[QuickTidal]

Shinrei, on 21 December 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 21 December 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

I do think the 2nd needs to be vaporized. Like Silencer, heartily I believe that.

There's no need for it, when the rest of the free world gets along quite FREELY without such a stupid thing...and has lower gun crime because of it.

There's NO other argument to be made here Shin. It's NOT needed, and causes more crime with...than without.

That is close-minded nonsense and you know it. I get that anti-gun people can be very passionately anti-gun. But the opposite is also true.

I'm a weirdo who couldn't care less about guns, but will still defend the rights of people to possess them simply because I believe that a vast majority of a very large and very thriving gun culture in the US shows that they are not raining death on each other left and right.

See, now your mingling your words, like I said you were.

We're talking The 2nd...not straight up guns for sport or Olympics or a damned starter pistol. All those examples of gun use that isn't "killing" are things that can be done with other tools...and the 2nd...isn't there to ensure SPORT homey...sorry that argument holds no water.

"but will still defend the rights of people to possess them simply because I believe that a vast majority of a very large and very thriving gun culture in the US shows that they are not raining death on each other left and right."

This statement is silly. Almost 100,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA in 2012...I think in Canada (where we have guns for sport and hunting, cops and military) for 2012 the number of gun deaths is 200. So compared to a similar country, American's actually ARE kind of raining death upon one another.

Aside from all this.

Here's a good read...about the place you live. http://www.theatlant...-deaths/260189/

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 21 December 2012 - 03:58 PM

[QuickTidal]

In fact, I'll go one better Shin.

Tell me, in your reply, How Japan (sorry, but it's the best example) has the lowest number of gun deaths in the world, has next to no guns in country...and is a free, progressive society with individual rights above all else (up to and including the lowly janitor who mops the floor of the subway is as respected a member of society as a rich Doctor is)...and yet they have no 2nd amendment to make sure their government doesn't form a standing army or whatever reason you want to give for those "arms"?

Answer me that. You kind of keep avoiding answering it because it makes your arguments fall to ribbons.

You claim to not want to take away "rights"....in a world where only America thinks those ARE rights. Something does not compute.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 21 December 2012 - 04:03 PM

[sappers rule]

Not sure if this will go well but whatever, I live in Ireland just stating this where even police cant have guns except for specific police and where I think you ca only get a gun with a hunting licence ( I think).
Now I feel that the the right for all civilians to bear arms e.g. the 2nd amendment is stupid as there have been more cases of guns hurting people than there has of guns protecting people (outside of war and the army).
Also not sure if touched on but will say it any ways people sometimes defend owning a gun by saying its to protect themselves at home in case of robbery etc.. but for me if someone broke in depending where I am would either (but first call police) a) confront then attack physically or run into the kitchen and get a large saucepan/frying pan to use. If the guy had a gun I would hide then run away and get my neighbours to help me. My life is infinitely more important than whatever is in my house and its not something to die over.

Guns in my experience just seem to cause more harm than good and if you still say its to protect yourself just learn self defence, which would be way better in any confrontation and also guns kill they were never built to defend or even protect people they are instruments of war saying a gun is for self defence is like saying a bomb is for self defence yes you can use it for self defence but if you use it someone is probably going to die. Guns should be restricted and America is the classic example of what happens when you allow everyone the option to buy a gun.

This post has been edited by sappers rule: 21 December 2012 - 04:54 PM

[cerveza_fiesta]

Something I should also mention about US vs Canadian (not sure about euro) laws surrounding gun use.

In the USA, you can shoot somebody through your front door if you believed that you were defending your property, even if it turns out they were unarmed. I remember reading an article where some doctor did exactly this through the door of his apartment, killed the other dude, and was let go on arguments of self defence. No I don't have the source...but could probably find it.


Here, we have gun laws and people may possess guns for whatever personal reason they choose (even for protection). A BIG difference is that actually *using* a gun for protection is as likely to get you thrown in prison as walking out and shooting people at random on the street. Like if the guy coming at you is unarmed, and you shoot him to avoid him kicking the living hell out of you, YOU end up in jail regardless of his intentions. Even if the other guy had a gun on him but didn't have it drawn, the self-defense argument doesn't always work.

A pretty stark difference in the way the law views gun use IMO, and the way the law prioritizes life (even that of a criminal offender) over property...and that's just in the relatively clear-cut "home intruder" type of scenario. Certain states (florida comes to mind) have all kinds of crazy shoot-first-ask-questions-later gun laws where you can actually shoot somebody you perceived as a threat and claim self defense even though the bullet-recipient didn't do a damn thing to deserve it - like in the Trevon Martin case. The Trevon Martin guy didn't get away with it of course, but tons of people in similar situations do.

I guess that's all just to say that a ban or a change in the 2nd amendment isn't anywhere near enough to change gun culture in the USA. There is a hell of a lot more legal precedent to undo than just the 2nd amendment itself if you want the gun laws to start resembling other developed nations.

[Khellendros]

I'm seeing comparisons between gun-related and drink-related deaths.

What I would suggest is that the vast majority of drink-related deaths are from overconsumption, i.e. the drinker ends up killing themselves, resulting from their own choice to continue drinking. An awful decision, resulting from many varied choices and events, but ultimately one made by themselves and effected by themselves.

On the other hand, I doubt many people choose to be shot by someone else.

[Overactive Imagination]

People who think teachers should have guns in their classrooms are crazy.

[rhulad]

Guns shouldn't be in schools period.

[Ulrik]

Shinrei, on 21 December 2012 - 01:06 PM, said:

Hey, I don't really want to get into a discussion about the efficacy of statistics, at least not right now.

As for my analogies in general - what I'm getting at is taking away the rights of people based on something that has happened.

School shooting - revoke the right to bear arms. (nope, change accessibility - its not revoking of right to bear arms - I dont think there is many people who want complete ban...?)

Plane bombing - revoke the right of a certain racial profile to board a plane without invasive anal surgery. (Uhm...you mean it seriously? No, its revoking of right to take explosives to airplane...this isnt argument, this is...demagogy)

Drunk Driving - revoke the 'privilege' of being able to drink alcohol. (...to drink alcohol while drivin. I think its already forced by law, isnt it?)
I'm not really trying to be deeper than that.

Shinrei, on 21 December 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

I'm a weirdo who couldn't care less about guns, but will still defend the rights of people to possess them simply because I believe that a vast majority of a very large and very thriving gun culture in the US shows that they are not raining death on each other left and right.

Uhm...but, if you are talking only about 2nd A, it doesnt mean banning or taking away possibility of posession... it could/ would mean that getting gun is harder, rules how to use/ store your guns are more strict...but people who wants to have a gun can... just not absurd situation like is semiautomatic assault rifle and without safe storing...so for example child couldnt grab it and shoot himself or...dunno...class of other kids.

This post has been edited by Ulrik: 22 December 2012 - 12:23 AM

[HoosierDaddy]

I'm not sure if I want a complete ban, but even if I did it'd be impossible to amend the Constitution on this issue right now. 3/4's of the States are NOT going to vote that way, let alone 3/4's of Congress.

I'd hate to see the hysteria that unfolded if this were seriously discussed. The Militias and gun-nuts would go CRAZY.

[Macros]

i might not have been clear enough earlier.


let me reiterate


you do not


DO NOT

need to own a death device.

[Silencer]

HoosierDaddy, on 22 December 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

I'm not sure if I want a complete ban, but even if I did it'd be impossible to amend the Constitution on this issue right now. 3/4's of the States are NOT going to vote that way, let alone 3/4's of Congress.

I'd hate to see the hysteria that unfolded if this were seriously discussed. The Militias and gun-nuts would go CRAZY.

And right there is the fundamental difference between America and the rest of the world (and the basic problem with the former, might I add). "My right to own guns is ALL THAT FUCKING MATTERS YOU GET OFF MY LAWN OR I'LL FUCKING SHOOT YOU!" is apparently prevalent enough that even thinking about taking the necessary steps to cut down gun crime and help prevent horrendous massacres is a no-go before anyone has even really tried.

*sigh*

[HoosierDaddy]

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone on this board more aware of why the 2nd was included in the original Bill of Rights and the subsequent jurisprudence, but at some point this fetishization and burgeoning deism of the Founding Fathers (who knew their own faults and built in a mechanism for change) has to stop for this country to continue to progress.

It sometimes stuns me just how conservative the base population is when it comes to change. There is a mechanism of change for a reason. If the Founding Fathers wanted to freeze political thought and advancement (completely anti-Enlightenment that that is) they would have written it into the Constitution.

[Macros]

oh hogwash, its all a case of "I've always had this, my father had it, im entitled to it"

a massive dose of reality would be great if it could be ad ministered in a pill form

[HoosierDaddy]

When the entire foundation for argument generally rests on, "Well, the Founding Fathers thought this was a fundamental human right" it needs to be addressed that the Founding Fathers were just as fucking retarded for the most part as modern politicians.

It didn't take them long to try to destroy the First Amendment with the Sedition Act.

[Macros]

Can i take into the bill of rights with a tip ex pen and a marker?

[MTS]

Not one to defy expectations the NRA has just come out and said 'the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun', and is calling for armed guards in every school.

Quote

WASHINGTON — After a weeklong silence, the National Rifle Association announced Friday that it wants to arm security officers at every school in the country. It pointed the finger at violent video games, the news media and lax law enforcement — not guns — as culprits in the recent rash of mass shootings.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A. vice president, said at a media event that was interrupted by protesters. One held up a banner saying, “N.R.A. Killing Our Kids.”

The N.R.A.’s plan for countering school shootings, coming a week after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was met with widespread derision from school administrators, law enforcement officials and politicians, with some critics calling it “delusional” and “paranoid.” Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, said arming schools would not make them safer.

Even conservative politicians who had voiced support this week for arming more school officers did not rush to embrace the N.R.A.’s plan.

Their reluctance was an indication of just how toxic the gun debate has become after the Connecticut shootings, as gun control advocates push for tougher restrictions.

Nationwide, at least 23,000 schools — about one-third of all public schools — already had armed security on staff as of the most recent data, for the 2009-10 school year, and a number of states and districts that do not use them have begun discussing the idea in recent days.

Even so, the N. R. A’s focus on armed guards as its prime solution to school shootings — and the group’s offer to help develop and carry out such a program nationwide — rankled a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“Anyone who thought the N.R.A. was going to come out today and make a common-sense statement about meaningful reform and safety was kidding themselves,” said Representative Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat, who has called for new restrictions on assault rifles.

Mr. LaPierre struck a defiant tone on Friday, making clear that his group was not eager to reach a conciliation. With the N.R.A. not making any statements after last week’s shootings, both supporters and opponents of greater gun control had been looking to its announcement Friday as a sign of how the nation’s most influential gun lobby group would respond and whether it would pledge to work with President Obama and Congress in developing new gun control measures.

Mr. LaPierre offered no support for any of the proposals made in the last week, like banning assault rifles or limiting high-capacity ammunition, and N.R.A. leaders declined to answer questions. As reporters shouted out to Mr. LaPierre and David Keene, the group’s president, asking whether they planned to work with Mr. Obama, the men walked off stage without answering.

Mr. LaPierre seemed to anticipate the negative reaction in an address that was often angry and combative.

“Now I can imagine the headlines — the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow,” he told more than 150 journalists at a downtown hotel several blocks from the White House.

“More guns, you’ll claim, are the N.R.A.’s answer to everything,” he said. “Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the gun automatically become a bad word?”

Mr. LaPierre said his organization would finance and develop a program called the National Model School Shield Program, to work with schools to arm and train school guards, including retired police officers and volunteers. The gun rights group named Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas and administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, to lead a task force to develop the program.

Mr. LaPierre also said that before Congress moved to pass any new gun restrictions, it should “act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation” by the time students return from winter break in January.

The idea of arming school security officers is not altogether new. Districts in cities including Albuquerque, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and St. Louis have armed officers in schools, either through relationships with local police departments or by training and recruiting their own staff members.

A federal program dating back to the Clinton administration also uses armed police officers in school districts to bolster security, and Mr. LaPierre himself talked about beefing up the number of armed officers on campuses after the deadly shootings in 2007 at Virginia Tech.

But what the N.R.A. proposed would expand the use of armed officers nationwide and make greater use of not just police officers, but armed volunteers — including retired police officers and reservists — to patrol school grounds. The organization offered no estimates of the cost.

Mr. LaPierre said that if armed security officers had been used at the Newtown school, “26 innocent lives might have been spared that day.”

The N.R.A. news conference was an unusual Washington event both in tone and substance, as Mr. LaPierre avoided the hedged, carefully calibrated language that political figures usually prefer, and instead let loose with a torrid attack on the N.R.A.’s accusers.

He blasted what he called “the political class here in Washington” for pursuing new gun control measures while failing, in his view, to adequately prosecute violations of existing gun laws, finance law enforcement programs or develop a national registry of mentally ill people who might prove to be “the next Adam Lanza,” the gunman in Newtown.

Mr. LaPierre also complained that the news media had unfairly “demonized gun owners.” And he called the makers of violent video games “a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people,” as he showed a video of an online cartoon game called “Kindergarten Killer.”

While some superintendents and parents interviewed after the N.R.A.’s briefing said they might support an increased police presence on school campuses as part of a broader safety strategy, many educators, politicians, and crime experts described it as foolhardy and potentially dangerous. Law enforcement officials said putting armed officers in the nation’s 99,000 schools was unrealistic because of the enormous cost and manpower needed.

At a news conference Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is leading an effort to reinstitute a ban on assault rifles, read from a police report on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, which detailed an armed officer’s unsuccessful attempts to disarm one of the gunmen. “There were two armed law enforcement officers at that campus, and you see what happened — 15 dead,” Ms. Feinstein said.

Ernest Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, called the N.R.A.’s plan “unbelievable and cynical.”

He said placing armed guards within schools would “expose our children to far greater risk from gun violence than the very small risk they now face.”Officials in some districts that use armed security officers stressed that it was only part of a broader strategy aimed at reducing the risk of violence.

But Ben Kiser, superintendent of schools in Gloucester County, Va., where the district already has four police officers assigned to patrol schools, said it was just as important to provide mental health services to help struggling children and families.

“What I’m afraid of,” said Mr. Kiser, who is also president of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, “is that we’re often quick to find that one perceived panacea and that’s where we spend our focus.”

In Newtown, Conn., the N.R.A.’s call for arming school guards generated considerable debate among parents and residents on Friday — much of it negative. Suzy DeYoung, a parenting coach who has one child in the local school system, said she thought many parents in town and around the country would object to bringing more guns onto school campuses.

“I think people are smarter than that,” she said.

Shin's school marshal idea at least has some merit in comparison to this piece of utter idiocy, but ideally if you can stop the bad guy from gaining access to powerful weapons you've already prevented most of the potential for loss of life anyway.

[Illuyankas]

Well, if there was even a single instance of an armed civilian stopping a shooter over 62 massacres (62, for fuck's sake) over the last 30 years, he might have a poiahahahahahahaha

A map of all those massacres: http://www.motherjon...s-shootings-map

An examination of what happened: http://www.motherjon...s-investigation

Quote

There was one case in our data set in which an armed civilian played a role. Back in 1982, a man opened fire at a welding shop in Miami, killing eight and wounding three others before fleeing on a bicycle. A civilian who worked nearby pursued the assailant in a car, shooting and killing him a few blocks away (in addition to ramming him with the car). Florida authorities, led by then-state attorney Janet Reno, concluded that the vigilante had used force justifiably, and speculated that he may have prevented additional killings. But even if we were to count that case as a successful armed intervention by a civilian, it would account for just 1.6 percent of the mass shootings in the last 30 years.

More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to stop shooting rampages are rare—and successful ones even rarer. There were two school shootings in the late 1990s, in Mississippi and Pennsylvania, in which bystanders with guns ultimately subdued the teen perpetrators, but in both cases it was after the shooting had subsided. Other cases led to tragic results. In 2005, as a rampage unfolded inside a shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington, a civilian named Brendan McKown confronted the assailant with a licensed handgun he was carrying. The assailant pumped several bullets into McKown and wounded six people before eventually surrendering to police after a hostage standoff. (A comatose McKown eventually recovered after weeks in the hospital.) In Tyler, Texas, that same year, a civilian named Mark Wilson fired his licensed handgun at a man on a rampage at the county courthouse. Wilson—who was a firearms instructor—was shot dead by the body-armored assailant, who wielded an AK-47. (None of these cases were included in our mass shootings data set because fewer than four victims died in each.)

And pointing out specifically why gun-wielding civilians are far more likely to make things worse: http://www.motherjon...-mass-shootings

Quote

Such actions in chaotic situations don't just put the well-intentioned citizen at risk, of course. According to Robert McMenomy, an assistant special agent in charge in the San Francisco division of the FBI, they increase the danger for innocent bystanders. (Exhibit A: the gun-wielding guy who came really close to shooting an innocent person as the Tucson massacre unfolded.) They also make it more difficult for law enforcement officers to do their jobs. "In a scenario like that," McMenomy told me in a recent conversation, "they wouldn't know who was good or who was bad, and it would divert them from the real threat."

But no, you have to have the biggest guns possible for black helicopters and blowing up deer and sorry could you repeat that I'm a little distracted by all the blood you're doing your best to ignore while standing on a soapbox made of corpses.

Fuck, just regulate them as much as you do cars, and do something - anything! - to help out the mentally unwell and that would be amazing! That would be genuinely helpful and save a lot of lives down the line!

[Pig Iron]

This from a recent blog post ( http://www.emlitofno...safety.html?m=1 ):

The AAP Policy on Firearm Safety
Might not it be helpful if, coincidentally, the Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention for the American Academy of Pediatrics had just updated their policy statement regarding firearm-related injuries? Indeed, just two months ago, the AAP published an update, featuring a mere 66 citations worth of evidence, rather than politicized talking points.

A couple interesting statistics from their summary:
- The firearm-associated death rate among youth ages 15 to 19 has fallen from its peak of 27.8 deaths per 100 000 in 1994 to 11.4 per 100 000 in 2009.
- However, of all injury deaths of individuals younger than 20 years, still 1 in 5 were firearm related.
- For youth 15 to 24 years of age, firearm homicide rates were 35.7 times higher than in other high-income countries.
- For children 5 to 14 years of age, firearm suicide rates were 8 times higher, and death rates from unintentional firearm injuries were 10 times higher in the United States than other high-income countries.
- The difference in rates is postulated to the ease of availability of guns in the United States compared with other high-income countries.

Their recommendations section seems quite straightforward:
- The most effective measure to prevent suicide, homicide, and unintentional firearm-related injuries to children and adolescents is the absence of guns from homes and communities.
- Health care professionals should counsel the parents of all adolescents to remove guns from the home or restrict access to them.
- Trigger locks, lock boxes, gun safes, and safe storage legislation are encouraged by the AAP.
- Other measures aimed at regulating access of guns should include legislative actions, such as mandatory waiting periods, closure of the gun show loophole, mental health restrictions for gun purchases, and background checks.
- The AAP recommends restoration of the ban on the sale of assault weapons to the general public.

Any chance policymakers might listen to the society of physicians "Dedicated to the health and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults"?

"Firearm-Related Injuries Affecting the Pediatric Population"
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10742344

[D'rek]

MTS, on 22 December 2012 - 07:34 AM, said:

Nationwide, at least 23,000 schools — about one-third of all public schools — already had armed security on staff as of the most recent data, for the 2009-10 school year, and a number of states and districts that do not use them have begun discussing the idea in recent days.

Out of curiosity, has anyone outside the U.S. ever been to a public school that even had security staff, let alone armed security staff?

[HoosierDaddy]

In a school of 4,000+ students you need more than just teachers and administration. That's a small city's worth of young, oftentimes irrationally emotional people.