Dealing with mass shootings

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Dealing with mass shootings

Post #1

Post by otseng »

We've heard about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary today.

What can be done to curb mass shootings in the US?

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bluethread
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Post #21

Post by bluethread »

Dantalion wrote: and as a personal note, I must say that having a happy gun toting smiley in your posts after loads of kids have been massacred is pretty disturbing.
I'm all for your 2nd amendment rights but maybe a little is in order here.
In armed citizen's defense, as if he can not defend himself, a principle is a principle. If one compromises one's principles for taste and tact, one soon becomes unprincipled by those who dictate the definitions of "taste" and "tact". I have no doubt that armed citizens realizes that his smiley effects how people view his posts.

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Post #22

Post by Fuzzy Dunlop »

Darias wrote:This conversation is boiling down to this type of logic:

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If you make guns illegal, you disarm law-abiding citizens. People intending to do harm will do harm whether guns are legal or not. They can still obtain weapons too.

Someone from China stabbed 22 children today. Are we to ban knives now as well? Will the ban include steak knives and box cutters?
It seems to me that the stabbing example works against your point. In a country with strict gun control like China, people (criminals included) have a harder time getting guns. Aren't mass stabbings preferable to mass shootings?

Also, you can grow marijuana in your back yard without much effort. Making your own guns is not quite as simple. As a result, the regulation of firearms is much easier to achieve than the regulation of marijuana.

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Post #23

Post by Armed Citizen »

bluethread wrote:
Dantalion wrote: and as a personal note, I must say that having a happy gun toting smiley in your posts after loads of kids have been massacred is pretty disturbing.
I'm all for your 2nd amendment rights but maybe a little is in order here.
In armed citizen's defense, as if he can not defend himself, a principle is a principle. If one compromises one's principles for taste and tact, one soon becomes unprincipled by those who dictate the definitions of "taste" and "tact". I have no doubt that armed citizens realizes that his smiley effects how people view his posts.
Thanks, bluethread.
Ur right I can more than a lil defend myself. But its nice ta see people standin up fer others. I jus did it for someone else... (dun remember who), and I am quite sure they coulda handled it themselves.


Thanks again and............. wait fer it........




...... wait fer it.......






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BAMM!!!
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Post #24

Post by Armed Citizen »

Dantalion wrote: and as a personal note, I must say that having a happy gun toting smiley in your posts after loads of kids have been massacred is pretty disturbing.
I'm all for your 2nd amendment rights but maybe a little taste and tact is in order here.
I appreciate the idea that u are offerin. Howevers. I didn't shoot no kids. Nor have I. Nor will I.

I am still a proud owner of guns. I will remain a proud owner of guns. I am a law abidin citizen who owns and buys his guns legally. I will remain proud, I will remain outspoken.

I have no reason to be changin who I am cause some nut job went haywire and used a firearm to go an do an unspeakable act.

I am sorry if you be findin it disturbin but I have no regrets and am not plannin ta change.



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Post #25

Post by Darias »

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote: It seems to me that the stabbing example works against your point. In a country with strict gun control like China, people (criminals included) have a harder time getting guns. Aren't mass stabbings preferable to mass shootings?

Also, you can grow marijuana in your back yard without much effort. Making your own guns is not quite as simple. As a result, the regulation of firearms is much easier to achieve than the regulation of marijuana.
My point was that laws do not stop people from doing what they want to do, even if laws may make it difficult. A ban on guns in this country would have even less teeth than a toothless grandpa because it would also be unconstitutional. Enforcing it would be a nightmare for the feds.

And knife crime is impossible to regulate, so long as people eat steak, knives of all sorts will be readily available. Guns, knives and pepper-spray are also banned in the UK. Guess what. They still have a gun an knife crime problem; gun crime has gone up by almost 90% since 1999. Gun crime has been a problem since they banned hand guns. Knife crime has also risen slightly.

What this tells us is, at least in the UK, that gun bans do not eliminate nor reduce gun crime. This is because criminals intending to do harm can still obtain weapons, whereas law abiding citizens have no legal recourse. And unarmed defenseless citizens are completely incapable of stopping crimes like those listed above.

You say that growing marijuana is easy. Well, I have no desire to, but if I did, I wouldn't know where to start. I wouldn't know who to call or where to buy. But if I were determined enough, I could. It may be hard for the government to regulate this, but it doesn't mean it's easy to grow or obtain.

But this argument isn't about ease of breaking the law. People who obtain weapons illegally do not build them in their garage; they purchase them on the black market or they steal them.

Do you know how difficult it is just to own a handgun in the US legally? I looked up the laws in my county today. I have to pass an FBI background check and I cannot have a criminal record or a history of mental health issues. I would have to register my weapon with the local sheriff's department and take classes to learn how to use it. Some places don't allow conceal carry... and only certain magazines and bullets are legal.

Do criminals bother with that process? No. Would scarce availability due to bans prevent them from obtaining weapons anyway? In the case of the UK, no.

Laws only affect the law abiding.

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And most people don't get the point of the second amendment. It wasn't to hunt, and it wasn't for fun. And it wasn't even for self-defense. The purpose of the right to own a gun was to make sure the citizenry was as well armed as the military, as to prevent tyranny by a future government in this country. Taking an extremely rare shooting such as this one and using it as an excuse to give the government all the rights to force at the people's expense is outrageous.

I watched the Wendy Williams Show with Penn Jillette on Reddit today and one lady said something along the lines of: "only the police and the military should have guns." This was one of the grossest displays of naivete I've ever seen. I am no conspiracy nut, nor do I own a gun, but I fail to understand why people put so much faith and trust in government -- even when things like the NDAA act of 2012 are still in effect, even when the Patriot Act is still in effect. Even when the NSA freely collects all your emails for later recall. I sometimes wonder why people are so incredibly asinine. Like I said before, China and North Korea are really into gun laws too. Do you really think they're trying to enforce those laws for the "safety" of their people? Do you really think China is a model we should look to?

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I think I'm going to go register to get a gun before more laws go into effect to make it nearly impossible. I'm a responsible guy; hell I don't even like guns and I couldn't shoot Bamby if my life depended on it... but damn I don't like this wave of statism... nor the Obama administration's willingness to capitalize on this tragedy to promote his political agenda. Our president has already expanded his executive power at the expense of habeas corpus; even American citizens and their children have been killed without a right to trial.

No thanks Uncle Sam, I think I'll stick with clinging to my guns.

I'm not a huge fan of guns, but if I don't exercise my rights I will lose them. We've already lost enough freedoms in this country and I'm tired of it. I want to be able to defend my family from criminals anyway so I see no harm in gun ownership.

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Re: Dealing with mass shootings

Post #26

Post by McCulloch »

otseng wrote: What can be done to curb mass shootings in the US?
If you really want to reduce mass shootings in the US wouldn't a reasonable place to start would be to look at other countries where gun related deaths are orders of magnitude lower than the US rate? What are we doing that is different from what you are doing?
otseng wrote: Here's my thoughts:
- Ban fully automatic and assault weapons.
A good start. Countries that restrict weapon ownership have lower gun deaths.
otseng wrote: - All schools should have an armed police officer, even in communities where there is no history of violent crimes.
This would have a high cost and low effect. A mass killer would just have to make sure he takes out the armed police officer first.
otseng wrote: - Curb culture of violence in movies, TV, games, entertainment.
Is there any real evidence that censorship reduced violence? We watch a whole lot of American television and American movies in Canada, yet our gun problems are miniscule compared to our southern neighbors.
otseng wrote: - Stop viewing killing people as a solution to problems.
Get rid of capital punishment? Eliminate America's wars of aggression?
otseng wrote: - No leniency for mass murderers. Go straight to jail with lifetime sentence.
I was unaware that mass murderers get leniency in the USA.
otseng wrote: - Families, churches and schools need to speak out and curb violence.
Aren't the churches and schools already trying to curb violence?
Darias wrote: If you make guns illegal, you disarm law-abiding citizens. People intending to do harm will do harm whether guns are legal or not. They can still obtain weapons too.
No one can prevent a psychopath from doing harm. However, where guns are prohibited it is more difficult for them to amass the necessary weaponry.
otseng wrote: The underlying problem is that we have a culture of violence and view killing people as a way to solve problems.
The challenge is for the US to move away from its gun culture. One important step is the idea that the government has to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. This is one of the foundational blocks of civilization.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
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Re: Dealing with mass shootings

Post #27

Post by Darias »

McCulloch wrote:The challenge is for the US to move away from its gun culture. One important step is the idea that the government has to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. This is one of the foundational blocks of civilization.
I'm not big on gun culture. I don't even like guns. But, I'm sorry, you have entirely missed the point of the second amendment. The founders understood all too well the oppression that European governments had put upon their subjects and they understood that a well armed populace functioned much like the branches of government do -- a balance of power between the state and the people it represents.

The idea that powerful governments are good, whether the men who operate them do so with the best of intentions or not, and that they alone should have the right to the use of force is the reasoning of a statist. In that type of police state, any rights and freedoms granted to the people are done solely by the benevolence of those in power. North Korea and China are also big on gun control too, because they don't want their citizens to have any power; they don't want revolution or dissent of any kind. The only reason I didn't toss the Nazis in that list was because they didn't use gun control. This was because there wasn't a "gun culture" in Germany.
N. A. Browne wrote:[G]un ownership was not that widespread to begin with, and, even imagining such ubiquity the German people, Jews in particular, were not predisposed to violent resistance to their government.

The Third Reich did not need gun control (in 1938 or at any time thereafter) to maintain their power. The success of Nazi programs (restoring the economy, dispelling socio-political chaos) and the misappropriation of justice by the apparatus of terror (the Gestapo) assured the compliance of the German people


When the people have no weapons, sure that might make guns harder to get. But criminals aren't going to register the legal way anyways. They will obtain them illegally. Gun crime has went up nearly 90% from 1999 to 2009 in the UK... where handguns are banned... along with knives and pepper spray.

I don't want to live in a real life western, but I also don't want to live in a North Korean nanny state, where the government is omnipotent and where you have no means to defend yourself and no rights to defend your rights.

Creating a culture of sheep and statists, completely dependent upon the government will not bode well for freedoms in the future. Our government already has the power to indefinitely detain or kill US citizens. The NSA collects all emails for easy recall during an investigation. Police use drones to spy without a warrant. Whistle-blowers are locked up for life, and now more gun laws are in store for the future. This isn't a slippery slope idea. Just look at the UK and other countries.

Sure you might make it harder for a murderer hell bent on causing mayhem to obtain a weapon, but laws do not stop criminals; they inhibit the law abiding.

I don't want an Orwellian future for my kids. I don't trust the notion that more laws will make us safer at the expense of our freedom. Think of all the home burglaries and rapists and murderers that will not be stopped in time because it takes 20 minutes for the government to show up and "help." Good luck preventing the next rampage or terrorist attack. I'm sure all the gun laws, martial law, road blocks, body scans, and check points in the world will keep bad things from happening. Less freedom and more authoritarian government solutions is the only course of action to curb violence. really?

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Post #28

Post by otseng »

Darias wrote: The purpose of the right to own a gun was to make sure the citizenry was as well armed as the military, as to prevent tyranny by a future government in this country.
Yes. And I believe gun ownership is also correlated to distrust of the government and the size of its military. So, I think an additional step that can be done is to dramatically decrease the size of our military.
I'm not a huge fan of guns, but if I don't exercise my rights I will lose them. We've already lost enough freedoms in this country and I'm tired of it. I want to be able to defend my family from criminals anyway so I see no harm in gun ownership.
I think a lot of people are thinking that now.
Last edited by otseng on Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Dealing with mass shootings

Post #29

Post by otseng »

McCulloch wrote: If you really want to reduce mass shootings in the US wouldn't a reasonable place to start would be to look at other countries where gun related deaths are orders of magnitude lower than the US rate? What are we doing that is different from what you are doing?
Can you give some examples?
otseng wrote: - All schools should have an armed police officer, even in communities where there is no history of violent crimes.
This would have a high cost and low effect. A mass killer would just have to make sure he takes out the armed police officer first.
This is done in schools in my area. If a mass killer wanted to target a school, more than likely he would avoid our schools and go to one where there is no armed police officer.
otseng wrote: - Curb culture of violence in movies, TV, games, entertainment.
Is there any real evidence that censorship reduced violence? We watch a whole lot of American television and American movies in Canada, yet our gun problems are miniscule compared to our southern neighbors.
One single factor cannot be attributed to gun violence. Just because any country has a single factor would not make them produce mass murderers. But, I cannot believe that playing first person shooter games and watching people constantly shoot guns in action movies have zero effect on contributing to gun violence.
otseng wrote: - Stop viewing killing people as a solution to problems.
Get rid of capital punishment? Eliminate America's wars of aggression?
If you believe that the government can legitimately use deadly force, then you cannot get rid of these.
otseng wrote: - Families, churches and schools need to speak out and curb violence.
Aren't the churches and schools already trying to curb violence?
It doesn't seem to be enough. I don't ever recall any preacher giving a talk specifically on addressing violence.
The challenge is for the US to move away from its gun culture. One important step is the idea that the government has to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. This is one of the foundational blocks of civilization.
I'm unclear what you are saying here. Are you suggesting that only the government can have guns and citizens cannot?

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Re: Dealing with mass shootings

Post #30

Post by Armed Citizen »

McCulloch wrote:This would have a high cost and low effect. A mass killer would just have to make sure he takes out the armed police officer first.
McCulloch wrote:This would have a high cost and low effect. A mass killer would just have to make sure he takes out the armed police officer first.
Imma knowin there was a lot more ta ur post than this, but this one here kinda jumped out at me quite blatantly. :blink:

You state that all the future mass murderer has ta do is then go after the armed cop. But as logical and quick minded as I seen a be ‘round here I am greatly distressed at that there comment. You do be realizing that most of these mass murderes be offin themselves once they meet resistance? They pick the places they do simply cause they be knowin they ain’t gonna run afoul of no one armed. Then when the armed individuals do show up they tend ta trn the gun on themselves. :-k

Would it not then be safe ta extrapolate from this that if there already be an armed person (s) at the school that there won’t be none of theis arch-type bullies goin there. They dun like resistance so why start out where resistance would be? :confused2:

Just sayin is all. :yes:


Lemme know where my reason went astray here if ya be thinkin it did. :?:







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