Slashdot Mirror
Virginia Tech Report Cites Privacy Law Problems
RickRussellTX writes "A panel of Bush administration officials, including several bureau chiefs, concludes that confusing privacy laws contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. The report claims that confusion over student privacy and medical privacy laws "has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""
Or Does that translate as "We're going to review privacy policy" which is bush talk for "We're going to remove any of your rights to privacy under the name of virginia tech and anyone who complaigns is helping the murderers. Just a thought.
I know I'm being very pessimistic, but it's necessary with this goverment, they removed my rights to be anything else.
"has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""
You can't prevent this sort of thing. It really is impossible. Unless, that is, you want to start treating people who haven't committed a crime but seem a bit "different" as criminally insane. But you'd have to lock them up forever, because if you steal someones life and then let them go... well, he'd be more pissed off than ever before - if he even could do something like these shootings you should bet your arse this would trigger it off.
I suspect that the response will be what we can usually expect from pretty much any government though, "this generates bad headlines, "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" generates good headlines regardless of the consequences, therefore we should do the whole think of the children thing to an even greater degree". And if they do remove a large section of privacy from people - especially if they go as far as to interfere with doctor/patient privacy - then you can expect more shootings as people who could have been stopped with help and support are forced back upon themselves.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Complicated privacy laws have left education, health care, and law enforcement officials confused about what they can legally tell one another concerning dangerous and mentally ill people, and that confusion has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech, according to a federal report released today.
Well should everyone who acts a little bit out of the ordinary end up on some list? Should their picture be in every squad car? Sure its easy to say, hey this kid was weird and unstable and someone should have seen it, but people say that about a lot of people. Freedom is dangerous and living in a police / nanny state isnt any safer / more desirable.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
The issue of prohibiting access to firearms is moot - if he hadn't had access to a gun he probably would have used a sword, or a knife, or burned a few buildings down, etc.. The point is, he was dangerous and the only reasonable form of prevention would have been to remove him from society - but the risk of false positives probably means all the hand wringing in the world will not stop another Cho.
For example, linking to a private story that requires registration with the NYTimes could make anyone violent. On the up side, at least it's FREE EXCLUSIVE ONLINE ACCESS!!!
No. Free circulation of guns contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. These kind of things just don't happen in countries that have sane gun laws, privacy laws or not.
c++;
But serotonin is good. . .
o n
http://www.google.com/search?q=columbine+medicati
http://www.google.com/search?q=cho+medication
Agreed. Blaming, even partially, "privacy laws" for this massacre is just plain dishonest.
n g/ )
(if anything, the problem with privacy laws is that they're facing extinction)
Snippets from a news report written shortly after the tragedy:
"A medical examination found that (...) [Cho's] insight and judgment are normal"
"Although Cho's writings were disturbing, mental health professionals say the student's behavior didn't reach the threshold that would have demanded more aggressive intervention."
"You can't do anything unless there's imminent risk that's somewhat foreseeable to take away someone's civil rights"
(source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/student.counseli
Seems clear to me that no sharing of medical information with law enforcement would have helped here.
The first sentence of your post appears not to actually be one, at least I can't find the predicate.
But the reason I'm replying is that you seem to have an omniscient view of how to fix gun violence. You posit unlikely scenarios in place of reasoned argument. I shiver to think what would happen if government tries to "protect" everything and everybody from every imagined danger. Have you heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences?
I'm still marveling over the idea of an "unreloadable-by-the-owner handgun". The Second Amendment aside, how could such a scheme work in, say, New Orleans, where we can't even fix the levees properly as the violence goes up?
Privacy of gun buyers to get weapons of their choice without research into concerns about their mental health raised by medical professionals or an interview that would evaluate their need for this type of gun as well as strength of character necessary for a responsible owner. Farmers can kill, repel or immobilize wild animals by weapons that are not likely to kill humans. Guys living in a remote area and concerned about crime can own one 10-shot revolver which can not be reloaded by the owner. We need privacy laws for people's sex lives or freedom of travel, but privacy of an obviously disturb person to get guns capable of firing hundreds of shots in a killing spree is taking things too far.
i ng and everything else that can be used to make things that kill people. The problem is you don't know who is going to go crazy and want to kill people. How much privacy are you willing to sacrifice? Would it be alright for us to install cameras in your home? Based on your at times unintelligible post, maybe I think your crazy? Perhaps I should call the authorities.
Ya, and then we can do the same thing for diesel and fertilizer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_mcveigh#Bomb
Obtaining guns has nothing to do with "privacy". In fact in a lot of states there is nothing private about it, you have to ask permission to get one, then you tell the state what guns you have. Its a right to self defense granted by the constitution, or at least it was till the supreme court got involved.
And what about the "need" for a gun? What if during your "interview" to get a gun you said you wanted one in case you had to overthrow the government. I suppose we should lock those people up? But that is arguably the reason for the second amendment in the first place.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
is that this is really a VERY rare thing to occur. And yet, it is certain that W. will use this to pry open the laws to allow the feds to see more about us (think patriot act) and he will be backed by both major parties. Few will have the courage to stand up and say that this is lose of rights is not worth the numbers of freak occurrence. And yet, these same ppl will use the argument that 1000's of American lives and 100K of Iraq lives was worth getting rid of Saddam. And overall, America will fall for it. Again. Sadly, we have too many citizens who ignore history elsewhere.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's because the sentence actually starts in the title, and not the body of the post. I hate it when people do that because it's almost always confusing. If you post doesn't deserve a title, maybe it doesn't deserve to be posted at all.
Anyhow, the whole 'unreloadable gun' thing... Wow. What a nightmare. It's hard to think of more dangerous things than a gun that can only be unloaded by firing it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Rule of thumb: when peaceful citizens can't bring guns somewhere, you are fair game to be shot. If only professors were allowed to carry concealed weapons (pending background checks and the usual hoop jumping), Cho wouldn't have squeezed more than a couple shots off before he was taken down. This is the same situation seen over and over (Columbine another good example), when only the bad guys have guns (because law abiding citizens are obeying the law), the bad guys are left unchecked. That's why most mass murders happen in schools and universities, the shooter KNOWS that nobody righteous is going to fire back because they aren't breaking the law by carrying their weapons. Leave it to the gov't to create a problem where innocent citizens die and then try to take their rights away to 'fix' it without ever actually doing so.
Actually, you have it pretty close. It is House, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and other working on a bill in the house to collect medical/mental health records of ALL people, not just gun owners.
see http://tinyurl.com/23cgqn
Yup, a nice large federal database of anyone who has ever had a mental health issue.
So now anyone with a mental health issue who needs help will be forever in a federal database. This will only DISCOURAGE people who need help from seeking treatment.
How will this make us safer??????
PLEASE please please call your congress critter and let them know you appose this...
This is about your rights, stand up for them.
Thank you
You forgot:
1997 called, it wants its Geocities homepage back.
Cho's treatment wasn't tracked or enforced due to Budget constraints. Privacy laws had nothing to do with it. In fact, privacy rights are only an issue now because the state panel panel investigating the tragedy wants access to Cho's records.
In other words, privacy laws only became a sticking point after the fact. Relaxing privacy laws would have done nothing to prevent this tragedy.
Once again Bush hides behind dead bodies to conceal his effort to destroy civil liberties. I swear, this man hasn't a single shred of human decency. Not a shred!!!
One person out of a population of 300 Million decided to go beserk and kill a bunch of people. There is NO WAY you can prevent this kind of thing. Senseless killing has been a fact of life since Adam and Eve. 'Trying' to prevent this sort of thing will only infringe on the freedoms of everybody else in the United States. The Patriot Act has already taken away many freedoms which Congress should never have been so quick to give away. The net result of 9/11 and Virginia Tech will be the elimination of basic freedoms for all Americans under the guise of 'Security' and 'Safety'.
Just to clarify -- are you saying this restriction should be applied to everybody, or only to those who have are diagnosed as mentally disturbed?
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
The idea of an 'unreloadable by the owner' gun is ludicrous. For one thing, how on earth are you going to expect the owner of this 'wonderful' piece of technology to be able to get enough practice to be able to reasonably hit what he needs to? After all, he's only got ten shots before he has to go back to town!
That and, if it's only reloadable by a factory/technician/expensive-and-heavy machine... how do you unload it to render it safe, perhaps for storage? If you're going in to town because you used it to shoot a fox that went into your hen-house, and you fired two rounds, do you just blow off the other 8 (yay, practice!) before driving to town with it?
While guns can indisputably make killing people easier, they are, in the end, merely tools. It's much easier to kill someone with an AMC Gremlin than it is with your bare hands. Sort of. Crazy people are the problem, and a lack of education and control. Many violent firearms-related crimes are committed with weapons that are obtained illegally - you don't think that the gang-bangers pick up their AKs at Wal-Mart after a 10-day waiting period, do you?
Everyone and their brother having access to guns isn't the problem as much as everyone and their brother having access to guns without any education about or respect for them. Belt-fed, 40mm grenade launchers? No, I can't really see any logical reason to have one of these unless you're, you know - the military. Nevermind the fact that I can only imagine the cost of shooting the thing. But it seems to me that there are as many arguments against 'gun control' (say more clearly, gun restriction - because illegal weapons are still every bit as available and out of control) legislation as there are for it. Statistics from both sides can be brought to bear with alarming facility.
But there's one thing we all ought to be able to agree upon: crazy, disturbed individuals are more dangerous than any 'assault weapon'. I can't find a citation at the moment, but a guy in the UK went into a church and killed a bunch of people with a SWORD. Guess he really meant to get all 'old school', but it certainly proves that if you're disturbed, you don't need a gun to commit multiple murder.
Let's ban crazy people! Just don't worry too much about who gets to define what 'crazy' is. Is disagreeing with the current administration's position on the 'war on terror' crazy?
Evolution ceases when stupidity can no longer be fatal.
I'm not a gun person, but if the founding fathers had only had the guns the government deemed that they needed then we wouldn't have one our independence. In this country people have a right to bear arms, and it's not to hunt, it's to form militias if so desired. If we want to change this sort of thing, step 1, is to change or remove the 2nd amendment. Which makes sense because militias are no longer used in law enforcement and there has become such a huge disparity between the stuff the military has and the stuff the populace has that we could never succeed in a revolt against an illegal tyrannical government anyway.
as well as strength of character necessary for a responsible owner.
Wow. You really want to go there? Because I'm pretty sure that having not accepted the flying spaghetti monster as your own personal savior, you don't have the strength of character needed to responsibly do anything important, like vote, or speak freely.
Farmers can kill, repel or immobilize wild animals by weapons that are not likely to kill humans.
a lot of the dangerous wildlife out there is dangerous because it is big enough to be, which often means harder to kill then a human.
A group of Bush administration experts have been given limited press exposure on their
theory that somehow "confusing" privacy laws contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. They claim vaguely that "confusion" over student privacy and medical privacy laws were to blame for "limiting" the ability of officials to prevent the kind of violence that occured at Virginia Tech.
I'm glad I'm not American, because your patriotism is just plain frightening, you may argue that gun control has nothing to do with this, that criminals will always get guns anyway, a lot of idiots will say that it's better to have a gun and not need it than to not have one around when the next maniac strikes.
That is all completely bullshit, when somebody snaps and goes on a rampage, over in the USA they can reach for a gun, if they don't own one they can go and buy one without any problems. Over here the chances of them having a gun in the first place is low, and to get a gun you need to go through a months long process, by that time it would be obvious they're not mentally stable enough to own a gun.
That leaves them with few options, a knife? a really big knife? How many people do you think a person can kill with a knife? Will they be able to blast their way into a room with a knife? I don't think so. It's quite simple really, killing someone with a gun is easier, the body count is lower if there is no gun.
Also I feel much safer walking down the street knowing that nobody around me is carrying any guns, for pretty obvious reasons I would say.
You're not "free" by carrying guns around, you're fucking delusional.
I know this post means nothing, but it sure feels good to rant sometimes.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
I think what this incident reveals is the disastrous state of Mental Health in the United States. Mental illness is poorly understood by the public at large and trying to get access to health care for treatment is very difficult. Cho had many of the symptoms of a major mental illness yet he did not receive proper treatment. If anything his peers and teachers only worsened his condition by isolating him and feeding his paranoia.
Also if a person is eventually diagnosed trying to get the right medication and therapy without health care insurance can be a daunting task. While many of these people need immediate care, applying for public services is a very difficult and long process. Sadly I think this report will not result in a better Mental Health system but rather a system that profiles and stigmatizes those who suffer from mental illness.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Yes ! The lone hero would have shot the crazy gunman, just like in the movies !
On the other hand, if there had been dozens, or hundreds, of terrified and confused people with guns on the campus, the shooter wouldn't have had to shoot anyone himself. Just create a scare and watch everyone shooting anyone else who has drawn their gun (or whom they suspect to have drawn a gun, or might draw a gun).
Nah, even the biggest dolts deserve rights.
The privileges, on the other hand, should be violently amputated.
Yes, the fine article talks about privacy laws. It also states that because of "budget constraints" the state mental health system can't handle the number of patients it needs to handle, with month-long waiting lists for counselling and "local health agencies" that don't follow up on patients. So Cho was a mentally ill man, far away from home, with a possibly history of untreated mental illness for several years.
/. summary is basically the first paragraph about privacy laws? Congratulations in promoting the culture of knee-jerk response!
Also from the article, the state of Virginia never passed on the information that Cho had been "adjudicated as a mental defective" to the "National Instant Check System", but it seems the state was not funded for its part in keeping this system up to date - the proposal is now to fund this activity.
So... all of this in the article, and the resultant
How the hell are you meant to make a ten round revolver??? The thing would be massive, and totally impractical.
kill all the fucking niggers
Ah this is one of those put your feet up, grab some popcorn moments when you watch slashdotters' collective heads asplode as they are compelled to confront their desire for privacy against their other mantra of "information should be free." Of course, some will claim that there is no contradiction, others will tell me that slashdot is not one monolithic think-block, and others will just blame bush. Tell me again why "personal" information should not be "free" as in speech? No really.. i want to know. / citizen of louisiana? your tax dollars are hard at work on ads at slashdot as if somebody will actually choose to relocate to louisiana because of an ad showing two male ends of patch cables coming together.
this is not a blind alley... we emerge from this alley into a place called INSIGHT... of course people who aren't criminals have guns, but a higher gun / owner ratio evidently leads to more gun related violence (well obviously... it's not like owning weapons makes people more placid) Does it really matter if you can get an uzi in germany? Such a weapon has a greater capacity to harm, but in providing any weapon/gun you provide the means to a motive. Relative to other weapons, guns offer an easy way to harm people and hence nutcases etc. are more inclined to use guns (if there weren't guns, would such people act? In using other weapons, such people would be more easily overpowered i.e. less injury/harm to others) The issue of privacy in such a context is (largely) irrelevant - what you are trying to do is stymie a relatively high gun violence trend. more gun control =D
I don't know about you guys, but I plan on getting my retinas replaced now to get a good head start.
How the hell are you meant to make a ten round revolver??? The thing would be massive, and totally impractical.
Not really. Hollywood has be doing it for years.
link
Were the laws really unclear, or were they just "inadequate?"
It's one thing if the laws are unclear or ambiguous. Clarify them so the original intent is clear.
On the other hand if you are trying to "close loopholes" remember those "loopholes" are there for a reason.
If a few dozen deaths every few years is the price for medical privacy for the millions who have mental illnesses, it's worth it.
To put things in perspective, many more people are killed each year by drunk drivers, yet there's no move to ban recovering alcoholics from driving. As any AA member will tell you, tomorrow could be the day they fall off the wagon.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I find it amusing that you think the point of having access to fire-arms is moot. How many people do you think he could have killed with a sword? Let me tell you: One, and he could have injured a couple more. Consider the time and effort it takes to actually kill someone with a sword. It is damned hard.
We had a madman going into a RFSL-clinic (an organisation for the equal treatment of gays and lesbians) and attacking a woman with an axe (she got hit in the head). The woman survived. Do you honestly think she would have been the only victim if he had had access to a handgun of any sort? Do you think she would have survived?
Having access to guns doesn't make a person a murderer. But a murderer with access to firearms (or other kinds of similar weapons, grenades, explosives, poison gas) will be way more effective than one without them.
Also, the old "If everyone had guns they could have defended themselves" NRA-rhetoric is also stupid. Would you have wanted to be in a classroom full of scared kids with handguns when the rumors of a madman going from room to room killing kids gets going? It would be a massacre of biblical proportions of people shooting each other by mistake.
Badgers, we don't need no stinking badgers! - UHF
I certainly don't percieve a large amount of interest in the "freedom" of personal information on slashdot. Here are some ideas I see expressed regularly:
I do not necessarily agree with the above, but these seem to be common ideas in slashdot discussions. There are some people who would disagree with some or all of the above, but that's okay because we're all individuals and we have a forum here to debate these issues!
It barely talked about privacy. More about budget constraints. Little follow up after initial treatment. And short of putting this guy behind bars, I fairly doubt that therapy would have helped this kid.
I really feel for VaTech. I was at Penn State's main campus when some nut went nuts and shot at a bunch of people. Luckily it was done in the biggest open area at PSU (HUB lawn) and it was around 6 AM or so. We (Penn Staters) got lucky. VaTech didn't.
There are privacy laws, but I believe almost all of them if there are indications of suicidal or homicidal behavior in the subject. The article mentioned that this guy had already tried to commit suicide. To me, it seems that overburdened "officials"/"therapists"/whatever just pushed him through the system just to reduce backlog. Of course, there is not a lot of background yet, so.... I dunno.
But why does the Prez and Congress need to get into this? Why, PUBLICITY and PROTECT THE CHILDREN! (asswipes, politicians, not the children) Big national event, now it is time for the useless slugs in DC to mug for the camera. Apparently a whole bunch of different people knew about this wacko, but no one did anything about it. So if they (medical folks) had a big pow-wow, they would have a big "Oh geez, he may need help" ("but is it in the budget")? As if any single one of them couldn't figure out he probably needed a bit more help. You have to have a single point of saying toss him into an institution. Ever watch a trial? 2 shrinks, 1 on each side, opposite opinions. How is communication between groups going to help? They'll spend even MORE time arguing with each other. And probably more for ego than actual disagreements.
Anyway, to summarize, this really has nothing to do with privacy, all about how the health field is overburdened, how the field is pushing poeple through, and all about politicians wanting to puff their chests.
But, hey, just my 1/4 of a hogshead.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
from BOTH sides. Liberty idealists (that never be any intursions in privacy in the name of security, ever) talk like there is a vast conspiracy in the evil government to take away all of your rights. Security idealists (that security trumps all other concerns, even in bizarre cases) talk like everyone walking around with a ball point pen is going to kill dozens.
It's hysteria, from BOTH sides of the issue. It is EQUALLY hysterical to view your own government as a B grade movie plot one dimensional comic book villain as it is to see terrorists and madmen around every corner ready to kill you 9,000 different ways if you don't duct tape all of your windows.
No, the government is not out to turn the world into 1984 Wilbur, really. The government is populated by well-meaning bumbling idiotic bureacrats, not Senator Palpatine and Agent Smith. Although Dick Cheney does need a pencil moustache to twirl with his fingers, but I digress. And no, terrorists and lunatics are not lurking in every airplane and convention center Dorothy, really. The threat of mass mayhem is real but miniscule and rare.
If you talk about these things issue by issue, even the hysterical twits on either end of the spectrum of Liberty/ Security can have some sense talked to them: "Yes, I suppose it makes sense to search airline pasengers before boarding airplanes, and this isn't a vast conspiracy to remove your rights." or "Yes, I suppose it makes sense to detain and prosecute suspects according to well established law and not throw out our entire legal system, and that such suspects aren't going to suddenly turn around and carry a suitcase nuke into Midtown Manhattan."
In other words, common sense prevails (or should prevail, outside the minds of those drowning in FUD). And one of the hallmarks of common sense is that each of us, every day, in big ways and small ways, gives up some Liberty for the sake of Security, and gives up some Security for the sake of Liberty. And each of those ways is a prudent calculation. And each of those calcluations is made by us as individuals AND as a society. And that's ok, and that's no big deal. Really. No FUD, no hysterics, from either extreme. Simple common mundane common sense. Imagine that. Nothing to get your panties in a twist over.
And perhaps, just perhaps, in the SPECIFIC case of Cho, ie, someone with who could be sniffed out via suspicions of his teachers, that there could have been a follow up by some mental health professionals, perhaps a little shaving of those hallmarks of Liberty could have achieved a little more crucial Security... again, in the SPECIFIC case of a college student with some earmarkers of mental illness. NOT the vast sweeping impositions on Liberty floated by some in this case, whether in the report of bumbling and stupid but well-meaning bureaucrat, or in the paranoia-addled fantasies of a LIberty-or-nothing hysteric.
But of course, for saying that simple small thing, you will now see me skewered by the screaming zombie Liberty idealists. You may commence calling me Hitler, of being a Neocon, of desiring us all to be anally raped by Men in Black, and please make sure to trot out that tired old Benjamin Franklin quote, as if it were a flyswatter replacement for simple prudent thought.
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Of course, it's impossible to prove, but it is certainly possible that American independence could've happened without armed revolution.
Is it acceptable to live in a world
where some people go insane ?
or is it better to give up unrestricted and
unsupervised powers to authorities ?
Powers and data
which will be used outside of security scope.
Will later be stollen or
sold to benefit corporations ?
Do you accept
these data to be accessed without your control and consent ?
Also where is the real problem with this shooting ?
Is it restricted communication or
far too easy access to weapons ?
There is no such carnage in europe
because weapons access is more limited.
Do not let confuse yourself.
Weapons lobbies prefer pointing at the lack of communication
instead of pointing at too many weapons in the hands of teens.
And they are backed up by security lobbies
that want more tools to control people.
And they are supported by IT industry
that urge to sell new datamining tools.
People should watch movie (or read comics) "V for Vendetta".
An insightfull story
describing how democracy can shoot at its own privacy
and freedom.
Besides as Coran writes
"We have leaders we deserve".
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
Guns have little to do with motive
No matter how much motivation I might have to shhot someone, I am unlikely to do it because The last time I handled a firearm, I was wering army uniform. I am less likely to be shot becausel ess people around me have guns than I understand is the case in the USA.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Places where you have to try really hard to get guns if you want them? Sadly there are mentally unwell/ emotionally distressed people all over the world but they really shouldn't be able to just walk into a shop and buy lethal weapons. That would reduce a certain percentage of crimes of passion ending up in multiple deaths. It's harder to go on a rampage like that when the most lethal thing your local Wal-Mart sells are chef's knives.
I know you guys are keen to keep hold of guns because the Founding Fathers of your country said it was your right to do so, but times change you know. They were quite happy with the idea of slave ownership, and didn't think women should vote. You've changed your minds on those issues. Really, we (the UK) are not going to come and try and invade any more. We're ok with you running your own country these days. Honest. You don't need a handy militia to stop Prince Charles coming over the horizon at the front of a cavalry brigade....
Jokes aside and my political bias up front, can you get right down to the core of it, why do you think gun ownership is such a big deal? is it the philosophical bed rock identifying characteristic of being an American citizen, or is it just practicality - there are so many million guns in your society that you just couldn't bring them all back in? (or perhaps a combination of the two?)
cheers
That's *only* 300 9/11 attacks, or just over a single work from the Library of Congress per kill. I wonder how many football fields...
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
> You can't prevent this sort of thing. It really is impossible.
You can prevent it if you know its cause. Unfortunately it is hard to make people understand something when their jobs depend on not understanding it.
I can't find a citation at the moment, but a guy in the UK went into a church and killed a bunch of people with a SWORD.
Here you go.
After a school in Russia was attacked by terrorists in 2004, Putin announced he would implement measures that would directly prevent another such tragedy from occurring: He changed election laws so that he would appoint regional governors directly instead of letting people vote for them! Problem solved?
... But speaking seriously, in order to prevent America from becoming like non-Soviet Russia, we must watch carefully what reforms are suggested in this case.
Sooo, at least Bush hasn't done that, yet.
Video (link to part 1):8 38285177
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=881321004
Torrent:
http://torrentreactor.net/view.php?id=788304
Download & Streams, various bitrates:
http://greylodge.org/gpc/?p=81
Regarding the last link:
HTTP download of 3 x 1GB+ files? Go get 'em, slashdotteres!
I lost my sig.
Highly unlikely, especially for that day and age. Remember, true modern democracy was practically unheard of, and what the Founding Fathers were doing was considered treasonous at the time. It wasn't the 20th or 21st century, where democracy was expected and encouraged.
Thank you for not posting AC for this unintelligent drivel, so you could be properly modded down.
Try going back and maybe getting some education on guns before you do this again, it would do you and everyone else a favor. Guns cause such an emotional reaction from both sides of the aisle that it becomes VERY hard to have intelligent discussions on the matter.
1. Gunman comes to your location and squuezes off a few rounds.
2. Random student A sees this happens.
3. Random student B is around the corner and only hears it happen.
4. In the name of pubic service random student A whips out his large caliber hand gun and squeezes off a shot at the Gunman, wounding him/her
5. Random student B now comes around the corner with guns drawn and sees both Gunman and Random Student A with smoking handguns in their hands, and the Gunman suffering from a wound.
Questions:
1. Who does Random student B shoot at?
2. Whats sort of lawsuit would Random Student B face for killing Random Student A?
3. Students A and B are teenagers. How excitable are teenagers?
4. How does the response scale up from 1 Gunman and 2 Random Students, to 1 Gunman and 50 Random students running around with guns? Note that the majority of the students will be acting independently, but multiple students acting together has been a tactic used in a previous school shooting.
5. What does law enforcement do when confronted with this situation? (Hint: See question 2)
6. Given studies have shown that even trained soldiers can have trouble firing at living humans, why should non-military trained civilians suddenly be able to throw aside all qualms about doing so? Or should first person shooter games be required study when getting a gun license?
7. Assuming that all people now carry guns to protect against rare forms of crime (ie school shootings), how will turning all civilians into people wth no qualms about killing change society? In your reply compare/contrast shootings with other more common forms of anti social behaviour such as "road rage'.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Seriously, what is more important? Power that is granted through a judge (and thus can be taken away at any moment), or power that you give yourself? The founding fathers knew this, which is why we have the 2nd amendment. Now, in today's digital age, I think we need better privacy laws, but not at the expense of the 2nd amendment.
The fact of the matter is that when Cho went to the gun store and they ran the *required* background check on him, the background check came up clean. It *did not* say that he had mental health problems, but it should have. This was a loophole that even the NRA supports fixing: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19209310/.
I wish that we lived in a world where people sometimes realized that hey...there is no one SINGLE reason that those shootings happend.
It is impossible (or at least complete stupidity) to blame any one thing or person over another. It was a large combination of mistakes made by a very large number of people. It's not like "Oh, if only this [insert one thing here] had been done differently those kids would be alive!"
No, you fucking cunt-scabs. It was a lot of people making a lot of mistakes. You can't blame any one person or any one thing.
Living With a Nerd
What protects freedom of speech (and all the other rights)?
t m
In Mao's words, power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees an INDIVIDUAL right to "keep and bear arms" basically to prevent the government from having too much power over individuals.
Oh, as for gun control lowering crime? One is a helluva lot more likely to be robbed or assaulted in London than one is even in the worst parts of DC or Detroit. And never mind the number of home break-ins documented to happen in the UK. That doesn't happen in the US that often - because the crooks know there's a really good chance they'll get their ass shot. And last I looked, the murder rate in Ireland (no guns) was higher than the murder rate in the US.
Oops. Sorry to deflate your vision with facts.
There's no cross-societial evidence that correlates levels of gun ownership with crime rates, or even shootings. Guns are quite prevalent in Switzerland, for example. How about Finland?
Here's some real numbers for you to chew on:
http://www.uncjin.org/Statistics/firearms/index.h
One does wonder what ever happened the that "final study" that commission was supposed to produce, oh, about 8 years ago.
Do you think maybe it got swept under the rug because it didn't support the "guns cause crime" knee-jerk reactionaries?
Of course you can kill people by other means. But not in these numbers. Ever tried to murder 40 people with an axe or a kitchen knife? Does not sound to probable, does it. People can fight back successfully against other weapons, they can gang-up on the weapon wielders, police can immediately go in to stop the attackers (they have guns after all) and it takes real effort to kill somebody with other weapons.
Guns make it possible for people without commando-training to kill a lot of others in a short time and with little effort. Because of this amplification property, guns are direcly responsible for, say, 80%-90% of the deaths in mass shootings. Maybe more. This fact is conveniently glossed over by the gun nuts. Sure, "Not guns kill people, people do". Exactly right. But guns make it far, far to easy to do it in the large.
Of course guns are not the only problem. If you marginalize a large part of your population, many will kill themselves, and some will just decide not to go alone. There is a price to pay for dropping those that have bad luck or are not too capable like trash, as US society does.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
his thoughts represent the victory of prudence and moderation over FUD and hysteria
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you look at the reelection rates in the US, you'll find that they're north of 90% in most years, dropping to about 85% in "contested" years. The vast majority of legislators in the House of Representatives and the Senate have been there for decades. These people know that they're *not* going to be voted out.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
No offense, but just because your friend likes to play armchair-shrink while conducting job interviews, doesn't mean he's more qualified to diagnose schizophrenia than professional psychiatrists with years of experience.
If multiple psychiatrists saw nothing wrong with a person, and only to your miracle friend it was obvious that it's schizophrenia... well, maybe it doesn't mean that it's the psychiatrists who are wrong. I am willing to accept that maybe one professional was wrong, but that multiple professionals were all wrong and an armchair-shrink immediately puts his finger on it in 5 minutes... sorry, that's already the realm of bad fiction. Maybe your friend shold just drop the delusions of grandeur and leave psychiatry to those actually qualified to practice it.
In particular, you're telling me there that your friend knows nothing about clinical depression, if being unfocused is his grand clue that it must be schizophrenia. I also doubt that anyone would actually say "sshhh, I'm talking to the voices in my head" in a job interview (though they might say it between friends as a joke). Your friend most likely saw someone who _is_ genuinely depressed and, as the case usually is in clinical depression, overwhelmed by dark and depressing thoughts, and invented the whole "ah, he's talking to the voices in his head" explanation himself.
Schizophrenia is a complex thing, there are several flavours of it, and there's a _continuum_ between perfectly normal and raging lunatic. There is no clear line like, say, diagnosing whether someone has a flu or not.
Unlike presented by movies and armchair-shrink trolls, schizophrenia isn't a clear-cut state where someone sees green aliens and talks to 5 different voices in their head. There are whole flavours of it which don't involve delusions or halucinations at all, and conversely there are people with an over-active imagination or with a tendency for hyperfocus, which aren't schizophrenic at all.
Some of the definitions or "symptoms" popular with wannabe armchair-shrinks aren't even related to real schizophrenia. E.g., multiple personality disorder, while pretty much a synonim with schizophrenia in popular culture, isn't even related to actual schizophrenia. (And it's something that's (A) only likely to manifest under extreme stress, if at all, and (B) so rare that even among psychiatrists a lot doubt that MPD even exists at all, because they haven't met a real MPD case in a lifetime.)
And there's a reason it takes more than 5 minutes at the psychiatrist. You must actually determine whether someone is indeed delusional (for the flavours which indeed have a delusional component), _or_ if there's some other problem with them (e.g., depression, as your friend found out), _or_ if they're just a little eccentric but otherwise relatively normal. Just because someone is a little unfocused in one day, it can just mean they had a bad day.
So basically, just tell your friend to stick to whatever he's actually qualified to do.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
H. Clinton with the powers of the Patriot Act, unitary executive, whatever, is the biggest nightmare of the right in Congress. This has been pointed out already in pundit-land. Not sure what will come of it. Probably some legislation before January 2009!
That's right, keep using peoples deaths as reasoning to push your agenda.
Go die in a fire.
privacy law does not kill people, GUNS do...
From http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-c rime-murders-per-capita
Murders per capita:
#24 United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
[...]
#55 Ireland: 0.00946215 per 1,000 people
"One is a helluva lot more likely to be robbed or assaulted in London than one is even in the worst parts of DC or Detroit"
Stats on this please? Can I confirm, your statement is "the number of people robbed or assaulted in any part of London is higher than in any given part of Washington DC, or Detroit"?
Hmmm..... I take it you are not too familiar with the diversity that is London? I'd be surprised if the crime figures for Kew Gardens or Chelsea are the same as for 'the worst parts of DC'. I'd be interested to see a comparison of the worst parts of the UK vs the worst parts of the USA. I think they will probably be similar. Your hypothesis is that the level of gun ownership in DC and Detroit leads to a lower robbery and assault rate than in London?
I'd say for a decent piece of research we need to find a place where gun laws have changed and see what happens. Easier to make a stronger conclusion than picking different countries where different cultural issues may come into play. Take the shooting in Dublane in Scotland where a lunatic got into a primary school and killed some children. The UK reaction was that all pistols should be banned - even our Olympic pistol shooting team then had to train in another country. A very different reaction to the shootings in Columbine where we heard some US commentators responded that the solution was to arm all teachers. One poster has noted that gun crime levels are very different in Canada and the USA but ownership levels are similar. Suggests cultural factors may play a role to me.
Going back to London, in the turn of the 20th century, police would only come into East London in pairs carrying shotguns. Having lived in a so-called "dangerous" part of London for ten years (Hackney) I can only give you my own witness, that I have seen individual police walking around and without firearms. So something's changed in the last 100 years.
Regarding Mao's statement - I always find it ironic that right wing Americans hold dear Mao's sayings (though to be fair it shows an open mindedness) - and maybe it raises the question - do all countries with more limiting gun laws than the USA therefore count as dictatorships with an essentially powerless people in your eyes? How do you explain the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe which brought down the Soviet Union in the late 80s and early 90s? The USSR could have sent the tanks in but decided not to - the unarmed people won against military might. Read up on "The Singing Revolution".
Kind regards.
I was under the impression some nutjob with a gun was responsible. Viva La Bush! for showing me the light!
No sig for you!!
The instant case isn't really about run of the mill crime. It's about nutjobs intent on doing major damage. In that line, the biggest mass murder in the modern-day U.S. was carried out by pouring a fairly small amount of gasoline on the steps at the walk-up entrance of a firetrap of a nightclub in NY. It was 1990 at the Happy Land club and the arsonist who killed 87 people was Julio Gonzalez.
Properly, then, we shouldn't even be concerned about "crime"; we should be concerned about nutjobs. I haven't actually read the legislation, but based on the news reports that the recent gun control legislatiion will provide some money to make sure that nutjobs actually get put in the instant-check database, I have to say I support this particular gun control bill.
Never in a million years did I ever think I would say I supported any gun control bill. Wow. Live and learn.
Okay, calm down, relax, take a deep breath. Making a database of all the mental health adjudications, while certainly not desirable, != making a database of everyone who's ever received mental health treatment. This applies to people who have been declared to require mental health assistance by the courts, not Joe Blow who goes to see his therapist once a week.
What I find most troubling is that they intend to create a Federal database of ALL THE CRIMINAL CASES in the U.S. Anybody here ever fought a traffic ticket in court? Anybody here ever been cited for disorderly conduct, or public drunkenness, or disturbing the peace? Did anybody fight those charges instead of settling out of court?
Well, now the Federal government will know about it.
Let's ignore the fact that he had suicidal comments where a judge ordered him to go in for outpatient treatment. This was 2 years before the incident but there's no mention of that. Privacy is an issue, when you have 5 or 6 points where people were saying "he was crazy" but no one is able to connect those dots because everyone is afraid to violate the student's privacy that's an issue.
Privacy advocates can pretend that it doesn't matter but it does. This is a case where it could have been stopped long before it got to this level, but instead because people were afraid of violating the student's rights to privacy and getting one of these groups coming down on them, they instead they felt like they were forced to say nothing. That seems like a perfect solution.
That's why violence (unlike sex) on TV is OK - - it keeps everyone frightened. Sex might distract everyone and keep them buying plastic $hit at WalMart to keep our consumption-based economy afloat.
You know, with all the stats that get thrown around in these debates the one I'd really like to see is violent death per capita vs. population density in societies (controlled for socio-economic status) with both strict and lenient gun control laws.
It always bothers me when people bring up the low rate of violent crime in Canada with lots of guns, or the high crime rate in London with few guns. Hasn't sociology pretty well established that poor densely populated areas are universally more dangerous than middle class sparsely populated areas?
It doesn't even seem to me that it would be a study that would be too hard to do, but then again the outcome isn't obvious so it probably wouldn't get funded. And maybe that is the real point - neither the NRA nor the Brady backers know whether guns contribute to crime rates or death, and they'd rather keep getting donations to trot out slanted studies.
(apologies if this data is actually represented in the parent's link It doesn't look like it to me, but I'm paging though again now - does anyone have an executive summary?)
It seems like I owe you an apology. Sorry, old chap. I must confess that I read it pretty supperficially to start with, and, not being a native English speaker or even in an English speaking country, I had no clue what a Public Defender is. My fault, really. I should have googled it instead of just going with a (wrong) assumption.
That said, I only used the MPD example as just an example of one thing non-trained people call "schizophrenia" when it's not even related. But, again, that was just a random example. I didn't say your friend's clients had that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Yes, but how many armed robberies were commited with other weapons? Knives? Swords? Bats? Hand? etc?
Armed robbery is a really bad example for arguing that guns don't matter. It's far easier to defend yourself against someone with a melee weapon than someone with a gun -- just stay out of range. Honestly, if someone threatened bank teller with a knife, it would just be a matter of running away while the person tries to climb over the counter instead of having to freeze and instantly obey the person who could take your life with little more than the pull of a trigger.
Furthermore, how do you hold a whole bank hostage? With guns, you wander in and threaten to shoot anyone who moves. With clubs and knives, everyone just runs. Worse, it's easier for you to be taken down by skilled individuals or an angry crowd throwing things. With a gun, everyone has to listen to you or risk death without you having to take a single step.
Convenience store robbery is even more funny. There's all kind of impediments to physical assault in the form of counters and racks of goods that don't matter much when you hold a gun up to eye level that make robbing a store with a sword much harder. I mean, we've all seen amusing videos of robbers letting their guard down with a gun and getting wrestled down by tough clerks, and there's a lot less to hold back someone from defending theirselves when grabbing a weapon no longer means that it might be wrestled into a position to pull a trigger and kill you. I know *I'd* grab a sword being pointed at me long before I'd grab a gun.
Really, your argument is so silly that if I accused a gun advocate of believing it, I'd be guilty of making a straw man. Guns make certain kinds of robbery possible.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
So basically they are using the VT shootings as an excuse to further erode our privacy.
This is their modus operandi. Take advantage of a crisis that inspires fear to try to get legislation passed that removes the rights and/or privacy of Americans.
Too add to that: it wouldn't be as if crazy people haven't used other methods that were equally or more destructive. Yes, a guy with a gun is worse than a knife, etc... but what about a bomb?
How about if Mr. Nutcase decides he's going to find some instructions online, then grab a bunch of fertilizer and make a little home-made explosives, then plant them near a gas pipe or something else in a building full of those he dislikes (or a random target, insane people don't make rational decisions after all). Would that be better or worse than guns?
While I don't agree with reducing the privacy of ordinary citizens, it wouldn't be a terrible thing to have better tabs on those that are diagnosed as mentally unsound+dangerous, denying them firearms and perhaps monitoring them for purchases of large amounts of explosive-potential material. The problem with that is that the government would then likely be happy to have some pet freuds declare anyone who doesn't agree with their policies as "mentally unstable"
Nearly all congressmen have supported this issue, both Democrats and Republicans alike. Even the NRA has supported this so-called "gun control" bill. This should be a very clear sign to everyone that this bill has nothing to do limiting guns. It all about building a national database of medical records.
The only congressman that has publicly been apposed to this bill is Ron Paul. He has called it unconstitutional.
Nothing new here... another example of congress over-reacting to a problem they cannot fix.
-AC
A1. No one. It's my opinion that when confronted with this situation RS B will either save his own skin or (at most) call 911 from his cell. You don't normally see people running to join in a bar fight and those folks have all had a couple of drinks and aren't using deadly force against each other ;-)
Q2. Whats sort of lawsuit would Random Student B face for killing Random Student A?A2. That depends on whether a reasonable person exercising due care would have killed RS A. If RS A had his gun pointed in RS B's direction it would be reasonable for RS B to fire.
Q3. Students A and B are teenagers. How excitable are teenagers?A3. Now we've moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. Who's proposed arming teenagers?
Q4. How does the response scale up from 1 Gunman and 2 Random Students, to 1 Gunman and 50 Random students running around with guns? Note that the majority of the students will be acting independently, but multiple students acting together has been a tactic used in a previous school shooting.A4. In the stated example multiple = 2 and 2 != 50.
Q5. What does law enforcement do when confronted with this situation? (Hint: See question 2)A5. Slightly More Obvious Hint: Most likely what they've been trained to do.
Q6. Given studies have shown that even trained soldiers can have trouble firing at living humans, why should non-military trained civilians suddenly be able to throw aside all qualms about doing so? Or should first person shooter games be required study when getting a gun license?A6. This directly contradicts the argument you present in Q1. Having actually been a trained solder and actually fired a weapon at another person I'd say that the scenario in Q6 is considerably more likely to occur than the one in Q1. Ever taken a college-level course in logic? ;-)
Q7. Assuming that all people now carry guns to protect against rare forms of crime (ie school shootings), how will turning all civilians into people wth no qualms about killing change society? In your reply compare/contrast shootings with other more common forms of anti social behaviour such as "road rage'.Again, the parent poster might benefit from a course in critical thinking. There's no basis for the argument that just because someone defends themself or someone else that we've turned "all civilians into people wth no qualms about killing". That's such a leap of logic I'm not even gonna entertain it - which makes the road rage question moot.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Just to drop an example, it is practically impossible to float a serious policy question along the lines of "should the federal government tax the income of individual citizens?".
Should the federal government abolish habeus corpus and hold people including U.S. citizens without trial for years? Should the federal government invade countries for no reason? Should the federal government be listening to your phone calls all day and reading your emails? Should the federal government take your political affiliation into account when deciding whether or not to prosecute you, or a corporation's political contributions into account when approving or denying its merger or acquisition? Should the federal government allow its officers to refuse to testify before Congress, or direct them to lie and obfuscate in their testimony? Should the federal government double its expenses by shedding its workers and rehiring them as contractors from politically connected companies? Should the federal government be elected in court? Should the federal government fund a war every year with an emergency supplemental borrowed from China? Should the federal government allow its corporate patrons to withhold vital resources like electricity from states with unfriendly voters? etc etc. I have to get to work. Geez next to all this stuff, the War on Drugs, the FCC censorship, and the income tax look like old hallowed traditions.
Oh well, your UK sword guy wounded 17 people and didn't kill anyone, least of all anyone smart enough to run like crazy when they see something like this happening. Sounds like those British have some good laws regarding weapon possession, although perhaps they should also be extended to swords.
:-)
The idea of an 'unreloadable by the owner' gun is ludicrous. For one thing, how on earth are you going to expect the owner of this 'wonderful' piece of technology to be able to get enough practice to be able to reasonably hit what he needs to? After all, he's only got ten shots before he has to go back to town!
He will be able to get a similar gun without armor restrictions to practice on a shooting range, under supervision of armed guards who make sure he doesn't harm others and returns it back.
That and, if it's only reloadable by a factory/technician/expensive-and-heavy machine... how do you unload it to render it safe, perhaps for storage? If you're going in to town because you used it to shoot a fox that went into your hen-house, and you fired two rounds, do you just blow off the other 8 (yay, practice!) before driving to town with it?
Hey, aren't you supposed to be a nerd? I am sure that if you are willing to accept the concept of not being able to just come to your workplace with hundreds of rounds and lock-and-load, you can come up with a good solution to this additional problem. Let say you still insert and remove a clip of ammo into the gun, but each chamber in the magazine is fused shut after a shot is fired. Certainly experienced weapon engineers would be able to create a good solution.
That, and if wildlife is your legitimate concern - you actually own a farm - you can get a weapon without ammo restrictions but, as much as reasonable, less likely to be fatal to humans. Pellet guns, tranquilizer darts and small caliber bullets come to mind.
But it seems to me that there are as many arguments against 'gun control' (say more clearly, gun restriction - because illegal weapons are still every bit as available and out of control) legislation as there are for it.
Are you saying if there are 1 million unrestricted guns in the country, it's quite as easy to get one illegally - say by breaking into a random house and searching for one - as if there are 20 million?
Belt-fed, 40mm grenade launchers? No, I can't really see any logical reason to have one of these unless you're, you know - the military.
Well, at least we agree that the idea of an armed LA gang overthrowing city government somehow sounds less appealing than glorious revolutions of the past
it becomes VERY hard to have intelligent discussions on the matter.
Do you think our discussions on slashdot would become more intelligent if we were all in the same room and holding guns?
You can do stuff like this with TinyURLs, so we at least have a clue where you're sending us. The regex used for their redirect just ignores everything after the last /.
Oh yeah, it didn't. The school should have been evacuated after the first shootings.
The second wave contained the most deaths.
School is to blame, not privacy laws.
Also, VA should reinstate conceal carry on campus so students can protect themselves. Everyone is a sitting duck.
How about limiting gun control first instead of this stupid law? Oh wait it's in the ruddy "well past it's sell by date" constitution. To everyone living outside America (and probably many Americans) it's blindly obvious why America has proportionality so many gun massacres.
I agree with your point about the firearm being an effective tool for killing, but the weapon is ONLY a tool. It is the ruthless intent and disrespect for human life of the person wielding it that makes it deadly.
" . . . guns are direcly responsible for, say, 80%-90% of the deaths in mass shootings."
Do you honestly BELIEVE that? Read those words a few times and really think about it for a minute. Guns are inanimate objects without free will or autonymous motives. Associating them with the concept of "responsibility" makes absolutely no sense. The person or people using the guns are responsible for 100% of the deaths in mass shootings. This isn't "glossing over" anything, it's a statement of fact.
If you want to do something constructive to address this problem, support the candidacy of Ron Paul for president. Go to the meetup web site to find a group near you.
Give me a f*cking break.
We would definitely be a heck of a lot more careful about what we said.
there has become such a huge disparity between the stuff the military has and the stuff the populace has that we could never succeed in a revolt against an illegal tyrannical government anyway.
The US Military's record when it comes to fighting against guerrilla forces in foreign countries is abysmal. Remember Vietnam, the current Iraq war, even Afghanistan could be going better. If the US Military cant handle these small countries how do you think it would do against a guerrilla force of millions of its own people?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
In the same way that if the odds are acceptable, I'm willing to increase my odds of dying from X to >X for the privilege of driving, if the odds are acceptable I'm willing to increase my chances of getting shot by a kook for the privilege of knowing that if I or any of my family become mentally ill we will still have privacy.
It's a numbers problem:
If a high number of people will benefit from privacy and a low number of deaths will result, then privacy wins.
If a low number of people will benefit from privacy and a high number of people will die as a result, then privacy will be sacrificed.
It's also a political problem:
Who gets to decide how low is low enough and how high is high enough?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
s/guns/availability of guns/
There. Pretty obvious what I meant, I would say.
Furthermore my argument is not about moral responsibility, but about creation of a capability. Gun aavailability creates the capability for relatively easy to do mass shootings.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Take HIPPA for example.
In order to get my employer-subsidized insurance, I have to waive my HIPPA rights. (Why is this even possible?) The insurance company can thus do damn near anything with my most private health information. I think they could post it on the front page of their web site, bulk mail it to everybody, and so on. At the very least, they could leave it on a password-free server for every employee to see.
Meanwhile...
My kids can't examine my records for inheritable defects.
My wife can't ask about the billing records.
My wife can't ask about STD treatment.
People living with me can't ask about tuberculosis.
This is absurd. The law hurts people more than it helps them.
Colloquialism
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!