Gun Violence
- Thread starter 57Brave
- Start date
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
Ok and how many school shooters have autism? Marijuana has a calming effect so it stands to reason some of these shooters wouldnt have done it if they smoked weed.
I enjoy going for long runs after I smoke.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
So 18 year olds are old enough to carry a real assault weapon into battle in Syria, but not to buy a single shot .22 rifle for squirrel hunting? She's grandstanding on fresh graves. Again. I suppose it's to be expected, she needs to fundraise to fend off a primary challenge from her left, but she's still wrong.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
I get what you're saying, but it does seem janked up to me that an 18-yo-can purchase a semi-automatic rifle.
Teenagers use them in the service, yeah. Under what conditions? In a rigorously controlled, highly regimented and risk-averse context. This doesn't seem like a very compelling point to me.
Semi-auto rifles (in concert with acessories that make them more deadly) are a bright, shiny, and very relevant thing in the specific conversation of school attacks and mass shootings, but a bit of a red herring in the overall gun violence picture. Handguns are used in exponentially more crimes and other incidents.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
I agree with you that for whatever reason, AR-15s have become the weapon of choice for these attacks. I believe it's a function of crazy person psychology and not of weapon utility, but it's definitely a trend. It's one of several reasons I would never own one. They've become tainted in my eyes.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
I'm not a gun person; far from it, as I'm sure you can infer. I grew up in a household where I wasn't even allowed to have a toy gun. My personal feeling has always been that a gun in my household would be more likely to harm someone in the household then it would be to protect them. I'm quite comfortable with that calculus, but I recognize that other people make different choices. My in-laws, for example, are gun folks, albeit hyper-safety conscious. My brother, who grew up in the same household, is a gun owner and hell of a marksman who's carried ARs and a variety of handguns in a professional capacity.
I guess what I'm saying is that the tribe is not altogether foreign to me, but it still kind of blows my mind that people are making purchasing decisions about relatively easily available consumer goods on the basis of how efficacious they are at killing or maiming other human beings. I just can't get my head around that.
I'm not picking on you, Jaw, but you've written a lot, and eloquently, about how you feel that our culture is debased and broken...that's how I feel about our national gun culture. To me, it's a sickness, a product of artificial fear, and a misdirected power fantasy.
I'm not icked out by my in-laws hunting deer and wild pigs on their property. Hell, I eat the stuff they kill and am thankful for it. But I am profoundly disturbed by the robust marketing of and lobbying for tools that are intended to kill or maim other human beings.
I guess what I'm saying is that the tribe is not altogether foreign to me, but it still kind of blows my mind that people are making purchasing decisions about relatively easily available consumer goods on the basis of how efficacious they are at killing or maiming other human beings. I just can't get my head around that.
I'm not picking on you, Jaw, but you've written a lot, and eloquently, about how you feel that our culture is debased and broken...that's how I feel about our national gun culture. To me, it's a sickness, a product of artificial fear, and a misdirected power fantasy.
I'm not icked out by my in-laws hunting deer and wild pigs on their property. Hell, I eat the stuff they kill and am thankful for it. But I am profoundly disturbed by the robust marketing of and lobbying for tools that are intended to kill or maim other human beings.
CK86
Awaiting a Promotion
I fully admit that I am biased in regards to guns because I honestly could not care less if they were banned in the USA. I have shot a gun before and was like "Really that's it?". It was boring as **** to hunt so I never got into guns. When I see the carnage guns have helped create, I dislike them further. Mass killing machines whose sole purpose is to kill.
That said, I fully recognize that guns will not be illegal in my life time. At the same time, I would love if I could go to a movie and not have to scope out the nearest exit prior to the show starting just in case some crazy asshole decides to shoot the place up. I will never understood why a weapon similar to an AR-15 is accessible for civilian use but have been told it is a "fun gun to fire" by friends and coworkers of mine so it should be legal. I still have yet to receive an adequate answer on the purpose of a gun besides to kill/wound a target so it is why I hate gun so much.
I feel heartbroken for those who have suffered losses from gun violence. It is something I hope to never relate to. I wish at the very least we could eliminate crazy people from acquiring guns so that at least when I go watch the new Marvel movie I could relax in peace instead of worrying if some asshole is going to shoot the place up.
That said, I fully recognize that guns will not be illegal in my life time. At the same time, I would love if I could go to a movie and not have to scope out the nearest exit prior to the show starting just in case some crazy asshole decides to shoot the place up. I will never understood why a weapon similar to an AR-15 is accessible for civilian use but have been told it is a "fun gun to fire" by friends and coworkers of mine so it should be legal. I still have yet to receive an adequate answer on the purpose of a gun besides to kill/wound a target so it is why I hate gun so much.
I feel heartbroken for those who have suffered losses from gun violence. It is something I hope to never relate to. I wish at the very least we could eliminate crazy people from acquiring guns so that at least when I go watch the new Marvel movie I could relax in peace instead of worrying if some asshole is going to shoot the place up.
sturg33
I
My three step plan.
1. Make schools gun free zones.
2. If for some reason, lunatics don't follow the first law, make it illegal to shoot people
3. If the maniac didn't listen to law 1 or 2, then make guns illegal and no psycho would ever dream of possessing a gun.
Much like our drug war, problem solved.
1. Make schools gun free zones.
2. If for some reason, lunatics don't follow the first law, make it illegal to shoot people
3. If the maniac didn't listen to law 1 or 2, then make guns illegal and no psycho would ever dream of possessing a gun.
Much like our drug war, problem solved.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
Funny you should say that, because there's actual evidence to prove that it would work.
Many drugs are produced elsewhere and illegally transported here to fulfill a demand. The raw materials for guns can't be grown on global south hillsides, the finished product cooked up in ad hoc laboratories, and easily transported in massive quantities.
Other than that, though, your analysis is spot on.
sturg33
I
Agreed steps 1 and 2 have worked so well that step 3 is a slam dunk
Runnin
Well-known member
One Teacher’s Brilliant Strategy to Stop Future School Shootings—And It’s Not About Guns
"Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns....
Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down—right away—who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying...
As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord.
This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. Who are our next mass shooters and how do we stop them? She watched that tragedy knowing that children who aren’t being noticed may eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary."
"Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns....
Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down—right away—who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying...
As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord.
This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. Who are our next mass shooters and how do we stop them? She watched that tragedy knowing that children who aren’t being noticed may eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary."
acesfull86
Well-known member
Doesn’t the analogy fall apart when you consider there are over 300 million (non perishable, for the most part) guns already in circulation? It’s not like drugs where you can (theoretically) choke off new supply and wait for the inventory to go bad.
Runnin
Well-known member
You could choke off ammunition.
sturg33
I
From other counties? Might need to a build a wall then
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
Speaking purely hypothetically here, but it would be possible--in a world where such a ban were politically feasible--to take aggressive action to curtail that existing supply.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
Amazing that you think it's impossible, given that it is in practice, successfully, in many places in the world. Certainly, America's cultural and political climate are different, but your arguments here are facile.