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Valve Slammed Over 'Horrendous' Steam School-Shooting Game (eurogamer.net)
Several readers have shared an EuroGamer report: Just a week after the Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas that saw 10 people fatally shot and 13 others were wounded, Valve has come under fire for a Steam school-shooting game that encourages you to "hunt and destroy" children. Active Shooter, which at the time of publication is live on Steam and due for release on 6th June, is described by its developer as "a dynamic S.W.A.T. simulator." The idea is you're sent in to deal with a shooter at a school, but you can also play as the actual shooter, gunning down school children.
Now, an anti-gun violence charity has called on Valve to pull the game from Steam. The developer of Active Shooter is called Revived Games, the publisher Acid. Revived Games' credits include White Power: Pure Voltage and Dab, Dance & Twerk. "Acid", who plans to add a survival mode in which you play as a civilian and have to "escape or perform a heroic action such as fight against the shooter itself," took to Active Shooter's Steam page to defend the game. "First of all, this game does not promote any sort of violence, especially any soft [sic] of a mass shooting," Acid said.
Now, an anti-gun violence charity has called on Valve to pull the game from Steam. The developer of Active Shooter is called Revived Games, the publisher Acid. Revived Games' credits include White Power: Pure Voltage and Dab, Dance & Twerk. "Acid", who plans to add a survival mode in which you play as a civilian and have to "escape or perform a heroic action such as fight against the shooter itself," took to Active Shooter's Steam page to defend the game. "First of all, this game does not promote any sort of violence, especially any soft [sic] of a mass shooting," Acid said.
Anyone remember when Postal came out?
I kind of giggle at stuff like this. I understand it offends but mocking current state of affairs actually helps relieve tension about it. I can even picture the pick your Avatar screens where you swipe between random socially dysfunctional white males. I say this after having a school shooting 2 miles from me and being genuinely worried and horrified for every child involved. You can have both laughter and absolute anger/disgust towards something. It's two entirely separate parts of you that each come from (at least in normal healthy people).
Where you hunt and murder the teenagers.
The sociopaths are showing themselves all over if you merely look. America is very sick.
A buddy of mine used a WAD maker/editor to make a very good rendition of our high school in the 90's. Of course, DOOM was made of monsters and folks enjoyed it and took it for what it was. (this was in the 90's). I shudder to think of what would happen to us now if we were in high school and did this. Probably end up in federal....prison.
Anyone for "common sense" speech controls? You're not against "common sense" are you?
What kind of speech-nuts or speech-extremists would argue against common sense limitations on a Constitutional right? They didn't have computers when the US Constitution was written, after all.
I might suggest looking to Australia for examples we can use, regarding gun turn-in or buy-back programs. Maybe a start would be to further limit the kinds of guns that most people can buy. The vast majority of the public, for example, does not require a semi-automatic rifle of any kind. Every time any member of my family in Texas has gone hunting, the rifle was bolt-action. There are very niche use cases for semi-automatic rifles where special permits could be issued, but there's no reason they need to be generally available.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The idea is you're sent in to deal with a shooter at a school, ...
How many points do you get for staying outside and hiding behind a dumpster?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Many countries with gun control allow hunting licenses.
It's only that guns are not given away with any purchase of candy or "muh freeedoom requires it!".
Let's play cops and robbers! But everyone has to be cops because robbers are bad!
Circumcision is child abuse.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/866890/Active_Shooter/
This sig is false.
It's not that they don't care (well, some don't, obs) but most of them realize that school shootings are statistical rarities. That ain't what's gonna kill yer kid.
What's gonna kill 'em? The car you drove her to school in. Dogs. Cancer. Suicide (big one, esp for teens). Homicides outside the school from people they know, mostly their own parents. Non-automobile accidents of all sorts. But not school shootings. Those aren't worth bothering with as far as actual risk goes (as opposed to fear... they're great for causing fear).
About 300 kids have been killed in school shootings in the last 35 years, or about 8 or 9 per year. 8 or 9 kids will die in automobile accidents today. The rate of school shootings has been slowly declining since the 1990s.
First... starting a statement/question with 'so' is a tell for cognitive dissonance... lets see if you deliver.
You are not yet showing signs of being cognitively dissonant from that, but you are clearly ill-informed.
Australia didn't ban all guns, nor did they engage in door to door raids... they simply banned most semi-automatic weapons, which includes most handguns. It's estimated that they might have only collected at most 50% of the banned items, leading to a rather lucrative and dangerous black market.
You also may recall that SCOTUS has ruled on the right to own a handgun here.
Want to change that? Amend the constitution, do keep in mind that only 13 states are required to not ratify for the effort to fail.
Except you haven't actually said or suggested anything relevant to the facts at hand.
Want to say the US has too many guns? Ok... the Australia model is not one to follow, as at last check they have more privately owned arms than they did prior to the ban. It's also worth noting that the Port Arthur Massacre wasn't the culmination of years of deadly mass shootings, but like the rest of them there, was a blip of noise, not indicative of a trend, as they have also occurred after as well.
Maybe try for something else?
What does the bottom of a boot taste like?
...lets the Terrorists Win don't'cha know
crazy dynamite monkey
The whole point of simulation is to imagine the full scenario, explore all the angles that can be systematically imagined.
If you're playing Sim City - while imagining power grids, water flow models, traffic patterns, and industrial/commercial is all fascinating to see it all play out as a model - most folks will end up throwing in a horrible disaster or two, just to see how those systems will react, falter, fail, and sometimes recover.
And it does help to see those things play out - to see these enormously important things break - to know that they are big, but still fragile in their own ways, when they're seen in a neutral mathematical and simulation background.
That said - that's not really how lots of these games really play around with those subjects. Yeah - when the games are just trying to push the buttons of the players and audience, rile up a reaction - then it's just bad writing.
Even that said though - the game Dungeon Keeper is still a favorite of mine. It's a game that places you as spectral force digging out exactly the kinds of grid-based dungeons that old RPG games would have you exploring. As such, your tools were largely gathering monsters, feeding them, readying them for combat, expanding territory, then using various kinds of harm on adventurers you defeated (jailing, torture, killing) for various benefits. It really held to that perspective with its mechanics - complete with dread-voices narrator of events - in a narratively interesting way. It was genuinely good writing - while being about unethical characters and outcomes.
But no one generally became more cruel through playing Dungeon Keeper - if anything, it taught me about the family of motivations you have to follow to 'justify' torturing your enemies as a valid tactic - and why none of them add up to a good idea in any way. The game wasn't pushing the buttons on the audience, so much as it fairly deconstructed how our 'regular' stories were also pushing our buttons, in its own over-the-top way.
Kids see bullies winning the perennial getting-away-with-it game every day. Every one of them knows they could 'win' by fighting more violently using tools. Imagining only the glory of that outcome, and not the full scenario is the core flaw... well, in most crime, not just school violence.
I say the better answer is a more rigorous exploration of that space - a simulation that goes full circle - that shows that this violence only results in scenarios where bullies at large get away with more, because even with complete surveillance, folks will only bother to look back in broken circumstances - and it will still tend to only result in innocent people getting punished meaningfully, since punishments tend to mean almost nothing to bullies, and the process only entrenches them in that path. At least with the logic of school rule enforcement here in the US.
You don't even need guns to explore that space. Just avoid cheaply pushing buttons with your narrative.
Ryan Fenton
Well, there ya go. Perhaps can use this game to simulate if arming teachers actually lowers the death count of a mass school shooting.
Personally, I think that it would, but only IF the teacher knew what they were doing with the firearm. Someone who isn't trained correctly would probably just up the body count by shooting through walls and hitting innocent bystanders.
Unfortunately, arming teachers would probably also increase the number of accidental shootings from kids finding a gun in a classroom that wasn't locked up correctly.
of school shootings. Particularly one that might lead to stronger gun laws. This is also why the CDC can't, by law, do any research on gun violence.
A better question is why the NRA is so vehemently opposed to gun laws. You don't see the Auto makers campaigning against driver's licenses and insurance. My guess is they're worried stronger laws would bite into impulse buys. A coworker the other day went to buy a pistol for target shooting and home defense and go excited and walked out with an AR-15 and several boxes of ammo. His wife was pissed. If he'd had 7 days to think it over he'd have cancelled the order and settled for the $400 pistol over the $1000 AR-15.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You shouldn't care about school shootings either. There have been about 250 deaths in school shootings over 18 years (non-gang, non-suicide), or about 14 per year. Since there are approximately 51 million K-12 students in the U.S., a student's chances of being killed in a non-gang, non-suicide school shooting in any given year are about (51 million students) / (14 deaths/year) = 1 in 3.6 million.
You're more likely to be killed by a deer. About 120 Americans are killed by deer every year. (325.7 million Americans) / (120 deaths/year) = 1 in 2.7 million chance of being killed by a deer each year. Do you wring your hands over the possibility of being killed by a deer, and hold marches to demanding the deer population be controlled?
The U.S. causes of death statistics are readily available from the CDC website. For 2015, the leading causes of death for the 15-19 year old demographic were:
3,919 deaths - Accidents (mostly automobile accidents and drug overdoses)
2.061 deaths - Suicide
1,587 deaths - Homicide (mostly outside school, and gang related)
583 deaths - Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
306 deaths - Heart disease
195 deaths - Birth defects
72 deaths - Influenza (the flu)
63 deaths - Chronic lower respiratory diseases
61 deaths - Cerebrovascular diseases
52 deaths - Diabetes
41 deaths - Complications from pregnancy and childbirth
All of these represent a greater risk to students than the 14 deaths per year from school shootings.
Back in ancient times of game systems, in Seven Cities of Gold (I think) on the Atari, you could wantonly attack peaceful Indians ... or keep slaughtering ones that had stopped resisting.
They went into some kind of weird tribal dance of utter despair that really freaked me out and made me never want to try that again. Brrr.
But my point is you could do it.
Granted, they were so pixilated and cartoonish that I don't think even those who believe video games inspire violence could really think that game would ... so it;s not quite the same thing.
I'm shocked it took someone this long to make a school shooting game.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Good ol' American Exceptionalism
but video games and school shootings have nothing to do with each other.
Shall not be infringed. I don't care how you do it in your country, AC. That's your business.
I'm thinking and praying really hard, so there's no need to slam, duplex, or double dirty chairbang.
I much prefer Yandere simulator.
You can murder your classmates in a variety of unique and interesting ways.
The thing americans need to keep in mind is that not every country has a school shooting every week.
For some of us this is just entertainment.
In any case, even americans should find this game fun.
After all, they play endless versions of WW2, vietnam war, and towel head shooters, and they seem to have no problem with those.
Suddenly it's making fun of their home grown killings and it's unacceptable?
Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
You want to help stop more school shootings? The Press needs to stop publicizing them. All they're doing is turning these shooters into celebrities, which in turn is emboldening the would-be school shooters, and so on, and so on.
is not research. That said, as of this year you're right. See here.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's because the media needs to promote every single one that happens to get attention.
Remember... The media likes attention. That's how they make their money.
Additionally, the politicians like the attention, it's how they get votes and political power.
And of course... The anti-gunners love it, because it helps give power to their side.
And once this hits the general public, then they get terrified that the problem is getting worse and worse and worse by the day.
Do you really wonder about why it feels like the situation is getting worse, when it isn't really?
with just as much vehemence. Sorry, but that's not a goal post you get to move to. Cars kill fewer people because they are heavily regulated. It took weeks before my kid was ready to pass a driver's test and she had to show she was a responsible driver.
And you better believe they're out there hoping for impulse buys. Nobody _needs_ an AR-15. You _want_ one.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
before you burn me at the stake this game could be used by law enforcement to train themselves on what the bad guy is going to do assuming this game is multiplayer. the arma series is used by the army in the same way.
Not bullying. Not at all. That's why kids shoot up schools instead of, say, shopping malls where it would be easy to rack up a way higher body count. That's why they shoot their former classmates and teachers instead of simply kicking open and spraying bullets into the first classroom they get to.
But you can't say that. How DARE you blame the poor, poor children? Just because they had a little fun with the evil, evil shooter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Anyone remember when Postal came out?
Yeah, and don't forget Bully, NightTrap and the whole host of other controversial games that have been released over the years. The best was Doom, slammed for satanic and violent content when it was new. I'm sure that John Carmac is still crying in his Cheerios over all the money he lost out on because he made a game that was controversial.
This sort of thing is always an exercise in futility. I am all for reducing gun violence, but censorship isn't the answer. This game looks to be in pretty poor taste, given the current epidemic of gun violence, but it isn't going to help or hurt the issue by banning it. In fact, it seems pretty stupid to even waste time talking about it since it is distracting from the main issue of keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
If society thinks this game is a bad idea, it will not sell very well, problem solved. Valve isn't even really involved in the development of it, so don't go dragging them into the conversation.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
yep all that happens when you remove the guns stabbings and beating's skyrocket. look at the eu.
Generating controversy is a great way to get free advertising.
Personally, I don't care, there are all sorts of horrible things in games and movies. People know the difference between fantasy and reality.
In "play as the shooter mode", have it where you can never die, the SWAT team always arrests your ass, and you spend the next 50 years getting butt raped by some very big strong bad men, and forced to be the cell block's "bitch", makeshift halter top, diasy dukes, Kool-aid makeup and all. Between forced butt sex sessions, you have to clean the inmates' cells, cook their meals, iron their jumpsuits, and in the Macgyvered way that inmates have to do it, take the fall when a shank is found during a shakedown....Hey, we can have 2 games in one here!
Yes, I worry a lot about the possibility of hitting a deer whenever I'm driving because there are a lot of them around here. I appreciate the deer crossing warning signs where they're especially common. And there's no need for marches because we already have a very advanced deer population control system called deer hunting season, which is vital to keeping the ecosystem in balance since humans have already killed off most of the natural predators.
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There are very niche use cases for semi-automatic rifles where special permits could be issued, but there's no reason they need to be generally available.
.50 cal machine gun purchase requiring a 27 page form filled out in triplicate, a mental health exam, a criminal background check in every major nation, and a colon exam for good measure.
I found out a few years back that this is already the case. If you are a collector or historian type, you can get a permit to own fully automatic weaponry and other really dangerous(tm) stuff like ww2 machine guns, bazookas and the like. I think that there is a more rigorous background investigation involved, and it appears to more or less work, since you don't see people robbing banks or shooting up schools with Thompsons and SAWs.
I always thought that a good weapon permit process should follow a nice curve. The more dangerous a weapon is, the more hoops you have to jump through to own it. It could range from a BB gun purchase needing a Diver license check to make sure you are over age 16 to a M2
Owning a gun is a right, but is also a responsibility. We just need to make sure that only responsible people get the right.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
It also doesn't define what type of arms, so any weapon restrictions violate it. I want to know where the outrage is over the restriction of fully-automatics, destructive devices, and wmds. How am I supposed to get behind any Second Amendment fanatics when they won't fight for the right to bear all arms. Seems kind of limp-dicked when you've already made some pretty heavy concessions in the past.
...
So, are you trying to say that their guns are being taken from them...at gunpoint?
Or are their houses/vehicles being burglarized? If it's the latter then it's definitely happening without them knowing about it. Maybe they found out about it later, but they didn't know when it was happening. Either way, guns don't appear to be that effective for security, do they?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Every adult male was part of the militia. These days that's changed of course: women are welcome too.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So... school shootings are okay because more people die from harder to prevent causes each year?
Two reasons: Because 14 deaths a year is a trivially small price to pay for the right to defend yourself,
Tell that to the family of one of those 14, I dare you.
> Seems kind of limp-dicked when you've already made some pretty heavy concessions in the past.
I didn't make that concession. It was made before my time. Howsabout just stopping the slide down the slope?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Unless the government sold you the gun, it's not a buyback.
What you want to call it is completely irrelevant.
How? What about the millions of that sort already in circulation which you are never going to see bought back?
Well, I would assume any such law would have a deadline, and unlicensed guns after that deadline would be illegal. It's not a hard concept.
Not to mention the fact it is getting increasingly easy to build your own.
Sure, like drugs, or bombs, or anything else that we say is illegal.
Given most pistols are semi-automatic, you are going to be hard pressed to legislate such a thing
I never even mentioned pistols. It's not hard to legislate that. Start with barrel length, maybe explosive force. Really, these barriers you're throwing up aren't difficult to work around.
let alone the simple 'fun' argument for plinking.
Whoa there, pal, buddy, it's not called the "Bill Of Fun." Last I checked it wasn't the "Bill Of Plinking."
Depends on what you are hunting, sometimes semi-auto is more apt.
Wow, it's almost like you understood when I said there were niche cases. The 1 I can think of is hunting wild hogs. I'm sure there are others. But, again, the vast, vast majority of people do not need this. In fact, I bet the vast majority of gun owners in this country have never fired their weapon at an animal they are legally hunting.
Want to change that? Then let's talk about amending the constitution, which is the only real answer
I agree, the pro-gun crowd has won, they won a long time ago. School shootings and other things like that are just the price we pay. A constitutional amendment would be the only way forward. But feel free to look at the post I was replying to. I'm not talking about the path to get an amendment repealed and replaced, I'm talking about what the new law might say.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
They are a last resort for most normal gun owners. If someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night, I immediately get my gun, call the cops and stay in my bedroom. With only my wife and pets to be concerned about, I don't need to go hunt some person down in the dark but if they come through that bedroom door they will be dead before they know it.
I'd really hate to shoot someone, especially in my house. Some how that would hurt my property value and I would have a terrible memory. The restoration of the place would be a royal pain as well. I'd rather have to deal with all that, then not have a last resort in the way of a firearm. I'm not Chuck Norris so I'll keep my gun.
That is a last resort and to take that from responsible gun owners is crazy. If I wasn't home, I would want my wife to have access to a gun because while she waits for the cops, she would be otherwise defenseless. Pretty shitty if you ask me.
Good, as long as you're part of a well-regulated militia then I'll believe you're trying to adhere to the Constitution. If you just want to keep a gun in your house because it makes you feel powerful then I don't think you can use the Constitution as a crutch. Also, like the other poster said, if you believe in a person's right to bear any and all weapons they choose, good for you for being consistent. If you think people shouldn't be allowed to own fighter planes with bombs and missiles or a mini gun or hand grenades, then we're only arguing about where the line should be drawn.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Every adult male was part of the militia.
That would be an un regulated militia.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Get a dog. It will make you safer than owning a gun will, and won't make you more likely to commit suicide or kill a family member.
If you have a dog, that home intruder won't even try to come into your house. Bad guys avoid dogs, but they look to steal guns
A gun in the house increases the risk to your family.
https://academic.oup.com/aje/a...
https://www.scientificamerican...
https://www.vox.com/cards/gun-...
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's not the same. I love my dogs, but I can't shoot people with them.
>mock the fatties until they get into shape
>fallacy
I can't tell if you wanted to spin that as a shitty idea or legitimate one.
I think the problem lies elsewhere. The ban in Australia was accepted by a large percentage of the population, if I am correct. The US is a very divided country with the dispute on gun legislation running through both parties.
I do think that a ban would work. And it would reduce gun deaths by a huge margin. In order to do so the public opinion needs to change. I do not see that happen anytime soon.
most US casualties in Iraq were not from guns. It was from some brainwashed inbred making some kind of kitchen improvised explosion that detonated as you drove by. Evil is going to Evil, regardless of what limitation you try to invent. Your efforts should be directed at the cause of the evil rationing, not the instrument of destruction.
dont quote the line if you have no clue what that line actually means. IF your going to play constitution, then disband the FBI, ATF, and all the police. The army clause in the constitution said no more than TWO YEARS. Every single swinging dick in the USA - IS THE MILITIA. Thats exactly how it was explained in The Federalist papers. It was every citizens responsibility to be the militia. If 'we the people' are the militia and there is no army then the government can NEVER turn on -the people-. I suggest reading a bit more before deciding that the founders never intended the citizens to be armed. It was EXACTLY the opposite. They did not want the government armed. Disarm the FBI, and Police and THEN, MAYBE, we will talk about disarming the public.
its only un-regulated because of all the libtards that insisted on things like gun safety stopped being taught in schools. The boyscouts, when it was first founded, was every bit a training program of independence and the equivelant of a militia. they were the minutemen of the 20th century.
that was my impression too. They have just as many guns as we do possibly. They just dont have the hostility and violence we do. Its not the guns... its something else creating the anger and hate.
then tell all the libtards to stop blocking the training programs that everyone else wants. Only libtards see gun safety classes as a threat to their authority. Well regulated means 'trained'. So stop finger-banging your bung-hole with a gerbil and let the populus insist on training everyone.
it doesnt say because the concept was that every citizen was the militia. There WAS NO ARMY. There WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE A STANDING ARMY. The government CANNOT turn against the people if the HAVE NO ARMY. The people were supposed to be trained to defend the country and to be the militia, the call to arms. So yes, we, the people, were supposed to have unfettered access to all types of 'arms'.
no, because law enforcement is mostly pro-gun too. They just dont want shit-bags to have it. If they are forced to go door to door what your going to find is 'bait' houses set up for searches. and when 10 or 12 cops are digging through the house... BOOM! the whole fucking house explodes with 12 dead cops and all their canines, etc. The next 12 cops will be less likely to be so anxious to search another house. After about 50 or 60 of these incidents, they will stop searching houses and just pretend like they rounded them all up. Nobody wants to risk death for a job they don't completely agree with anyway.
The numbers increase exponentially over that period though. We're on track to hit 100 school shooting casualties this year, so maybe 1 in 500K chance per student per year? A kid entering pre-K today has a better than 1 in 40K chance of catching a bullet before graduation.
So, you're recommending terrorism and killing members of law enforcement. I guess this is how the NRA and Second Amendment "activists" have gotten their reputation.
Thank you for making that clear.
You are welcome on my lawn.
. So the ban is still in effect.
You admit you were wrong yet still claim you are right. No. There was never a ban and you are lying. The "ban" is that the CDC cannot advocate against the rights of citizens. Should any other government agency advocate the removal of your rights? Can the FCC use its funds to promote and advocate regulating an ISP under Title 2? Can the FCC, if successful, advocate for restricting obscene content on the internet because ISP is regulated under Title 2? Should the FBI use its funds to promote an end to encryption anywhere subject to their jurisdiction? If either of those are "no", then why is it okay in your mind for the CDC to do effectively the same for the right of arms?
the wording of that amendment is effectively a ban, right?
No. If you can't leave your politics out of your research then you don't deserve to be doing research. Especially when it comes to the rights of citizens. Period. End of discussion. Any research from any agency is under the same conditions when it comes to the government. Take any research topic and if you start advocating or promoting one set of political solutions or positions is the moment you lose credibility. "Gun control" is a purely political thing. A federal bureaucracy doesn't have the right to decide on what rights any citizen has and cannot advocate or promote the degradation of any right. Period.
You can research the "why" of gun violence without advocating "ban guns". If you can't separate "your solution" from what you are researching then you are a bad researcher.
If you don't understand that "gun violence" is a loaded term then you are too ignorant to understand the issue.
> It also doesn't define what type of arms, so any weapon restrictions violate it.
Ordnance is distinct from arms. WMDs, cannons, destructive devices, bombs, would qualify as ordance.
Swords and automatic weapons are protected by the second amendment. There's currently a federal law against much of the constitutionally protected automatic weaponry, and IMO it is quite unconstitutional. There's no federal law against swords and other arms common at the time, but there are plenty of state laws- but there's not really anyone going through the efforts of establishing precedent there either.
> Seems kind of limp-dicked when you've already made some pretty heavy concessions in the past.
Restrictions on automatic weaponry is pretty bullshit and should be fought. The other stuff you mention was not understood (in historical analog or in strict history as "arms"- the second amendment doesn't ban a cannon, but it doesn't guarantee your right to own one, because it is ordnance).
> "well regulated militia"
That's the whole of the people. Regulated in this sense probably means well supplied. In any event, nothing about the second amendment's actual writing, nor its intention from those who wrote it, imply that being in a militia (and CERTAINLY not being in an army- the second amendment doesn't suddenly switch from detailing individual rights to detailing that the government should be able to raise armies, a detail covered in the main body of the constitution) has anything to do with the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
There was a time in law when the fiction about the second amendment somehow jumping about nimbly-bimbly and declaring the national guard to be a thing, and also that government troops are allowed to have weapons, was in fashion amongst revisionists. This has been pretty well thrown out all over the place, but there's still a few vanguards holding to a fiction.
No, it would be unregulated if it had no arms, or was non functional in some fashion.
http://constitution.org/cons/w...
"The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."
"libtard" comment aside, the point you should probably be aware of is the meaning of "well regulated" at the time.
http://constitution.org/cons/w...
The whole of the people are the militia of course- but that one you already knew.
"Good, as long as you're part of a well-regulated militia then I'll believe you're trying to adhere to the Constitution. "
Well, given the obvious meaning of well-regulated: http://constitution.org/cons/w...
And the fact that the militia is the whole of the people, then yes, definitely.
Of course, the right to keep and bear arms is not subordinate to some clause about a militia. The right of the government to raise armies is detailed in the constitution. It would obviously not be in a list of amendments that extensively detail individual rights, and mention the people specifically and repeatedly, if it were a restatement of "hey, the government can arm people". That's lunacy- and quite debunked by the thoughts of the men who wrote the fucking thing in the first place.
"If you think people shouldn't be allowed to own fighter planes with bombs and missiles or a mini gun or hand grenades, then we're only arguing about where the line should be drawn."
The line is probably "ordnance". A mini-gun SHOULD be allowed- it's a damned shame that it's been unconstitutionally found to be ok to ban automatic weapons. Bombs, grenades, missiles, and arming them on fighter planes would not fall under "arms", just as cannons and bombs and other ordnance did not at the time. That's not to say that all of these things should definitely be banned, but that the banning of them is not constitutionally prohibited.
Disarm the commoners!
Do you expect disarming the plebs will decrease or increase the repressiveness of our current police state?
You shouldn't care about school shootings either.
School shootings are simply the most emotional of cases from the general topic of gun violence. It is quite disingenuous to separate the two especially given the rate at which gun related deaths off your citizens.
ISIS try and take over the towns near me and you can fucking guarantee I'll be acquiring firearms.
Mocking Iraq for gun ownership is somewhat fucking asinine.
As someone living in Great Britain I seem to have missed these multiple murders.
Could you perhaps provide references, as well as better explain who 'they' are?
You don't need to buy back murder weapons. The police are authorised and even expected to confiscate them and hold them as evidence.
Require those wanting military grade weapons to serve in the military/continue to do so. Including deployment in foreign countries to spread the burden on our real soldiers.
Just go one step further. Since the right to bear arms is linked to militia, just make it law that any owner of a firearm can be deployed on military duty.
Then ship a few hundred a year to whereever it is the US military are playing at war and put them on the front line.
i could think of no better way of being in proper working order for a militia than training. However, certain groups are very much opposed to any sort of organized training courses on battlefield tactics.
What legislation? Well, I presume that a civilised country like the US registers who buys guns in the first place? Start by banning hand-guns (since they are easily concealed in public places), and give people a year to sell them back to the government. After that year has passed, make the police go after people who haven't done it by checking the gun registry (failing to return an illegal gun counts as probable cause for a search), and confiscate their hand-guns without giving them any money for it (so there should be a financial incentive to return it voluntarily during the first year). Also, after that year when all guns should be returned, carrying a hand-gun in a public place should land you a prison sentence.
At first, don't do anything with rifles and shotguns; a lot of countries have these legally available for e.g. hunting without gun violence problems. After waiting 5-10 years, reevaluate how the ban has worked, and consider whether more legislation is needed or not.
It's not like the US would be the first country to go through with this—most countries didn't regulate firearms at some point, and then managed to get rid of them. Australia did so relatively recently, and it seems to have worked quite fine there.
I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and _domestic_ ...
Based on your comment, it is a pretty good bet that you do not live in the US. Obviously the concept of Liberty or Death is blind to you. When a group of thugs, under the guise of calling themselves 'Police', violate the Constitution and shred the 4th amendment in the process of shredding the 2nd amendment, they have declared WAR on the Constitution and the people of the United States. It is not terrorism to defend against domestic enemies. Terrorism is a act of violence perpetrated against an innocent group of individuals for the purpose of making a statement to an entirely different group of people or its government. Taking up arms, declaring war on the constitution, and illegally searching house to house makes them anything BUT innocent people. According to Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, you are to only follow LAWFUL orders given by officers and your superiors. Following an unlawful order is something one does at their own peril. Any police that does not resign and instead commits crimes against the people takes such actions at their own peril. They have in such declared war on the people of the United States. It is every citizens responsibility to rise up and defend the constitution and its people, and become the militia that the founding fathers intended.
>Except the US.
And many others!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
France, Canada both allow gun ownership.
And why does the USA have the most guns? It's fucking simple--well, only if facts are allowed in this discussion: The USA has LUXARY GOODS because it's a super-high-GDP country. The rich in the USA buy nice China, nice cars, and nice guns. They buy nice guitar, nice, boats, nice TVs.... and more guns.
The people who own the MOST GUNS in the USA (3% of all citizens own 133M guns!)[1], are rich people, who aren't using a single gun to commit a single crime. (But then, we can't play the "guns == violence" card anymore. So let's ignore that.)
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us...
So the question is, if a few people own most of all guns... and aren't committing crimes with them. What's the actual crime rate of actual guns owned by the 97% of the rest of the population, and how does that compare with the rest of the world?
Because the UK has nil legal gun ownership, and they still have mass shootings. And as we all know, drug and alcohol prohibition worked great, so gun prohibition is a sure thing.
Can you make a pressure cooker bomb in the USA, Australia, and the UK? Yes.
Can you rent a van and kill over 20 people in the USA, Australia, and the UK? Yes... yes you can.
Can you throw acid in someone's face in the USA, Australia, and the UK? Yes... yes you can.
Why aren't you for banning all of those? Do you SUPPORT innocent women's faces being mutilated? Acid should be banned! Hashtag "Nobody needs an acid beaker."
>easier to get away with too.
Reminds me of the UK coverup of 1500 raped children. They didn't need guns to rape those girls. And they didn't need guns to get the cops to ignore their pleas for help.
(Seriously, read the stories. They're horrific. Raped, Drugged girls thrown onto the street, call the cops for help, and the cops arrest them for being "intoxicated." Dads who tracked their daughters down, banged on the doors where their daughters were being raped, and the cops came and arrested the dads.)
Turns out you don't need guns to be a despicable human being that destroys lives.
shouting fire in a movie theater is a crime and should be. Suggesting one of your legion of followers should go kill somebody is too. No right is absolute. Even life when it contradicts my right to self defense (e.g. you're trying to murder me).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Anyone here who doesn't support Pressure Cooker Control after the Boston Marathon massacre, is a massive hypocrite.
Basically, re-write every sad, emotional plea that's advertised for a school shooting, and replace guns with pressure cooker. Don't our athletic children deserve to grow up in Marathons without the fear of being murdered or mutilated for life? How can you support the right to own [Pressure Cookers], over our children's right to live?!
That this game was made and they have supported it against criticism shows how sick recent generations have been made, not by video games, but by 50 years of movies with the theme of "just revenge." These movies have a protagonist who is put upon by bad guys to the point that he stands up and "gets his back" by going on a psychopathic killing spree. The audience is supposted to cheer and applaud him. Normal people can ignore this kind of revenge behavior in real life, but there is always going to be a small percentage of disturbed children and men who use movie lectures on correct behavior as a model for their own.
E Proelio Veritas.
I love that you guys always cite that. You're like "The constitution is vague".. if only there were thousands upon thousands of pages of documents written by the founders of the amendment to explain their reasoning!
Sadly, to my knowledge, no such documents exist. Perhaps, one day, Google will be able to find them.
Only a libtard would get offended by the word libtard.
It's funny how new liberals (i'm a classic liberal, suck it) can dish it out and call conservatives every name in the book. Xenophobe. Warmonger. Fascist. But the second someone makes a word for them, they get all butthurt.
I wonder how many liberals realize the Chinese have a word for them... and it's not very flattering:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
> "People who only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment" and "have no sense of real problems in the real world"; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to "satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority"; they are "obsessed with political correctness" to the extent that they "tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism"; they believe in the welfare state that "benefits only the idle and the free riders"; they are the "ignorant and arrogant westerners" who "pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours".[11]
Let's assume there's no constitutional right to own guns. There's also no constitutional rights in the Bill of Rights for supporting abortion.
So we might as well get rid of abortion. #ShotsFired
p.s. I actually support abortion.
"Only a libtard would get offended by the word libtard."
It kinda offends me a little, and I definitely enjoy being called a liberal by everyone who is vaguely right wing, and called way more names than that by anyone who is even a hint to the left of center. I have friends who are pretty fucking liberal, and while I apparently offend them by accident simply by existing and/or thinking, I prefer to not do so like, directly.
"But the second someone makes a word for them, they get all butthurt."
Like you do bring up a real problem. The words you list carry content, however, and refutable content at that. A deliberate insult just reduces the permeability of the message. And if you think the liberal name-calling thing is such a powerful weapon in their hands, I'd argue that it's a big part of why they lost the center so badly, and will probably continue to do so for awhile- or at least until they can get someone to say one thing and do another.
Baizuo is a good link in general, btw. But notice that such a word isn't deployed by, for instance, Donald Trump- who is generally just fine with insulting his opponents, to great effect. The actual truth is, Trump (and to a lesser extent successful Republicans, right wingers, whatever) isn't politically correct, but is concise with word choice, leaving out broad smears in exchange for a much more targeted smacking.
While training is helpful, the wording regarding the guaranteed availability of firearms is pretty clear- you need to be well equipped, so you can't make a law banning arms. If you were trying to make some case that only small groups of people who are well trained could have arms, you (1) wouldn't have used "well regulated", understood to be in working order and well equipped and (2) wouldn't have used "militia", understood to be the whole of the people. You'd also not have guaranteed a right of the people. Meanwhile, you can see quite clearly from everything else they said, what they were up to.
By then it would be too late to acquire the gunfu to use them effectively. Great shots start practicing well before puberty.
Get them now, they're cheap, and it pisses off the morons.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Always refer to him as: 'Sir Jimmy Savile OBE'
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They can speak, with the printing presses available at the time the constitution was written.
'There is no way the founding fathers could have anticipated the development of the internet' (assault printing press)...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
>> Exactly what legislation do you propose?
I don't propose anything. I just tell you the facts that there are much too many arms in your country.
Not my country, not my problem.
Your country has to solve the mess it created, my country has other problems to handle.
aaaaaaa
She went after violent video games a number of years ago. Where are you Tipper?
She's with her hubby creating more CO2 for the world while making piles of money lying about how bad it is.
Only a libtard would get offended by the word libtard.
It's funny how new liberals (i'm a classic liberal, suck it) can dish it out and call conservatives every name in the book. Xenophobe. Warmonger. Fascist. But the second someone makes a word for them, they get all butthurt.
Not to point a finger, but from my point of view this epitomizes, and modestly promotes, the polarization and micro-sphere thinking that I believe is plaguing the Democratic and Republican parties and our elected "representatives". These "leaders" are leading us down the rathole to societal self-immolation. Some people insist that they only reflect their constituents. If Congress is crazy then it's because the people they represent were crazy first. I don't accept that. Elected officials get far more media coverage than Joe Plumber, and many people still suspend disbelief when consuming their favorite media outlet. A congressional loon or rabid Secretary of Something spouting rhetoric gets inside people's heads.
We used to accept, or at least tolerate, opposing viewpoints within parties, if only for the sake of defeating "them" (the other party). Now the animosity between party members with different platform bullet points is just as virulent as that between wildly divergent platforms, I can only see this getting worse; amped up by social media silos, fanned by foreign governments, a fed a constant diet of vituperative invective by "big" media. America is slowly going insane.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
> Can you stab or beat a whole crowd of people from 20 feet away?
It just takes longer. If the overall number is equivalent, who cares if it happened all at once?
Interesting. Can you demonstrate? Cut out the window of a hotel room on the 32nd floor and, from there, stab 900+ people on the ground below. You have 10 minutes.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
"well regulated militia"
Reading comprehension fail.
The well regulated (which means "smoothly functioning" in 1776 English) militia was necessary for a free state. Because of this, the right of the people to own arms is protected.
Notice how it doesn't say "the right of the militia to keep and bear arms"?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Are you kidding me? What rock have you been under? Or do you get all your news from Facebook?
I'm a Canadian, living in Canada, and even I've heard of Alfie Evans....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
What does an electrical regulator do? It makes power levels smooth.
What does a regulator on a steam engine do? It makes the speed of the engine consistent and smooth.
In neither case does the regulator prevent anyone from using the device.
Government style regulations is a relatively new meaning of the word. In 1776, "well regulated" meant something more akin to the modern phrase "smoothly functioning."
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Who the fuck murdered Alfie Evans?
Maybe Canada doesn't have reliable news sources.
See, the left calls conservatives crazy gun nuts, and then they come out with something outright murderously evil like this, and somehow don't see the hypocrisy of it all......
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Well, given the obvious meaning of well-regulated: http://constitution.org/cons/w... [constitution.org]
And the fact that the militia is the whole of the people, then yes, definitely.
Good one. "The entire citizenry is a well-regulated militia." Shit, I guess if definitions can be stretched like that then what's the point in even having a discussion?
Although: here's a thought. If the entire citizenry is a "well-regulated militia", then why do you think they included the phrase "well-regulated militia" instead of just saying "everyone"?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Yeah, wow, you really gave it to that Anonymous Coward. At least you're not using some random idiot's words to paint an entire half of the population that you disagree with.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
No, the militia is the whole of the people. You need that militia to have, among other things, supplies, such as arms.
They don't use "everyone" because of word choice. They do say "the people", however, and not just in the second amendment.
No, the militia is the whole of the people.
They don't use "everyone" because of word choice.
While I appreciate your ability to bend things to fit your ideas, I'm skeptical that there is any evidence to back up either of your claims. I don't think that's what they meant when they said "well-regulated militia." I don't think that they intended everyone to be running around with weapons all the time, I think they meant that each city, county, state, etc should be able to defend itself with a recognized designated fighting force that is actually regulated (regulated as in actually regulated, not what you think regulated means; I mean a leadership structure, rules, etc).
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
> While I appreciate your ability to bend things to fit your ideas
First, I'll respond with a link:
http://constitution.org/cons/w...
Showing uses of "regulated", in natural language, in historical context.
Ok, here's another link. This one is more wordy, on account of it being the Virginia ratification of the constitution.
https://www.usconstitution.net...
One of the biggest pieces of drama was the lack of a bill of rights; drafting one up was of utmost important. George Mason, who is the coauthor of the bill of rights, spoke during this (relevant quotes on topic: "I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people." and "To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."). The ratification linked includes the demand:
"That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free state. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power."
So plenty of the founders in Virginia, at least, including the coauthor of the bill of rights, were absolutely clear on what they meant about "the people have a right to keep and bear arms". Remember, the second amendment wasn't just dropped on everyone's heads apropos of nothing: it was well understood that keeping and bearing arms was necessary to resist tyranny, because *they had just done exactly that*. Certainly, no one reading at the time was confused about a fucking comma (that confusion is a 20th century construct manufactured by gun control advocates; one with no historical basis).
> I don't think that they intended everyone to be running around with weapons all the time
They literally fucking did. Not to belabor the point, but that exact thing was how they just won a revolutionary war.
Here's the first ever state of the union:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies."
So the people should have a "uniform and well-digested plan". They should be "not only armed, but disciplined". And of course they should be "independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies". If his paramount concern- or really, any fucking concern at all- was in controlling or laying laws down upon the "free people", then maybe he would have brought that up, instead of exhorting all Americans to be able to take up arms, ideally without relying on any others for military supplies.
> I think they meant that each city, county, state, etc should be able to defend itself with a recognized designated fighting force that is actually regulated
That's all your revisionism. Read their words.
First, I'll respond with a link:
You already posted that, and I already read it.
They should be "not only armed, but disciplined".
Would you say that only the disciplined should be armed?
I think that you're expecting me to defend a point that I'm not trying to defend. I'm not arguing that arbitrary people in the US should not be allowed to own guns. I own guns, both for hunting and protection. I'm not trying to suggest that this needs to change. What I'm trying to suggest, and the law appears to agree with me, is that the second amendment does not necessarily guarantee the unrestricted access and use of any weapon. There are plenty of classes of guns and other weapons which have special requirements for private ownership, and I think that is reasonable. In fact, I think it is completely unreasonable to assert that the second amendment gives free access to any weapon, or, just as importantly, that since it does not restrict weapons, then no weapons should be restricted.
I think it's reasonable and correct to believe that the founders believed that we would need to make hard decisions based on things that they didn't think of. One of those things is classes of weapons. If they saw the fact that today someone could enter a tall building and fire several hundred rounds into a crowd of free people who are freely associating, and this person can kill dozens and wound hundreds by himself with that 1 weapon in minutes, for any arbitrary reason (or no reason at all), and that the free people themselves are under attack from domestic threats like these, that we would want to take some action to protect ourselves. I do not believe the second amendment stops us from being able to take those actions, I don't think that they intended to limit us in that way. I do not think they intended to say that we are not allowed to pass laws to restrict private ownership of any weapon, in perpetuity. I think it is perfectly reasonable and rational for us to restrict ownership of the kinds of weapons that can quickly cause mass casualties, because if you think otherwise then it sounds like you think the founders wanted to trade the tyranny of kings for the tyranny of individuals attacking the free people at will (literally - any time they want, in a school for example) and doing tremendous damage. I do not think they wanted that to happen. I have serious doubts that Madison and Washington wanted to see unhinged individuals on the margins of society gain access to a relatively small quantity of weapons and ammunition and use that to inflict dozens or hundreds of citizen casualties in minutes before any good guy with a gun can respond. Or, I don't think they intended for our legitimate foreign enemies to be able to enter the US under peaceful intentions, and then arm themselves here (again, with weapons capable of causing a tremendous amount of casualties in a very short time) and then attack us when we aren't expecting it, due to the fact that we do not in fact all walk around armed all the time. It is not reasonable to expect a population to do that.
I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't be allowed to own guns, or that only certain people should, or whatever. I'm saying that we have the right to limit the weapons that we want to be legally privately owned. I do not see anything in the Constitution or the amendments which restricts our ability to say which weapons we do and do not want in public. "Keep and bear arms" does not necessarily mean any arm, any time. It does not mean unrestricted access. I have guns, and I'm going to keep and bear them if necessary, but it's also pretty fucking common sense to suggest that maybe it's a bad idea to be able to walk into a gun store and buy a M249 or M134 and head over to the elementary school or hospital or concert and fire it up.
We have decided that there are locations where guns are unlawful, and we have decided that certain kinds of guns are unlawful to own privately without additional permits and documentation. This is reasonable, and Constitutional. It should be expanded to include additional classes of guns that people have consistently and repeatedly used to attack the free people.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
OK, but how many of those so-called "killed by deer" death statistics were actually cases of suicide by deer?