Yes. I'm all for removing the ability to get the mode from those who might find the cause, but let's not let insane people be the reason we can't have nice things.
Who says guns are nice things? Who says they're even relevant in modern civilian society?
Nice and relevant are completely unrelated. Marksmanship is an enjoyable past time. Not my thing exactly, but I've tried it and understand the appeal. Furthermore, guns can also be antiques. History nerds and buffs would enjoy having a Mison-Nagant or Lee-Enfield in the same way that I enjoy having the FOX release of Totoro. None of them are relevant in a modern civilian society where terrorism is scarce and Disney has the rights to the Ghiblis, but we like them anyway.
I don't think an interesting hobby is enough justification for the common possession of firearms. The harm easily outweighs the good.
Cars have a more balanced case. Media has an extremely favorable case. Knives are much more utilitarian (though note how heavily we restrict one's ability to carry long ones in public).
The case for civilian gun ownership is much weaker than the case against it. I don't care if some people enjoy it.
Although it's roundly mocked by most liberals, I still say there's reason to worry when the police are ever more militarized by an ever more authoritarian government with ever less moral pause regarding the surveillance and violent treatment of its own citizens, and have all the guns.
I'm not arguing for common possession. I'm arguing that they're nice things. If you recall, I don't give a shit about gun control. EDIT: Ninja'd by muppet. @Rym.
Although it's roundly mocked by most liberals, I still say there's reason to worry when the police are ever more militarized by an ever more authoritarian government with ever less moral pause regarding the surveillance and violent treatment of its own citizens, and have all the guns.
Last time we struck while the iron was hot, we got the PATRIOT Act. You can't make crazy people less crazy by banning guns. And unless you're going to raid the homes of every registered gun owner, you're not going to put the genie back in the bottle. Angry emotional proclamations aren't a solution.
Instead why don't we start re-opening all the closed state mental hospitals, educating people on the signs of illness in their loved ones and remove the strong cultural stigma in the US on seeking and receiving care for mental illness, just as a start.
In the fairy tale scenario that we remove every gun from the population, both registered and unregistered (the latter of which is estimated to be a HUGE number), then we'll still have mental illness, a culture of violent anger and little empathy, and we'll probably more closely match the middle east, where the angry crazy people denied access to guns build bombs instead.
It's not a zero-sum game. You don't have to bifurcate here. And you don't have to take premises to extremes.
To wit: I'm entirely for extensive no-cost treatment and education initiatives. I'm also for a ban on nearly all firearms. That doesn't have to take a "round-'em-up and burn 'em" form. Let's start with enacting some common-sense laws about gun sales, tracking, registration. Let's dramatically limit future gun sales. Let's use technology to limit when and how guns can be fired. Let's use high-tech built-in locks on newly-made firearms, using GPS and fire-count as parameters (lock down the trigger after six shots, and allow more firing with a passcode from a licensed instructor, range owner, or law enforcement official). Let's offer cash-for-guns like we offered cash-for-cars to get a lot of weapons out of circulation. Let's heavily tax ammunition sales. Let's require annual mental health screenings for gun owners. Let's de-stigmatize counseling. Let's be a kinder, gentler nation, as the less repugnant George Bush once said.
But maybe most of all we need to find a way to combat the fantasy lives of those who believe guns and stockpiling are a legitimate failsafe against government tyranny. Because I have news for you: Your survivalist notions wouldn't do much if you decided to try to take down the feds. It's time to stop pretending. It didn't work for the Confederates when both sides had roughly equal tech; it would be laughable today to try to fight a well-equipped military with your off-market Uzi.
Churba, there's really only one statistic that is relevant to this discussion: no mass killings since Port Arthur. The Monash shootings, I'll grant, were terrible and should be treated very seriously for the purposes of this debate, but I'd argue it was only because he could only get access to mostly small-calibre pistols that there weren't more fatalities. So, with regard to the study, I'll accept that it has its flaws, but you can't argue with the fact that mass shootings have all but ended in this country, which was the biggest point of the gun laws.
Small caliber? Not nearly as small as you'd think. Five out of six of his pistols were of a higher caliber than anything Bryant used(but not owned - he did own a 12-gauge, but never used it, bit different, though). Lower velocity, but bigger slug. And the reason there were not more fatalities being legal, and not rugby tackle based is a very long bow to draw - at the ranges we're talking about, even firing randomly into such a packed environment completely without aiming, it's a fucking miracle he didn't kill more people.
Either way, no, that's not the only statistic that matters. You could still take, say, an old Lee-enfield, or some .38s, or even some of the semi-autos that are still legally available in the country and go on a spree. Hell, you could even take a bolt-action and go on a spree - Charles Whitman shot 25 people in four minutes, using a bolt action.
But, People don't. And in the Czech republic, where firearms laws are similar to the average US laws? In 2010, if you go by the US statistics, for their population of 10 million, they should have had 300 firearm murders. They had 2. Not a typo, I really mean two. Not to mention that Swedish laws are even MORE lax (as in, they don't ban ANY firearms, as long as you tick all the right boxes, then you can own what you like) and yet, no sprees.
While you're right, with our ONE example, our own very strict firearms laws came in, and afterward, we only had ONE attempted spree killing. But on the other hand, there's two examples where their laws are more lax than the US, and yet, No massacres in the former, and the latter clocks in with four EVER, two of them in the early 20th century(1900 and 52), and the later two were both committed with illegal weapons - One stolen from the Norwegian army and illegally imported, and the other taken without authorization by the shooter from his regiment armory.
I agree - it's pretty clear cut looking at just us, but looking at a broader range of examples, it's not necessarily so black and white, and I personally wouldn't feel comfortable saying it is so. On top of that, it indicates that the problem may not, in fact, be firearm regulation, but the people - looking at it from the other side, why does the US have a far, far greater number of spree killings with firearms than any other industrialized nation, despite other nations having similar laws?
It's a very hard question to answer, at least, for regular mopes like us.
I promise I'm not trying to score points here, this is a gut reaction to something horrible, something I feel utterly helpless about, where the only thing I can do is share information with any Americans who'll listen, and maybe they'll see that there is hope that another atrocity can be, if not avoided, either minimised or delayed by stricter gun control laws.
That's okay. I'm not bothered by what you said, if I'm bothered by anything, I'm bothered by the chap that wrote the article, who felt it necessary to completely sidestep academic protocol, failed to declare his conflict of interest, and then act like his paper was in any way legitimate. But, I don't hold that to be your fault at all, you just citied the guy's work, and probably didn't know that - I know you're not the type of guy to knowingly use bad studies to prove a point like that.
I was angered to read your twitter post disparaging the people who tweet for or against gun control. You don't seem to get that it's not always about scoring political points (Mike Huckabee is a notable exception), but instead it comes from a genuine place of passion and conviction, both pro and anti. While I respect (but disagree with) someone who argues that gun control is not the way to prevent another incident like this, I absolutely can not respect the position of someone who shits on the discussion in its entirety, as you did.
Absolutely and categorically incorrect, and it's unfortunate that you mistook what I meant. If people are tweeting about gun control, fair enough. It's the people who are essentially saying "Hey, I'm better than you because of my opinion on this issue" that I was speaking against - For example, Jason posted elsewhere on the forum someone who effectively said "I believe in gun control, and if you don't you're just a racist looking for an excuse to murder someone." That there is some bullshit.
On top of that, it's just people re-tweeting such ego-stroking shite. If you're(general you, not you specifically, or really at all, Thane) going to use a national tragedy to stroke your ego, wrapped in a thin veneer of topical news, then at least have the spine to do it yourself.
Also, Churba, don't make me defend the policies of John Howard again. Now I need to shower. Eurgh.
Sorry dude. I'm hardly fond of him either, though I guess I do give him the same "credit and damnation where it's due" policy I give every politician - I have to be fair, even if I don't like the bastard. I guess the best way to do it is just to treat a law as a law, and judge it on it's own merits, rather than worrying about who or which side of the house it came from - after all, broken clock being right twice a day and all.
Certainly not unreasonable, considering. Go back a page, I posted a video from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, where he interviews a forensic psychologist, who says pretty much the same thing.
Certainly not unreasonable, considering. Go back a page, I posted a video from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, where he interviews a forensic psychologist, who says pretty much the same thing.
Of course it's the media. 24 hours of music, graphics, little crying children being interviewed about the body count and the number of bullets they heard fired while graphics and special effects are splashed across the screen on every network and we all try to decide on a celebrity handle for the scumbag who did it and is now dead and consequence free.
Every single time we glamorize and uplift these killers and make them infamous, making mass killings all the more attractive to the next attention starved malcontented lunatic.
I don't blame the media for actions. When it comes to opinions, I'm a tin foil hat wearing paranoid nutcase about the media, but I think saying that they cause murders like these is saying "I refuse to accept that we as a society ignore the mentally unstable and prefer to blame the damage they cause on an unrelated oligarchy."
I don't think anyone is saying it's wholely the media's fault. Rather, a large media focus can lead already mentally unstable people to commit to copycat crimes.
Mental health issues are obviously paramount, but our corporate owned, de-facto monopoly controlled media carries an awful lot of blame for a great many broken aspects of our current society and culture in my opinion.
I don't think anyone is saying it's wholely the media's fault. Rather, a large media focus can lead already mentally unstable people to commit to copycat crimes.
This is how sound like a paranoid cookie cutter:
Mental health issues are obviously paramount, but our corporate owned, de-facto monopoly controlled media carries an awful lot of blame for a great many broken aspects of our current society and culture in my opinion.
Greg, if I can't carry two machine pistols chambered for .50 AE with high-cap drum mags on my person at all times, no one will be able to stop the media's orbital mind control lasers.
Greg, unless you want to deconstruct my post and support your "analysis", that's just an utter non sequitur. A poorly executed ad hominem if I'm being very charitable. Maybe as usual you're finding some dog whistle phrase or otherwise projecting some implicit context onto my post, but really I think you're just being stupid.
I wasn't going for a dissertarion, I was responding conversationally and would happily expound. As usual you seem to have trouble with how humans talk.
I think the tendency to simplify this issue down to where it is solely a mental health problem is rather misguided. Mental illness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of this type of disaster - I've never seen a diagnosis of "mass shooting disorder".
Scapegoating mental illness for issues like this is a great way to further the stigma around mental illness, and that is not a constructive step towards better societal mental health. By singling out mental illness in problems like this you miss a whole host of other societal and cultural factors that play a significant role; it is quite clear that gun legality and the culture around it is a big factor. Moreover, many of these factors may be much easier to do something about than mental illness.
If you want to make actual progress in this issue, there are many things to work on, not just one.
Greg, unless you want to deconstruct my post and support your "analysis", that's just an utter non sequitur. A poorly executed ad hominem if I'm being very charitable. Maybe as usual you're finding some dog whistle phrase or otherwise projecting some implicit context onto my post, but really I think you're just being stupid.
I wasn't going for a dissertarion, I was responding conversationally and would happily expound. As usual you seem to have trouble with how humans talk.
I've always had trouble with how humans talk. Not that I don't understand it (well, not in this case anyway), but rather that I dislike it. You posted your opinion. I posted my counter opinion. Instead of challenging my opinion (like Nelson did, which I approved of) you repeated yours with minor alterations at best. You took the advantage of participating in the status quo (the argument put forth first) and tried to transfer from there to a defensive position. It's bad rhetoric and I don't want any more of it.
Here's a link to the abstract of the study. Which only covers from the 1960s to the 1980s. It also focuses on Suicide and regular homicide separately, rather than spree killings. I can't really tell you much more than that, considering I don't have access to the appropriate journal - just a link to let you know that it's not just TIME magazine being as reliable as TIME magazine normally is at reporting science.
Comments
Cars have a more balanced case. Media has an extremely favorable case. Knives are much more utilitarian (though note how heavily we restrict one's ability to carry long ones in public).
The case for civilian gun ownership is much weaker than the case against it. I don't care if some people enjoy it.
EDIT: Ninja'd by muppet. @Rym.
>militarized
lolwut?
Last time we struck while the iron was hot, we got the PATRIOT Act. You can't make crazy people less crazy by banning guns. And unless you're going to raid the homes of every registered gun owner, you're not going to put the genie back in the bottle. Angry emotional proclamations aren't a solution.
Instead why don't we start re-opening all the closed state mental hospitals, educating people on the signs of illness in their loved ones and remove the strong cultural stigma in the US on seeking and receiving care for mental illness, just as a start.
In the fairy tale scenario that we remove every gun from the population, both registered and unregistered (the latter of which is estimated to be a HUGE number), then we'll still have mental illness, a culture of violent anger and little empathy, and we'll probably more closely match the middle east, where the angry crazy people denied access to guns build bombs instead.
To wit: I'm entirely for extensive no-cost treatment and education initiatives. I'm also for a ban on nearly all firearms. That doesn't have to take a "round-'em-up and burn 'em" form. Let's start with enacting some common-sense laws about gun sales, tracking, registration. Let's dramatically limit future gun sales. Let's use technology to limit when and how guns can be fired. Let's use high-tech built-in locks on newly-made firearms, using GPS and fire-count as parameters (lock down the trigger after six shots, and allow more firing with a passcode from a licensed instructor, range owner, or law enforcement official). Let's offer cash-for-guns like we offered cash-for-cars to get a lot of weapons out of circulation. Let's heavily tax ammunition sales. Let's require annual mental health screenings for gun owners. Let's de-stigmatize counseling. Let's be a kinder, gentler nation, as the less repugnant George Bush once said.
But maybe most of all we need to find a way to combat the fantasy lives of those who believe guns and stockpiling are a legitimate failsafe against government tyranny. Because I have news for you: Your survivalist notions wouldn't do much if you decided to try to take down the feds. It's time to stop pretending. It didn't work for the Confederates when both sides had roughly equal tech; it would be laughable today to try to fight a well-equipped military with your off-market Uzi.
>rougly equal tech
lolwut? They had roughly equal firearms, but the Union kicked the south's ass at everything outside of the battlefield.
Either way, no, that's not the only statistic that matters. You could still take, say, an old Lee-enfield, or some .38s, or even some of the semi-autos that are still legally available in the country and go on a spree. Hell, you could even take a bolt-action and go on a spree - Charles Whitman shot 25 people in four minutes, using a bolt action.
But, People don't. And in the Czech republic, where firearms laws are similar to the average US laws? In 2010, if you go by the US statistics, for their population of 10 million, they should have had 300 firearm murders. They had 2. Not a typo, I really mean two. Not to mention that Swedish laws are even MORE lax (as in, they don't ban ANY firearms, as long as you tick all the right boxes, then you can own what you like) and yet, no sprees.
While you're right, with our ONE example, our own very strict firearms laws came in, and afterward, we only had ONE attempted spree killing. But on the other hand, there's two examples where their laws are more lax than the US, and yet, No massacres in the former, and the latter clocks in with four EVER, two of them in the early 20th century(1900 and 52), and the later two were both committed with illegal weapons - One stolen from the Norwegian army and illegally imported, and the other taken without authorization by the shooter from his regiment armory.
I agree - it's pretty clear cut looking at just us, but looking at a broader range of examples, it's not necessarily so black and white, and I personally wouldn't feel comfortable saying it is so. On top of that, it indicates that the problem may not, in fact, be firearm regulation, but the people - looking at it from the other side, why does the US have a far, far greater number of spree killings with firearms than any other industrialized nation, despite other nations having similar laws?
It's a very hard question to answer, at least, for regular mopes like us. That's okay. I'm not bothered by what you said, if I'm bothered by anything, I'm bothered by the chap that wrote the article, who felt it necessary to completely sidestep academic protocol, failed to declare his conflict of interest, and then act like his paper was in any way legitimate. But, I don't hold that to be your fault at all, you just citied the guy's work, and probably didn't know that - I know you're not the type of guy to knowingly use bad studies to prove a point like that. Absolutely and categorically incorrect, and it's unfortunate that you mistook what I meant. If people are tweeting about gun control, fair enough. It's the people who are essentially saying "Hey, I'm better than you because of my opinion on this issue" that I was speaking against - For example, Jason posted elsewhere on the forum someone who effectively said "I believe in gun control, and if you don't you're just a racist looking for an excuse to murder someone." That there is some bullshit.
On top of that, it's just people re-tweeting such ego-stroking shite. If you're(general you, not you specifically, or really at all, Thane) going to use a national tragedy to stroke your ego, wrapped in a thin veneer of topical news, then at least have the spine to do it yourself. Sorry dude. I'm hardly fond of him either, though I guess I do give him the same "credit and damnation where it's due" policy I give every politician - I have to be fair, even if I don't like the bastard.
I guess the best way to do it is just to treat a law as a law, and judge it on it's own merits, rather than worrying about who or which side of the house it came from - after all, broken clock being right twice a day and all.
Every single time we glamorize and uplift these killers and make them infamous, making mass killings all the more attractive to the next attention starved malcontented lunatic.
I wasn't going for a dissertarion, I was responding conversationally and would happily expound. As usual you seem to have trouble with how humans talk.
Scapegoating mental illness for issues like this is a great way to further the stigma around mental illness, and that is not a constructive step towards better societal mental health. By singling out mental illness in problems like this you miss a whole host of other societal and cultural factors that play a significant role; it is quite clear that gun legality and the culture around it is a big factor. Moreover, many of these factors may be much easier to do something about than mental illness.
If you want to make actual progress in this issue, there are many things to work on, not just one.