Gun Control in the US

[Tsuga C]

First they came for the military-style semi-autos,

and I didn’t speak out because only rednecks, psychos, and Walter Mitty-types own them.

 

Then they came for the high-capacity magazines,

and I didn’t speak out because no one really needs them, anyway.

 

Then they came for the handguns,

and I didn’t speak out because handguns are meant for killing people and only the police should have them.

 

Then they came for my fancy, Turkish walnut Over/Under and custom house, gold-inlaid Winchester Model 70,

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

 

+ + + + + + +

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, defend your God-given, Constitutionally enumerated rights while you still have them. It's dauntingly more difficult to get them back after a Statist-minded government abrogates them. And, trust me on this, the anti-Second Amendment types will try to use this horrific event as political leverage to gin up more anti-firearm legislation. Fight 'em, tooth and nail!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

This is clearly an Illuminati plot to steal our guns so we can't defend ourselves against their brainwaves and stop listening to the high prophet Alex Jones.

 

EDIT: Obviously the problem with violence in the US is that weapons are available to those who shouldn't have them(like crazy people) and that seems to be the major problem here. Still, suggesting that someone may have to wait a bit for an extensive background/mental stability check or that sales at gunshows be a bit more restricted will drive some people into a frenzy.

Edited December 17, 2012 by KaineParker

[Hurlshort]

Tsuga makes a good point about blaming the mother. Parenting is a major issue in today's society.

 

 

But then you lost me on the whole military style semi-auto's and high capacity magazines. It sounded insane, honestly. I just don't understand what you possibly need those for?

[Valsuelm]

Tsuga makes a good point about blaming the mother. Parenting is a major issue in today's society.

 

 

But then you lost me on the whole military style semi-auto's and high capacity magazines. It sounded insane, honestly. I just don't understand what you possibly need those for?

 

There's absolutely nothing insane about what he said, not even quirky. And I don't agree with everything he said. ie: while the parents ultimately are somewhat culpable, we don't know and possibly never will exactly what circumstances the kid obtained the weapons in his mother's house. She very well may have had them locked up. Any intelligent and resourceful teenager or older is going to get by just about any lock their parents (or roommate) put in place, for a gun or whatever else if they are intent on gaining access to it. Someone who thinks otherwise is not intelligent or resourceful enough, or is and lacks the empathy required to imagine themselves in a scenario where they'd want/need to do such a thing as compromise some security measure such as a lock to obtain or achieve X.

 

Some folks think handguns are bad: 'what could you possibly need those for?' yet rifles are ok. Some think the opposite and ask the same question. The limitations proposed are arbitrary and have little basis in reality. Anyone familiar with the weapons themselves will know that the limitations can relatively easily be circumvented. ie: a fact that most folks unfamiliar with guns don't realize is that anyone who is very familiar with how a gun works can take most if not all semi automatic weapons and make them fully automatic should they choose to do so.

 

As for why you'd need any gun you'd personally think is 'over the top', well, depending on what you're arbitrary threshold for what you think over the top is I could likely give you some plausible scenarios. But really, you should just go and study why the 2nd amendment exists.

 

I recommend this video:

http://youtu.be/M1u0Byq5Qis

[Volourn]

"Parenting is a major issue in today's society. "

 

No more than past society. Afterall, it's the past society's mothers and fathers who were pro racism and other nasty things. Thankfully, modern society tends to disapprove of that garbage.

[Gorgon]

First they came for the military-style semi-autos,

and I didn’t speak out because only rednecks, psychos, and Walter Mitty-types own them.

 

Then they came for the high-capacity magazines,

and I didn’t speak out because no one really needs them, anyway.

 

Then they came for the handguns,

and I didn’t speak out because handguns are meant for killing people and only the police should have them.

 

Then they came for my fancy, Turkish walnut Over/Under and custom house, gold-inlaid Winchester Model 70,

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

 

+ + + + + + +

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, defend your God-given, Constitutionally enumerated rights while you still have them. It's dauntingly more difficult to get them back after a Statist-minded government abrogates them. And, trust me on this, the anti-Second Amendment types will try to use this horrific event as political leverage to gin up more anti-firearm legislation. Fight 'em, tooth and nail!

 

 

Yes why don't we make the song fit that old format. That'll make em think fer sure.

[Moose]

I think the fact a 20 year old man with obvious mental health problems that were never picked up on and treated as he went through life is the real problem here. Growing up he would have gone through an entire public school system - don't tell me nobody noticed he had problems in that entire time.

 

I do however believe if guns were more difficult to get hold of it may have delayed him enough to prevent this. A lot of the times with mental health conditions there is a swing back and forth between stable and volatile, and it may have given him enough time to "get a grip". We'll never know.

[Hiro Protagonist]

I think the fact a 20 year old man with obvious mental health problems that were never picked up on and treated as he went through life is the real problem here. Growing up he would have gone through an entire public school system - don't tell me nobody noticed he had problems in that entire time.

 

Obvious mental health problems? I've seen some of the most trained specialists misdiagnose or given people a clean bill of health. You'd be surprised how easy it is for people to hide their mental illnesses from medical specialists. If someone wants to hide their mental illness, they will use cunning and guile to hide it from the most professional of medical experts.

Edited December 17, 2012 by Hiro Protagonist

[Moose]

Honestly I think you give this guy too much credit. Regardless, research into diagnosing mental health issues early is likely to be more beneficial to society.

 

I reckon once again people will overlook this. As usual the topics you see are all titled "gun control" rather than "mental health".

[casa]

That it'd be easier to put more money into psychiatric care than any efforts into stricter laws on firearms is absolutely ridiculous and tells a lot about how much people know about mental illness and psychological problems. Of course it sounds incredibly easy: That kid is too quiet/shy/doesn't play football, let's check him up and feed him some pills, all good.

And an incredible amount of people seem to believe that all those killers are just born evil and with the devil inside anyway and only prayers and a strong belief in god could've prevented it.

 

First off, mental illness grows over years, many people are living with depressions without ever noticing they have one and need help until they suddenly find themselves burnt out completely. Until then they try everything to function normally and usually friends&family don't have a clue about their true mental state for years either, and nobody's to blame for that, it's just the very nature of this illness.

 

Psychopaths like Mr. Breivik are much worse because usually nobody ever notices there's something wrong with them, and they are the ones who can play hide and seek and plan ahead for years.

 

My personal opinion is that this "increased effort on psychiatric care" only leads to more kids being fed pills from kindergarten age on because some over-ambitious teachers or parents think they don't fit enough into their idea of a perfect society and social standards, which actually causes more victims and traumatized kids who aren't allowed to be who they are, just different from the rest without being ill at all.

 

In any case, speaking of putting more effort into health care in a country where the idea of a health care reform caused such an uprise and hate sounds quite sarcastic. The same people who now say there should be better psychiatric care instead of a gun law reform raged against Obama's public health care plans just a moment ago.

[Raithe]

I guess one of those things thats kind of odd, is that Hollywood regularly produces films where the "odd kid" is the hero, and all the jocks and cheerleaders, and the popular kids who inflict on everyone else their own views and insistence of "being normal" are the bullies and villains..

 

That's accepted as the general view of high school by the media, and people watch these films and enjoy them...

 

But then it's still the whole thing that in real life in high school that the "odd kid" is to be bullied and pressured, and generally given hell.

 

So it's recognised that it happens, but the social encouragement is still to see the jocks and cheerleaders as the top dogs that everyone should respect and allow to pressure other kids.

 

I'd say there's a definite gap in the social / culture aspect here.

 

Or is that a slightly warped view from the distance?

[Moose]

Tbh that just sounds like teflon shoulders casa. Very weak.

[Hurlshort]

Since Columbine, bullying has been a huge focus in education.

[casa]

Tbh that just sounds like teflon shoulders casa. Very weak.

 

I'm not familiar with the term and the only definition I found with google didn't make much sense in combination with my post, so I'm a bit lost what exactly you mean. However, it's my personal opinion and I wrote that before reading your post above it, if that matters.

Edited December 17, 2012 by casa

[Moose]

I'm not really convinced it's to do with bullying, or depression. Thousands of people get bullied, even more suffer from severe depression - they never do anything like this. Something was different about this person, and it makes sense to research into what.

[obyknven]

...

Psychopaths like Mr. Breivik are much worse because usually nobody ever notices there's something wrong with them, and they are the ones who can play hide and seek and plan ahead for years.

...

 

Lol, Mr. Breivik is not psychopath. Most of these mass murderers are not psychopaths. Unfair society creates them again and again. Society not solving causes produces this ( oppression, exploitation, social alienation etc). It's easy to labeled everyone who discredits society as "Psychopath".

 

Anyway Connecticut school shootings it's Police/FBI failure. Instead respond for own failure government blames gun owners.

http://ic.pics.livej...30_original.jpg

 

And this school are "gun free zone". Suddenly this don't protect children from death.

[Valsuelm]

That it'd be easier to put more money into psychiatric care than any efforts into stricter laws on firearms is absolutely ridiculous and tells a lot about how much people know about mental illness and psychological problems. Of course it sounds incredibly easy: That kid is too quiet/shy/doesn't play football, let's check him up and feed him some pills, all good.

And an incredible amount of people seem to believe that all those killers are just born evil and with the devil inside anyway and only prayers and a strong belief in god could've prevented it.

 

First off, mental illness grows over years, many people are living with depressions without ever noticing they have one and need help until they suddenly find themselves burnt out completely. Until then they try everything to function normally and usually friends&family don't have a clue about their true mental state for years either, and nobody's to blame for that, it's just the very nature of this illness.

 

Psychopaths like Mr. Breivik are much worse because usually nobody ever notices there's something wrong with them, and they are the ones who can play hide and seek and plan ahead for years.

 

My personal opinion is that this "increased effort on psychiatric care" only leads to more kids being fed pills from kindergarten age on because some over-ambitious teachers or parents think they don't fit enough into their idea of a perfect society and social standards, which actually causes more victims and traumatized kids who aren't allowed to be who they are, just different from the rest without being ill at all.

 

Throwing money at 'mental health care' will not only accomplish less than banning guns would to prevent future tragedies it will very arguably cause more future tragedies. Psychiatric care was very possibly the problem to begin with. It's emerged that the kid was diagnosed with mental issues, and sadly was probably given drugs to 'help' him as that's par for the course nowadays.

 

If the perpetrator was on psychotropics that changes everything in terms of how his actions should be viewed. It also should shift focus to those drugs and why he was on those drugs. That more than likely won't happen though, as we as a society have become a pill popping populace and bought into the notion that western psychology has a clue to begin with. The DSM, the psychiatrist's bible, is written first and foremost to sell drugs. Because of that we've a whole slew of diagnosis that didn't exist just a few years ago, and an ever increasing number of people (especially children) who are told they have some disorder that requires some pill to 'fix'. The vast majority of these diagnosis are utter hogwash, but the damage done to the person's psyche that the diagnosis is leveled upon is very real, and greatly exasperated if the person is placed on drugs as a result (and at that point physical damage will ultimately occur due to the drugs as well to the person's organs).

 

The perpetrator went to the school with some guns for a reason, and I very much doubt it was to gain notoriety as some suggest. I'd wager a great deal it was to pay his former school psychologist a visit for what she did to him, as well as anyone else he thought was responsible, such as a former teacher or the principle. What further pushed him to kill a bunch of innocent children we'll likely never know (unless the police can piece that hard drive together), but perhaps in his mind he was sparing them the hell he felt he was in.

 

Psychiatrists destroy lives all the time and generally are completely oblivious to it (many of them themselves take the very drugs they peddle). Many of the people who's lives they destroy are even oblivious to it as they're under the effects of mind altering drugs.

 

If you look into many of the recent mass murders over the last couple decades you will indeed find that most of the perpetrators were on psychotropics. This is true in Columbine, Fort Hood, a recent double murder at a university in Wyoming, the Batman movie massacre, et al. A famous as Columbine is you just about never hear that the drugs the kids were on might be the problem, but you often hear that the guns they used were.

 

In any case, speaking of putting more effort into health care in a country where the idea of a health care reform caused such an uprise and hate sounds quite sarcastic. The same people who now say there should be better psychiatric care instead of a gun law reform raged against Obama's public health care plans just a moment ago.

 

There is no real correlation here at all. In fact the opposite would generally be true of anyone who held the Constitution dear, as the national health care plan known as Obamacare was unconstitutional. Anon though as that's another issue.

Edited December 17, 2012 by Valsuelm

[Rosbjerg]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to see why it is that when American kids go crazy they kill dozen of their friends or strangers - while when a European kid goes crazy it rarely produces this kind of response (remember 700 million in Europe and we've had 19 in total since 1913, I don't even want to count yours).. How come your culture produces this and how can you prevent it. Just like Norway and the rest of Scandinavia is looking into how we can prevent something like Breivik again and what was wrong with our handling of extreme political opinions etc etc. I get the sense that Americans seem very afraid to admit that something might be wrong with their system when things go wrong.

[HoonDing]

Better not count the rocket attacks.

[Valsuelm]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to see why it is that when American kids go crazy they kill dozen of their friends or strangers - while when a European kid goes crazy it rarely produces this kind of response (remember 700 million in Europe and we've had 19 in total since 1913, I don't even want to count yours).. How come your culture produces this and how can you prevent it. Just like Norway and the rest of Scandinavia is looking into how we can prevent something like Breivik again and what was wrong with our handling of extreme political opinions etc etc. I get the sense that Americans seem very afraid to admit that something might be wrong with their system when things go wrong.

 

American culture is much like European culture in regards to the number of uber whackoloons we have. Western society shares many of the same ills throughout it's various nations.

 

The wikipedia information is very incomplete for all nations, especially in regards to atrocities in Europe. Note that very few school shooting are listed prior to the internet age. It is not because there were so few shooting during that time it's because any that happened were not documented as well they would be now. Tragedies such as a school shooting generally just used to make the local news, let alone national, and especially international news.

Edited December 17, 2012 by Valsuelm

[BBMorti]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to see why it is that when American kids go crazy they kill dozen of their friends or strangers - while when a European kid goes crazy it rarely produces this kind of response (remember 700 million in Europe and we've had 19 in total since 1913, I don't even want to count yours).. How come your culture produces this and how can you prevent it. Just like Norway and the rest of Scandinavia is looking into how we can prevent something like Breivik again and what was wrong with our handling of extreme political opinions etc etc. I get the sense that Americans seem very afraid to admit that something might be wrong with their system when things go wrong.

 

American culture is much like European culture in regards to the number of uber whackoloons we have. Western society shares many of the same ills throughout it's various nations.

 

The wikipedia information is very incomplete for all nations, especially in regards to atrocities in Europe. Note that very few school shooting are listed prior to the internet age. It is not because there were so few shooting during that time it's because any that happened were not documented as well they would be now. Tragedies such as a school shooting generally just used to make the local news, let alone national, and especially international news.

You are proving his point with your denial.

[Valsuelm]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to see why it is that when American kids go crazy they kill dozen of their friends or strangers - while when a European kid goes crazy it rarely produces this kind of response (remember 700 million in Europe and we've had 19 in total since 1913, I don't even want to count yours).. How come your culture produces this and how can you prevent it. Just like Norway and the rest of Scandinavia is looking into how we can prevent something like Breivik again and what was wrong with our handling of extreme political opinions etc etc. I get the sense that Americans seem very afraid to admit that something might be wrong with their system when things go wrong.

 

American culture is much like European culture in regards to the number of uber whackoloons we have. Western society shares many of the same ills throughout it's various nations.

 

The wikipedia information is very incomplete for all nations, especially in regards to atrocities in Europe. Note that very few school shooting are listed prior to the internet age. It is not because there were so few shooting during that time it's because any that happened were not documented as well they would be now. Tragedies such as a school shooting generally just used to make the local news, let alone national, and especially international news.

You are proving his point with your denial.

 

Not really, you're just proving you don't realize that wikipedia isn't the best place to find information (especially in regards to information about events prior to the internet age), as well as your inability to argue well.

 

Even if you go by the information on the wikipedia the number of mass murders (10 or more dead) over the last 20 years at a school number higher in Europe (5) than in the U.S. (3).

 

If you lower that bar to more to 3+ murders in one incident, over the last twenty years the number of mass murders (3 or more dead) at schools are nearly the same in Europe (19) and the US (18).

 

Incidents where 1 or 2 people are killed generally shouldn't be counted as a 'school attack' incident, as in most cases the perpetrator was interested in only killing those 1 or 2 people and would have done so elsewhere; the school at large wasn't a target it just happened to be where the crime was done. A recent example would be the kid who killed his father who was a professor at a Wisconsin college in his father's classroom. He had no interest in killing anyone else there that day (the kid by the way was pissed at his father for passing the 'aspergers gene' on to him, among other things no doubt).

Edited December 17, 2012 by Valsuelm

[BBMorti]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to see why it is that when American kids go crazy they kill dozen of their friends or strangers - while when a European kid goes crazy it rarely produces this kind of response (remember 700 million in Europe and we've had 19 in total since 1913, I don't even want to count yours).. How come your culture produces this and how can you prevent it. Just like Norway and the rest of Scandinavia is looking into how we can prevent something like Breivik again and what was wrong with our handling of extreme political opinions etc etc. I get the sense that Americans seem very afraid to admit that something might be wrong with their system when things go wrong.

 

American culture is much like European culture in regards to the number of uber whackoloons we have. Western society shares many of the same ills throughout it's various nations.

 

The wikipedia information is very incomplete for all nations, especially in regards to atrocities in Europe. Note that very few school shooting are listed prior to the internet age. It is not because there were so few shooting during that time it's because any that happened were not documented as well they would be now. Tragedies such as a school shooting generally just used to make the local news, let alone national, and especially international news.

You are proving his point with your denial.

 

Not really, you'd just proving you don't realize that wikipedia isn't the best place to find information (especially in regards to information about events prior to the internet age), as well as your inability to argue well.

 

Even if you go by the information on the wikipedia the number of mass murders (10 or more dead) over the last 20 years at a school number higher in Europe (5) than in the U.S. (3).

 

If you lower that bar to more to 3+ murders in one incident, over the last twenty years the number of mass murders (3 or more dead) at schools are nearly the same in Europe (19) and the US (18).

I never use Wikipedia as my sources, you missed the point. No need to foam and make up conclusions about a person you saw write 8 words on the internet about, its disingenuous.

[Valsuelm]

I never use Wikipedia as my sources, you missed the point. No need to foam and make up conclusions about a person you saw write 8 words on the internet about, its disingenuous.

 

Then support your claim with better sources. You made no point. You accused me of somehow being in denial for challenging something someone else wrote that was based on very incomplete information, and substantiated that claim in no way. Disingenuous I was not.

[Malcador]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to see why it is that when American kids go crazy they kill dozen of their friends or strangers - while when a European kid goes crazy it rarely produces this kind of response (remember 700 million in Europe and we've had 19 in total since 1913, I don't even want to count yours).. How come your culture produces this and how can you prevent it. Just like Norway and the rest of Scandinavia is looking into how we can prevent something like Breivik again and what was wrong with our handling of extreme political opinions etc etc. I get the sense that Americans seem very afraid to admit that something might be wrong with their system when things go wrong.

 

What's giving you that sense ? If it's online commentary, plenty seem to admit something's wrong (although that lot tends to cry down their state all the time anyway). Probably a case of not really knowing what a proper solution is. They can count on Canadians smugly telling them what the problem is - media article today described the Bushmaster as an ultra-destructive weapon of war.