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Connecticut Groups Cancels Plan to Destroy Violent Games
An anonymous reader writes with an update to an earlier story about a group wanting to destroy your violent video games. "Southington, a town in Connecticut, has canceled its plans to collect and destroy violent games, stating that it has already succeeded in raising attention."
Perhaps the real reason: "Backed by the Southington Chamber of Commerce, SouthingtonSOS originally planned to offer citizens $25 gift certificates in exchange for their violent games, films, and CDs, which the group would collect for 'permanent disposal.'"
not helping the mentally ill can be their new top priority.
$25 to get rid of your old shooters? Man, they're a better trade-in deal than anyone else around. Plus, they're getting rid of e-waste! How thoughtful!
Give them your Call of Madden 2011 and 2012, then go buy Call of Madden 2013.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Where else am I going to get $25 for my copy of Duke Nukem Forever?
Maybe there's some hope for us after all.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
1. Announce intent to do something attention-gathering.
2. Revel in the reporting.
2. Announce cancelation.
Cost: Zero.
Disclaimer: Lifetime NRA member(it was half price!).
I'm currently pissed at the NRA for pointing the finger at violent media, though they had a point if they'd restricted it to the *news*. Specifically, the making of the shooter into a celebrity, the digging into their life, etc...
I also happen to think our support structure for the mentally ill is horribly broken and needs to be fixed. End the war on drugs, actually combat poverty, treat the sick and we'd be more like Switzerland - awash with guns, but very little crime, not just 'little gun crime'.
I don't read AC A human right
> SouthingtonSOS originally planned to offer citizens $25
> gift certificates in exchange for their violent games
which would have caused a spike in sales on cheap old games at GameStop the day before the event and accomplished nothing else.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Think they'll be mad if I put Pride and Prejudice up that it causes suicidal thoughts in young women?
If you're training to use a gun in self-defense, what exactly do you think you should be shooting at?
I presume the police also 'glorify killing', since they shoot at human-shaped targets too?
Disclaimer: Lifetime NRA member(it was half price!).
I am a gun owner, but I would never join the NRA, and I am disgusted that they are so often considered to represent all gun owners. They have taken positions on drug prohibition, censorship, "precrime", and other issues that are appalling. They may be pro-gun, but they are certainly not pro-freedom. I believe in the 2nd amendment, but I believe in the rest of our constitution as well.
You might also be pissed at the NRA for polarizing the issue so badly. By refusing to compromise on anything at all, they really invite criticism. I'm a liberal. I really don't want to take away your guns. Hearing them constantly bleat that I'm out to get them makes their side look bad. Were I less logical, I might question the sanity of that whole side of the debate.
Fortunately, I am more logical than that. Unfortunately, many people are not, and many liberals I've talked to are, if anything, driven to be anti-gun because of how ferocious the NRA is.
I can't really take issue with the program as they would have implemented it.
But you should take issue with it, because it is anti-science, and it is diverting the public's attention from the real issues. There is NO evidence that violent video games cause real life violence, and there is at least a correlation between video games and lower violence. This may be because teenagers are spending more time at home playing games, and less time on the street, joining gangs and getting in trouble. They would probably be doing more good if they handed out games rather than collecting them. If they are allowed to do this without protest, people will assume that their pseudo-science is actually legitimate.
Given that it is a major pain in the butt to get an assault rifle already ... you do realize this requires an expensive federal permit to even own one? They are effectively already banned.
The current bans being discussed are trying to go further and ban things that are not assault rifles, but merely "look scary".
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
I typically shoot at lined/bullseye targets.
I don't need to get off killing a pretend person, I just want to see how accurate I am.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Actually, it has prevented many. But usually they are dismissed. For example, off duty cop, or in the case of the "security guard" at the church. Who was merely a citizen who had a carry permit, and due to some concerns had volunteered at the church. (Essentially, what I used to do.)
No, there are many cases. But you'll almost never hear them in the news, cause they do not fit the agenda.
That, and the perpetrator is usually taken out before it can become a "massacre".
The NRA is a gun industry lobby posing as a gun owner lobby.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
...except for the recent shooting in Oregon, where the shooter turned his gun on himself after a civilian with concealed carry pointed his gun at the shooter. (and chose not to shoot due to people behind the shooter) Funny the news never reported it that way.
on that same logic, Neither has there been any mass shootings using automatic weapons yet they talk about them non stop everytime a crazy person goes crazy.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Did they also explain to you that 61 of the last 62 mass shootings took place in "gun free zones" I know crazy that law abiding citizens would follow the laws that a crazy person would ignore.
so again, how will outlawing XX stop anything when it already is shown that gun free zones are criminal welcome zones?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
That's an idiotic statistic in and of itself, without knowing why.
You are significantly more likely to harm/kill someone you know, full stop.
That's simply because, there's usually a trigger event, and that will usually involve people, and you deal more regularly, and have more time to build up animosity (to the tipping point) with people you know.
The only thing that statistic is useful logic for, is preventing anyone from knowing anyone else.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/422728/20130110/sandy-hook-violent-games-biden-southington-censorship.htm
"Ferguson said that destroying games carried a "real risk":
"Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware you are trying to do what you think is best," said Ferguson "but there is real risk in focusing people's attention on the wrong thing, as well as contributing to historical patterns of 'moral panic' that tend to surround new media.
"I'm very appreciative of the sincerity of your group, but at the same time I've been concerned about some of your public statements linking video games to bullying and youth aggression which do not accurately reflect the science," Ferguson continued. "As a scientist, when we see that someone is saying something that isn't scientifically true, ethically we're supposed to take some time to try and speak with them and point that out to them...I've done a number of peer-reviewed articles myself on the topic, and have found no evidence linking video game violence to bullying or any other forms of youth aggression or violence.""
By refusing to compromise on anything at all, they really invite criticism. I'm a liberal. I really don't want to take away your guns.
You seem to make the mistake that anything up to but not including outright confiscation is A-OK. You see it time and time again on the mainstream media, they're proposing registration, bans on production, bans on transfer, extra taxes, etc. Under many of the laws the next generation won't even ever have the guns we have in the first place making taking them away impossible, but as long as it's not outright confiscation they slyly say "We're not trying to take your guns away." as if you're acting paranoid.
The 2nd amendment says "Shall not be infringed.", not "Your guns shall not be taken away.".
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Despite the many gun owners and lobbying (bribing) NRA group, self-defense hasn't prevented a single massacre
But it has prevented ~300,000 individual massacres, rapes, robberies, etc. Per year. That's based on various poll-based research efforts into defensive gun use. (The noteworthy studies seem to range from 80k to 2.6 million, but ~300k or so seemed most credible to me when I was doing some light research into the issue.)
On top of the known cases (which, admittedly, we don't know exactly how they would have turned out in the absence of a firearm), the implicit threat of firearm availability has probably saved many more lives, such as women who fear their violent exes or homeowners in crime-prone areas. And of course, the implicit threat of protracted civil revolt is a deterrent to cases of outright tyranny (i.e., Nazi Germany, communist China, Soviet Russia) that have a habit of killing millions, not just twenty.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Bullshit http://youtu.be/Mm9o3vhKoF8 And in Israel a school shooting was stopped by an armed student that killed the gunman. How about you stop being a fucking idiot and learn some factual information?
Just watch out for the eight-year-old white girl in the middle of the ghetto with quantum physics books.
She's about to start some shit.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
That is perfect example of confirmation bias. Crimes get reported prevention of crime does not.
How do you know? Do you have a parallel universe machine that lets you see what would have happened in all the cases in which someone did use a gun in self defense if they had not done so?
Ten seconds of looking gives me:
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=8378732&nav=menu549_2
- man starts shooting in a bar containing 300 people. 2 people die before he is shot by a civilian. Somehow you know that even though he was reloading when he was shot he wasn't going kill enough more people for you to call it a massacre?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/10/colorado.shootings/index.html
- man has already killed 4 and is shot by a a lady who was volunteering as security at her church (so not quite a random bystander, but still a civilian carrying their private weapon). You know he wasn't going to kill anyone else, he brought 1000 rounds of ammunition for no reason at all.
Tanks are arms. A10 gunships are arms. Chemical and biological weapons are arms. Nuclear weapons are arms. No one seriously disputes the fact that we get to infringe on bearing arms, the question is only where to draw the line. Why do you insist that semi-automatic weapons must not be infringed but not tanks and nukes?
An assault rifle by definition has selectable fire, e.g. the ability to go fully automatic. And are already illegal (except for the government and certain gun manufacturers). The federal permit is required to own guns with barrels shorter than 16" that are not a handguns. What the recent proposed legislation wants to ban is things that merely look like assault rifles as the OP said.
Murders are committed about twice as often by unarmed people (e.g. strangulation, kicking, punching) as they are with rifles. Murders are committed with blunt objects (hammers, clubs) about 20% more than they are with rifles. Automobile fatalities occur at a rate of three times that of firearms homicides.
Clearly gun control will solve this problem, right?
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/03/FBI-More-People-Killed-With-Hammers-and-Clubs-Each-Year-Than-With-Rifles
The "you're more likely to kill x with a gun" arguments always fall on their face when you take a closer look.
For example, a woman using her weapon against an abusive boyfriend is far more likely to happen than her using it against a robber, mainly because a robber is less likely to attack her than her boyfriend (the robber prefers to wait until nobody is home.) There, she used it against somebody she knew. But is there anything wrong with it? Absolutely not, that scenario goes in FAVOR of owning firearms, but the gun control lobby instead lumps it into a statistic going against owning them.
This would also apply to e.g. a relative or neighbor attempting to abduct one of your kids. Your neighbor is somebody you know. Women and kids are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by somebody they know than a complete stranger. Your house is far more likely to be burglarized by somebody you know than a complete stranger.
Have you ever wondered why that statistic you throw around doesn't say anything about justifiable homicide? It's because the gun control lobby wants people to blindly follow them. Take ALL statistics with a grain of salt because they almost never tell the entire story, they're often thrown out with the sole purpose of persuasion, and therefore are inherently biased.
Even the above statistics I threw up above are biased, because they only include rifles (but to be fair, rifles are what the politicians are trying to ban.)
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Which some people seem to think is okay. Yet one reason this right exists is to allow us to protect ourselves from our government. And as our government has no limits on their available firepower, I resent any limitations on what I can have. This applies perpetually. If phasers get invented, the government will have them so I better be able to have them. Otherwise I will be unable to defend myself from the government and eventually that is something they will use against me.
I hear this a lot, and I have all my life, but I still don't know that it's true. The actual text, and the background of how the second amendment was introduced and implemented, it doesn't appear like this is the case.
Minute-men had a huge impact and militias were 100% vital in the USA coming into existence, but the second amendment was written to keep the USA in existence. They wanted a well-regulated milita (a well-trained, armed force) to be able to bear arms to protect the security of a free State (essentially, the ability to train, and be called on, to protect the USA.)
I'm not against the idea that a little rebellion now and again is good for a state, but it doesn't seem to be historically accurate to connect it to the second amendment
I believe early on it was used to justify telling gun manufacturers they had to create weapons of certain sizes and required men of a certain age to own a gun and other equipment, and was sometimes used to justify drafts before we had a true organized national military.
Also interesting that you would consider yourself and the government as two very separate entities. And the idea that, if the government has a weapon you don't, then they will use it against you. I believe our founding father's believed, above all else in government, that this government would be of the people and that the structure setup would ensure that it would stay that way.