finding the votes to pass it. The CDU was mostly against it but they had a free vote and the SPD and opposition with a few CDU politicians passed the law IIRC. If they had tried to enforce strict party lines and the CDU had tried to force the SPD to vote with them, then the vote either hadn't happened in the first place or it had ended up a no.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "would have needed votes of the opposition too", it was mostly passed with votes of the opposition while the majority of the governing party, including Merkel herself, voted against the law: http://www.zeit.de/politik/2017-06/bundestag-stimmt-fuer-ehe-fuer-alle
Whether it was a ploy by Merkel is not relevant for the outcome, everybody also knows she personally voted against it.
ConjurerDragon
02-24-2018, 17:37
...
It did, I was referring to finding the votes to pass it. The CDU was mostly against it but they had a free vote and the SPD and opposition with a few CDU politicians passed the law IIRC. If they had tried to enforce strict party lines and the CDU had tried to force the SPD to vote with them, then the vote either hadn't happened in the first place or it had ended up a no.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "would have needed votes of the opposition too", it was mostly passed with votes of the opposition while the majority of the governing party, including Merkel herself, voted against the law: http://www.zeit.de/politik/2017-06/bundestag-stimmt-fuer-ehe-fuer-alle
The SIMPLE federal law was passed with 393 vs. 226 votes and so passed as a simple law only needs a simple majority (>50%). If they had attempted a change of the constitution they would have needed a 2/3rd majority and using the same numbers - failed.
That that is seen as a legal problem is explained e.g. here too:
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/gesetz-zur-gleichstellung-ist-die-ehe-fuer-alle-verfassungswidrig/20003004.html
Whether it was a ploy by Merkel is not relevant for the outcome, everybody also knows she personally voted against it.
It is relevant as it was useful to take away a good argument from the opposition in time for the election.
Voting for it would have been political suicide as her own party, the CDU, has many conservative members that are in favour of a traditional family according to the christian values that the CDU (christian democratic union) once stood for.
So she played both - voting against the law to appeal to the conservative part of her own party and allowing all members of parliament to vote freely instead of giving out a way to vote for all members of the CDU to get the law passed and weaken the opposition that saw one of her key arguments for the election becoming a success for Merkel.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-24-2018, 18:53
"well-regulated militia" found yourself! :rolleyes:
Btw, can't you remove or change the second amendment? Most countries can alter the constitution with 2/3rd of the vote in parliament or so. With 80% of the people wanting stricter controls, an actually representative congress should have the votes. Germany passed universal marriage in a similar fashion last year. Of course that necessitates that the USA are actually a democracy and not an oligarchy.
I'm a bit of a Constitutional purist, as you have probably gathered.
The second amendment does indeed state: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
18th Century grammar, spelling, and capitalization were more of an art then a rigid process back then. Nevertheless, the capitalizations of Militia, State, and Arms probably indicate some degree of emphasis. Modern US English would render the sentence with only one comma after the word State without capitalization, using italics or bolding any word for which some degree of extra emphasis was intended.
Most of the pro gun control crowd prefers to emphasize the first of the four clauses, "a well regulated militia" which to them implies that arms should be the province of the state government, who regulates the militia, and that citizens of that state should have a right under the aegis of their membership in this militia to keep and to bear arms. These gun control advocates assert that, as the National Guard and Air National Guard now function as the regulated portion of a state's militia (regulated by the UCMJ and under the leadership of the state's executive save when federalized), the arms under their control should fulfill the amendment's directive for security and that the infringement of the right to keep and bear arms by non-militia is not so protected.
Numerous states have passed laws declaring all of their adult citizens to be part of the militia, thus obviating that argument.
The so far predominant interpretation holds that the central point of the amendment is embodied in the third and fourth clauses, "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," as this portion of the sentence contains the subject and verb, which in English are deemed to be the dominant element for the generation of meaning in a sentence.
Pro-2nd amendment folks view this, therefore, as a clearly individual right that cannot be infringed by government, that the people (any sane adult citizen) should be able to keep and bear arms as their resources and preferences admit. To this side of the argument, the well-regulated militia and the security of the state are the product of an armed citizenry that cannot be "trumped" by a federal government because they keep and bear arms that can provide them the means to oppose such decisions as they feel are so tyrannical as to be broadly opposed (one dissenter would not be able to stop anything) and to warrant the use of force (opposition would require the risk of your own life).
Real purists assert that, as the arms referenced at the time were military grade (or nearly so), there should be no restrictions whatsoever on the types, numbers, and efficacy of the arms kept and borne by any sane adult citizen. This end of things suggests that pretty much ALL efforts to restrict arms of any sort or in any manner is unconstitutional.
As to changing the Constitution, there are two paths. The only one used thus far is by passing a further amendment. Such an amendment requires a joint resolution passed by 2/3 majority in both houses of the US Congress with said amendment then requiring ratification by 3/4 of the State legislatures of the respective states. This is how all of our amendments have thus far been promulgated.
The second choice is for 2/3 of the State legislatures to demand amendments or changes via the paneling of another Constitution convention. Such a convention could, with the historical precedent of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, not only consider and adopt amendments (the original mission of the Philadelphia convention was to improve the Articles of Confederation) but could propose an entirely new Constitution. Regardless, this would also have to be ratified by 3/4 of the State legislatures.
EDIT:
It should be remembered that the 2nd amendment is part of the Constitution and is concerned with governmental powers and limitations thereunto. It is not about hunting or target shooting or even defending one's home or person.
Were that the reason for the right to keep and to bear arms, there would be little or no reason for assault weapons, 12+mm ammo, crew-served weapons, explosives or the like. Hunting and home defense are far better accomplished with a shotguns, or with rifles of less than 10mm bore. Even the effectiveness of handguns can be questioned, as a shotty is far less likely to miss, especially in semi-trained hands.
But the amendment is NOT about that, it is a check on the power of government.
The SIMPLE federal law was passed with 393 vs. 226 votes and so passed as a simple law only needs a simple majority (>50%). If they had attempted a change of the constitution they would have needed a 2/3rd majority and using the same numbers - failed.
That that is seen as a legal problem is explained e.g. here too:
So what? I didn't want to derail the topic to a discussion about how solid some German law is because none of that is relevant to how US politicians can't even make a shaky law with partisan support when it comes to an issue like gun control where plenty of US citizens wish for such a change. IIRC the restrictions on gun ownership or stricter screening before a purchase do not require a constitutional change in the US given that they've had plenty of restrictions and controls before.
If DevDave and his interpretation were correct, then children should be able to buy guns at age 4...
As to changing the Constitution, there are two paths. The only one used thus far is by passing a further amendment. Such an amendment requires a joint resolution passed by 2/3 majority in both houses of the US Congress with said amendment then requiring ratification by 3/4 of the State legislatures of the respective states. This is how all of our amendments have thus far been promulgated.
The second choice is for 2/3 of the State legislatures to demand amendments or changes via the paneling of another Constitution convention. Such a convention could, with the historical precedent of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, not only consider and adopt amendments (the original mission of the Philadelphia convention was to improve the Articles of Confederation) but could propose an entirely new Constitution. Regardless, this would also have to be ratified by 3/4 of the State legislatures.
Well, yes, that makes a change incredibly unlikely.Even if you could get the 2/3rds majorities, you'd probably fail with the 3/4th of states. But could a further amendment overwrite another amendment? I don't think so. Aren't there even people who say older amendments trump the newer ones?
Either way I can see how certain human values can be valid for centuries, but as far as technological gadgets, and that includes weapons, are concerned, setting a certain very generic law in stone seems like a bad idea. I get why it was done back then when technological changes were still relatively slow. But imagine in the late 1980s they had passed an amendment that said every computer with 100Mhz or more can only be owned by the military... The US would be a technological backwater country now (or have a VERY large commercial arm of the military :sweatdrop: )...
The technological difference between a musket and an AR-15 should be quite obvious. One can kill two people at 100m in less than five seconds, the other can't even be reloaded in five seconds and has more inaccuracy than accuracy at 100m.
It should be remembered that the 2nd amendment is part of the Constitution and is concerned with governmental powers and limitations thereunto. It is not about hunting or target shooting or even defending one's home or person.
Were that the reason for the right to keep and to bear arms, there would be little or no reason for assault weapons, 12+mm ammo, crew-served weapons, explosives or the like. Hunting and home defense are far better accomplished with a shotguns, or with rifles of less than 10mm bore. Even the effectiveness of handguns can be questioned, as a shotty is far less likely to miss, especially in semi-trained hands.
But the amendment is NOT about that, it is a check on the power of government.
For an outsider the last sentence seems laughable since the people collecting all the guns appear the least concerned about checking the power of a tyrannical government, and I largely consider the US an oligarchy by now anyway. I'm not questioning the good intentions of the amendment, I'm questioning the practical use of it today. It's not just about how much more powerful the government's weapons are today, it's about how easy it has become to manipulate these militia gun owners into supporting a more tyrannical approach and opposing the more democratic ones. The hardcore gun community has obviously been following fake news since at least the election of Obama and they still haven't realized it. If anything could have actually saved the US it would probably have been a decent education system. A fool with a gun is just an instrument of the tyrant in the information age.
It sounds harsh but it's actually quite sad.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-24-2018, 21:09
...Well, yes, that makes a change incredibly unlikely.Even if you could get the 2/3rds majorities, you'd probably fail with the 3/4th of states. But could a further amendment overwrite another amendment? I don't think so. Aren't there even people who say older amendments trump the newer ones?
Purposefully difficult. They wanted it changeable, but not at a whim. We've adopted 27 amendments, 17 of those after the "Bill of Rights." One amendment specifically repealed a previous amendment, so it is possible to amend an amendment so to speak (since, having been ratified, the previous amendment is deemed part of the whole text, the whole text being amenable as per Article V of the Constitution). While some may try to assert that previous amendments "supersede" later amendments, the history of the Constitution and its amendments does not support this. Once amended, it is the amended text that embodies the mandate of the Constitution, not the preceding version.
Either way I can see how certain human values can be valid for centuries, but as far as technological gadgets, and that includes weapons, are concerned, setting a certain very generic law in stone seems like a bad idea. I get why it was done back then when technological changes were still relatively slow. But imagine in the late 1980s they had passed an amendment that said every computer with 100Mhz or more can only be owned by the military... The US would be a technological backwater country now (or have a VERY large commercial arm of the military :sweatdrop: )...
The technological difference between a musket and an AR-15 should be quite obvious. One can kill two people at 100m in less than five seconds, the other can't even be reloaded in five seconds and has more inaccuracy than accuracy at 100m. It is not a law, but a mandated limitation on the Government's authority, something a government cannot do.
Had we found enough idiots in Congress and 3/4 of the legislatures to promulgate such an amendment we would have deserved the backwater status such a limitation would beget. That's why it is hard to change the Constitution; so that some damn foolish opinion of the moment is unlikely to be included as part of our governance. It does not always work (IMnsHO) as the 16th and 18th amendments indicate. We've only repealed the latter unfortunately.
As to the tech difference between a musket and an AR-15, you are correct in the practical day-to-day differences embodied. Almost all technologies of the 20th century and later represent orders of magnitude improvements in capability over those available in the latter 18th.
But the point is the amendment allowed private citizens to possess weaponry which, if used in concert by a group of like minded persons in a cause they felt strongly enough to take up arms over, COULD pose a credible counterbalance to the power and weaponry available to the central government. Then, that was the musket and the cannon. Now, it is the semi-automatic rifle, the grenade launcher, etc.
Your argument about the enhanced lethality of firearms today is based on the assumption of personal individual use. As I noted in the previous post, AR-15s for personal defense or hunting and the like ARE the wrong tools. They greatly increase the potential for some individual to harm more people through their misuse than would the weapons of Washington's era. In that you are correct and if the amendment were truly about personal weapons use for reasonable purposes then it would be obvious that firearm restrictions would be needful.
The second amendment is not, at its core, about an individual's misuse of such weaponry but about the viability of the citizenry cowing or defeating a government that has become oppressive through their concerted action.
For an outsider the last sentence seems laughable since the people collecting all the guns appear the least concerned about checking the power of a tyrannical government, and I largely consider the US an oligarchy by now anyway. I'm not questioning the good intentions of the amendment, I'm questioning the practical use of it today. It's not just about how much more powerful the government's weapons are today, it's about how easy it has become to manipulate these militia gun owners into supporting a more tyrannical approach and opposing the more democratic ones. The hardcore gun community has obviously been following fake news since at least the election of Obama and they still haven't realized it. If anything could have actually saved the US it would probably have been a decent education system. A fool with a gun is just an instrument of the tyrant in the information age.
It sounds harsh but it's actually quite sad.
This is a much more telling argument you put forward. Far too many of the persons who are acquiring firearms to be ready to take on a tyrannical government are insipid racists [that may well be redundant] or egotists who seek some sense of 'power' to salve their own self-doubts. Some of that community has been suffering from crania-inserted-rectally-syndrome for so long that they would not recognize valid news that just happened to support an opposing point of view even if it were printed on fine stationery and stapled to their gonads. I have decried self-chosen ignorance before, I will continue to do so, I will die having failed to alter the thinking of more than a few on this issue.
The damnable problem is that we have, on the whole, an excellent system for education wherein virtually anybody -- even from the most disadvantaged district -- can acquire education and earn degrees etc. As set up, the onus is on the individual to seek that education. Too many in my culture (and it is usually even worse in urban co-cultures) don't really care about education, or care about acquiring diplomas and degrees more than they do about actually learning anything. And yes, this renders far too many of them into fools and a fool with a gun is as likely to become the unknowing tool OF tyranny as they are to successfully oppose it. That comment of yours was NOT overly harsh, though it is indeed quite sad.
So, if you care to argue that the 2nd amendment, given the reality of our current existence and the vector we are on, SHOULD be amended, then that is a far more elegant argument.
Far too many gun control advocates just want to dismiss the 2nd amendment as outdated, or suggest that if the Founders had an inkling of how deadly weapons would become they would never have advocated such. As I have argued here, I believe that taking that approach to opposing the 2nd is specious, as it was never about personal firearm use per se in the first place. It was always about the ability of the citizenry to oppose the deadly force available to the government with a level of deadly force close enough in equivalency so as to serve as a check against government oppression. In that sense, I believe it to be no more outdated than is the 1st amendment or 4th amendment, which speak to equally important limitations on the powers of government to protect the rights of the individual against oppression.
Still, if you are of the opinion that government oppression is, and will remain, such a remote and unlikely occurrence that the right to keep and bear arms is functionally superfluous to prevent tyranny, and/or you feel that the ownership of high end weaponry is a source of tyranny, THEN you would be fully justified in arguing for a repeal or editing of the 2nd amendment. As noted above, assault style weaponry, multi-hundred rpm cyclic firearms, and 12.7mm ammunition is not needful for personal use for hunting and self defense.
Pannonian
02-24-2018, 22:23
Is there a US equivalent of Hansard that allows us to see exactly what arguments were being made at the time the 2nd amendment was debated?
Montmorency
02-24-2018, 22:58
I think the Hybrid interpretation (https://www.socsci.uci.edu/lawforum/content/journal/LFJ_2008_palzes.pdf) of the 2nd Amendment I linked early in the thread, treating all clauses as co-equal (as we do for the other Amendments), is the more suitable and historically-responsive reading than the Scalia/NRA reading that has been promulgated since Reagan.
Although less unified than the individual and collective models, several
academics and theorists have suggested that the Second Amendment creates a
right somewhere between individual and collective approaches.5
This article advocates for a variant of this middle ground. The hybrid right herein presented
is neither completely individual nor completely collective. Rather, this article
will demonstrate the theory that the Second Amendment creates an individual
right to be a part of the collective militia group. The Second Amendment does
not create an individual right to own weapons for seemingly any lawful
purpose, as the individual rights theorists advocate, nor does it merely create a
right for states to raise and arm militias, as the collective rights theorists
advocate. Instead, the hybrid model places the right to insist that the state be
allowed to maintain an armed, well-regulated militia with the individual
citizens themselves.
You can't call yourself a Constitutional purist if 'all the text of the Constitution is equal, but some text is more equal than other'.
Purposefully difficult. They wanted it changeable, but not at a whim. We've adopted 27 amendments, 17 of those after the "Bill of Rights." One amendment specifically repealed a previous amendment, so it is possible to amend an amendment so to speak (since, having been ratified, the previous amendment is deemed part of the whole text, the whole text being amenable as per Article V of the Constitution). While some may try to assert that previous amendments "supersede" later amendments, the history of the Constitution and its amendments does not support this. Once amended, it is the amended text that embodies the mandate of the Constitution, not the preceding version.
Yes, when I said almost impossible I meant given the status quo. If a lot of conservative voters were to get someone else elected because they really want change in that direction (making the NRA donations useless or even counterproductive for getting into office), then there could be a change. But I guess even the people who are for a slightly harsher procurement do not care enough to replace their candidate over it.
Your argument about the enhanced lethality of firearms today is based on the assumption of personal individual use. As I noted in the previous post, AR-15s for personal defense or hunting and the like ARE the wrong tools. They greatly increase the potential for some individual to harm more people through their misuse than would the weapons of Washington's era. In that you are correct and if the amendment were truly about personal weapons use for reasonable purposes then it would be obvious that firearm restrictions would be needful.
The second amendment is not, at its core, about an individual's misuse of such weaponry but about the viability of the citizenry cowing or defeating a government that has become oppressive through their concerted action.
But that's really neither here nor there, because that very same amendment is used to justify the personal use. And it's not quite why I made the point. I made the point because I wanted to say that the founding fathers could not foresee the abundance of such weapons and their devastating use in civilian life back when they made the constitution. So as with many other old documents, one has to ask how useful the document is now that the circumstances are completely changed.
But if the document is really about the use against the government, then it should be no problem at all to mandate that the guns need to be safely locked away where children cannot access them (and adults cannot just grab them quickly in a heated fight). That children cannot use them or buy them. That only trustworthy, upstanding citizens can buy them and so on. You know, like in many European countries for example. Except that you might keep somewhat more lethal stuff around with the given restrictions. The difference between needing a second to grab the gun from a drawer and five minutes to get it from a gun locker in the cellar or garage is not very relevant when it comes to fighting the government, but can make someone cool down a bit before he shoots his wife for example.
The damnable problem is that we have, on the whole, an excellent system for education wherein virtually anybody -- even from the most disadvantaged district -- can acquire education and earn degrees etc. As set up, the onus is on the individual to seek that education. Too many in my culture (and it is usually even worse in urban co-cultures) don't really care about education, or care about acquiring diplomas and degrees more than they do about actually learning anything. And yes, this renders far too many of them into fools and a fool with a gun is as likely to become the unknowing tool OF tyranny as they are to successfully oppose it. That comment of yours was NOT overly harsh, though it is indeed quite sad.
[...]
Still, if you are of the opinion that government oppression is, and will remain, such a remote and unlikely occurrence that the right to keep and bear arms is functionally superfluous to prevent tyranny, and/or you feel that the ownership of high end weaponry is a source of tyranny, THEN you would be fully justified in arguing for a repeal or editing of the 2nd amendment. As noted above, assault style weaponry, multi-hundred rpm cyclic firearms, and 12.7mm ammunition is not needful for personal use for hunting and self defense.
Well, I'm not sure about the school system, education is a tough subject because one person's science is another person's indoctrination. In my case I was at a school that prides itself for it's humanism and we were even taught about some press photo changes to put politicians in a better light for example. So certainly not an evil government agenda, more of a think for yourself, consider the facts, be aware kind of education. But even that has been turned upside down by people who think that "think for yourself" means you have to question every fact or knowledge that is publicly available, as in medicine is a fraud, the entire press is fake, schools turn you into sheeple (some of them may actually do that nowadays) and the government consists of lizard people anyway. :shrug:
In Germany we require a minimum of 10 years of education by a government-approved school, otherwise the police may drag a child to school. Not a perfect system either, but I guess fewer people fall through the cracks.
In the US it often sounds like the only way to get a good education is to have a lot of money to spend on it since the public schools are often underfunded and highly problematic, so I'm not sure if everybody really has a good chance.
As for the functionality of arms to defeat tyrannic government, it would seem unlikely. A nation-wide strike might be scarier for the government. The development of crowd control weaponry, that is basically designed to make a large crowd of people unable to act anymore, I'm not sure a few personal firearms would be of much use. It'*s hard to aim a gun at a government agent while a sound cannon is turning your brain into pudding. The government doesn't even need deadly force to keep a lot of people in check if you consider such new and "under development" technology plus drones and so on. Robocop may end up being the one oppressing the people in the future. The means to produce him are already owned by the ones controlling the government.
Maybe better than giving the people ownership of peashooters and bigger peashooters would be giving them more actual control over the government and to that end distributing the wealth more equally. There's not just one way to stop a tyranny from developing and the current way the US employs is clearly failing.
Montmorency
02-25-2018, 00:51
To sensationalize something I said a few posts ago: Gun nuts are the bad guys with guns.\
EDIT: Meanwhile, gun rights may be gaining popularity in the Czech Republic, putting it in conflict with the EU. An attempt at amending the constitution to increase gun rights narrowly failed recently. Something to follow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_Czech_Republic
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/10/czech-republic-fights-eu-plans-tighten-gun-ownership-laws/
In the US it often sounds like the only way to get a good education is to have a lot of money to spend on it since the public schools are often underfunded and highly problematic, so I'm not sure if everybody really has a good chance.
Most public schools give a good chance for success but the major factor is the drive of the individual student. Part of the success of the private school system is that parents putting kids in those schools care about education to some extent. Whether or not the student has that personal drive there is probably more of an emphasis by those parents that they better not waste the money spent on the private school.
I did public schools from 2nd grade on and went to my state university (University of Hawaii at Manoa). My experience was mostly good, my opinion of my fellow students has up to university been rather low. There were no shortage of students that had their parents drive them hard or were rewarded for good grades by extra allowance and as a result did well. Sadly most students were just doing the minimum to pass or to get into their first choice college. If students wanted help getting scholarships, wanted to attend Advanced Placement (AP) or Honors classes those were available but enough that could have attended chose not to just so they could get easy As and Bs in lower level courses.
Changing our attitude toward education is certainly overdue but how to do that in such a decentralized system in which the federal government has very little say in what is taught or what the standards are.
It should be perfectly fine to be mediorcre at everything, it's just too much to ask from someone to be good at everything.
ConjurerDragon
02-25-2018, 10:57
It should be perfectly fine to be mediorcre at everything, it's just too much to ask from someone to be good at everything.
mediocre
mediocre
English isn't my first language can I please make mistakes, I can make mistakes in 8 languages how about you
ConjurerDragon
02-25-2018, 12:58
English isn't my first language can I please make mistakes, I can make mistakes in 8 languages how about you
Exactly, as it is too much to ask from someone to be good at everything and it should be perfectly fine to be mediocre at everything. Just as you wanted and you are already living your dream. I did not even expect that you writing mediocre wrong was a mistake but a public statement to emphasize your view on society and learning :rolleyes:
It was really just a mistake but I like the way you conjure
Most public schools give a good chance for success but the major factor is the drive of the individual student. Part of the success of the private school system is that parents putting kids in those schools care about education to some extent. Whether or not the student has that personal drive there is probably more of an emphasis by those parents that they better not waste the money spent on the private school.
I did public schools from 2nd grade on and went to my state university (University of Hawaii at Manoa). My experience was mostly good, my opinion of my fellow students has up to university been rather low. There were no shortage of students that had their parents drive them hard or were rewarded for good grades by extra allowance and as a result did well. Sadly most students were just doing the minimum to pass or to get into their first choice college. If students wanted help getting scholarships, wanted to attend Advanced Placement (AP) or Honors classes those were available but enough that could have attended chose not to just so they could get easy As and Bs in lower level courses.
Changing our attitude toward education is certainly overdue but how to do that in such a decentralized system in which the federal government has very little say in what is taught or what the standards are.
You're preaching to the wrong one here, I was and still am a terrible student if you take any common measure such as grades or speed of completion. I still don't think that my education was a failure. I don't think that an education that is 90% memorizing things by force, having a lot of stress and rushing through as fast as possible to make as much money as possible raises wise voters. What it does is raise a lot of (but not only) selfish people who burn out at age 40 and realize at age 60 that they only worked 60 hours a week to make others rich as the next financial meltdown evaporates their entire private retirement fund.
And yes, a decentralized education system is weird, but somehow it is usually still centralized enough that the schools and teachers cannot just improve on their teaching because some bureaucracy tells them how to do it. Or that's how it seems to be here.
It should be perfectly fine to be mediorcre at everything, it's just too much to ask from someone to be good at everything.
Actually, I fully agree with you here. It's the same as with everybody being able to become rich. Mediocre is where most people are, so if everybody is a millionaire, butter will cost ten thousand of whatever currency you're using. It's the same with schools. If everybody gets an A, then the guy trying to find the best people to hire will only see a lot of mediocre people and it becomes impossible to stand out in a positive way. In absolute terms it can still be a good thing as everyone will likely meet the standard that is required, it's just that it leads to people raising the standard over time. With money that's called inflation. In the Middle Ages it made you a social elite to be able to read and write, today it's the bare minimum.
That said it is not and should not be wrong to excell or to achieve more, but it should also be perfectly fine to be average or even below average because the only way that noone can be below average is if noone is above it either...it's called mathematics. :sweatdrop:
It's part of the problem I think, not the guns but the pressure. America is a pretty competitive place with some things, not all can cope with that. It must feel pretty bad to not have a date at prom-night for example. In another highly competitive country, Japan, I forgot what it's called but they simply lock theirselves up in their room to never get out of it again. Be all you can be is nonsense, there is no need to excell, ok will do The only talent I have is kissing, that's good because I like kissing. Pretty good dancer as well.
It's part of the problem I think, not the guns but the pressure. America is a pretty competitive place with some things, not all can cope with that. It must feel pretty bad to not have a date at prom-night for example. In another highly competitive country, Japan, I forgot what it's called but they simply lock theirselves up in their room to never get out of it again. Be all you can be is nonsense, there is no need to excell, ok will do The only talent I have is kissing, that's good because I like kissing. Pretty good dancer as well.
Half an agreement. You can't just take the guns entirely out of the picture. It's not like capitalist European countries are entirely uncompetitive or don't put pressure on people. And the higher pressure in the US does not explain an increase in gun deaths per pop that is one-hundred-fold or thereabouts.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-25-2018, 16:02
Well, I'm not sure about the school system, education is a tough subject because one person's science is another person's indoctrination. In my case I was at a school that prides itself for it's humanism and we were even taught about some press photo changes to put politicians in a better light for example. So certainly not an evil government agenda, more of a think for yourself, consider the facts, be aware kind of education. But even that has been turned upside down by people who think that "think for yourself" means you have to question every fact or knowledge that is publicly available, as in medicine is a fraud, the entire press is fake, schools turn you into sheeple (some of them may actually do that nowadays) and the government consists of lizard people anyway. :shrug:
In Germany we require a minimum of 10 years of education by a government-approved school, otherwise the police may drag a child to school. Not a perfect system either, but I guess fewer people fall through the cracks.
In the US it often sounds like the only way to get a good education is to have a lot of money to spend on it since the public schools are often underfunded and highly problematic, so I'm not sure if everybody really has a good chance.
Oh heavens, if only throwing money at the problem would work. THAT is something yanks know how to do.
One case in point is the District of Columbia. Of our 51 states (we seem to count DC, but not PR or AS or the American Pacific Islands for these lists), the District is 50th in quality of education but 3rd in spending per pupil (and that includes Alaska, which is #2, where they have to pay bonus money to get teachers to go or to stay). While there are some poorer states such as Louisiana wherein you could argue our schools are underfunded, that is mostly not the case.
I'm pretty sure a lot of them are MIS-funded and I am certain that what we are doing in many of our urban population centers is not the right mix of funding and doctrine. We are not doing a good job, on the whole, of encouraging education in some of those population groups.
Throwing more money at education will not matter until we are throwing it at the correct targets within that milieu.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-25-2018, 16:11
Is there a US equivalent of Hansard that allows us to see exactly what arguments were being made at the time the 2nd amendment was debated?
I think this fellow's book (http://www.secondamendmentinfo.com/) has a pretty good listing of the contemporaneous sources available in his table of contents, but I did not see the texts in a search aside from Federalist 46 and some of the 1813 SCOTUS decision. The latter is almost a 25 year gap from the Constitutional Convention.
Half an agreement. You can't just take the guns entirely out of the picture. It's not like capitalist European countries are entirely uncompetitive or don't put pressure on people. And the higher pressure in the US does not explain an increase in gun deaths per pop that is one-hundred-fold or thereabouts.
Guns can't be taken out of the equation, but they are available here is well. I was horrible to some when I was at school, I didn't even realise it, people who are picked laugh when they are really crying, lots of harmless jokes can accumilate. But I'm fooling myself if I just don't admit I have been really cruel. There is no defence against it, I really regret being like that but it's too late for apoligies. That kind of behaviour should be noticed earlier, I think I wouldn't have been like that if I understood what I was doing.
Montmorency
02-26-2018, 00:29
Oh heavens, if only throwing money at the problem would work. THAT is something yanks know how to do.
One case in point is the District of Columbia. Of our 51 states (we seem to count DC, but not PR or AS or the American Pacific Islands for these lists), the District is 50th in quality of education but 3rd in spending per pupil (and that includes Alaska, which is #2, where they have to pay bonus money to get teachers to go or to stay). While there are some poorer states such as Louisiana wherein you could argue our schools are underfunded, that is mostly not the case.
I'm pretty sure a lot of them are MIS-funded and I am certain that what we are doing in many of our urban population centers is not the right mix of funding and doctrine. We are not doing a good job, on the whole, of encouraging education in some of those population groups.
Throwing more money at education will not matter until we are throwing it at the correct targets within that milieu.
Isn't looking at averages and per-capita spending misleading? What's the distribution of the spending? Could DC be skewed toward a number of very rich schools?
I went to a public high school that is endowed more like a University than a typical high school. It's not the norm.
But it is right to say that well-funded schools alone can't bolster a penurious, dispirited, and dilapidated community or neighborhood, especially given that so much (most?) childhood education must occur outside, complementarily to, the school. Well-funded schools are necessary but not sufficient.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-26-2018, 01:24
Isn't looking at averages and per-capita spending misleading? What's the distribution of the spending? Could DC be skewed toward a number of very rich schools?
I went to a public high school that is endowed more like a University than a typical high school. It's not the norm.
But it is right to say that well-funded schools alone can't bolster a penurious, dispirited, and dilapidated community or neighborhood, especially given that so much (most?) childhood education must occur outside, complementarily to, the school. Well-funded schools are necessary but not sufficient.
Expenditures were for public schools (https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/public-education-costs-per-pupil-by-state-rankings/); as was quality (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/04/wallethub-education-rankings_n_5648067.html).
DC has been in a bad quality rut for decades despite the money. That is true in more places than just DC.
I was just pointing out to Husar that money was clearly not, in and of itself, the problem. That was not a "code" by me to suggest spending less on education. There may be yahoos like that out there, but not my man here.
Montmorency
02-26-2018, 06:15
Expenditures were for public schools (https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/public-education-costs-per-pupil-by-state-rankings/); as was quality (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/04/wallethub-education-rankings_n_5648067.html).
DC has been in a bad quality rut for decades despite the money. That is true in more places than just DC.
I was just pointing out to Husar that money was clearly not, in and of itself, the problem. That was not a "code" by me to suggest spending less on education. There may be yahoos like that out there, but not my man here.
I was referring to public. My challenge was about the distribution of spending within the public school system (between districts, within districts), beyond the thread scope.
On-topic, what is your opinion of the hybrid formulation that the Operative Clause ("the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed") specifies an individual right operative within the purpose specified in the Prefatory Clause ("A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State")? In other words, an individual right to participate in defense of the collective. Don't confuse this with the "collective" interpretation where the militia is conceived in terms of its bureaucratic organization, which then maintains the right to dole out weapons to members. In this hybrid reading, a robust right to bear arms for any personal purposes such as sport or protection does not emerge from the 2nd Amendment (though one could argue something from the 9th Amendment).
While keeping in mind that it is incorrect to simply identify "militia" with "everybody", as pointed out in this article (https://qz.com/1214718/what-america-is-getting-wrong-about-three-important-words-in-the-second-amendment/) and the words of George Mason. The militia is whoever the state (or State) designates it to be. That it was the whole body of able-bodied men in the Revolutionary era did not imply that the militia could not be specified some other way in the future - indeed, that's exactly what some Framers feared in giving the federal government warmaking and mustering powers, that it could directly or indirectly neutralize the sub-federal collective defense. The important bit wasn't that individuals could own guns to resist the federal government, but that militias would not be deprived of the wherewithal (which is, individuals with guns and the opportunity to drill en masse) to resist central oppression.
The real interpretative question today then becomes, how do the purposes and organization of the National Guard affect the protected credible purposes of private gun ownership? A right to keep and bear AR-15s would then seem to be conditioned according to the usefulness of recruits having individual experience with AR-15s, or more broadly an infantryperson's Main Battle Rifle. That's an empirical and doctrinal question, probably not one the courts have encountered, to be investigated and argued. But it's all abstract for the next century, or forever, because the modern jurisprudence is set, and on matters of this breadth it changes grindingly, if ever.
+++
+++
+++
A few weeks ago, I had a thoroughly defeatist resignation toward the "reality" of gun regulation in America. 'It just has to be a low-priority issue, right? Too much to do against too relentless an opposition. So a few thousand extra lives each year are lost or damaged than might otherwise be - it's the price of doing business. Far more lives could be preserved with comprehensive legislation on health care or climate change. Even second-order violence in Mexico and Central America, the very power of the cartels, due to trafficking of American arms, it's not as if Americans will stand up for Mexican lives when they won't for American lives... Guns aren't a pressing issue; let the clingers have 'em. Even if it were available, could I really support expending the massive political capital necessary to launch a few token edicts?'
I have been following the progress of the Parkland/MSD students over the past week. I must admit to feeling uplifted. There's just something about high-school camaraderie. I was a big sack of :daisy: in comparison.
They are organizing a grassroots movement (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-survivors-of-parkland-began-the-never-again-movement) with millions in donations (https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/us/iyw-march-for-our-lives-gofundme-trnd/index.html).
They have stood up to the political class in voice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxD3o-9H1lY) and in person (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/cnns-town-hall-on-guns-and-the-unmaking-of-marco-rubio) and online (https://nymag.com/selectall/2018/02/stoneman-shooting-teens-drag-marco-rubio-trump-on-twitter.html).
They are planning a March on Washington (https://www.marchforourlives.com/) on March 24th and a national school walkout (https://twitter.com/schoolwalkoutUS) on April 20 (hopefully the Women's March (https://www.actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/enough-national-school-walkout) people won't dilute the effort with their separate walkout).
They have received the loathsome and entirely routinized far-right conspiracy machine (https://www.teenvogue.com/story/parkland-survivors-twitter-conspiracy-theories-crisis-actors) with iron bones.
Emma Gonzalez (http://people.com/crime/everything-to-know-about-emma-gonzalez-the-florida-school-shooting-survivor-fighting-for-gun-violence-prevention/), David Hogg (https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/david-hogg-florida-school-shooting-california-video/), Cameron Kasky (https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/david-hogg-florida-school-shooting-california-video/), Sarah Chadwick (https://mashable.com/2018/02/23/sarah-chadwick-school-shooting-never-again/#Y9ovP66Rfmqm), are some of their names.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWns-hEX0AA9lkU.jpg
No matter how inelegant this metaphor may be under the circumstances, it's the blunt fact of the matter: the Parkland students are the spear's tip of reform. They can really lead the fight, and to great effect.
But time is not on their side.
They are just a few, and now they're returning to school from their mid-winter break. The rest of their lives, and ours, calls. The work will build up, and their attention (and the affirmation from the attention of others) will decline. The summer will be a reprieve, but then they scatter throughout the country, to college, or else remain behind to continue in high school. The world roils elsewhere and everywhere.
Their passion and their faith in each other are their limited assets. The gun maximalists are meanwhile prefigured never to let up in their agitation. Unless the students can get continuous support and input they will be a crack in the wall at best, a flash in the pan at worst. So the first thing is for someone to sustain and encourage them, right?
They gleam now, but without the efforts of their peers and fellows the wood will splinter, the steel crack, the arms grow heavy, and the spirits sour. As the shields to their backs, we cannot allow their will and ardor to be eroded too readily. :dizzy2: The work is for a long time, and it's a heavy burden to handle. That's the work of a thousand hands.
We also have to refine the priorities and reveal the long-term goals. The students should understand that improving background checks and raising the minimum purchasing age are peripheral issues, though perhaps worthy on their own. Registration, licensing, and training/certification are the big tickets, and momentum needs to be maintained first through state compacts. Concealed carry is a thorny issue, since this is one of the most active lobbies of habitual gun users; while many of those who aver in the need to provide for their self-defense in this way, and unconstrained, are a little dangerous and unhinged, there is little direct and immediate value in pursuing the matter throughout the states (let alone Congress).
Voluntary confiscation and generous buybacks, with permanent destruction of the mechanism - private activist groups can accomplish this in parallel with the government - will be one of the first critical methods available to reduce gun ownership and concentration. Assuming no significant shifts in the jurisprudence, policymakers will need to craft carefully according to the confines of stare decisis. Semi-automatic ownership can be restricted to some degree, yet likely cannot be banned. But the People have one surefire antidote, and that is by the life-bond of the gun manufacturers to the government. The NRA is just the bodyman of the manufacturers, and should be bypassed entirely. If the DOD and FBI, and with some nudging the local police departments too, could make a show against reckless business practices in their contracting, market corrections would whip the supply-side into some shape. This has precedent (http://www.businessinsider.com/smith-and-wesson-almost-went-out-of-business-trying-to-do-the-right-thing-2013-1); we need commitment.
Keep your eyes on the prize, the program. The Program is nothing less than the continuous reduction of the absolute number of serviceable firearms on American soil, and ultimately the world. If in 50 years there are fewer than 100 million extra-occupational firearms in America (police reform is relevant, but another topic for another day), with the overwhelming majority confined to:
1. Shooting clubs and ranges, for rent on premises
2. Private collections, deactivated or otherwise well-secured
3. Hunters and rural dwellers
Then we may be pleased. We can envision the positive externalities. Gun deaths will decline, yes, but there's more. Guns will preoccupy less of the nation's consciousness. Concealed-carry, whatever other (if any) restrictions we may devise, will wither of its own accord. Criminals will be less reactive and nervous, and police less aggressive and paranoid. Guns will be perceived with less frivolity and mythology, with more caution and respect. Fewer will interpret it as a core aspect of masculinity and Americanism. Fewer will build their identities around guns. This is the feedback that will sustain the politics of regulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHmH1xQ2Pf4
So what do I do? I had this post written up over a day ago, but I went to bed and awoke with no special sensation. I even felt a little awkward reading the thing back. I wish I could have a more consistent experience and resolve.
AE Bravo
02-26-2018, 08:06
It's part of the problem I think, not the guns but the pressure. America is a pretty competitive place with some things, not all can cope with that. It must feel pretty bad to not have a date at prom-night for example. In another highly competitive country, Japan, I forgot what it's called but they simply lock theirselves up in their room to never get out of it again. Be all you can be is nonsense, there is no need to excell, ok will do The only talent I have is kissing, that's good because I like kissing. Pretty good dancer as well.
I don't buy that. Plus, Japan is different because suicidal personalities don't off themselves at the expense of other people. Judging by how less developed countries are faring in this regard I would add to what others posted that a 1) detoriarating national code of ethics that the country failed to instill in people at a young age and 2) the lack of restraint on the exchange of info in these types of societies play a major role. Social media in the US lacks censorship and is a shyt-posting planet deeply divided by partisan bloc mentalities. Countries with express limitations on press freedoms and access to information are the least likely to be effected by this. I am no expert but it is safe to assume that these shooters spend more time on the internet because they don't have friends at an age where it's unsafe to live without them.
Of course guns too but the immediate answer is a superficial one as well. This is a national-psyche issue.
We don't disagree. we are basicly saying the same thing. There is a difference of course, in Japan they just shut down, in western countries they want to tear down the world. Common dominater is that some people are really unhappy and simply can't get along with the way of things. Not everybody can stand the cruelty inherent to social interaction, people will always hurt what's vulnerable. That is really a miserable thing to do but it comes kinda naturally. I am guilty of doing that myself, I grew kinder once I realised I really wasn't all that nice to others. I think these things can be stopped before they happen, not always, but everybody knows it if someone doesn't resonate all that well with the way of things and needs some help. Very small gestures of kindness go a long way with someone who is used to cruelty
They are planning a March on Washington (https://www.marchforourlives.com/) on March 24th and a national school walkout (https://twitter.com/schoolwalkoutUS) on April 20 (hopefully the Women's March (https://www.actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/enough-national-school-walkout) people won't dilute the effort with their separate walkout).
The stoners will be happy about that second one. "Thanks for supporting our cause!", "Um, yeah, right on man"
Seamus Fermanagh
02-26-2018, 20:24
The stoners will be happy about that second one. "Thanks for supporting our cause!", "Um, yeah, right on man"
Are they so stoned that they cannot even recognize that they have already won? All of the remaining dominos will fall soon (and should. Refraining from MJ use should be your choice).
Are they so stoned that they cannot even recognize that they have already won?
In a way the Stoners are winning the "firefights", yes...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Stoner
In 1955, Stoner completed initial design work on the revolutionary AR-10, a lightweight (7.25 lbs.) selective-fire infantry rifle in 7.62×51mm NATO caliber. The AR-10 was submitted for rifle evaluation trials to the US Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground late in 1956. In comparison with competing rifle designs previously submitted for evaluation, the AR-10 was smaller, easier to fire in automatic, and much lighter. However it arrived very late in the testing cycle, and the army rejected the AR-10 in favor of the more conventional T44, which became the M14. The AR-10's design was later licensed to the Dutch firm of Artillerie Inrichtingen, who produced the AR-10 until 1960 for sale to various military forces.[3]
The AR-15 rifle, derived from Stoner's original design.
At the request of the U.S. military, Stoner's chief assistant, Robert Fremont and Jim Sullivan designed the AR-15 from the basic AR-10 model, scaling it down to fire the small-caliber .223 Remington cartridge, slightly enlarged to meet the minimum Army penetration requirements. The AR-15 was later adopted by United States military forces as the M16 rifle.[3][4]
:sweatdrop:
What people want is to get the Stoners off the streets and it seems he may have wanted that, too:
http://www.guns.com/2016/06/20/did-eugene-stoner-intend-for-ordinary-people-to-have-his-ar-15-design/
In an interview with NBC News, the family of Eugene Stoner said that the inventor of the AR-15 would be horrified to know that his design is being used as a killing machine. The family spoke on condition of anonymity and didn’t make any calls for bans or other changes to U.S. law. They claimed that Stoner was a hunter and skeet shooter, but that he did not own one of his creations and intended it only for military sales.
I know the article goes on making a terrible comparison between civilian massacres and war, but hey, given the URL I'm not surprised. :shrug:
Seamus Fermanagh
02-26-2018, 23:06
In a way the Stoners are winning the "firefights", yes...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Stoner
:sweatdrop:
What people want is to get the Stoners off the streets and it seems he may have wanted that, too:
http://www.guns.com/2016/06/20/did-eugene-stoner-intend-for-ordinary-people-to-have-his-ar-15-design/
I know the article goes on making a terrible comparison between civilian massacres and war, but hey, given the URL I'm not surprised. :shrug:
How dare you redirect my joke back to the point of the thread!?! What is the Backroom coming to?
HopAlongBunny
02-27-2018, 11:07
A view from Canada:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/florida-school-shooting-1.4552301
Summation: America is doomed to see mass murders, essentially forever
Alas, another murder with AK's, shooter is only 16, they kill eachother for a pair of Prada's. I don't mind it if criminals kill eachother, Penoza or Mocromaffia, motorgangs, I don't care, but automatic weapens are really easy to get. Just saying.
CrossLOPER
02-27-2018, 18:28
A view from Canada:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/florida-school-shooting-1.4552301
Summation: America is doomed to see mass murders, essentially forever
I don't like it when people use words like "forever"; it is a shocking disregard for how long "forever" actually is. In this case, it also takes for granted the existence of the state, which is actually a very difficult thing to organize and keep functional. Tell me, do you think a state that experiences endless shootouts is functional? I don't know of a single state that has such things that existed in any form that is capable of holding such a title.
Montmorency
02-28-2018, 00:01
I don't like it when people use words like "forever"; it is a shocking disregard for how long "forever" actually is. In this case, it also takes for granted the existence of the state, which is actually a very difficult thing to organize and keep functional. Tell me, do you think a state that experiences endless shootouts is functional? I don't know of a single state that has such things that existed in any form that is capable of holding such a title.
Misplaced pedantry. "Forever" is always used in a non-literal way unless it's in reference to something in physical science (or theology).
Humanity is certainly not for ever. The solar system neither. Probably not even the universe. America will not even perdure co-eval with humanity, not America or any other country or culture.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-28-2018, 01:34
Misplaced pedantry. "Forever" is always used in a non-literal way unless it's in reference to something in physical science (or theology).
Humanity is certainly not for ever. The solar system neither. Probably not even the universe. America will not even perdure co-eval with humanity, not America or any other country or culture.
Not exactly a "fun at parties" type response here Monty -- though it might work for a pick-up line with Emo chicks.
Seems like some gun owners are taking matters into their own hands as far as reducing the number of guns in the US is concerned:
https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1665980036770782/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQX3RsAXN88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZnP9eADmA
CrossLOPER
02-28-2018, 06:38
Misplaced pedantry. "Forever" is always used in a non-literal way unless it's in reference to something in physical science (or theology).
Humanity is certainly not for ever. The solar system neither. Probably not even the universe. America will not even perdure co-eval with humanity, not America or any other country or culture.
My point is that this is part of a trend that cannot continue without undesirable results.
Seems like some gun owners are taking matters into their own hands as far as reducing the number of guns in the US is concerned:
https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1665980036770782/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQX3RsAXN88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZnP9eADmA
wow must be a trend if two vloggers do that. It disgusts me that they use this to shine, attention-whores they are
wow must be a trend if two vloggers do that. It disgusts me that they use this to shine, attention-whores they are
That's full of faulty assertions, dear Frags. First of all, noone said it's a trend, and secondly it can't become one if the people who started it can't spread their message. You could say it's part of a general anti-gun thread started by the shooting at the Florida high school and the teenagers campaigning afterwards. I really don't know how you define attention-whore anyway, ist it just about whether you like the message or not? Is Trump an attention-whore, isn't every politician? What about Wilders, does he not want attention to get more votes? :dizzy2:
I think it's a good idea and especially the first guy explains his reasoning very well.
Besides, the first video has more than two, click the link because Facebook videos can't be embedded.
Populism is no dirty word for me, do you know how that word came to be. I have nothing with Wilders by the way I would never vote on him. Unlike some moralists I know some muslima's very well, every centimeter I could find. Why can't you understand that they are scared of things they can't control. You would be absolutily heartbroken if I told some things.
Seems like some gun owners are taking matters into their own hands as far as reducing the number of guns in the US is concerned:
https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1665980036770782/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQX3RsAXN88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZnP9eADmA
Girl on the bottom did it right. The guy in the top vid is probably faking it, cutting through the old-school barrel does not destroy anything, he can replace that with a fancy new barrel complete with rail system really easily. You have to destroy the lower receiver, which is the ATF-controlled part of the weapon.
Populism is no dirty word for me, do you know how that word came to be. I have nothing with Wilders by the way I would never vote on him. Unlike some moralists I know some muslima's very well, every centimeter I could find. Why can't you understand that they are scared of things they can't control. You would be absolutily heartbroken if I told some things.
I'm not sure how most of that relates to my post.
I can only guess that mentioning Wilders triggered you in some way.
Girl on the bottom did it right. The guy in the top vid is probably faking it, cutting through the old-school barrel does not destroy anything, he can replace that with a fancy new barrel complete with rail system really easily. You have to destroy the lower receiver, which is the ATF-controlled part of the weapon.
I also thought the barrel might be easy to repair, but what he says sounds genuine. Maybe he's not even very educated on how to destroy a gun or whatever. I'm not sure it has to be fake when incompetence or wanting to make it fast for the video are also valid explanations.
It isn't me who mentioned him, that was you. Yeah that triggers me as I have nothing to do with him, I support Thierry Boudet
CrossLOPER
02-28-2018, 18:52
It isn't me who mentioned him, that was you. Yeah that triggers me as I have nothing to do with him, I support Thierry Boudet
Is this your new white supremacist waifu?
Is this your new white supremacist waifu?
Waifu as in fuck you? I could of course tell my friends that I am a white-surpremist, they won't believe me though. It's probably new to my girlfriend as well, she never noticed it that I hate her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hXVTX-Rg8s
He seems to be in favor of salon-nationalism because it sells better than asking for death camps right away.
And by the looks of it he is also on the leading edge in terms of grease levels in hair.
And Fragony, I mentioned him in a completely different context, it wasn't meant as an invitation for brainstorming everything you know about Wilders.
As for nationalism, I maintain my view that if you want nationalism, restrict corporations and investors to national borders as well. So no McDonald's outside the US and no Ikea outside Sweden. You can trade with Africa, but the Africans own all the mines. And if the Arabs can't produce the oil with their tech, you either sell it to them and educate their workers on the use, or you get no oil from them. You can't just demand no people come to your country, but your investors go there and own half their infrastructure and lobby their government. Because your foreign influence has no place in other countries either! :stare:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hXVTX-Rg8s
He seems to be in favor of salon-nationalism because it sells better than asking for death camps right away.
And by the looks of it he is also on the leading edge in terms of grease levels in hair.
And Fragony, I mentioned him in a completely different context, it wasn't meant as an invitation for brainstorming everything you know about Wilders.
As for nationalism, I maintain my view that if you want nationalism, restrict corporations and investors to national borders as well. So no McDonald's outside the US and no Ikea outside Sweden. You can trade with Africa, but the Africans own all the mines. And if the Arabs can't produce the oil with their tech, you either sell it to them and educate their workers on the use, or you get no oil from them. You can't just demand no people come to your country, but your investors go there and own half their infrastructure and lobby their government. Because your foreign influence has no place in other countries either! :stare:
First sentence is really uncalled for. He is libertarist-lite, that's all. His good looks kinda work against him
CrossLOPER
02-28-2018, 21:47
Waifu as in fuck you? I could of course tell my friends that I am a white-surpremist, they won't believe me though. It's probably new to my girlfriend as well, she never noticed it that I hate her
The triggering is strong, today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpBzt9PyU5w
I don't know man, saying that you want to see a sea of white flesh around you is kind of hard to misconstrue.
Hooahguy
03-01-2018, 01:31
I should have stepped in earlier, but I am locking this. Maybe we can discuss guns and stuff again after the next massacre.
:dancinglock:
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