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Sandy Hook

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  • That was part of my point. I was being somewhat facetious.
  • I'm totally fine with police officers being armed just about anywhere. My only issue is civilians.
    Require identical training for civilian permit holders to police firearm and combat training, with identical re-cert requirements. Done. Problem solved. Let's go home.
    I would be pro this if police training was good. Everyone I know who understands the issue has told me that police training is a joke.
    Make it military training then.
  • I'm totally fine with police officers being armed just about anywhere. My only issue is civilians.
    Require identical training for civilian permit holders to police firearm and combat training, with identical re-cert requirements. Done. Problem solved. Let's go home.
    I would be pro this if police training was good. Everyone I know who understands the issue has told me that police training is a joke.
    Make it military training then.
    Sounds good. Not all aspects of military training, but all the gun-related ones.
  • Just another reason for mandatory military service.
  • Just another reason for mandatory military service.

    LackOfCheese, I posit that any major cultural characteristic finds its roots in an economic reality.

  • LackOfCheese, I posit that any major cultural characteristic finds its roots in an economic reality.
    Religion in the right environment can supersede economic influence on culture.
  • edited December 2012
    Interesting thought, will you give me an example?
    Post edited by Walker on
  • Interesting thought, will you give me an example?
    Prosperous Muslim nations that still enjoy wide support of strict, regressive cultural norms.

    Families from nations with culturally-driven honor killings stemming from religious norms which continue to persist even when transplanted to prosperous socially liberal socities.

  • How do you suppose those norms are perpetuated?

  • Families from nations with culturally-driven honor killings stemming from religious norms which continue to persist even when transplanted to prosperous socially liberal socities.

    That is the longest and most confusing thing to not be a sentence I've read in a long time. Care to give a concrete example? I don't think I understand.
  • Any trained person will tell you that you only ever point a gun at someone you intend to shoot. It's not only about trigger safety. Do you think every assailant is rational? You're at least as likely to provoke a charge as a retreat.
    Not quite. WILLING to shoot(and by extension, kill), not intending. This isn't the sword of ages that must draw blood before it is sheathed - but you weren't far off, and I can see where you'd get mixed up between willing and intending.
  • Intend is the word I've heard used by instructors for years, but fine I'm not averse to that distinction. I think your reply is a little condescending though. :-)
  • Intend is the word I've heard used by instructors for years, but fine I'm not averse to that distinction. I think your reply is a little condescending though. :-)
    Sorry - Didn't mean to. Literally just the way I talk. The meaning comes across better when it's not in text.

  • edited December 2012
    No big deal. I got your meaning.

    And I can see where it wasn't really all that condescending and I just sort of have a chip on my shoulder about being condescended. :-P
    Post edited by muppet on
  • edited December 2012
    Religion in the right environment can supersede economic influence on culture.
    How do you suppose those norms are perpetuated?
    In the case of the religions in question, it's fairly obvious - indoctrination. The indoctrination is not always necessary though; if many people around you have adopted a cultural meme, there is a lot of pressure on you to do the same (i.e. socialization).

    Moreover, there are several factors that can maintain these kinds of norms in the face of opposition. One of them is the threat of negative consequences for dropping those norms, which can be both real (e.g. killing people for apostasy) and imagined (e.g. the threat of hell). Another is cultural segregation - not interacting with others, or simply refusal to rationally consider outside ideas, can preserve religious ideas even when they are openly opposed.

    Of course, none of these aspects are limited to religion alone; such strategies are just as effective when used secularly.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited December 2012
    After Ibn Saud established the kingdom of Saudi Arabia he discovered massive oil wells and became a major supplier of petrolium to the entire world. In the seventies the Sauds created a trade embargo to punish the US and jacked up oil prices, which made them loads of money. The monoarchy proceeded to spend upwards of one hundred billion in US dollars on the promotion of Wahhabi Islam in media. Wahhabi an extremely traditional and puritanical branch of Islam, and is the basis of Saudi Arabia's laws. Outside influences were pushed away through the banning and supression of non-muslim art. Citizens of Saudi Arabia enjoy little artistic or social freedom, and many have no economic freedom due to financial dependence on the monarchy (Saui Arabia is a welfare state). The youth in the monarchy flaunt puritanical law and throw expensive parties while religious police are paid to look the other way.

    Adherence to Wahhabism is a cultural norm. It is preserved by the government. The government is composed of people who have the money to promote Wahhabism to the point where Wahhabic law is acceptable to the populace. When anti-Wahhabic influences arise, the monarchy has the resources to make them go away. Only the wealthy are free. Rym is wrong about prosperous Muslim countries, and the reason is right there in the example; they are able to maintain regressive law because they are prosperous.
    Post edited by Walker on
  • Families from nations with culturally-driven honor killings stemming from religious norms which continue to persist even when transplanted to prosperous socially liberal socities.
    Transplants do not always adopt the culture of their new surroundings. Culturally-driven honor killings are, by definition, a direct product of their mother culture.
  • If you're taking that ridiculous level of causality, then all classic cultural characteristics are really driven from power, economics being one form of power, which itself is just a far abstraction of physics.

    So all cultural characteristics are really just physics. Your assertion is too arbitrary to be useful.
  • This is interesting. The church across the street from my Danbury office is holding services for one of the slain children and while the crowd is large there are zero car/driver/parking issues visible. In fact I see no out of state plates in the adjacent parking lot. My suspicion is that the emotional leeches are unaware of services outside of Newtown.

    Yes, I said leeches. I have been taking some time to delve into why I have such loathing for these leeches and I think a large part of it is because I believe they are only here so that they can later claim some sort of participation in the event, as if it grants them some level of moral or compassion superiority.

    I also have to wonder if this tragedy had occurred in an inner city school would the response have been the same or is the response this high because it was middle class white kids who died?
  • I've felt strongly compelled to go down there and visit some of the ad hoc memorials out of respect, even attend a service and offer some moral support. I'm gutted by the shootings, I cried when I read about them. I'm so grateful that my own kids are OK, however illogical you want to say that is, as this was only 25 miles from our own home and elementary school.

    At a loss for what meaningful thing to do immediately, I felt like going down there. Most of why I didn't is that I've got a toddler with a pretty demanding routine and daily schedule (not soccer or dance, more like, dinner must be at 4:25 and bedtime preparations begin promptly at 6:30, etc).

    I don't see how any of the above qualifies me as a leech.
  • edited December 2012
    If you're taking that ridiculous level of causality, then all classic cultural characteristics are really driven from power, economics being one form of power, which itself is just a far abstraction of physics.
    Then how do you think Saudi Arabia enjoys widespread support of Wahhabism? It's popular due to the government's constant allocation of resources for the purpose of promoting belief. If the monarchy had not and does not continue to do so, popular support for Wahhabism would likely decline. It is a direct and continuing causal link, and I fail to see how it is ridiculous or useless.
    Post edited by Walker on
  • @Muppet - I never said my feelings were rational. Might just be an instinctual tribal reaction to a tragedy that has directly impacted some of my friends that is being used by others to push a political agenda. Kind of reminds me of 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Add in the belief that there would be a smaller reaction if the kids were not middle class white kids.
  • I'd be just as upset, but I'm sure you're right that fewer people would be quite as upset as they are. It's sad.

    I wouldn't paint with such a broad brush, is all.
  • Anecdotal evidence here: I work at an English school for international students. The majority of our students are Saudis here as part of the Saudi Cultural Mission (the government pays their tuition and ~3k a month living expenses), and the majority of them also come from money. The vast majority of the men less than 30 treat it as a long vacation. While they're here they: smoke (tobacco and weed), drink, have all kinds of premarital sex (sometimes gay), one or two have even converted to Christianity, but the last thing to give way is always pork. All of these things are forbidden in Saudi, and some of them could even have you disappeared. Other Islamic countries are far less strict: Most Saudi men smoke, Lebanon brews a fine beer, and it's not uncommon for Saudi men to go to Dubai or Bahrain to have sex with men (it's alright as long as you're pitching).

    Long story short: while a lot of the values carry over, the more conservative ones, at least in the younger generation, get left behind at the customs desk.
  • I have to say that I am not as angry now that I have identified the source of my anger.

    Secondly Facebook has forced me to read up on the history of federal gun laws and the rise of the NRA as a political power.
  • The CDC projects that gun fatalities will surpass vehicular fatalities in the US within two years.

    http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2019939954_shootingdevelopments20xml.html

    About 85 Americans are shot dead daily, 53 of them suicides. Another 200 are shot but survive each day.
  • The suicides won't be resolved by removing guns. Some may be resolved with a total cultural overhaul w.r.t. mental illness and universal healthcare, and the rest will probably be "resolved" with progressive legislation surrounding the right to end one's life.
  • I remember something about suicides by gun shifting to hanging after gun bans.
  • edited December 2012
    Lack of guns doesn't resolve the problem, but firearms are a significant risk factor for suicide.
    I remember something about suicides by gun shifting to hanging after gun bans.
    Some would, most probably, but an attempted suicide with a gun is much quicker and easier than by hanging, and also much more likely to be fatal.

    Here's a quote from Harvard School of Public Health:
    Every U.S. study that has examined the relationship has found that access to firearms is a risk factor for suicides. Firearm owners are not more suicidal than non-firearm owners; rather, their suicide attempts are more likely to be fatal. Many suicide attempts are made impulsively during a short-term crisis period. If highly lethal means are made less available to impulsive attempters and they substitute less lethal means, or temporarily postpone their attempt, the odds are increased that they will survive. Studies in a variety of countries have indicated that when access to lethal means is reduced, both the means-specific suicide rate and, very often, the overall suicide rate decline.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
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