Another day, another shooting in the US

[neorichieb1971]

Cultural values aside. We are all people. When kids get mowed down in any country it is a failure of the human race.

There are a couple of irks in this whole ordeal.

1) If rules cannot be changed, what is the medias role in this except to make everyone go "oh no!"

2) If this happened every other day, would the America media fail to report it because its business as usual?

It says a lot about Americans not only about why it happened, but what they are going to do to address it from happening again.

When 911 happened. The agenda was "Screw freedoms, we need to ACT NOW". I really don't see much difference. Its like a cherry picking thing.

Another movie quote in Godzilla "Where the hell did you get all those guns?" Jean Reno replies "I love America, We bought them down the street".

[Jonathan Ingram]

Once again I ask, why do Western European people live better than Americans? We have freedoms also and we know how to defend then without using or even owning guns.

- Large demonstrations and very frequent ones. The 99% movement in your country was special because things like that, which happens quite often in Europe, aren't nearly as common in the U.S.A.

- Multiparty system. There can be any number of political parties in almost every country of Europe (Exception: GB). You can found your own political party easily and it doens't has to be on parliament to have a justification in Spain (though, in order to recieve subsidies from the government you must reach a minimal quota of votes).

- Very strong Union power in some countries. In Germany there are Union delegates in the Board of directors of most companies, afaik.

- Powerful Ombudsman. There is a national ombudsman and an ombudsman for every administrative region of Spain. Any of then can appeal to the constitutional court against a law.

The classic case of pot calling the kettle black.

Spain has some of the highest unemployment in Europe, its welfare state is rapidly eroding and it`s owned by banking institutions as much as everyone else. And there are similar problems across Western Europe as a whole. Yet you set these countries as examples to be followed by others and advocate for more social-democratic bullshit, the class collaborationist ideology that`s exactly to blame for the current state of things.

Multi-party system? What good is it if each and every of those parties represent the interests of the capitalist class? Voting will not suddenly make the banks go away nor change the mode of production to the one that`s of benefit to working people.

Million strong demonstrations? Who cares as long as they lead to nothing and the outcome amounts to a big, fat zero? Certainly not the folks in power. You know why all these demonstrations and shitty "occupy" movements have lead to nothing and achieved nothing of worth? Because they didn`t occupy the one place that`s really worth occupying - the workplace. Early 20th century workers knew how to organize and what to occupy. The present day working class is too imbued with false consciousness to even recognize itself as such. Unless that changes, social benefits will keep being wiped out and workers rights stomped on.

[undamned]

It says a lot about Americans not only about why it happened, but what they are going to do to address it from happening again.

Dude kills mom - Murder is already illegal.
Dude steals her guns - Theft is already illegal.
Dude barges into elementary school for no legit reason - Pretty sure this could be a chargeable offense.
Dude murders a bunch of people - Obviously illegal.

Making more laws cannot fix this because people who do these things do not obey the law. No legislation can stomp out evil. It is in the hearts of men. Period.
-ud

[O. Van Bruce]

The classic case of pot calling the kettle black.

Spain has some of the highest unemployment in Europe, its welfare state is rapidly eroding and it`s owned by banking institutions as much as everyone else. And there are similar problems across Western Europe as a whole. Yet you set these countries as examples to be followed by others and advocate for more social-democratic bullshit, the class collaborationist ideology that`s exactly to blame for the current state of things.

Last time I checked we still had free health insurance and free schools as well as a lot of subsidized things. You may see us as slothy bastards but what we have right now is a government that have completely forgotten their electoral promises. The consequences are serious for then: a surge on independentism,civil desobedience of judges and even governors of some regions of the state, lots of demosntrations and a restless political and unionist oposition.

yet, i doubt you know how things have being handled in the EU, with a Germany that's only trying to protect their investments and banks without care of the "indebted" states. But that debate wuld take another thread.

Multi-party system? What good is it if each and every of those parties represent the interests of the capitalist class? Voting will not suddenly make the banks go away nor change the mode of production to the one that`s of benefit to working people.

Believe me when I say you that we still have political parties that doesn't represent the capitalist class.

Million strong demonstrations? Who cares as long as they lead to nothing and the outcome amounts to a big, fat zero? Certainly not the folks in power. You know why all these demonstrations and shitty "occupy" movements have lead to nothing and achieved nothing of worth? Because they didn`t occupy the one place that`s really worth occupying - the workplace. Early 20th century workers knew how to organize and what to occupy.

Last 11 of September Barcelona's streets were filled with one and a halve millions of catalans claiming for the indepence, now we have a government in our region that came out from the elections of 25 of November that has compromised to celebrate a referendum before 2014 asking the citizenry of Catalonia if they want to be independent or not from Spain.

Quite an acomplishment that came from a demonstration, right? The independence movement of the catalans have not only afected the said region but some of the "traditionalist" spanish political parties are proposing diferent kind of reforms or even making a new constitution that would make Spain a federal state. All of this while we try to survive this crisis as best as we can.

The present day working class is too imbued with false consciousness to even recognize itself as such. Unless that changes, social benefits will keep being wiped out and workers rights stomped on.

Seriously, what would you suggest to do? phisical violence is forbidden.

[robivy64]

lol "free health insurance".

Incredible.

You pay for it.

[O. Van Bruce]

lol "free health insurance".

Incredible.

You pay for it.

Yeah, we pay for it, but we don't have to deal with a company that's trying to only make money. Have you seen the documental Sicko? A lot of people die in your country because the health insurance company denies expensive treatments or surgeries using whatever excuse they can.

Anyway, in Spain, it's free for all the people that can't pay it. We've had universal health care (even for undocumented inmigrants) until some months ago. our national government has limited the amount of people that can benefit from it but there are some regional governments that have kept offering universal health care.

[O. Van Bruce]

lol "free health insurance".

Incredible.

You pay for it.

I forgot to mention that, as those services are paid from taxes and the taxes are heavier for the very rich, there is a wealth redistribution through the welfare state.

[neorichieb1971]

lol "free health insurance".

Incredible.

You pay for it.

I forgot to mention that, as those services are paid from taxes and the taxes are heavier for the very rich, there is a wealth redistribution through the welfare state.

In America that is deemed undemocratic. Forcing someone to pay for something that only others will benefit from or need. I heard it from an American in a bar in the midwest. Its more American to have people sell guns on the street, use them to injure people and then give the injured a healthcare bill of which they cannot pay without remortgaging the house. A la Sicko.

I worked for a company called Hill rom once in the midwest in a town called Batesville. The only businesses they were in were caskets, hospital beds and life insurance. It wasn't long before I figured they had that chain well and truly covered. Buy life insurance, if injured you lie on one of their robotic beds, if you die you get to go in one of their caskets which is paid for by the life insurance.

[Ed Oscuro]

Had a bit of an epiphany about the probable uselessness of trying to prove arguments with countless examples when people just want to read the argument - it's just a habit of mine to try to take care of everything at once so people don't turn around and say "but how could this be" - but I guess it'll help everybody have a discussion just to start with the beliefs. My post isn't shorter but maybe it's a slight bit improved - well, maybe not, but I'll see if I can't make some more progress.

When 911 happened. The agenda was "Screw freedoms, we need to ACT NOW". I really don't see much difference. Its like a cherry picking thing.

There is some kind of unusual tension in all societies between what is "just" and what gets things done. A good example of people not being able to touch freedoms is the freedom to have a trial conducted a certain way - there are lots of people who get away with murder on technicalities or just because there wasn't enough proof, but as a society we have decided you can't touch this.

I have been reading and listening to the things being written and said on this issue the last day or two and there are some arguments flying around there that just aren't effective. The pro-firearms people tend to call in with the usual "what makes you think" and the professors say "this is an argument for anarchy!" Some new arguments need to be tried if there is any hope for a debate, because the quality of the discussion is very poor right now.

Utilitarian arguments - you can take them or leave them. The statistical arguments I heard today are actually about other things, like violence in New York city which has nothing to do with the needs of so many Americans; as Mark Twain says, statistics rank under damn lies and part of the reason for this is that if you hurl enough statistics at something many people tend to forget that many, if not most, statistics have a unique history.

The post-9/11 reaction was a time when many liberals felt we sold freedom short, and they still think that way. But it is strange to see many of the same people no longer invested in a type of freedom that is in many fundamental ways the same as the freedom to travel without restrictions, to visit the top of the Empire State Building, to not have the goverment poring over your emails, and to not pay for a mind-bogglingly huge and unaccountable industry of private and public agencies and companies that duplicate and fail to coordinate some sizable efforts towards "intelligence." Gut reaction to horrible events can get you where you need to go - it's evolution's kick to the butt to get critters motivated, and we don't have crystal balls. That gut reaction can also be used or misused to justify huge antidemocratic structures, where we try to believe that the professionalism of unappointed bureaucrats is enough to safeguard the American Way. I find it ironic that so much of academia (liberal academia specifically), throughout the last century, was focused on failures of big organizations like the failures of international aid coordination, or the excesses of the Vietnam War. I will say this: Whatever successes the United States armed forces had in that conflict and in our wars today came (and still come) from focusing narrowly in on the right groups of people with strategies that work for those people, rather than treating everybody as just another possible insurgent.

I have a good relationship with the police - not everybody has had that luxury - in the few times I've been involved with them, and I wouldn't say that I fundamentally mistrust them (although for many people it is advisable to do so). But it must be recognized that they are just people, too, and members of any organization you care to name may fail the high standards set by "the organization" in countless ways, from the routine sets of infidelities and scandals that have plagued various agencies recently, to ways that fundamentally betray the mission of those agencies, where the failure is far beyond indiscretion.

It was interesting, and somewhat cognitively dissonnant, to hear the second half of today's Diane Rehm show, about personal finance (highly recommended for people our age by the way) feature one of te guests taking the top spot with comments repeatedly along the lines of this: There is no one-size fits all solution to personal finance problems. Now, her comments were strongly for more legislation to be carefully enacted, and I think that too can coexist with having reasonable freedom to choose one's financial destiny, even in the face of situations where people are not motivated or capable of being as well-informed as they should be. Obviously, in the case of finance, very many people know very little about things that will profoundly determine their lives. In the case of firearms, again I think it is reasonable to charge that many people do not know as much as they should. A commonality between these situations is that there are people out there who are doing their best to give the people the information they need to protect themselves (better examples would be the right to drive a car or the hard-won and always challenged rights to study data security issues, instead of believing that "good locksmiths" or "good Microsoft" will safeguard information kept from you). There have been some huge changes in American culture for the good - this process needs some time and perhaps even some official attention in the form of regulation. While they are at it, perhaps some of the punitive $200 tax stamps for devices that make firearms safer could be rolled into such efforts.

I think that one of our sticking points is that many firearms proponents take the attitude that they haven't caused any wrong so they don't need to do anything - here is where I see the utilitarian arguments start to gather some force, and some of the arguments in reply seem less forceful, because some reasonable, non-punitive regulation is not the same as punitive regulations intended to deter lawful practices. I think we can agree that driving a car is really a "right" in the sense that being able to drive should not come with so many restrictions and penalties that it becomes impractical, but just as a matter of the good of the driver and others in society it is reasonable to have more and better training (I will soon be going in to get a new driver's license), especially in matters where there are different types of vehicles, i.e. getting a license to operate a truck as opposed to operate a car (although here, perversely, the law seems to focus on the type of profession, i.e. commercial vehicle - truck - or chauffeur, rather than on the desired skill set). How a person gets their evaluation and training should be as free to choose as when filing for a driver's license, if not even more so due to the specializations and unique properties of many firearms as compared with the increasingly obscured mechanisms of modern automobiles.

And, just for our group, what happens if we bring up the glorification of violence? This is a forum about video games, after all. I doubt that BIL and myself are the worst-adjusted people around, somehow.

At the end of all this I have a few important questions:
How is a law justified when it targets all indiscriminately, when there isn't even the presumption that an act (owning guns) is bad, as in the case of (controversial) strict liability cases? To make the problem clearer, many people conventionally hold that the President has the power to order the use of nuclear weapons; even less problematically, we say that some circumstances - i.e. training and being a professional in police or military - gives one a sanction to use weapons, although obviously not indiscriminately.

If we hold that there is some kind of threshhold under which a person can defend themselves with certain means, where is this threshhold located? Nukes, bombers, a mortar, a slap, strong words? If there is no threshhold, then it seems that only police would get to break up fights (or maybe even, depending on how far you want to take it, resolve common disputes). Certainly you can involve the police but what happens if you are in a place underserved by establishment powers? What if you live in a place where the sheriff is insane?

How do you say, and who gets to determine, whether somebody's properly judged their circumstances and needs? Is it right for a New York city politician's need to reduce crime to effect oil field workers and hikers in the Alaskan wilderness? (No, insofar as the two situations are wholly removed, so how do these seemingly separate instances get rolled into one?)
If we hold that there is no threshhold but just a role that a person has to fill in order to meet with a democracy's sanction, how can this actual sanction against free choice be reconciled with other aspects of a free society? Doesn't this create a "tiered" society where CEOs, Jesse Jackson Jr., and others get better consideration for security or even concealed pistol permits, based on their "needs," where other people who have just as actually pressing needs have the misfortune to live in areas where the law enforcement is not considerate or are just not fortunate enough to have a private lobby for why they are one of the chosen special people who need a firearm?

I think those questions should roughly boil down to just two: Where is the justice in indiscriminate law about acts which are not in of themselves bad, and who gets to decide?

lol "free health insurance".

Incredible.

You pay for it.

I forgot to mention that, as those services are paid from taxes and the taxes are heavier for the very rich, there is a wealth redistribution through the welfare state.

In America that is deemed undemocratic. Forcing someone to pay for something that only others will benefit from or need. I heard it from an American in a bar in the midwest. Its more American to have people sell guns on the street, use them to injure people and then give the injured a healthcare bill of which they cannot pay without remortgaging the house. A la Sicko.

In some American minds that is undemocratic; not all. I am not anti-targeted taxes. If we could make a dent targeting shooting rampages by having some money from firearms sales or taxes go towards mental health then that could be at least suggested (although obviously my previous concerns about the burdens still apply here; the mentally ill are a problem for everybody and firearms owners are not the only people who would benefit from this; I think the only way of really denting the problem is to have a good nationwide mental health offensive).

On top of that what O. Van Bruce wrote is simply wrong; we all know that the definition of being rich is that you have more money than you spend. Well, to be more serious, if you want to talk about "heavy" taxes look at the proportion of income earned compared with that spent. Most Americans can't afford to save at the desired 10% rate because they're too poor to do that while still paying for everything they need. The taxes we have right now clearly weigh more heavily on the POOR (edit, thanks BulletMagnet), and furthermore if you are "very rich" you just go to get whatever health care you want - if you need it. The idea I see that somebody sitting on pots of gold ala Unca Scrooge from Duckburg is more "heavily taxed" than somebody who barely stays in a house has got to be an unintentional reading because it is clearly false.

[Ed Oscuro]

Of course the best way to feel safer is to give everyone a gun.

Now, many people will say that you can't have "professionals" in gun ownership, if a profession is designed like some organization that has the right to ban people from the profession or what have you (although you will note that works pretty well for doctors and engineers). However you can still have more "professionalism" with firearms ownership. The police do it (or are supposed to do it, anyway; in some places they probably even succeed). So if anybody is putting up weak arguments like this, they don't even deserve consideration, but they also shouldn't be targeted as if they are the real argument for private gun ownership.

But this all seems besides the point. What has spurred on these immediate problems are the cases of big statistics - gun violence across the nation - and that really unusual, but heartbreakingly common, case of a mass killing.

I have to wonder, though, how does somebody in Argentina say that private gun ownership could not be helpful? Because we all know that the military roved the countryside and killed whoever they wanted without any concern. Most of the solution may be "more professionalism in the armed forces" and improving the other democratic institutions, but it seems to me that I hear these arguments given from strange quarters with histories of oppression. An example of this strangeness in thinking is seen here, where you will note that the argument against armed Jewish resistance (a digression: many Jews certainly did take the belief that armed conflict was necessary to secure the state of Israel, even going to lengths one has to call terrorism, before the war, and after the war it is hard to see that "never again" and the near-universal conscription is reflective of the argument that fewer guns makes one less safe; the universal conscription isn't respecting the beliefs of the Haredim whereas voluntary ownership of arms would be less problematic) is an argument based on "well, they didn't know" and "it wouldn't have been enough" which flies immediately in the face of the idea that you have a right to die fighting a son-of-a-bitch if they won't respect your right to live. It is very strange to read that section since they go immediately from "never again" to "it wouldn't have changed anything." That is all based on one historical circumstance, but one can certainly imagine times where armed resistance (even nonlethally) brings about good results. Even if you grant the historical case is presented accurately (and what do they say about the Warsaw Uprising?) then one needs to say that the world is full of greater experiences than these.

As I have mentioned before, a lot of this sounds like the Catholic prohibition against lying, where it doesn't matter what the circumstance is, you can't lie. However one should carefully note that this argument coexists with the belief that you can resolve the situation with deadly force if necessary to protect what is right.

[BulletMagnet]

The taxes we have right now clearly weigh more heavily on the rich

Not by much, to be sure, especially when you factor in how much of their wealth is taxed at capital gains rates (if not hidden offshore) - fact of the matter is, the wealth gap is at or near its highest point in our history, and still growing.

[O. Van Bruce]

Ed, someday, I will have a FACE TO FACE conversation with you.

having said that, answering your post is imposible now for me because i'm on a PSP.

But I would like to know your opinion on this statement. Just take in account that it's only "a guideline"

"the state should have the monopoly on violence"

[GaijinPunch]

In this area (DFW), murders make the news. I'm sure it depends on where you go. Detroit residents murder people like it's a bodily function, so I haven't spent enough time up there to speak for their media.

That's a relatively new thing... DFW has gotten slowly better over the years. Apparently 1991 was the worst year w/ 500 murders, and trust me, there was not 1.6 reported per day on the news. Looks like it's not nearly as bad as when I grew up there (which I personally find bizarre as the suburb I'm from has become much worse). I'd have to look at stats, but I'm not sure you could say DFW is a good representative of the country. (Maybe, just not sure).

It's not a ridiculous statement like "Europeans live better than Americans". I will bash America left and right, but that's just hilarious. If you want to break it down into income brackets and make comparisons, sure, but most of America lives pretty well. NHS works, and is a good thing. I've been on it for a lot of my life, and I think something like it needs introduction into the US. However, it is definitely not free, and it's not the end-all-be-all of civilization. US's health care system is the best in the world if we're talking about quality only and ignore the price tag. So, which one is "better"? I'm not going to say, since it's completely opinionated.

[Hagane]

I have to wonder, though, how does somebody in Argentina say that private gun ownership could not be helpful? Because we all know that the military roved the countryside and killed whoever they wanted without any concern.

Of course, private gun ownership wasn't very helpful to fight an US (and USSR, funnily enough) supported dictatorship. If anything, the few people that took arms to fight them were used as a scapegoat to kill many more people that didn't have anything to do with those armed groups. We solved the military problem by disarming and taking as much power as possible away from them. Sadly, we had to lose a war and a conscript had to die to make most of the people realize our army was there to fight us and not any foreign menace.

This has very little to do with what we are discussing though.

[Ed Oscuro]

The taxes we have right now clearly weigh more heavily on the rich

Not by much, to be sure, especially when you factor in how much of their wealth is taxed at capital gains rates (if not hidden offshore) - fact of the matter is, the wealth gap is at or near its highest point in our history, and still growing.

Sorry, hilarious typo, and not in keeping at all with the rest of what I've written. Fixed that to make clear that the taxes weigh more heavily on the poor (and not just "the poor," but arguably anybody who has little enough income to dispose of for a reasonable savings rate - nationally we are supposedly at 3-4% right now).

But I would like to know your opinion on this statement. Just take in account that it's only "a guideline"

"the state should have the monopoly on violence"

I've heard this statement a few times before. I think what it is intended to imply is that a democratic society can collectively make decisions about situations in which to use violence. However, as I pointed out with the example of a slapping fight, talk about "the monopoly on violence" doesn't always seem to work right. You can talk about a "violent outburst" from a drunk guy singing at 2AM. To make sense, perhaps "violence" here means something like "in cases of territorial disputes or traditional warfare, only the state can decide to use violence." And it seems reasonable to us that unaccountable people - private citizens or otherwise - should not be taking actions that could harm all of us, if there is no agreement they can do so. (This could pose a problem for my discussion of firearms earlier - maybe it is that the action we are trying to prohibit is one that is essentially a bad action? We can note that a person who has a gun hasn't yet decided to use it in a harmful manner, after all, and the people can demand sanctions if the weapon is used badly - it's called a murder trial.)

If we say "the state has the monopoly on violence" that isn't a problem if we have a situation where everybody is happy to have the state fight a war on their behalf - the people agree with the government's action (an actually important matter: How does "the government" get agreement from the people? Who initiates the decision? Most often, it seems like a group of leaders make up their minds, and then they look to the people for specific evidence that will support them after they have made up their minds). But this isn't universally acceptable - some people will say "no violence," and call for an end to war; and what of the case where the "people" on whose behalf the state is (supposedly) acting choose poorly? The clearest case the statement is suspect is when the monopoly on violence means that we must argue against people in the Warsaw Ghetto, if they are not "the state" but still using violence. To try to get out of that, we might say that there was no state administering the Warsaw Ghetto, or rather that the people there had their own state.

It seems to me that if you say the "state" (which has a monopoly on violence) only exists if it is doing certain things (being just, going all the people due consideration - it doesn't have to be that the state pleases everybody, of course), then how do you determine that in the moment? What this argument about defining a "state" to mean "a state that is just" really means to me is that we are just talking about justice after all, and so any person who is acting justly can be excused if they need to be violent - whether they are a state or just an individual. The state is just seen as an imperfect device to try to get just ends, but its justification for an act does not come from the fact of its being called a state (i.e. what a teacher says is true not because they are the teacher, but because they are telling the truth).

Thanks for the question, that was very interesting to think about!

[Specineff]

To those saying that guns can be bought in the street as easily as you could one of those cheap wallets or watches, Where are you getting all this info? The news? Movies? "Reality" shows? I've been offered Valium and weed when having to traverse the bad neighborhoods of the city (sixth most populated city in the USA), but never a gun. Not saying that it doesn't happen, but it's actually easier for me to get a gun the legal way, at least here.

Honestly, guys, if you haven't been here, you don't know what you're talking about anymore that I would by making assumptions about other countries based on what I see on TV or read about online.

[robivy64]

Everyone in Australia rides Kangaroos and drinks Fosters.

So I hear.

I have a buddy from Sydney.

[GaijinPunch]

I believe you have to do the finger quotes plus wink-wink when you say "ride".

[undamned]

Everyone in Australia rides Kangaroos and drinks Fosters.

Buying a kangaroo saddle ASAP.
-ud

[Ed Oscuro]

Everyone in Australia rides Kangaroos and drinks Fosters.

Buying a kangaroo saddle ASAP.
-ud

"saddle" up "pard'nr"

(for GP, and I can't type without "GORF" coming out for some reason argh)

[CMoon]

To those saying that guns can be bought in the street as easily as you could one of those cheap wallets or watches, Where are you getting all this info?

[O. Van Bruce]

To those saying that guns can be bought in the street as easily as you could one of those cheap wallets or watches

Precisely, if guns are made harder to get crazy people won't have the opportunity to buy one on a whim and start mass murdering.

[Skykid]

To US residents having grown up in a country where firearms are part of the social wallpaper, I can understand that it must be weird to have a bunch of foreigners telling you that it's an unacceptable legal virtue. That doesn't make the danger they present to society any less serious, but I can see how being asked to switch perspectives is challenging.

So, shifting direction, US guys have noted that the issue isn't guns, but a critical problem with American society and values. I'm not a sociologist, just an observer, so I have no idea why life is considered so expendable, why incarceration doesn't pose a threat to gun toting felons, or why so many people find themselves so desperate that they'll murder for the sake of petty robbery.

What I do know is a 'gun culture' doesn't help these problems. I don't think firearms are any kind of solution to the problem (as in, there are a load of crazy fuckers with guns, so take these guns so you can shoot them first) but rather exacerbate a society with a predilection for violence and greed: factors I'd attribute to mass materialism, consumerism and unfettered capitalist atrocities. If examples exist where countries can maintain relative civility with legal firearm laws (Finland, Sweden, Norway,Switzerland etc) isn't permissive gun law in the US like giving the naughtiest kid in the class a slingshot to play with, while everyone else gets Play Doh?

[GaijinPunch]

The big problem is that most people are idiots. I think perhaps Americans are slightly higher than average in that respect, but not by much. Is everyone that owns a gun stupid? No. In fact, most of my family are gun toting, red-blooded Americans. I quite like them, and find them at least of average intelligence and of course, great people even though they talk a bit funny. I have told my brother time and time again to sue the Cohen brothers for using his likeness as Llewlyn in No Country For Old Men. However, statistics tells us some people that aren't that bright are going to have firearms. A lot, actually.

You can also draw some some conclusions based on pop culture, war culture, and the fact that we were born from war. Fuck if I know. I don't have a psych degree.

Now, having said that, do I think guns should be out of the hands of normal, every day people? Absolutely. Are they the bane of society? Yes, pretty much. Will I vote for anti-gun legislation? Not for the foreseeable future. Why? 1) It's not realistic in the US, and 2) I try not to be a hypocrite. I think most drugs should be decriminalized (definitely the green stuff and the psychedelics) for the same premise gun nuts chant as they stroke their rifles. I also have the statistics to back up the statement that what I want decriminalized kills way less people (and almost always the person taking it). So, remember that. If you own a firearm and vote against decriminalization of marijuana, you're a hypocrite. You might be okay with that, but, you'll know deep down you're wrong.

Do I think "more guns = less crime"? Fuck no -- that's fucking retarded. However, I do think that (at this point) stricter gun legislation would lead to worse things. The cartels in Mexico would have a fucking hay day, for starters. There are smarter ways to get serious about the issue. I'm not against federally enforced minimums on waiting periods, stricter penalties for unlawful firings, more expensive bullets, and maybe even (gasp) taxing the fuck out of guns.

[moonblood]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... l-massacre

[Skykid]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... l-massacre

I didn't think that line I wrote would ever have real-life significance.

Screw this, I gotta get some CoD in before a furious crywank and self harm with a razor blade.

[DrTrouserPlank]

It amazes me that so many simpletons believe that banning guns will solve the problem. Did you know that the guy STOLE the weapons from his parents?

Killers will find a gun if they want to kill. Legal or not.

In this particular case the laws on who should be allowed to own a gun and what sort of gun are somewhat irrelevant because, as you say, they weren't his guns and his mother owned the guns legally. This doesn't change the simple fact that guns are the cause of this incident and that their ownership needs to be heavily controlled if this sort of thing isn't to keep happening over and over again. America has a gun problem that is all of it's own making, and the solutions to which are complex. Even if there was unanimous will for change (which there very obviously isn't), the logistics of enacting such policies that would really make a difference are almost impossible; but that's not to say that it shouldn't be attempted.

You say that killers will find a gun if they want to kill. That's not the case. It's certainly not the case in countries where gun ownership is illegal and gun crime in all those countries is far lower than in the US due to the simple reason that getting hold of a gun isn't as trivial as you make it sound. It is, for the average person who isn't a hardened criminal, virtually impossible to get a gun.

[CMoon]

My most moronic contribution to this thread:

What we, as a species, really need is some kind of non-destructive/non-lethal firearm that americans can have the right to bear. I don't just mean tasers, coz those aren't going to help overthrow the government, but more like those phasers from star trek. Perhaps some sort of sonic weapon, or even microwaves.

If someone is invading your home, you don't need to cleave their body in two; you need to knock them out. Same thing for hunting. Same thing for taking out the senate (when they start putting us all in fema concentration camps--oh my!)

I don't see a reason we need the right to bear lethal force. I mean, it's the 21st century where non-metrosexual men twitter/facebook while having rounds at the bar, certainly we can develop a non-lethal surrogate for the gun lovers.

[robivy64]

We have that.

It's called Nerf.

[DEL]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZpkIYki ... 7w&index=1
Yup, just like AURORA in neon appearing in Skyfall and Looper. Not to say that it wasn't pre-planned mind you .