Advice on weaponry

[RGH0]

"Maybe a better way to stop school mass killings is to refrain from giving kids these drugs?"

Hi Uwe

Yes like I say the specific issue of school shootings is a subset of the larger "gun violence" issues in the USA. It has its own set of multifactorial causes that need to be simultaneously addressed of which inappropriate drug usage (legal and illegal) is probably one of them.

Unfortunately the debate in the USA appears to tend to focus on individual elements within the overall set of contributing causes often driven by political leanings rather than looking at holistic solutions to the overall problem

cheers
Rohan

 

[DV52]

Explain something to me, Don: Why is it you appear to regard "gun violence" as more abhorrent than any other kind of violence?

@Uwe: The value of a response facility in a forum like this is that it allows the OP to see the respondent's focus to his/her original words. And of course everyone is free to have a different focus. So, I provide a different emphasis to your repeated examples of my quotes

the tragedy of a child not coming home from school

gun deaths!! Tragically, the price for this deficiency is being paid by the most precious of you (your children)

value of children's lives measure against the myriad other advantages that citizens enjoy in 21st century

Remember, these are your children (vulnerable, trusting, innocent, obedient, curious, beautiful) - the most precious of you with every right to expect a full and fruitful life!! .

When the people want change in a liberal democracy - how can it be stymied by business interests, Weaponry Associations and those in the minority - especially where the lives of neighbors/children/humans are in the balance?

America's problem with the senseless slaughter of its Children

Or said less tactfully - the central issue certainly is "gun violence", but this is simply the vehicle for the underlying problem; the REASON why it's a problem is because of the staggeringly high numbers of human deaths - and the alarming aspect of this issue of late is the slaughter of your children in mass killings!!!

Maybe my point can be better made by an absurd example: if the "gun violence" problem in America was manifest by a staggeringly high number of domestic pets that were gunned down, it wouldn't really be a problem. It's the fact that humans lose their lives due to gun violence that is the focus of this problem - it's not "gun violence", per se!

People who wish to commit violence, murder, and mayhem will always find a way, whether they have access to guns or not. Taking guns away from peaceable citizens just removes the best tools they have available to defend themselves against the initiation of whatever violence the psychopaths in society are willing to commit.[

Yes, this is a standard NRA position and I've seen it countless times from Americans who want no change to gun laws. To be brutally honest - for me - this is the saddest response that I had read because it says that American culture is so riddle with a fear of others that it needs personal weapon ownership - as a basic requirement to survive. If true (and I don't for one second believe that it is true), it's manifestly a tragic indictment of how Americans view each other -IMO

Of course, there is nothing unique about the American desire to be safe in the community and it would be silly not to have implemented safeguards against what you call "psychopaths in society". Every other nation on the planet has implemented these safeguards in generally the same ways with generally equal success (I'm not aware that the statistics for being killed by "psychopaths in society" varies much across other first world countries)

So, yes I am aware that protagonists for an armed American community use this argument - but why is America special? Why is the fear/paranoia of "psychopaths in society" so virulent in your country? And if this is the advantage of gun toting Americans - why is there never any discussion about the disadvantages - and discussion about the balance point (Shirley unfettered gun-ownership isn't the only issue in this world that is all up-side)?

And finally - if indeed American's fear of the hidden, sleeper "psychopaths in society" is true - and indeed every citizen (including the "psychopaths in society", themselves) must own a gun, just to survive - doesn't the solution simply become an arms race? In your disturbing view of American society, won't the ultimate survival of citizens depend entirely on who can "out-gun" their neighbors - because no one can be sure if the "psychopaths in society" live next-door?

Why do you want to live in such a society?

You really like to focus on the "gun death" rate in the US. But you neglect the fact that over half of them are not "crimes of violence" but are in fact suicides. If we look at the overall homicide rate in the US compared to other countries, the US is in the middle of the pack, and if we were to remove the gang-related homicides in a few of our major cities the US would be near the bottom.

really? Is your position that America actually doesn't have a gun violence problem and that the growing number of your children that have failed to return from school is acceptable because it is roughly comparable with other first world countries?

I'm sure you'd like us to ban civilian ownership of modern sporting rifles, but you neglect the fact that more people are murdered using blunt objects like hammers and bare hands in the US every year than with rifles of all kinds.

I don't know - Americans are better placed to make these judgements in America!

Rifles are not the problem. Peaceable citizens with handguns for self-defense are not the problem. None of the current proposals will have a material effect on violence and murders.

hmm........ and therein lies the heart of the problem IMO; an abiding belief that gun violence in America has absolutely nothing, at all, what so ever, to do with the number (or the type) of weapons in American communities!! And an abiding belief that well armed citizens can only deliver advantages for themselves and for their community - move on, nothing to see here!!

As I've said on many occasions, you have my respect; I consider you to be an intelligent and cogent thinker and I greatly admire your achievements (especially that funny little thing that plugs into an OBD port). However on this matter, I say again about those that hold your position - there is no more dangerous a man than someone who believes that truth has only one face!!

 

[Crasher]

Except of course, I guess that I happen to be one of those "touchy freely lefties".

We all have our crosses to bear.

I meant feely but hey, being freely touched works for me.

I have been stateside twice, 96 and 99, both times I was shocked about how open guns were, chap sitting at a bar in Portland with a 45 on his hip FFS! In both visits I went to see my friends show "waterfest" and at the fist (it was a high school car park) the traffic was chaos trying to get in and I tried to help the police man directing people. After it all calmed down and we were chatting he insisted he took a picture of me sitting in his car holding a bloody shot gun! When I went in 99 it was help at a race way in NJ and in the hotel car park at night there was all sorts of crazy things going off and people waving guns around...

When I was there is 96 I was in a car accident in Tucson and that evening whilst relaxing on my friends front porch he bushed a black widow spider off my leg so we retired to the back garden where were were entertained by the sound of gunfire and whistling billets in a fight between two gans and the police.

In San Francisco we got lost and stopped on a road where I could see a police car sitting. I went up to him with my map and he was horrified that three white dudes in hired Ford were doing in a hispanic area.

I used to belong to a .22 rifle shooting club but after the Dunblane massacre in 96 when 32 people were shot (with hand guns), killing 17 of which 16 were children, it was shut down. Interestingly, the future tennis champion Andy Murray was a pupil at the school and missed being killed by minutes.

 

[Uwe]

the alarming aspect of this issue of late is the slaughter of your children in mass killings!!!

Meh. Far more children drown in swimming pools every year than are the victims of mass killings. You wanna "Save the Children"? Start a movement to ban swimming pools!

Yes, this is a standard NRA position and I've seen it countless times from Americans who want no change to gun laws.

Your premise is incorrect. I do want to change the gun laws -- I want every last one of them repealed.

-Uwe-

 

[RGH0]

Australia has very strict pool fencing regulations as well as gun laws to help limit child deaths. Just waiting for them to fence the beach near my house

 

[Uwe]

Australia has very strict pool fencing regulations

Oh, we do too. But just like gun laws, they don't seem to be very effective at actually preventing tragedies.

-Uwe-

 

[RGH0]

Pool fencing is not the total answer in the same way that gun law changes will not be the total answer but .......They appear to help in Australia

https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/37526/RLS_ChildDrowning_25yrReport.pdf

 

[DV52]

Meh. Far more children drown in swimming pools every year than are the victims of mass killings. You wanna "Save the Children"? Start a movement to ban swimming pools!

Unbelievable!!! I am constantly surprised by your positions (often in a not-good way)!!

Are you really saying that the senseless slaughter of American children by gun violence can be excused/dismissed/made acceptable/lessened/ignored (you choose the word) simply because the number of child deaths by drowning is high?

What an utterly astonishing and more-than-slightly disturbing hypothesis !!

Here's a suggestion - go talk to any one of the mothers/fathers/brothers/sisters/school-friends/Uncles/Aunties/neighbors of the 21 senseless deaths in UVALDE - and ask them whether they have a swimming pool?

Even better, put your position to any of the 8,000 families of gun violence each year whose last physical contact with their child is lowering a tiny coffin into a grave - and tell them that a solution to the senseless death of their child will need to wait because America has "start[ed] a movement to ban swimming pools"!

Yes, preposterous suggestions - but these are the connections that are made by your astonishing position!!

I'm flabbergasted that I am responding to such a disturbing hypothesis - but how in God's name (and you know that I'm a born-again agnostic) does high child deaths by drowning in USA impact the matter of gun violence in America? And how the hell does finding a solution to either, affect/concern the other?

Your premise is incorrect. I do want to change the gun laws -- I want every last one of them repealed.

hmm......... the very first requirement for solving a problem is an admission that the problem exists!! Denial is the luxury of the righteous!!

 

[DV52]

We all have our crosses to bear.

@Crasher: Many thanks for your understanding. In my case however - it's a "cross" that I willingly bear with honor and with absolute pride!

 

[Uwe]

Even better, put your position to any of the 8,000 families of gun violence each year whose last physical contact with their child is the act of carrying a tiny coffin to a grave site

I'm not sure where you got the 8000 number. The CDC thinks it's just over half that (4,368 in 2020) and by their definition, anyone 19 years of age or younger qualifies as a "child". I don't have an age distribution handy, but I'm certain that an overwhelming majority of them were gang members, well into their teens, whose bodies won't fit into "tiny" coffins, and they died primarily due to having made exceedingly poor life choices.

Yet here you are, wanting to take away peaceable citizens' right to defend themselves from their ilk.

the very first requirement for solving a problem is an admission that the problem exists!! Denial is the tool of the righteous!!

Oh, the problem exists, but you're exaggerating its size, ignoring any context regarding the size, and supporting "remedies" that won't do a damn thing to solve the problem.

-Uwe-

 

[RGH0]

We can debate forever the details and size of the "gun violence" and "mass shootings" problem in the USA but it is impossible to deny that it exists compared to other first world countries.

Many of those countries ( e.g. Canada, Australia, UK, Norway) have had similar problems with mass shootings and more general gun violence in the past that have been combated with substantial success by a range of strategies including tightening gun laws.

Tightening of gun laws in the USA is a greater challenge than in most countries given the 2nd amendment but it is not impossible and the range of other possible strategies appears to get little focus unfortunately

 

[DV52]

I don't have an age distribution handy, but I'm certain that an overwhelming majority of them were gang members, well into their teens, whose bodies won't fit into "tiny" coffins, and they died primarily due to having made exceedingly poor life choices.

"poor life choices"? really? So, if I understand your philosophy correctly - righteous Americans can wipe their hands of this problem because these non-adults have made "poor life choices" and because the true numbers for real infant deaths is too low to be classified a real problem?

Wow- is this the prevailing mentality that defines American culture in the 21st century?

• If so, it totally explains (but doesn't justify IMO) the need for every American citizen to arm themselves against their neighbors!
• If so, it strongly suggests that American culture is underpinned by type of internal civilian war in which every citizen (even non-adults) are on-their-own in their defense against potential sleeper enemies; every American is at constant risk from the potential "psychopath" in waiting -next door
• If so, I surprised that American society holds together at all- and I'm more surprised that there isn't a mass exodus of your countrymen to safer communities.

Is it really your view that there should be no gun laws whatsoever in USA because the literal (and inevitable) battle for individual survival is the only objective in the gun debate; all else (including the gun violence question) is a distraction to the imperative to arm early and to arm better than your neighbor? And can anyone be a victor in this type of war -surely victory inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat? Is this really how you view the future of your culture?

Again I ask - why would anyone want to live in such a community?

Oh, the problem exists, but you're exaggerating its size, ignoring any context regarding the size, and supporting "remedies" that won't do a damn thing to solve the problem.

For the sake of understanding, assume for the moment that I accept your belief that the vast majority of these non-adult deaths are "the result of poor life choices". And (for the moment, at least) assume that I accept your hypothesis that the numbers of true "child" deaths from gun-violence is low. And finally, accept that I believe you to be a man of your conviction.

With ALL of these prerequisites as a given and in your opinion, how many more infant deaths in USA are needed before you consider that it's worth Americans contemplating a solution?

Now, I really don't mean the question above to be rhetoric - but I have every expectation that it will be received so! I say this not to offend - but rather because the answer to the question is the pivotal fulcrum-point for your position and because I know that it is a question that those that hold your views will never answer (notwithstanding their conviction to their own beliefs)!

I am also a man of conviction - and I can say with absolute conviction that the answer is zero; the threshold number happened long ago and the need for a solution is well overdue

 

[Crasher]

The way you could look at measures such as pool fencing, gun control, road laws etc is that they are unnatural, they are curtailing population control by natural selection, survival of the fittest.

 

[vreihen]

https://midhudsonnews.com/2022/06/1...ors-introduce-gun-warning-signage-resolution/

The sign at any site where firearms sales or transfers are conducted in the county would read:

“WARNING: Access to a firearm in the home significantly increases the risk of suicide, death during domestic violence disputes, and the unintentional death of children, household members, or others. If you or a loved one is experiencing distress and/or depression, call the hotline or visit the website.”

 

[DV52]

The way you could look at measures such as pool fencing, gun control, road laws etc is that they are unnatural, they are curtailing population control by natural selection, survival of the fittest.

Again we agree (let's not make this a habit!! ) - you could look at the measures for unfettered control of weapons (because of the need for neighbors to out-gun each other) as resulting in a type of Darwinian selection mechanism; survival of the fittest will be defined by the most suspicious, the wealthiest (because they can afford the most lethal weapons) and the most paranoid!!

After the bloodshed settles and:

1. the actual psychopaths are carted away - in their millions (because the threat of deaths by psychopaths is so real that the required measured-response is unfettered weapon ownership - so their numbers in America's community must be huge)
2. The suspected psychopaths are carted away - again in large numbers because why not eliminate the uncertainty given the ease with which a gun can do this (if a person's bone-fides can't be established, likely they are "undesirables" to the paranoid/suspicious - therefore, better dead)
3. Innocent citizens that are simply victims of the raging community battles are carted away in unknown numbers - coincidental carnage of the innocent is to be expected and it's entirely acceptable given the problem of psychopath risk is paramount in America

....resulting survival in this type of quasi-dystopian society is at best a Pyrrhic victory -who would want to live in such a disturbing community?

Don

PS: I can hear the pro-gun group quietly scoffing in the background - but this is the logical conclusion for a position that argues that unfettered gun ownership is needed to protect citizens from psychopaths

 

[DV52]

https://midhudsonnews.com/2022/06/1...ors-introduce-gun-warning-signage-resolution/

@vreihen: Love-it (your wicked sense-of-humor)!!!

Let's solve the problem of American gun violence by putting stickers in shop-front windows !!
(I wonder if it's NRA approved - or if it's considered to be another outrageous "gun-law"?)

 

[vreihen]

@vreihen: Love-it (your wicked sense-of-humor)!!!

Let's solve the problem of American gun violence by putting stickers in shop-front windows !!
(I wonder if it's NRA approved - or if it's considered to be another outrageous "gun-law"?)

I wish that it was posted as a joke! The elected officials in a neighboring county (which has provided more than one NY State Governor and a US President or two over history) actually proposed that as a new law, probably so that they can point to it and claim that they did "something" to combat (pun intended) gun violence. Because politicians are not really creative, I'm guessing that this idea came from some anti-gun group, and will be implemented by libtard-held local governments all over the country before long. Pretty soon, Commiefornia will amend Proposition 15 to include warnings that the lead in bullets is known to the State of California to cause cancer. Then, the US Surgeon General will require warning labels on all firearms saying that possessing one may cause death via suicide, domestic violence, or accidental discharge.....

 

[Crasher]

Again we agree (let's not make this a habit!! ) -

If I start saying things you agree with too much either I have to check my Conservative credentials or you are swinging to the right...

 

[DV52]

I wonder if it's NRA approvedI wish that it was posted as a joke! The elected officials in a neighboring county (which has provided more than one NY State Governor and a US President or two over history) actually proposed that as a new law, probably so that they can point to it and claim that they did "something" to combat (pun intended) gun violence. Because politicians are not really creative, I'm guessing that this idea came from some anti-gun group, and will be implemented by libtard-held local governments all over the country before long. Pretty soon, Commiefornia will amend Proposition 15 to include warnings that the lead in bullets is known to the State of California to cause cancer. Then, the US Surgeon General will require warning labels on all firearms saying that possessing one may cause death via suicide, domestic violence, or accidental discharge.....

@vreihen : I was being more than a tad cheeky in my reply (please forgive) -yes, I kind-of understood that shop-front stickers were being proposed as a serious suggestion!!

Whilst I agree with your general sentiments (albeit from a totally different perspective- given our opposite views on guns) - the one, worthwhile element of the proposal is that it makes a link between the problem and gun ownership.

I asked my question "I wonder if it's NRA approved?" knowing full well that the answer would be a resounding NO - because the obvious link between gun violence and gun ownership can NEVER be allowed in the debate!!

NRA denial (and I'm not referring to a river in Egypt) of this bleedingly obvious connection must be maintained at all cost - else the illusion starts to develop cracks and the house of cards begins to collapse!!

Sheer logic dictates that it's simply a matter of time. There can be no doubt that events like the massacre at UVALDE will continue and they will continue to be increasingly more heinous -there is no reason why not.

It makes sense; Americans appear to be comotose to the current rate of child deaths. This is antithetical to what shooters want - they want a reaction - so in future massacres, shooters need to find better ways to get a greater-bang (pun intended) for their deranged egos! Perversly, these reprehensible individuals are competing with each other for recognition - and there is only one way to achieve the desire to be the best; escalation of the depravity of the massacre!! If anyone doubts this dynamic - look at how the dimensions of American massacres have altered over time!

Hence, it's only a question of how many more deaths need to happen before Americans wake-up and their disgust forces reality to surface. When I look at the NRA positions, nothing has changed- they use exactly the same arguments as they have always used. To me, this simply means that the NRA is stuck in a by-gone era and Mr LaPierre's 30 x year reign of (alleged?) corruption is coming to a long overdue end!

I know that pro-gun folk believe that the 2nd amendment is the ONLY thing in this universe that is permanent, but the truth is that Mr Madison's facility is as impermanent as every other word in the US constitution. And more importantly, the 2nd amendment right is subject to prevailing interpretation by the Courts which necessarily changes with altering community value-sets!

Time (and increasingly more disgusting massacres) will be the NRA's most potent enemy - the tragedy is that whilst change is inevitable, it will come at the cost of more senseless and avoidable deaths

 

[DV52]

If I start saying things you agree with too much either I have to check my Conservative credentials or you are swinging to the right...

@Crasher: hmm.... I wasn't aware that your "conservative credentials" were ever in doubt. Rest assured that at least in my mind - I anticipate that your views will always be "to the right of Genghis Khan" (and that is entirely OK with me)!!

As for the alternative of me "swinging to the right" - I don't swing!!