Most say it's the guns. I say, it's today's society

[Red XXX]

Being English I find it rather hard to understand the obession with guns, but just saw this little tweet on my tweeter feed thingy ... 'Australia. Tough laws 1996 after gun massacre. 18 years before, 13 mass shootings. Not one in 14 years since. Murder rate with guns fell 40%' ....

 

[eponymous]

I will also say, in response to several comments made here as well as the title of this thread itself, that no one thinks anything is the fault of guns. I'm not aware of a single person who thinks that guns are the problem. Where people appear (or are alleged) to blame guns themselves, they are in fact blaming the availability of guns, i.e., the lack of meaningful gun legislation that would prevent guns from falling into the hands of the wrong people.

It's the impossibility of defining who "the wrong people" are that is at the heart of the debate. If it were really possible to deny firearms to people who would hurt others, and to do so without violating the rights of law-abiding people, we'd have meaningful gun laws already.

And of course, the flip side is also true. Those who appear (or are alleged) to defend guns themselves do not in fact defend the guns, but are defending what they believe are the rights of people to own guns for the purposes of hunting, sport, self-defense and hobby (collectors, history buffs, etc.).

Until each side can see the other for what it is and what it's fighting for, we won't get anywhere.

 

[Rey C.]

Now in the 21st century not only are we incredibly plugged in to media, but the current economy and the health care system has set us up for people to break. People who NEED mental help can't get it because it costs too much, and when people are desperate (losing their house, jobs, family, ect) they're going to snap.

On the mental health thing, there's also the stigma that goes with admitting to or being diagnosed with a mental illness. We still think it's funny. We still make fun of people who have mental health problems. But then we boo-hoo when one of them goes off the rails and kills someone. Many corporations do background checks these days (I just went through one for a new company I'm considering), and if any sort of criminal or mental health issue pops up, you're weeded out. So people have to hide (known or suspected) problems like that. I have an uncle who has some very serious physical and mental health issues. The cancer that he is fighting, society sympathizes with him on that. The other thing, not a chance. He avoids getting help because he'd be better off admitting to having AIDS than the mental condition that he has.

I don't know what actually happened in this particular case. But as a society, we do fuck ourselves by how we treat people who have problems that could possibly be treated with medication or therapy. And many states (Arizona, for one) have been very, very, very slow in linking up their state mental health databases with the FBI system, so that people with mental disabilities could be weeded out from (legally) purchasing firearms. Not even the most loyal NRA member wants mentally ill people to be able to purchase a firearms. A GOA (Gun Owners of America) member? Well, maybe - since a lot of them probably have paranoid schizophrenic conditions. But we shouldn't be paying any attention to the moonbat/black helicopter crowd as we try to find realistic, rational, practical solutions to these problems.

But IMO, just putting more words on pieces of paper is a foolish, easy out, that will accomplish little. But that sort of thing usually makes people feel good. In my world, it's like re-writing procedures when the old procedures weren't being followed either. That never/hardly ever produces a result that improves anything - but it does make people feel good.

 

[sean miguel]

Just google "mass shootings" or "school shootings" and you'll find plenty of historical accounts from around the world involving people going crazy and murdering a bunch of people. My point was that these events are not only recent. But if you really insist on me providing more details, here you go:

(In order from the examples I posted above)

1. Used a shotgun.

2. This was fire. But so what? It's still a massacre.

3. This was a 43 year old man armed with 4 hand guns.

4. 3 Palestinian terrorists. They used grenades and automatic weapons, killing 22 children and injuring 28 children.

5. Can't find that one again, sorry.

6. Charles Whitman. He purchased a Universal M1 Carbine, 2 ammunition magazines and 8 boxes of ammunition, telling the cashier that he was using it to hunt wild hogs. Then he drove to a gun shop where he bought 4 more carbine magazines, 6 boxes of ammunition, and a can of gun cleaning solvent. Then he went to Sears and got a 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun and a rifle case. Back home with these items, in his garage he sawed off the barrel of the shotgun, packed it with a remington 700 6mm hunting rifle into his locker, which also held a 6mm bolt-action hunting rifle, a .36 calibre rifle, a .30 calibre carbine, a 9mm Luger pistol, another pistol and a revolver, and over 700 rounds of ammunition, 3 knives, a machete, and other items such as vitamins and crap. The massacre took place as he sniped out a number of students from the top of a tower at the University of Texas.

7. This took place in the New Mexico State Penitentiary. It was a hostage situation in which case inmates took officers hostage, inmates killed inmates, inmates raped and beat each other. I suppose this doesn't necessarily fit in with one single person going on a mass killing spree or a school shooting, but nevertheless, it was terrible. And it was 30 years ago.

8. The man had a revolver and a knife. Some of the people were found to have been killed by an Uzi, so it is suspected that some of the murders were by police officers.

9. Took place in Australia. The man reportedly told his neighbor, "I'll do something that will make everyone remember me." He used a Colt AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The main part of the massacre took place in a restaurant where he sat down, ordered food, commented, "There's a lot of wasps in here," to no one in particular, then moved to the back of the cafe, set up a video camera, and within 15 seconds he fired 17 shots, killing 12 and injuring 10. He then killed 8 other people around another side of the cafe and wounded 5, blah blah blah, I'm not telling this entire friggin story.

10. First spree, he killed 21 people with an axe. His second spree, he was armed with a stolen police rifle, 50 rounds of ammunition and an axe. He just started killing people. Within 10 hours he shot 10 men, 8 women, 8 children, killed 5 men with the axe, burned 2 women and a child, and strangled a teenage girl.

11. Well I couldn't find he above incident again (the page I'm looking at has TONS of massacres listed), but I did find another one in the same year where an American man killed 44 and injured 58 in a school in which he was the treasurer for. First he killed his wife and then he set his farm buildings on fire, which served as a distraction as he bombed the school. So no, not guns in this situation, but it doesn't fucking matter. It's absolutely terrible and it happened 85 years ago.

12. This man killed his wife and 4 children, then in town he set fires and shot 20 people. Shot here meaning he had a gun.

13. I'm tired of researching these people again. This guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tore_Hedin

Alright like I said, I'm tired of re-researching these people just to prove a point to someone who is doubting me, which is doubting history. And since when did this become just about America? There are crazy people all over the world, not just in America, and you didn't say anything about America only when I mentioned the Holocaust and WWI and other wars. It doesn't matter. This shit isn't recent, it is recorded throughout history all over the world, nothing has changed. Nothing that matters in this instance in any case. Sure, things have changed over time, such as blacks no longer being slaves and granted the same rights as everyone else, America getting it's first black president, porn being more widely accepted and sexuality progressively becoming more openly expressed and less inhibited, women becoming more independent, etc. But seriously, why are you looking for a reason as to WHY these things are happening? What's it matter? It's always happened, it will continue to happen because psychopaths will never cease to exist unless someone miraculously discovers a cure for craziness.

I'm reading your words but all I can think about is your pussy.

Sorry.

 

[georges]

The main problem is the gang culture and illegaly owned full automatic weapons, also the lack of metal detectors inside schools as well as the lack of armored guards in schools seem to be also a part of the problem. There are people who play these violent games and who don't commit murders because they know difference bteween the real and the virtual world.

 

[georges]

Society is the problem ? OK, so let's change society. But since you're vprt of society, you must change as well.
And, changing society will take time and in the meantime, we can't just stay and watch crazy guys shooting kids, something has to be done to prevent that, some laws have to be passed. Then, when society will be changed, we would cancel these laws 'cause they would just be useless since society will be changed.

Anyway, wether it is or not society, something has to be done to stop that, NOW !

The nra and all the agencies using firearms like the usmc, us army, rangers, ncis, jttf, batf, dea, cia, fbi, ice as well as people who are specialized in training people for self defense and law abiding citizens won't give up the fight to see the second amendment modified. The Nra alongwith all guns manufacturers have a very very heavy weight and it is not Obama who will counterbalance them. Also I prefer to live in a society when I know that every citizen is a responsible gun owner like the US and I don't like to live in a country where firearms are extremely hard to get for law abiding citizens but whereas the scum own illegally full automatic owned firearms and hide them in their caves like France.

 

[John_8581]

When are federal laws going to change? ... not the second amendment, the right to bear arms and all that ... but extending the timeframe to get a "psyche check" on any person buying a handgun. Isn't it something like seven days?

Because there was no "buying" here... I blame the tragdy in Newton, Connecticut on the dead mother. She trained her son to be an assassin by going to the pistol range with him twice a week. Adam Lanza was a time bomb ready to go off. Those hand guns should have been locked in a safe. Or, at the very least, the ammunition locked away. Now what the hell does Nancy Lanza need a 5.56 caliber Bushmaster rifle for? Oh she's hunting tigers. That's it...

 

[sean miguel]

Now what the hell does Nancy Lanza need a 5.56 caliber Bushmaster rifle for? ]

At that range and in that situation, the caliber of the round is academic. He could've caused the same carnage with a 9mm.


This is just f'n heartbreaking that we're even talking about this.

Those kids.

 

[Johan]

I prefer to live in a society when I know that every citizen is a responsible gun owner like the US and I don't like to live in a country where firearms are extremely hard to get for law abiding citizens but whereas the scum own illegally full automatic owned firearms and hide them in their caves like France.

Every citizen is a responsible gun owner ?
A 24 years old autist who shoot 18 kids is a reponsible gun owner ? Her mother who didn't store her guns in a place where this guy can't take it is a responsible gun owner ?
A white-supremacist neo-nazi and ex-military raiding a Sikh temple and killing 6 people is a responsible gun owner ?


Also, among those you call "scum", very few actualy own guns. Very few people die from gun violence in this country. If things were like you say they are in France, our crime ratio would be much higher than it actualy is.

Now, answer this question :
If owning and carrying a gun protects you from criminals and being unarmed is being a potential victim, than why does a country where guns are banned has lower gun violence rate and crime rate than a country where the legislation on guns is almost non-existing ?

 

[Rattrap]

I was waiting for him to spew the same rhetoric that you've been doing for the past few days, that all this is a result of abortions and how it makes us forget about the sanctity of life.

There's actually a good case to be made that in fact it is the opposite; see Freakonomics. While it is obviously more complicated than the following, it is compelling nonetheless: what happened in the early 1970's that would have reduced the population of the most violent demographic in the 90's, when violence was on a dangerous upward trend but suddenly dropped precipitously?

Being English I find it rather hard to understand the obession with guns, but just saw this little tweet on my tweeter feed thingy ... 'Australia. Tough laws 1996 after gun massacre. 18 years before, 13 mass shootings. Not one in 14 years since. Murder rate with guns fell 40%' ....

Let me state firstly that I am not anti-gun; I accept their place in American culture, though perhaps not its extent. That said, virtually every pro-gun argument is bullshit.

Can't ban guns, because there are too many? BS. Countries have done it. Only the lawful citizen will be disarmed? See countries where "only the criminal element" have weapons. Gun violence exists, but it's a baby's fart compared to what we get in the US (and most of it is gang-related, rather than this crazy-random shit we get here). "You'll never take away my guns because they're my right!" BS. You've already given away countless rights over the last decade alone. Where was the armed defense against the tyrannical government then? The government will do what it damn well pleases and other than some complaining, pissing and moaning, it'll continue to do as it damn well pleases. People won't even vote Congress out, let alone "defend their rights with arms". Need it to defend your home? A knife, a baseball bat, or some self-defense classes will all do the trick. You know your home a hell of a lot better than some thug, after all. I could go on, but it's all beside the point. Guns aren't going anywhere.

The main problem is the gang culture and illegaly owned full automatic weapons, also the lack of metal detectors inside schools as well as the lack of armored guards in schools seem to be also a part of the problem. There are people who play these violent games and who don't commit murders because they know difference bteween the real and the virtual world.

georges, I think you've got a raging hard-on for "the ghetto crowd" and gangs as much as Sam does for homosexuals.

Who would pay for the armored guards? Sounds like more public spending to me. Which of course is communism.

 

[ApolloBalboa]

Now what the hell does Nancy Lanza need a 5.56 caliber Bushmaster rifle for? Oh she's hunting tigers. That's it...

That's what I've been wondering and hoping will get answered at some point, either here or by someone else.

At that range and in that situation, the caliber of the round is academic. He could've caused the same carnage with a 9mm.

What does anybody, any civilian, needs with an automatic or semiautomatic weapon in the first place?

 

[sean miguel]

Now, answer this question :
If owning and carrying a gun protects you from criminals and being unarmed is being a potential victim, than why does a country where guns are banned has lower gun violence rate and crime rate than a country where the legislation on guns is almost non-existing ?

Chicago.


Next.

 

[eponymous]

...I prefer to live in a society when I know that every citizen is a responsible gun owner like the US...

(emphasis added)

Um...I'm guessing that English isn't your first language and that this was just a slip of the tongue (or the hand), right?

First of all, I'm pretty sure you meant to say 'every gun owner is a responsible citizen', not that every responsible citizen owns a gun, which is no more true than the statement that 'all men are white'.

Secondly, even though I don't fully agree with your point about people who own guns being more likely to be criminals in societies where they're harder to acquire, at least I can understand it. But a bunch of people were just killed, and the week before, an NFL player committed a murder/suicide, so clearly not all gun owners in the U.S. are responsible, law-abiding citizens, even if most of them are.

 

[eponymous]

Chicago.


Next.

Ron, it probably isn't good forum etiquette to say this openly, and even though I'm sure you won't care (despite the fact that I don't know a thing about you and have never read one of your posts before today), I'm going to go ahead post this: I'm adding you to my ignore list.

Not because your comment about Chicago isn't unbelievably ignorant and stupid...it is, but I can overlook something like that.

No, really I just don't want to stumble across another one of your posts and accidentally see your pathetic prick. Really, man. You couldn't possibly find a better way to announce that you're both obsessed with yourself yet full of insecurities than to make it your avatar.

I just don't understand how people can have absolutely no class.

 

[sean miguel]

^ No wait, please reconsider. We can swap pics.


You said class .... on a porn forum.

 

[eponymous]

...There are many, many more cases of mass murders...

As tragic as mass shootings are - and I sincerely appreciate your pointing out that they happen with alarming frequency - I actually think the debate over enacting sensible gun laws should focus on the approximately 30 homicides that occur every day in this country. That's a Sandy Hook-type tragedy every single day, they're just spread out in cities across America.

Add to this the approximately 50 gun-related deaths due to accident or suicide, and the approximately 100 gun injuries that don't result in death but which require expensive medical treatment and often result in permanent disability, and it's clear we need sensible solutions. This is a public health emergency.

 

[mjk39]

I'm not gun nut but I do believe in protection of the second amendment. However, I don't think anyone has any real useful need to keep an AK-47 around either so some restrictions for access to guns and very strict restrictions to certain types of guns should be in place.

That said, I do believe that our current society (American society that is) is a primary contributor to the problem. Look at the TV shows, the movies, the video games....they universally glorify the use of violence, particularly gun and/or weapon violence. Check out this trailer for Grand Theft Auto 5:



This is the kind of shit your 10-year-old kid is continually playing on his PS3 with your blessing. Then, you become outraged and feign shock when something like Sandy Hook happens??!! You shake your head and ask "How could someone do something like that?". What a travesty. It's called "classical conditioning" folks and the manifestation of this current culture of violence has been as deliberate and effective on our society as the ringing of the bell was on Pavlov's Dog. Look in the mirror, America. What you see is what you get.

"Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane" - Jim Morrison from The End

This doesn't seems to be Grand Theft Auto V...

 

[Briana Lee]

Being English I find it rather hard to understand the obession with guns, but just saw this little tweet on my tweeter feed thingy ... 'Australia. Tough laws 1996 after gun massacre. 18 years before, 13 mass shootings. Not one in 14 years since. Murder rate with guns fell 40%' ....

:goodpost:

Honestly, I do not understand this obsession that we have with guns here in the US. There are plenty of countries out there that have banned them and you never here of any of this type of thing happening. Things need to change and soon or we are gonna here about this sort of thing happening more and more frequently....

 

[Straight Shooter]

:goodpost:

Honestly, I do not understand this obsession that we have with guns here in the US. There are plenty of countries out there that have banned them and you never here of any of this type of thing happening. Things need to change and soon or we are gonna here about this sort of thing happening more and more frequently....

Unfortunately I dont think a damn thing is going to change even after this massacre. This is going to keep happening and every time we're going to have the same discussion and nothing is going to change. I'm for gun control but people misconstrue what that actually means. I'm not for a total ban on guns, though I do think we should reinstate the assault weapons ban, and this is isn't even a matter of 2nd amendment. All I want to do is make it harder for wackos to have guns, how can anyone disagree with this? Those of us who do support gun control need to be more concrete as to what we mean when we say we support gun control and not demonize those responsible gun owners.

 

[Harley Spencer]

As tragic as mass shootings are - and I sincerely appreciate your pointing out that they happen with alarming frequency - I actually think the debate over enacting sensible gun laws should focus on the approximately 30 homicides that occur every day in this country. That's a Sandy Hook-type tragedy every single day, they're just spread out in cities across America.

Add to this the approximately 50 gun-related deaths due to accident or suicide, and the approximately 100 gun injuries that don't result in death but which require expensive medical treatment and often result in permanent disability, and it's clear we need sensible solutions. This is a public health emergency.

Oh trust me, I am 100% with you on that. I do not own a gun, I have never shot a gun, and I do not desire to ever shoot or own one. It's of absolutely no interest to me. if you read my posts that you quoted that statement I made from, you'd clearly see that some of the examples I posted involved massacres where the deaths resulted from weapons other than just guns. One was an axe, some involved knives, one was a bombing, one was fire. However, most of them did involve guns.

I was wrong when I previously stated that nothing has changed. Something has changed. As Petra pointed out, back in the day before we had TV, internet and radio, people had to rely on word of mouth and newspapers to hear about all the death related crimes in the world, and because there was no internet or TV or radio, how was France going to hear about a massacre that happened in North America? It would take ages. Back then, you didn't know about it unless it happened locally or someone traveling told you about it.
And as someone else pointed out, something else changed. Guns. The world didn't used to have all the types of weapons we have today. They used bow and arrow, knives, spears, swords, axes, fire, canons, rocks, poison...

What has not changed and never will change is crazy people. The only difference now is that crazy people have access to more powerful, faster, bigger, more sophisticated weapons.

Trust me. I am all for changing gun laws. As mentioned previously by another poster, the second amendment does not specify which arms you may bear. And furthermore, your "right" ends when your self-entitled, egotistical, twisted ass brain tries to impinge on another person's right to live. Anyone who argues with that is a complete idiot and should be locked up, for I fear that an idiot who thinks it's still a right to bear arms when putting someone else in danger, is going to put myself or someone else in danger. Lock em up!