Banning guns is not the answer...
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Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
You couldn't enforce the ban effectively anyway, anymore than the ban on drugs has been effective. You would disarm the population, thereby leaving them to be the prey of those who are bigger, stronger, or criminally in posession of a gun. Perhaps killers will start to use knives or clubs or some other weapon. Am I going to feel safer knowing that someone who breaks into my house will have to beat or stab me and my family to death rather than shoot us? Heck no. People thwart criminals like this with guns all the time. If they didn't have guns, then they become the victims and their lives are put in the hands of the criminal. The police only respond if you are able to call them and even then it takes them a while. They can arrive on the scene in time to pick up the pieces and clean up the mess. That's about it.
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property. We have the right to own a gun. The only thing that should be changed in my opinion is the procedure for getting a gun. You see, the real problem is that any idiot can own a gun right now. You have these morons accidentally killing themselves or someone else, or letting children get ahold of the weapon. This is just plain stupid. You should be required to pass some rigorous tests to prove your competency in using the weapon, as well as your intelligence as to when and how to use the weapon and how to keep it safely away from children or anyone else who shouldn't have access to it. These tests should be very tough and not pushover tests like we have in order to get a driver's license. If this is done, then perhaps we would have fewer people able to buy a gun, and those who are will be informed and competent in its use.
That DOES happens, but don't ask the liberal media
on
Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
These numbers are incredibly high. I'm not sure whether that supports or detracts from your argument. It's hard to believe that there were over 927 incidents in schools where 12 or more people were killed at all, let alone by methods other than guns. Since 54% were drive-by incidents, that means that a fair number of the school incidents were drive-bys in which 12 or more people were killed? Is there someplace we can find these numbers?
Do you know how many bombs they found in that school? It was over thirty I believe. There was one rather large one in the cafeteria. A big propane tank with pipe bombs strapped to it. Maybe if the kids hadn't spent their time shooting people, they would have just set off all the bombs and killed a whole lot more people. If they want to kill, they will kill. Guns are a more direct way of killing people. You have to physically pull the trigger on each person you shoot. With bombs, you plant them and watch the whole place and everyone in it go up in flames. Don't blame the guns. Blame the killers. They were going to kill, no matter what method they had to use. Be thankful they weren't able to set off the bombs. It could have been much worse.
Didn't the Brady bill ban assault rifles? I think it did. I think people are confused about the term "semi-automatic." Most handguns today are either revolvers or semi-automatic pistols. The police use them. The military uses them. They are the standard weapons now. I believe they are only allowed to have a 10 round magazine though. So apparently all of the previous poster's suggestions are already law. They just didn't matter in this case. Criminals don't have alot of respect for the law anyway.
Actually it's necessary in the house AND at the store. That's why you have to fill out a bunch of stuff when you buy a gun. Somehow I don't think these kids got the weapons from Wal-Mart though. Either way, what matters is that nothing was done before it was too late. The parents didn't do anything. The teachers didn't do anything. The other students didn't do anything. Nobody did anything to head off this disaster.
Where were the teachers, other students, etc..??
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Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
You make some good points. It never ceases to amaze me that the kinds of people that hear about a tragedy like this one and focus on stupid little details to the exclusion of the real problem are the people who are running our schools. As Jon pointed out, trech coats are being banned. Doom player outreach programs are being started, and God only knows what other crap they'll come up with.
Maybe if these same school administrators wouldn't turn a blind eye to the harrassment and grief that some kids go through, they'd be able to help them before things get to this point. These kids didn't connect in any way with the other students at their school. They didn't seem to see the other students as people. They saw them as their tormentors and lashed out at them as such. If the teachers, administrators, and other students couldn't see that these kids were having problems fitting in and were being persecuted by some of their peers, then they must have been completely unconcerned and/or unwilling to help. I'm not trying to shift the blame off of the killers. I'm simply trying to say that if people had cared at all, then this tragedy might have been avoided and none of those kids would have had to die.
If they had taken note of what was going on and made the effort to try to talk to these kids and get them some help, they might have averted this disaster. During my time in high school, I realized that for the most part, teachers and administrators don't really care if you are treated well by others or not. They don't care that you don't interact at all with other students, or with only a couple specific students. As long as you don't break their rules, they don't care what you do, how you feel, or how others feel about you. By the time these kids decided to break the rules, it was way too late.
Apparently the police have found numerous backpacks full of explosives, as well as a very large bomb in the cafeteria. They are now saying they are quite certain that the two shooters had help. Another student said that he was friends with one of the shooters and that he had been told by him to leave school that day, so he did. Why didn't he realize something bad was going to happen and tell someone? Why didn't the other students who realized something was going on tell anyone? There are many people who could have done something to stop this. None of them did a thing though. I think they are almost as criminal as the killers themselves.
As for a), it seems most american are paranoid about governements. They have this absession that all the officials are trying to screw them up. But this governement, is made of citizen and elected by citizen. A governement is supposed to work for the well being of its citizen. If you need guns to protect yourself from your governement, then you don't live in a democracy. Then what are you waiting to start a civil war?
Okay, this is a flawed argument. You are assuming that politicians are a straight-arrow bunch of boyscouts that have the people's best interests at heart. That may have been so at one point in time long ago (if even then), but it isn't that way any longer. Most of these guys don't have any other jobs. They are career politicians. They can't just do what's right. That might be too controversial and they may not get reelected. What would they do then? Second, you assume that just because we have something resembling a democracy (actually a democratic republic), that the government cannot become corrupt. Bad thing to assume. Have you seen the scandals and illegal activities that politicians are involved in? My God, it scares the hell out of me. Don't kid yourself, they can and do steal from the rest of us. This country is a hell of alot more screwed up than most people know. Did you know that the top 10 or so banks in the country are effectively bankrupt due to all the loans they have been making to other countries? Then there are things like the S&L bailout and various other bailouts. Some rich businessmen get greedy and make some really bad investment decisions with other people's money. They lose it all and the government takes our tax money and puts them right back in business. What a deal. No risk as long as you are dealing in numbers large enough to screw up the economy. The government spends half its time trying to cover up its mistakes and splits the rest of the time between making more mistakes and appeasing the old people that still bother to vote.(voting is a whole separate discussion that I'm not going to go into here.)
As for c), you forget that anyone, at one moment or another, is a criminal. Most people, at one moment are another in their life, get somewhat insane. When these person have a gun, they can get pretty dangerous, killing themselves or others. Most gun advocate always depict a world with the good guys protecting themselves against the bad guys. It's not a John Wayne movie, there are no good or bad guys, just different humans.
This argument should be qualified. We are referring to violent criminals, which invalidates your statement that everyone at one point or another is a criminal. They may break a minor law, but that is a far cry from committing a violent crime. There is a point about people snapping in a fit of rage and killing someone because they had easy access to a gun. Of course in that case, a knife might be a whole lot handier and there's probably one close by. Or maybe a broken bottle or a fireplace poker. You get the point. Why take the time to get your gun and drive to someone's house and shoot them? If someone can take that much time and still be determined to kill the other person, then they will do it with or without a gun. People who lose control can kill someone whether they really intend to or not. It does happen. It will happen with or without guns. Those people should be held fully responsible for their actions (even though they often aren't). These kinds of crimes will never cease until human nature changes. The other problem is that you can't keep guns out of the hands of criminals. This goes right back to my previous argument which nobody here has addressed. They have never been able to do this with any product that an enterprising group can make money off of. Outlawing liquor didn't work. Outlawing drugs didn't work. What makes you think outlawing guns will work? All that will do is get rid of the legitimate places to buy guns where they are registered and there is a mandatory 3-day waiting period. If those are gone then all criminals will have absolutely untraceable weapons and law-abiding citizens will have no defense. Try calling 911 when someone is already in your house. Trust me, it's too late.
As for occupying America, this is PATHETIC : if somebody is fighting openly America, you won't even have the time to reach to your gun when your city will be nuked. Guns won't save you, whatever the NRA says.
This all depends on the intentions of the group that is attacking the country. If they want to turn the country into a worthless radiated wasteland, then yeah, they can just nuke it. If they want to gain control of the country and its vast industry and wealth, then they have to occupy it while doing as little damage as possible. In that case, guns might do some good. People would either choose to fight or surrender. At least they have the choice. If its a nuke fight, then this whole argument is pointless because there won't be anyone left to complain about the gun problem.
But please don't make these two out to be victims, They lost control of reality, They pulled the triggers, and they are to blame.
You're right about this. I didn't mean to absolve them of blame. They are most definitely the primary ones that are to blame for the tragedy. I see now that I didn't actually say that in my post. That was an oversight. I've said it in many other posts today though, so I guess I took it for granted.
I also wanted to point out that others were also partially to blame. The parents are the obvious candidates. The thing you seemed to take issue with was that I also laid some blame on the other students. I don't think that is wrong. If you continually beat on and pick on and harrass somebody, eventually they will snap and lash out. It just doesn't usually happen this way. Sometimes they simply commit suicide. Sometimes they lash out in a much more reserved way. These two did it in a very ambitous way in order to get their revenge before they killed themselves. I think it's only common sense that you can only push people so far. Especially when it's a young person who is not fully mature or who has not been raised with the sense of honor or morality that one needs in order to get along in society. Public high schools do very little to foster any sense of honor or morality. I've been there and it's not pretty.
And contrary to popular slashdot opinion, bombarding children with the message that violence is acceptable, fun, and cool may just have a detrimental effect.
This is where parenting comes in. You are responsible for the children you bring into this world. It almost seems kinds sick that anyone is allowed to have a child and then turn that child loose on society with little or no parenting. Parents who let their kids watch whatever they want, as much as they want are not doing their job. I wonder how involved the parents of these kids were in their lives. I wonder how often they actually talked to their kids as they were growing up. I wonder alot of things about their lives. There was something very very wrong with them.
I don't think the media glorifies the act of walking into a building and killing a bunch of defenseless people. Yeah, there's alot of violence, but then the media doesn't depict everyday life. It depicts extraordinary (usually fictional) people in extraordinary (usually fictional) situations. With a little parenting, kids should be able to understand this. If they can't, then they have no business watching that sort of movie or whatever it is, and the parents should not let them. I think parents should be held responsible once in a while. If they aren't going to take the time to raise their children right, then they shouldn't have children in the first place.
If he'd actually killed someone, then you would probably have a case. Then it would go to court and the jury would make the decision. Not all that complicated.
An armed populace (and don't we already have one, anyway?) is no deterrent to a demented mind intent on violence.
I don't believe we really have an armed populace. Only a very very small percentage of the population is licensed to carry a concealed handgun. The risk to someone commiting a violent crime is pretty low.
Also, while I agree with you that someone with "a demented mind intent on violence" is not likely to be deterred by the possibility of people nearby carrying guns, I do think that it could keep that demented person from killing as many people as he might otherwise be able to do. If he shoots someone only to have someone else shoot him, then he won't be able to kill anyone else. Simple as that. Guns will always be available to those who want them, just as drugs are available to anyone who wants them. Does the demented person really care that they are outlawed?
The idea of gun control may work in some countries. Unfortunately, banning just about anything in the US doesn't work very well unless that something is very expensive or hard to obtain in the first place. Guns are neither expensive nor hard to obtain. It will end up being just like the "war on drugs" that we've heard so much about, but that hasn't really changed the fact that I can buy just about any drug I want within a few miles of my home.
I don't think that the possibility of someone at the school being armed (security guards or whatever) would have made a difference in this case. They knew they were going to die, but they were angry too. They wanted to kill as many of the people who had caused them pain as they could. It was a sort of pre-avenging of their deaths. Perhaps someone would have shot them, but that wasn't a concern to them since they were going to kill themselves anyway. At least they could take a few people with them.
Wake up. Outlawing guns isn't going to solve anything. Liquor was outlawed. Did that prevent people from getting it? Nope. It just turned it into a lucrative business. Drugs are outlawed. Does that mean I can't get any within a mile of my house? Nope. It's also a lucrative business. I could buy drugs any time I want. What does that tell you about what will likely happen if guns are outlawed. Then only those people who want a gun in order to kill someone will be able to get a gun. The person who is the target will probably have no defense whatsoever. Sounds like a great way to live.
The "right of the people to keep and bear arms" was justified by the need for a "well regulated militia". In this day and age, with the technology available to us and the size of our "well regulated" armed forces, the 2nd amendment is hopelessly out of date.
Hmm.. where to start? First of all, I think it should be the right of any law-abiding citizen to own a gun for their own protection. They should obviously have a license for the weapon and receive proper training in its use.
Second, the old saying, "If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns" definitely rings true. Drugs are outlawed, but will that stop me from buying them if I really want to? It's not even difficult to buy them. Whether guns are legal or not, I know that those who want them will be able to get them. I'd just as soon keep them legal so that those of us who are not criminals will have some means of protection available to us. Maybe it's not much, but you can't really rely on the police to protect you. They get there later and put what's left of you into little baggies.
The problem is not the availability of weapons, but the desire of people to kill others for whatever reason. I can own a gun and never fire it for any reason other than practice. Does that make me a dangerous person? I don't think so. A dangerous person is dangerous whether they have a gun or not. If they want to kill someone, then they will most likely do it, gun or no. Would I stand any better chance against a burglar with a knife than one with a gun? Would it matter at all if he had a hunting rifle or an assault rifle? I'd be just as dead either way. If I had a gun of my own, then perhaps I would have some chance of saving myself. I think I should at least be given that chance at staying alive.
Somewhere along the way, the perpetrators in Littleton stopped believing that murder is wrong and learned to see it as a viable solution to their problems.
I think you are confused here. They didn't see murder as a solution to their problem. Their solution to their problem was suicide. The murder was done as a kind of pre-avenging of their own immenent deaths. They were going to die and take as many of the people whom they hated with them as possible. Perhaps they thought they were doing some small deed to make the world a better place for others like themselves. Perhaps they did. I don't know and I'd rather not even go off in that direction. The point is that they didn't see things the way we see them. They weren't rational. You can't, as a rational person, make any sense out of what happened. It's a tragedy, but Quake and Doom are far from being the cause.
You can't use a TV to babysit kids and then expect them to grow into civilized human beings.
Bingo. You got this right. But why are you blaming the TV for not being a good parent? Isn't that the responsibility of the child's parents? The TV shows are there for entertainment and information. They are not there to raise children.
I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had a school district psychologist, the lawyer for the parents of the children who were killed in Kentucky, and another person (don't remember who she was) talking about the causes of the incident. I wanted to strangle all of them. It was some of the most irresponsible and irrational commentary I've ever heard. I was actually yelling back at the radio (yeah, I know, look who's talking about irrational commentary.. irony noted:).
The Kentucky lawyer went on and on about how the game manufacturers were irresponsible for putting out games with violent content and about how it taught kids the skills they needed to kill (such as ammo conservation). He said that a person's normal reaction would be to empty a gun into the target until it falls, but that the kids didn't do that because the games taught them to fire conservatively and take out as many targets as possible with as little ammo as possible.
Is this guy for real?? Has he ever played these games? You run around firing a rocket launcher most of the time! Not to mention the fact that this wasn't an instinctual thing that happened. The whole incident was premeditated. They were there to kill as many of the people who had tormented them, or that represented the groups that had tormented them, as they possibly could. They didn't empty a gun into someone because they didn't need to. They weren't fighting for their lives. They were going to die and they knew it. They were there to kill those who had bullied and harrassed and alienated them before they killed themselves. After reading some of the background of the group, they seem to be rather racist and not at all right in the head. I don't know whether that was caused by their alienation or was the reason for it. Either way, the kids weren't alright.
The lawyers and psychologists and pundits should all wake up to reality. DOOM didn't cause this. I don't think it even contributed to it in any significant way. Killing pixilated aliens hardly prepares you to kill someone that you've gone to school with for years. Aiming with a mouse hardly teaches you any gun skills. The fact is that they were shooting people at point blank range. They couldn't miss and it only takes one shot. If they really must blame someone for the tragedy, then let them put the blame where it belongs: on those who harrassed and alienated the teens and the parents who did not take responsibility for raising them with a sense of right and wrong and reality versus fantasy. Any other blame is misdirected.
First of all, a nuke is a bomb. Besides that, his point was that there is always a way to kill people. Guns are a quick and powerful way to kill someone, but bombs, knives, bats, gasoline, etc., will all get the job done. If you have read anything about the incident, then you would know that the kids made their own bombs. They didn't run down to the local BombMart and buy them. Maybe we should abolish chemistry classes. Ban all chemistry books as well. People shouldn't have access to information that could potentially be used to harm someone.
Gimme a break. Guns didn't cause the problem. The social environment and lack of decent parenting caused the problem. The people involved need to quit trying to blame anyone and everyone but themselves. I'm sure that's quite difficult for them to deal with, but if they want to live in their own delusional world, then they shouldn't begrudge the two killers for living in theirs.
If it really is the Promised Land, then why isn't God smiting spammers left and right? Wouldn't their business be roughly equivalent to putting those little ad insert cards that make up half the weight of most magazines into Bibles? I would think that he'd be kinda ticked about that.
Is there any corporation or research unit that wants funding? Perhaps a Slashdot collective, and if each user of all 200,000 of us sends 10 dollars, we could get some sort of share or ownership of the technologies involved =)
Hmm.. and if each of us sends 200 dollars we could build our own reactor and maintain it for a little while.
Finally get what's comin to us...
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Killer Asteroid
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· Score: 1
Really, if the world can't get its act together in the next 25 to 40 years, at least enough to stop a big rock from annihilating life as we know it, then we probably deserve to get wiped out by an asteroid. Then in another few billion years, new life will emerge and try to create a new society without falling into the trap of creating lawyers or politicians. Or then again, the world could just become a lifeless hunk of rock like the moon. Either way, the universe will probably benefit from it. Think of it as survival of the fittest. If we can prevent ourselves from being killed, then we deserve to live. If not, then the big rock will get to make its opinion of us known.
I guess that's what people must think. You can't limit someone's right to reproduce because you would have to impose on their religious beliefs, their cultural beliefs, and/or alter their body or lifestyle drastically. You can't tell someone not to do it or you end up with a situation like they have in China. One child per family. You go to the clinic 4 times a year and if you're pregnant, you get an immediate abortion. If you break the law, you go to jail. While I understand the problem of overpopulation, it doesn't make the solution very palatable. Of course, people seem to understand the problems of having too many animals and generally aren't against controlling the animal population. Why is it that the human population should be allowed to grow unchecked? Don't some of the same problems show up?
Who would get to decide who was fit to have a child and who wasn't? What if standards keep rising? Maybe we should only let reasonably intelligent, AND athletic people have children. Maybe that would cut down on deaths from heart disease, cancer, smoking-related ilness, drug-related ilness, etc. The bottom line is that someone would get the role of God in determining who would live and who would not.
Interestingly enough, the local newspaper in San Antonio, TX just ran a story on GNOME. It was on the first page of the business section. Had a picture of Miguel and everything. It was titled something like "Open Source Software Looking to Invade Microsoft's Turf" or something to that effect. Nice to see it getting some notice even at the local level now.
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You couldn't enforce the ban effectively anyway, anymore than the ban on drugs has been effective. You would disarm the population, thereby leaving them to be the prey of those who are bigger, stronger, or criminally in posession of a gun. Perhaps killers will start to use knives or clubs or some other weapon. Am I going to feel safer knowing that someone who breaks into my house will have to beat or stab me and my family to death rather than shoot us? Heck no. People thwart criminals like this with guns all the time. If they didn't have guns, then they become the victims and their lives are put in the hands of the criminal. The police only respond if you are able to call them and even then it takes them a while. They can arrive on the scene in time to pick up the pieces and clean up the mess. That's about it.
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property. We have the right to own a gun. The only thing that should be changed in my opinion is the procedure for getting a gun. You see, the real problem is that any idiot can own a gun right now. You have these morons accidentally killing themselves or someone else, or letting children get ahold of the weapon. This is just plain stupid. You should be required to pass some rigorous tests to prove your competency in using the weapon, as well as your intelligence as to when and how to use the weapon and how to keep it safely away from children or anyone else who shouldn't have access to it. These tests should be very tough and not pushover tests like we have in order to get a driver's license. If this is done, then perhaps we would have fewer people able to buy a gun, and those who are will be informed and competent in its use.
These numbers are incredibly high. I'm not sure whether that supports or detracts from your argument. It's hard to believe that there were over 927 incidents in schools where 12 or more people were killed at all, let alone by methods other than guns. Since 54% were drive-by incidents, that means that a fair number of the school incidents were drive-bys in which 12 or more people were killed? Is there someplace we can find these numbers?
Do you know how many bombs they found in that school? It was over thirty I believe. There was one rather large one in the cafeteria. A big propane tank with pipe bombs strapped to it. Maybe if the kids hadn't spent their time shooting people, they would have just set off all the bombs and killed a whole lot more people. If they want to kill, they will kill. Guns are a more direct way of killing people. You have to physically pull the trigger on each person you shoot. With bombs, you plant them and watch the whole place and everyone in it go up in flames. Don't blame the guns. Blame the killers. They were going to kill, no matter what method they had to use. Be thankful they weren't able to set off the bombs. It could have been much worse.
Didn't the Brady bill ban assault rifles? I think it did. I think people are confused about the term "semi-automatic." Most handguns today are either revolvers or semi-automatic pistols. The police use them. The military uses them. They are the standard weapons now. I believe they are only allowed to have a 10 round magazine though. So apparently all of the previous poster's suggestions are already law. They just didn't matter in this case. Criminals don't have alot of respect for the law anyway.
Actually it's necessary in the house AND at the store. That's why you have to fill out a bunch of stuff when you buy a gun. Somehow I don't think these kids got the weapons from Wal-Mart though. Either way, what matters is that nothing was done before it was too late. The parents didn't do anything. The teachers didn't do anything. The other students didn't do anything. Nobody did anything to head off this disaster.
You make some good points. It never ceases to amaze me that the kinds of people that hear about a tragedy like this one and focus on stupid little details to the exclusion of the real problem are the people who are running our schools. As Jon pointed out, trech coats are being banned. Doom player outreach programs are being started, and God only knows what other crap they'll come up with.
Maybe if these same school administrators wouldn't turn a blind eye to the harrassment and grief that some kids go through, they'd be able to help them before things get to this point. These kids didn't connect in any way with the other students at their school. They didn't seem to see the other students as people. They saw them as their tormentors and lashed out at them as such. If the teachers, administrators, and other students couldn't see that these kids were having problems fitting in and were being persecuted by some of their peers, then they must have been completely unconcerned and/or unwilling to help. I'm not trying to shift the blame off of the killers. I'm simply trying to say that if people had cared at all, then this tragedy might have been avoided and none of those kids would have had to die.
If they had taken note of what was going on and made the effort to try to talk to these kids and get them some help, they might have averted this disaster. During my time in high school, I realized that for the most part, teachers and administrators don't really care if you are treated well by others or not. They don't care that you don't interact at all with other students, or with only a couple specific students. As long as you don't break their rules, they don't care what you do, how you feel, or how others feel about you. By the time these kids decided to break the rules, it was way too late.
Apparently the police have found numerous backpacks full of explosives, as well as a very large bomb in the cafeteria. They are now saying they are quite certain that the two shooters had help. Another student said that he was friends with one of the shooters and that he had been told by him to leave school that day, so he did. Why didn't he realize something bad was going to happen and tell someone? Why didn't the other students who realized something was going on tell anyone? There are many people who could have done something to stop this. None of them did a thing though. I think they are almost as criminal as the killers themselves.
As for a), it seems most american are paranoid about governements. They have this absession that all the officials are trying to screw them up. But this governement, is made of citizen and elected by citizen. A governement is supposed to work for the well being of its citizen. If you need guns to protect yourself from your governement, then you don't live in a democracy. Then what are you waiting to start a civil war?
Okay, this is a flawed argument. You are assuming that politicians are a straight-arrow bunch of boyscouts that have the people's best interests at heart. That may have been so at one point in time long ago (if even then), but it isn't that way any longer. Most of these guys don't have any other jobs. They are career politicians. They can't just do what's right. That might be too controversial and they may not get reelected. What would they do then? Second, you assume that just because we have something resembling a democracy (actually a democratic republic), that the government cannot become corrupt. Bad thing to assume. Have you seen the scandals and illegal activities that politicians are involved in? My God, it scares the hell out of me. Don't kid yourself, they can and do steal from the rest of us. This country is a hell of alot more screwed up than most people know. Did you know that the top 10 or so banks in the country are effectively bankrupt due to all the loans they have been making to other countries? Then there are things like the S&L bailout and various other bailouts. Some rich businessmen get greedy and make some really bad investment decisions with other people's money. They lose it all and the government takes our tax money and puts them right back in business. What a deal. No risk as long as you are dealing in numbers large enough to screw up the economy. The government spends half its time trying to cover up its mistakes and splits the rest of the time between making more mistakes and appeasing the old people that still bother to vote.(voting is a whole separate discussion that I'm not going to go into here.)
As for c), you forget that anyone, at one moment or another, is a criminal. Most people, at one moment are another in their life, get somewhat insane. When these person have a gun, they can get pretty dangerous, killing themselves or others. Most gun advocate always depict a world with the good guys protecting themselves against the bad guys. It's not a John Wayne movie, there are no good or bad guys, just different humans.
This argument should be qualified. We are referring to violent criminals, which invalidates your statement that everyone at one point or another is a criminal. They may break a minor law, but that is a far cry from committing a violent crime. There is a point about people snapping in a fit of rage and killing someone because they had easy access to a gun. Of course in that case, a knife might be a whole lot handier and there's probably one close by. Or maybe a broken bottle or a fireplace poker. You get the point. Why take the time to get your gun and drive to someone's house and shoot them? If someone can take that much time and still be determined to kill the other person, then they will do it with or without a gun. People who lose control can kill someone whether they really intend to or not. It does happen. It will happen with or without guns. Those people should be held fully responsible for their actions (even though they often aren't). These kinds of crimes will never cease until human nature changes. The other problem is that you can't keep guns out of the hands of criminals. This goes right back to my previous argument which nobody here has addressed. They have never been able to do this with any product that an enterprising group can make money off of. Outlawing liquor didn't work. Outlawing drugs didn't work. What makes you think outlawing guns will work? All that will do is get rid of the legitimate places to buy guns where they are registered and there is a mandatory 3-day waiting period. If those are gone then all criminals will have absolutely untraceable weapons and law-abiding citizens will have no defense. Try calling 911 when someone is already in your house. Trust me, it's too late.
As for occupying America, this is PATHETIC : if somebody is fighting openly America, you won't even have the time to reach to your gun when your city will be nuked. Guns won't save you, whatever the NRA says.
This all depends on the intentions of the group that is attacking the country. If they want to turn the country into a worthless radiated wasteland, then yeah, they can just nuke it. If they want to gain control of the country and its vast industry and wealth, then they have to occupy it while doing as little damage as possible. In that case, guns might do some good. People would either choose to fight or surrender. At least they have the choice. If its a nuke fight, then this whole argument is pointless because there won't be anyone left to complain about the gun problem.
But please don't make these two out to be victims, They lost control of reality, They pulled the triggers, and they are to blame.
You're right about this. I didn't mean to absolve them of blame. They are most definitely the primary ones that are to blame for the tragedy. I see now that I didn't actually say that in my post. That was an oversight. I've said it in many other posts today though, so I guess I took it for granted.
I also wanted to point out that others were also partially to blame. The parents are the obvious candidates. The thing you seemed to take issue with was that I also laid some blame on the other students. I don't think that is wrong. If you continually beat on and pick on and harrass somebody, eventually they will snap and lash out. It just doesn't usually happen this way. Sometimes they simply commit suicide. Sometimes they lash out in a much more reserved way. These two did it in a very ambitous way in order to get their revenge before they killed themselves. I think it's only common sense that you can only push people so far. Especially when it's a young person who is not fully mature or who has not been raised with the sense of honor or morality that one needs in order to get along in society. Public high schools do very little to foster any sense of honor or morality. I've been there and it's not pretty.
And contrary to popular slashdot opinion, bombarding children with the message that violence is acceptable, fun, and cool may just have a detrimental effect.
This is where parenting comes in. You are responsible for the children you bring into this world. It almost seems kinds sick that anyone is allowed to have a child and then turn that child loose on society with little or no parenting. Parents who let their kids watch whatever they want, as much as they want are not doing their job. I wonder how involved the parents of these kids were in their lives. I wonder how often they actually talked to their kids as they were growing up. I wonder alot of things about their lives. There was something very very wrong with them.
I don't think the media glorifies the act of walking into a building and killing a bunch of defenseless people. Yeah, there's alot of violence, but then the media doesn't depict everyday life. It depicts extraordinary (usually fictional) people in extraordinary (usually fictional) situations. With a little parenting, kids should be able to understand this. If they can't, then they have no business watching that sort of movie or whatever it is, and the parents should not let them. I think parents should be held responsible once in a while. If they aren't going to take the time to raise their children right, then they shouldn't have children in the first place.
This deserves to be moderated up even though the text is on another site. I think this is something that everyone here should go read.
If he'd actually killed someone, then you would probably have a case. Then it would go to court and the jury would make the decision. Not all that complicated.
An armed populace (and don't we already have one, anyway?) is no deterrent to a demented mind intent on violence.
I don't believe we really have an armed populace. Only a very very small percentage of the population is licensed to carry a concealed handgun. The risk to someone commiting a violent crime is pretty low.
Also, while I agree with you that someone with "a demented mind intent on violence" is not likely to be deterred by the possibility of people nearby carrying guns, I do think that it could keep that demented person from killing as many people as he might otherwise be able to do. If he shoots someone only to have someone else shoot him, then he won't be able to kill anyone else. Simple as that. Guns will always be available to those who want them, just as drugs are available to anyone who wants them. Does the demented person really care that they are outlawed?
The idea of gun control may work in some countries. Unfortunately, banning just about anything in the US doesn't work very well unless that something is very expensive or hard to obtain in the first place. Guns are neither expensive nor hard to obtain. It will end up being just like the "war on drugs" that we've heard so much about, but that hasn't really changed the fact that I can buy just about any drug I want within a few miles of my home.
I don't think that the possibility of someone at the school being armed (security guards or whatever) would have made a difference in this case. They knew they were going to die, but they were angry too. They wanted to kill as many of the people who had caused them pain as they could. It was a sort of pre-avenging of their deaths. Perhaps someone would have shot them, but that wasn't a concern to them since they were going to kill themselves anyway. At least they could take a few people with them.
Wake up. Outlawing guns isn't going to solve anything. Liquor was outlawed. Did that prevent people from getting it? Nope. It just turned it into a lucrative business. Drugs are outlawed. Does that mean I can't get any within a mile of my house? Nope. It's also a lucrative business. I could buy drugs any time I want. What does that tell you about what will likely happen if guns are outlawed. Then only those people who want a gun in order to kill someone will be able to get a gun. The person who is the target will probably have no defense whatsoever. Sounds like a great way to live.
The "right of the people to keep and bear arms" was justified by the need for a "well regulated militia". In this day and age, with the technology available to us and the size of our "well regulated" armed forces, the 2nd amendment is hopelessly out of date.
Hmm.. where to start? First of all, I think it should be the right of any law-abiding citizen to own a gun for their own protection. They should obviously have a license for the weapon and receive proper training in its use.
Second, the old saying, "If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns" definitely rings true. Drugs are outlawed, but will that stop me from buying them if I really want to? It's not even difficult to buy them. Whether guns are legal or not, I know that those who want them will be able to get them. I'd just as soon keep them legal so that those of us who are not criminals will have some means of protection available to us. Maybe it's not much, but you can't really rely on the police to protect you. They get there later and put what's left of you into little baggies.
The problem is not the availability of weapons, but the desire of people to kill others for whatever reason. I can own a gun and never fire it for any reason other than practice. Does that make me a dangerous person? I don't think so. A dangerous person is dangerous whether they have a gun or not. If they want to kill someone, then they will most likely do it, gun or no. Would I stand any better chance against a burglar with a knife than one with a gun? Would it matter at all if he had a hunting rifle or an assault rifle? I'd be just as dead either way. If I had a gun of my own, then perhaps I would have some chance of saving myself. I think I should at least be given that chance at staying alive.
Somewhere along the way, the perpetrators in Littleton stopped believing that murder is wrong and learned to see it as a viable solution to their problems.
I think you are confused here. They didn't see murder as a solution to their problem. Their solution to their problem was suicide. The murder was done as a kind of pre-avenging of their own immenent deaths. They were going to die and take as many of the people whom they hated with them as possible. Perhaps they thought they were doing some small deed to make the world a better place for others like themselves. Perhaps they did. I don't know and I'd rather not even go off in that direction. The point is that they didn't see things the way we see them. They weren't rational. You can't, as a rational person, make any sense out of what happened. It's a tragedy, but Quake and Doom are far from being the cause.
You can't use a TV to babysit kids and then expect them to grow into civilized human beings.
Bingo. You got this right. But why are you blaming the TV for not being a good parent? Isn't that the responsibility of the child's parents? The TV shows are there for entertainment and information. They are not there to raise children.
I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had a school district psychologist, the lawyer for the parents of the children who were killed in Kentucky, and another person (don't remember who she was) talking about the causes of the incident. I wanted to strangle all of them. It was some of the most irresponsible and irrational commentary I've ever heard. I was actually yelling back at the radio (yeah, I know, look who's talking about irrational commentary.. irony noted :).
The Kentucky lawyer went on and on about how the game manufacturers were irresponsible for putting out games with violent content and about how it taught kids the skills they needed to kill (such as ammo conservation). He said that a person's normal reaction would be to empty a gun into the target until it falls, but that the kids didn't do that because the games taught them to fire conservatively and take out as many targets as possible with as little ammo as possible.
Is this guy for real?? Has he ever played these games? You run around firing a rocket launcher most of the time! Not to mention the fact that this wasn't an instinctual thing that happened. The whole incident was premeditated. They were there to kill as many of the people who had tormented them, or that represented the groups that had tormented them, as they possibly could. They didn't empty a gun into someone because they didn't need to. They weren't fighting for their lives. They were going to die and they knew it. They were there to kill those who had bullied and harrassed and alienated them before they killed themselves. After reading some of the background of the group, they seem to be rather racist and not at all right in the head. I don't know whether that was caused by their alienation or was the reason for it. Either way, the kids weren't alright.
The lawyers and psychologists and pundits should all wake up to reality. DOOM didn't cause this. I don't think it even contributed to it in any significant way. Killing pixilated aliens hardly prepares you to kill someone that you've gone to school with for years. Aiming with a mouse hardly teaches you any gun skills. The fact is that they were shooting people at point blank range. They couldn't miss and it only takes one shot. If they really must blame someone for the tragedy, then let them put the blame where it belongs: on those who harrassed and alienated the teens and the parents who did not take responsibility for raising them with a sense of right and wrong and reality versus fantasy. Any other blame is misdirected.
First of all, a nuke is a bomb. Besides that, his point was that there is always a way to kill people. Guns are a quick and powerful way to kill someone, but bombs, knives, bats, gasoline, etc., will all get the job done. If you have read anything about the incident, then you would know that the kids made their own bombs. They didn't run down to the local BombMart and buy them. Maybe we should abolish chemistry classes. Ban all chemistry books as well. People shouldn't have access to information that could potentially be used to harm someone.
Gimme a break. Guns didn't cause the problem. The social environment and lack of decent parenting caused the problem. The people involved need to quit trying to blame anyone and everyone but themselves. I'm sure that's quite difficult for them to deal with, but if they want to live in their own delusional world, then they shouldn't begrudge the two killers for living in theirs.
If it really is the Promised Land, then why isn't God smiting spammers left and right? Wouldn't their business be roughly equivalent to putting those little ad insert cards that make up half the weight of most magazines into Bibles? I would think that he'd be kinda ticked about that.
Is there any corporation or research unit that wants funding? Perhaps a Slashdot collective, and if each user of all 200,000 of us sends 10 dollars, we could get some sort of share or ownership of the technologies involved =)
Hmm.. and if each of us sends 200 dollars we could build our own reactor and maintain it for a little while.
Really, if the world can't get its act together in the next 25 to 40 years, at least enough to stop a big rock from annihilating life as we know it, then we probably deserve to get wiped out by an asteroid. Then in another few billion years, new life will emerge and try to create a new society without falling into the trap of creating lawyers or politicians. Or then again, the world could just become a lifeless hunk of rock like the moon. Either way, the universe will probably benefit from it. Think of it as survival of the fittest. If we can prevent ourselves from being killed, then we deserve to live. If not, then the big rock will get to make its opinion of us known.
I guess that's what people must think. You can't limit someone's right to reproduce because you would have to impose on their religious beliefs, their cultural beliefs, and/or alter their body or lifestyle drastically. You can't tell someone not to do it or you end up with a situation like they have in China. One child per family. You go to the clinic 4 times a year and if you're pregnant, you get an immediate abortion. If you break the law, you go to jail. While I understand the problem of overpopulation, it doesn't make the solution very palatable. Of course, people seem to understand the problems of having too many animals and generally aren't against controlling the animal population. Why is it that the human population should be allowed to grow unchecked? Don't some of the same problems show up?
Who would get to decide who was fit to have a child and who wasn't? What if standards keep rising? Maybe we should only let reasonably intelligent, AND athletic people have children. Maybe that would cut down on deaths from heart disease, cancer, smoking-related ilness, drug-related ilness, etc. The bottom line is that someone would get the role of God in determining who would live and who would not.
Interestingly enough, the local newspaper in San Antonio, TX just ran a story on GNOME. It was on the first page of the business section. Had a picture of Miguel and everything. It was titled something like "Open Source Software Looking to Invade Microsoft's Turf" or something to that effect. Nice to see it getting some notice even at the local level now.
In which case the blame still falls on the parents. Either way it was their responsibility to raise him to be a decent human being.