Jokela School shooting

[Tale]

I'm trying to debunk the notion the access alone absent any other criminal intent makes gun use in a crime more likely.

To speak of only situations where criminal intent is absent is to artificially limit the scope. To represent the population, it would need to include situations where someone wasn't intending to commit a crime and situations where crimes where intended but not carried out.

 

 

Put another way, if I don't like tennis, having a racket in the closet will not make me more likely to play.

Because you are a single person. Your liklihood of playing tennis is binary. You either play it (1) or you don't (0). There's no likliehoods involved because it's either 100% or 0%. If we get a 100 people like you who don't like to play tennis, give them a tennis racket, and if some of those people turn around play tennis with it, and if the number of people is significant, we can abstract that to the population to say "people, who don't like tennis, if they have access to a tennis racket, are more likely to turn around and play tennis."

 

But, you're again going back to talking about intent (if I don't like tennis). How much of gun crime is domestic? How much of it is relatively spontaneous? Your notion of intent flies straight out the window in crimes of passion. These typically fall back to the weapon most available to them, the hands. But, if those aren't available (the victim is fleeing), the available weapon capable of the crime would be?

 

But, all in all, you can't just seperate it saying intent or interest is a catch all discriminator.

Edited November 13, 2007 by Tale

[Walsingham]

Points well taken. I know and accept that any government mandated system is likely to wind up being administered by cretins and thereby fail, but it has to be worth trying? I suggest we bring in Fionavar as Fio strikes me as someone who knows this kind of thing.

 

There again, maybe the real point I'm driving at is the general principle of educating the population at large that violence isn't the way forward in most situations. Failing that, the notion that gun violence isn't the way. If you HAVE to hurt people don't kill the swine.

[Guard Dog]

Points well taken. I know and accept that any government mandated system is likely to wind up being administered by cretins and thereby fail, but it has to be worth trying?

 

You'll like this. I totally disagree with your first assertion because I totally agree with your second.

[Guard Dog]

I'm trying to debunk the notion the access alone absent any other criminal intent makes gun use in a crime more likely.

To speak of only situations where criminal intent is absent is to artificially limit the scope. To represent the population, it would need to include situations where someone wasn't intending to commit a crime and situations where crimes where intended but not carried out.

 

 

Put another way, if I don't like tennis, having a racket in the closet will not make me more likely to play.

Because you are a single person. Your liklihood of playing tennis is binary. You either play it (1) or you don't (0). There's no likliehoods involved because it's either 100% or 0%. If we get a 100 people like you who don't like to play tennis, give them a tennis racket, and if some of those people turn around play tennis with it, and if the number of people is significant, we can abstract that to the population to say "people, who don't like tennis, if they have access to a tennis racket, are more likely to turn around and play tennis."

 

But, you're again going back to talking about intent (if I don't like tennis). How much of gun crime is domestic? How much of it is relatively spontaneous? Your notion of intent flies straight out the window in crimes of passion. These typically fall back to the weapon most available to them. The hands. But, if those aren't available (the victime is fleeing), the available weapon capable of the crime would be?

 

So where I went wrong here was to try and apply linear reasoning to a scenario to complex for it.

[samm]

Meshugger, about that posting one or two pages ago:

Sorry! I didn't mean to say you're wrong. I used your posting to show what false conclusions people like to draw of cooccurrent facts.

 

There again, maybe the real point I'm driving at is the general principle of educating the population at large that violence isn't the way forward in most situations. Failing that, the notion that gun violence isn't the way. If you HAVE to hurt people don't kill the swine.

I agree with that. It's not necessary, or rather: not sufficient, to educate people how to use guns responsibly, but much better to show and teach the population how using violence is not a way of solving problems, but a way to create graver ones.

And about your older post:

2. Exagerrate their awkwardness by listening to music no-one else likes, and indulging in excessive displays of irritation and anger.

I'd agree to some point - one starts to try to be completetly different, even disgusting for the kind of people one doesn't like, if people treat you as different, ugly, stupid, lower or whatever. Probably that radical denial is some form of the famous "cry for help" often cited to be overheard before a suicide. I don't really think institutional mental health-care would help in such cases, because this would only aggravate the problem by rubbing in your face that you're out of the norm, and mentally unstable, even insane. The best thing that can happen to a person who isn't included in the norm is - in my experience - someone who accepts them the way they are, always, even if they change (which they will, if they're accepted). So, again I agree with those who take the parents into responsibility, because these should ideally fit such a role (but the usually don't do that, trying to educate their children to their own ideals). Probably a true love would solve this, however supidly romatic that must read now.

 

Some small thing on the discussion about guns: It's not fair to say, if he had had no gun, he'd have used a truck or a kitchen-knife. Why? A gun was built to be a killing instrument.

Edited November 13, 2007 by samm

[Sand]

Maybe he would have used a falchion if he didn't have a gun.

 

I do agree that we do need, okay not just us Americans, a broader education sstem when it comes to proper gun use and not just the regular joe blow off the street either. Police officers need some added training as well. If you go to some of the news sites there have been a reporting of cops killing people with the slightest provacation. That is just bad form in my opinion. I read earlier today that a kid in New York was shot 20 times by police officers for holding a hair brush in a threatening manner. A FREAKING HAIR BRUSH!

Edited November 13, 2007 by Sand

[Aram]

Some small thing on the discussion about guns: It's not fair to say, if he had had no gun, he'd have used a truck or a kitchen-knife. Why? A gun was built to be a killing instrument.

 

Technically, his Sig Mosquito wasn't built to kill people any more than a kitchen knife. It's a target pistol at best.

[Sand]

Now a 9mm machine pistol... That type of gun is designed to kill people, but can jam up pretty easily from what I have heard.

[Aram]

Now a 9mm machine pistol... can jam up pretty easily from what I have heard.

 

Well, that would depend on the brand, the model, and the maintainer.

[Hell Kitty]

How many school massacres have there been where the perpetrator killed with knives or some kind of melee weapons, and how many have had similar body counts to school massacres involving guns?

[Sand]

I am thinking of the OT-33 Pernach, from what I heard is mostly used by the MVD (Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs) but I could be mistaken.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Is it possible to educate our children that violence isn't the way to solve our problems at the same time that powerful states continue to use violence to (attempt to) solve their problems. Yes, I am talking about Iraq, and I know that doesn't apply directly to Finland, but Finnish youth have been witnesses to this approach as much as anyone. It's bad enough for those of us of age to sit through this discredited war, but what effect has it had on those whose formative years these have been?

[mkreku]

Technically, his Sig Mosquito wasn't built to kill people any more than a kitchen knife. It's a target pistol at best.

So you're comparing a weapon to a kitchen tool..? No wonder you're all for everyone having their own war arsenal; you're totally out there.

 

Anyone can get a psychosis. Whether you have access to a weapon or a kitchen tool is pretty damn significant if/when that happens. To try and downplay a design that was originally invented to kill (and ONLY to kill) by comparing it to a generic sharp object is.. I lack words.

[Gorgon]

Doesen\t matter what caliber the gun is, unless it shoots bee bees, dead is dead.

[Aram]

Technically, his Sig Mosquito wasn't built to kill people any more than a kitchen knife. It's a target pistol at best.

So you're comparing a weapon to a kitchen tool..? No wonder you're all for everyone having their own war arsenal; you're totally out there.

 

I'm not saying that a .22 target pistol is less lethal than a knife, just that in creating the model, Sig intended it purely as a target pistol and for anything else it's quite inadequate. At the same time they manufacture hundreds of thousands of weapons that are intended to be used against human targets, and they're some of the best for doing this in the world. But yes, I do believe people have every right to own these as well.

[Walsingham]

How many school massacres have there been where the perpetrator killed with knives or some kind of melee weapons, and how many have had similar body counts to school massacres involving guns?

 

Fair point. Maybe it's just cause I'm tired, but it does make a difference if guns are REALLY easy to get hold of. I just don't see the solution as being about total banning of guns. Such a soluution punishes people who wouldnever harm someone with a firearm, and fails to tackle the heart of the matter with connection to crimes of passion and insanity. The former should be dealt with by better spiritual training, and the latter by more effective psychiatiric care.; both in society as a whole, not just gun owners.

 

With regard to spiritual training, I'm going to be really unpopular and ask what effect a spiritual diet of nothing but NWN2 would have on a kid.

[Sand]

Well, if he has a spiritual diet I think he would also have the expansion.

[Walsingham]

Is it possible to educate our children that violence isn't the way to solve our problems at the same time that powerful states continue to use violence to (attempt to) solve their problems. Yes, I am talking about Iraq, and I know that doesn't apply directly to Finland, but Finnish youth have been witnesses to this approach as much as anyone. It's bad enough for those of us of age to sit through this discredited war, but what effect has it had on those whose formative years these have been?

 

Your point would be worth considering were the war justifiable or not. Indeed, one could argue that if it WERE justifiable that would make it even more effective as an advertisement for shooting people you didn't like.

 

My objection to this idea is the notion that people take their moral cues from government. If they did I doubt we should ever have experieenced anything except the most grotesque offences against each other.

[Walsingham]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7101689.stm

 

German authorities y'know, stop a school shooting.

[Tale]

Two can play this game.

 

Obviously those authorities play video games.

[Walsingham]

I'm actually going to be more interested to see what the German judiciary rule on the legality of detaining the boys. If they get a halfway decent lawyer he will scream 'no proof'. It's extremely hard to prove conspiracy to commit on most issues.

[Tale]

Considering how many of these school shooters like to leave threats/messages/evidence all over, I'd be surprised if it was hard. They supposedly have a list of potential targets and a confession. I would expect them to have potentially more. Hell, they only have airsoft guns, though?

[Gorgon]

Exactly, they could only get their hands on crossbows and air guns. This is a GOOD THING.

[Tale]

What I find really disturbing is that one through themself under a tram. Them being stopped, if they were even serious about it, means they might have turned around for a good life. But not that one.

[Gorgon]

Psychosis is treatable, we don\t know that these boys were inherrently evil.

 

Or maybe that wasen\t what you meant.

Edited November 19, 2007 by Gorgon