Another Mass Shooting In The Us...

[camberiu]

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
-Frank Herbert

Let's be clear about something: No one here is defending a society free of guns. No one. What the anti-gun folks are defending is that only the government, the state, the thing that is magnetic to the pathologically corruptible, should have all the guns. That only the Tony Blairs, the Sarkozys, the Berlusconnis, the Trumps and the Hillaries of the world should have control of all the guns.
The concept of citizen's rights to bear arms did not come to be to allow for hunting, or so that one could protect his home from common criminals. It exists to allow citizens to protect themselves from the tyranny of the state, that thing that tends to attract the pathological and the corruptible.
But some claim this is a completely outdated concept, created for the realities of the 18th century. Citizens of modern, developed and rich western nations should not have weapons, after all, they have nothing to fear from the state, right?

Paris 1961
UK Recent years
United States

​The reality is that the state is not your friend. The politicians do not have your best interest in mind, never did and never will have. But hey, it is not my goal to change the anti-gun apologist here. You have already been domesticated and that cannot be changed. You see the state with the same level of confidence and gratitude that a cow sees a rancher as he guides her to the slaughter pen.
But I will never, ever, relinquish my guns.

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

But if you want to kill a lot of people, and don't care who, and go to events which are attended by a huge number of people, isn't just shooting into the crowd good enough? I would think so.

Bob

I wrote a response and almost posted it. However, I think it is disrespectful to continue this thread if we are going to talk about Nice. If you would like my answer to the question please pm me.

I think we all agree that the world has its bad people, people intent on bringing pain and devastation to the innocent. Unfortunately, I think these people are motivated and creative and will find whatever means they can to sow hatred. I don't think the solution is more guns. I don't think the solution is more war. As corny as it might sound I think the solution is more love. I feel in my heart that if people experience more love they are less likely to commit these acts. We need to remove the hatred from churches. We need to remove the hatred from politics. We need to remove the hatred from families and neighbors. I think if we all work on that you never know who you will touch in just the right way.

Just my .02

 

[khairyexpat]

I think we all agree that the world has its bad people, people intent on bringing pain and devastation to the innocent. Unfortunately, I think these people are motivated and creative and will find whatever means they can to sow hatred. I don't think the solution is more guns. I don't think the solution is more war. As corny as it might sound I think the solution is more love. I feel in my heart that if people experience more love they are less likely to commit these acts. We need to remove the hatred from churches. We need to remove the hatred from politics. We need to remove the hatred from families and neighbors. I think if we all work on that you never know who you will touch in just the right way.

Just my .02

I must admit that I may have misunderstood your previous posts !
If there were a "like 1000 times" button, I`d have clicked it.

Imagine walking in the shoes of an African American for a day, a month, a year.
Imagine born Black from day one, minute one, for the rest of life till death !
Imagine a day in the shoes of a refugee no home, no country, no family, skies raining bombs all your life,
Kids bare footed in the rain and the mud no cloth in no man`s land or in a tent freezing under winter open skies !
.......
Imagine a day in the shoes of lots and lots of heart wrenching realities !
The world today is really SAD.

Wish one day, kids don`t graduate high school before they visit another country, ... an ENEMY COUNTRY !
Just to live in shoes of others just for one day !

 

[ElQueso]

I wrote this a couple of hours ago and didn't post it - helped our oldest make a cake for her boyfriend's birthday party tonight and just got back to this. Someone had mentioned facetiously that maybe we should ban trucks in relation to Nice.

==================

We should ban trucks. and cars, for sure. Too many die on the road in cars, and trucks are used too often in bombings. We should ban swimming pools, and possibly cover all rivers, lakes and streams because too many people, particularly young kids, die that way. Knives longer than 2-3 inches as well, because they are often used in home killings. I'm sure I can think of a number of things that should be banned. Let's all be safe.

No one answered my thoughts on abortion, those who would ban guns, how they feel about the mass deaths caused to potential human life. I guess my post was too long and no one read it. Wasn't a nifty little "sound byte", short and caustic, or sarcastic perhaps, so it must have been missed by those from whom I was seeking an answer. Maybe I'll change my writing style Or maybe people think that doesn't have anything to do with gun control, so why answer? Of course, many of those who would ban guns call those who would ban abortion all kinds of nifty names and both are rights to the citizens upheld by the Supreme Court, by way of the Constitution.

You can have all the scientific studies you want that show one thing or the other. It's really easy to manipulate people into answering how you want in polls, and easy to pick and choose the data you want to use to prove your point. One "side" mentions this about the other "side's" information while upholding their own "side's" studies. People tend to hide behind such things instead of using "anecdotal evidence" in any form because "studies" smack of professionalism and seem unassailable - if you believe what they say. If we had enough people who claimed, through a badly-worded poll, that the sun doesn't rise every morning how many people would actually believe it? Of course, actually, that statement is completely true as the sun doesn't actually "rise", it just appears to.

Here's a paper on Duke University's website that contains some thoughts on gun control and studies that would cause everyone to think gun ownership is inherently a bad thing: http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm

Here's an article the American Civil Rights Union talking about a Harvard study that shows the opposite of another Harvard study someone else mentioned: http://www.theacru.org/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/

That article has a link to the study it talks about. The title of the study: "Would Banning Firearms Prevent Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence" The PDF document that opens only shows the first 46 pages of the roughly 700 page study, though. (http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf)

The article that talks about the study has things to say such as:

If the mantra “more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death” were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661)

[P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 – emphases in original)

Another quote from the article discussing the study:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).
For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland’s murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns.

I don't know which study to believe or disbelieve. I like looking at many studies and then using some common sense: my own experience (what people consider anecdotal experience coming from others). Of all the people I've ever known in 53 years on this planet, only one that I'm aware of ever died from a gunshot wound. A friend of mine killed his younger brother by accident when cleaning his shotgun. It was a horrible accident that should never have occurred, no doubt. I do know 3 people who have been killed in automobile accidents and one that drowned. I don't know anyone who has been killed by a mass murderer of any sort. I know many people who have been robbed at gunpoint and weren't killed as the gun itself didn't fire all on its own and the person who held the gun decided not to shoot. I know a lot of people who own firearms and not one of them has ever killed another human being. In fact, not one of them ever needed to use their gun to protect themselves - not that that is any reason why they shouldn't own a gun to begin with.

 

[StevePalermo]

Sorry Steve but you and others keep harping on the "scientific study" thought; I'll stick with the documented proof as published in print and electronic media that good guys with guns do stop bad guys.

So I disagree with you; as I know studies (especially related to gun control) can and often do contain flawed data and are manipulated for their out come. Sort of like how the US unemployment numbers are manipulated.

Done discussing this.

So you don't trust science but you do trust 'documented proof' in the newspapers? An analogy would be to say that studies over many years by doctors and scientists prooving that smoking can damage the long term health of the general population are false because there some documented cases of some smokers living longer than the average life span. I hate coming back when I said I was finished with a conversation, but your statement is so ridiculous I had to respond. Unless you say something on that level of stupidity again I am finished here.

 

[cwo4uscgret]

StevePalermo - no I do not discount all scientific study. At issue is someone claiming that because I cite published reports in a magazine (from news sources around the country) and other news media that since it is not from scientific studies then it is unreliable information. To that extent I will disagree that only scientific studies about guns are reliable.

As a comparison I laugh every month that the Department of Labor publishes their unemployment figures and their monthly job creation numbers. They are more fictions then fact - conveniently, people not longer drawing unemployment, yet still unemployed are not counted since they no longer receive benefits. It number is easily manipulated; over night President Clinton magically lowered unemployment by 2%. The number of people without jobs didn't decrease; he increased the number of employed by adding the military force to the rolls of employed - something not previously done.

I'll disagree with you on the topic let's discuss something else.

 

[ElQueso]

Just posted something that apparently requires moderating. I guess people won't see it, and it had some links to a couple of good articles related to the fallacy of gun control, based on a Harvard study and an article from the American Civil Rights Union that was discussing it. Oh well. Probably too long for most people to read anyway, considering too many want sound bytes and sarcastic dogma-filled cute sayings nowadays, seems to me.

GS_Dirtboy talks about love instead of war and I so, so agree with him. Or at the very least, I believe that even in the absence of love that if we leave others alone, they will not have a reason to hate us and we won't have a reason to feel like we want to fight them, be it for vengeance, justice or what-have-you.

Khairy talks about walking in the shoes of a black person, and I say - I never did anything to a black person. I wasn't a slave owner, I don't persecute anyone, much less "black" folk. I have enough problems on my own from day to day to worry about "keeping them down" (if, for some strange reason I would want to). I have been friends with many people of skins of so many different colors but people who march in such things as "Black Lives Matter" really frustrate me. I feel that neo-liberal policies are nearly directly responsible for the continuation of race problems as the government tries to find more and more reasons to subsidize African Americans and tell them it's not their fault that a good portion of their citizens are in jail or living in poverty instead of encouraging them to stand on their own two feet while taking care of the idiots who actually do oppress them (or anyone!!!) - it's not in the interests of the Democratic party for black people to do well in American society because they would lose a large core of voters if they were doing well. I don't think the Democratic Party leadership, for the most part, even thinks that way, but their policies are terrible for independent people and to me have that result.

I'm sure a number of people will call my comments racists, and so be it. I know better. I also know that most people who support these policies honestly think they are doing good and that those evil Republicans, the vast majority of whom must be racist because they don't agree (and yeah, there's not a racist bone amongst the Democrats, eh), are evil redneck idiots who wear sheets over their heads at night and get all hot and bothered thinking about stringing up a black man from a tree. Of course, never mind that Lincoln, one of the founders of the Republican party, the guy that so many revere, had more to do with race relations issues far into his future than anyone else, in my opinion, because he caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people.and brought a terrible anger into the future instead of resolving things peacefully.

The US military bases in so many countries cause us a ton of problems in terms of country-specific relations, for a variety of reasons. Our bombing and invasions of other countries kill tens of thousands of civilians around the world over decades. Our government excuses its own internal tyranny on its own citizens by events the government itself has brought about by sticking its nose in other people's affairs.

The whole world is screwed up because governments, who own guns and direct their own people to kill other people, do really stupid things and so many people (and I used to be one of them) buy into their nonsense.

Is gun control really the problem or is that something the US government (and all others who control guns) want you to think?

 

[camberiu]

Is gun control really the problem or is that something the US government (and all others who control guns) want you to think?

 

[StevePalermo]

StevePalermo - no I do not discount all scientific study. At issue is someone claiming that because I cite published reports in a magazine (from news sources around the country) and other news media that since it is not from scientific studies then it is unreliable information. To that extent I will disagree that only scientific studies about guns are reliable.

As a comparison I laugh every month that the Department of Labor publishes their unemployment figures and their monthly job creation numbers. They are more fictions then fact - conveniently, people not longer drawing unemployment, yet still unemployed are not counted since they no longer receive benefits. It number is easily manipulated; over night President Clinton magically lowered unemployment by 2%. The number of people without jobs didn't decrease; he increased the number of employed by adding the military force to the rolls of employed - something not previously done.

I'll disagree with you on the topic let's discuss something else.

From my previous professional experience with unemployment statistics (not the USA) the definitions are changed, but those changes are always published with the statistics. True, it was partly political, to reduce the headline figure of unemployment by reducing the total of unemployed workers, but partly to improve the integrity of the figures. An example would be the exclusion of disabled workers over a certain age because this group was never going to re-enter the labour market. The changes were not hidden, as the definition of the parameters were public so I don't consider that to be manipulation in an attempt to deceive. Call it 'manipulation' or just updating the methodology as society changes. A hundred years ago children under the age of 16 were in the labour market, so should we continue to include them in the number of unemployed? Same with changes in the retirement age. As that is changed people will be removed from the labour market to collect pensions. It would be more accurate to change the definition so a more contemporary definition is used. That is a simple explanation of why definitions are changed. If those changes weren't published with the statistics I'd agree that manipulation was afoot, but not if everyone knows the current definition. Manipulation in the strictest sense, i.e. to adapt or change, but not in an unfair matter to deceive people.

And sometimes the changes actually increased the rate of unemployment!

 

[StevePalermo]

And a quick comment on 'Black Lives Matter' mentioned in El Queso's post. I'm frustrated too, that so many cops are immune to prosecution for their murderous behaviour. Too many critics assume the prefix 'Only', rather than the suffix "Too". But that should be on another thread.