I am, however, anti-rape, though that does not inform my opinion on guns.
I suggest that you watch the video. To be honest, I was expecting a flamebait mod for that sig, not a reply. It was on topic for another thread I was posting in though. The standard of moderation has declined, obviously. Nevertheless, we all see the victims of shootings on the news and should rightly have compassion for them and try to prevent them. I think that similarly we should have compassion for those that have taken responsibility for their own defense and not strip that defense from them.
Labeling people pro-rape is not a reasonable way to frame an argument.
No, it's an emotional provocation because it's an emotional issue, I've now removed that statement. Perhaps it would be better to say that Australia implemented the National Agreement on Firearms in 1996 and that according to the government report from Australian Institute of Criminology sexual assault numbers went from 14,542 in 1996 to 18,211 in 2006. There isn't room for that in the sig. It's also not a definitive argument for a particular position but it's worth consideration.
Considering your sig equates anti-gun with pro-rape, your opposition to my logic is unsurprising.
The majority of pro gun ban arguments are full of emotional hysteria. To be fair, the majority of political arguments on both "sides" are full of emotion and misleading "facts" and interpretations of those facts.
I've been challenging people to watch the video and tell me if they could look her in the eye and explain their reasoning as they personally confiscated that woman's guns. It seems obvious and very logical to me that if you have a right to self defense then you have a right to suitable tools necessary for that defense, suitable tools being guns. So far no gun banner has been willing to write that they would be willing to personally take her guns while looking her in the eye. How about you? The idea is that by having emotional reasons to not ban guns to conflict with their emotional reasons to ban guns that people might actually seek out facts because rationalizing their position would become more difficult.
If it so happens that your position on this topic is based on logic rather than emotion I salute you. If that's true, you are a very rare individual and are not the intended audience for my sig.
Labeling your opponent, then arguing based on that label is neither a fair, nor reasonable approach.
"Secure boot" is not a person or my "opponent". Calling it secure when it's being sold to me meaning it is secure from me is not a fair or reasonable approach. If you're referring to the sig, I'll answer your objection after you watch the video and tell me the explanation you'd give her as you personally confiscate her guns. If you're not willing to do that your conviction that gun bans are good is not as strong as you think.
My emotional response to a particular event isn't the basis for a good policy
Yet that was the basis of bringing in our gun laws. You just don't want to admit that you are capable of an emotional response that would support gun ownership because it conflicts with your emotional response that supports banning guns. It's much easier to rationalize your opinion if your emotions aren't conflicted.
Like it or not, both "sides" of most political arguments consist entirely of emotional certainty and distortion of facts. I can point out factual distortion by both sides in the gun debate. Can you find the distortions made by those whose position you agree with?
As for calling you names, the closest I came is saying "Don't be an idiot" when you said Susan Falls ability to defend herself wasn't removed if she didn't have a gun. I apologize. I still don't think you'd kill me for that and have no problem with you owning a gun and if you don't have any criminal convictions or mental illness, it IS legal for you to buy a gun if you go through the licensing process. I just think that self defense should be a valid reason to acquire it. You ask me about the reasoning of our judicial system. I think I am more in line with it than you because I assume you are innocent of murderous intent until shown otherwise.
Leaving off discussion of whether guns should be legal though, I'll point out a difference in Australian law and US law. Our gun laws are constitutional and legal because we have no constitutional limit on our state governments preventing them from passing that law. I don't expect to get my way all the time in a democracy, so while I disagree with aspects of our laws I'm still ok with them. IMO the US second amendment protects the right of the people to retain firearms of a type that would be useful in military conflict. I can see why people might think it's a bad idea but I don't see that it can be reasonably read any other way. John Howard got the states to bring in uniform gun laws by threatening a referendum to give the federal government power to legislate this matter, ie: he was going to follow the law and constitution the whole way. US politicians circumvent their constitution to illegally bring in gun control.
This is why Australians gave up their guns when the laws came in but Americans won't, IMO, and are more likely to prepare for civil war.
So would you or would you not be able to look her in the eye as you took her guns? Why is it that you are unable to answer that question? As for what options Susan Falls had, that argument was exhausted in court. You also keep on arguing against things I haven't said. As a result this discussion isn't worth any more of my time.
People here would know if they are interested and inquiring. These policies are not hidden or secret.
Way to miss the point. We have the information he published, we know he got arrested. He didn't disappear in secret. In any case, if you say it's not important to have guns because information is more important and you concede control of information to the government (as you appear to) then you have in effect accepted dictatorial control. Since you have accepted dictatorial control, your opinion of the role of firearms in maintaining freedom isn't worth listening to. The US still has the death penalty for treason, I'm sure that is more of a deterrent than Manning's treatment bad as it is.
so you don't like me using - cast as a traitor
It's not that I don't like you using that, it is indeed a popular opinion. It is just absurd. It's also irrelevant to the topic of gun control.
Just owning a vehicle that isn't road worthy isn't a crime because it poses no threat. The moment it's driven it is a threat, which is why that is not legal
It was illegal for Susan Falls to obtain and possess the gun she used, but according to the jury, not illegal for her to use it. That is an absurdity in our legal system. No amount of car analogies will change that. She had to break the law to exercise her self defense "rights".
It is not that her ability to defend herself was removed if she didn't have a gun
Don't be an idiot. Look at a picture of her and her husband side by side. She is a little woman and he was huge. Guns are an equalizer, without them violent confrontations will almost always be won by the strongest.
You might be lucky and meet a stupid unsophisticated attacker and win with your gun.
Going by that "logic" then mass murderers with guns will only succeed against stupid unsophisticated victims. Or are you claiming that guns are really effective in the hands of criminals but don't work very well in the hands of the law abiding?
And, by the way, if this is the reasoning - why refer to the second amendment at all
As I said in my original post - the process of removing guns from the social environment is one that calms the situation over time.
That's not demonstrated. I grew up in rural Australia (just because I defend the second amendment doesn't mean I'm American) and everyone we knew had guns, nobody we knew were "gun nuts" (despite what you may think of me I do not actually own any guns and haven't fired one in over 20 years). Nobody was scared of bikers, we didn't need "anti-association legislation" and things like "glassing" were unheard of in mainstream pubs and clubs.
The murder rate in Australia was declining for a couple of decades before the gun laws were brought in (yes, even including the three mass shootings we had) and kept declining at approximately the same rate. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology - Australian crime : facts and figures 2007 http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/facts/1-20/2007.html
From 1996 to 2006 murder rate went from 354 to 319, assault went from 114,156 to 170,907, sexual assault from 14,542 to 18,211, robbery from 16,372 to 17,248 and kidnapping from 478 to 725.
Did you watch the video? What I really want to know is if you can watch that video and have the guts to look her in the eye as you take her guns. The link is in my sig now.
Hmmmm... guess that is why Julian Assange is held up in an embassy in London scared shitless he will be deported to the USA and tried as a spy. Similarly your suggesting that what is happening to Bradley Manning doesn't have a cooling effect to anyone else in the military who thinks it might be a good idea to leak classified documents?
We all know about it, unlike your scenario of secret detentions. Bradley Manning and everyone else already knew that if you have access to military secrets as part of your job you get in a lot of trouble if you leak them. You may decide to do so anyway but it is at your peril.
My impression of what the average joe american wants to do to Assange is not pretty at all. He is not seen as the information freedom advocate but rather cast as a traitor.
Most people don't think. It is clearly impossible to be a traitor to a country of which you are not a citizen. Perhaps it could be decided in Australia that he was guilty of treason since the US is an ally but the AFP don't seem to think so.
I think the leaders of dissent would be quietly removed before they ever became a serious concern.
And yet you still have the greens and Bob Katter. There is plenty of dissent in our society. It's not perfect but as a civilian you can speak freely against the government, as a member of the military not so much.
If I use your example with Susan Falls, and she had been driving an unregistered car to effect her self defence - are you claiming the unregistered vehicle should somehow be okay simply because she had to use to it protect herself?
It is legal to purchase an unregistered vehicle. It is not legal to purchase a silenced.22 pistol. See the difference? If, before the lethal confrontation, she was found to have an unregistered vehicle in her possession she would face no charges. If she had been found with a silenced.22 pistol she would have faced criminal charges and be presumed by people like you to be a violent criminal.
I'm going to put this bluntly: to deprive such a person of their self defense rights is evil. Have you seen the video "A Message To My Rapist"? I challenge you to watch the video then post here the explanation you would give her as to why it's a good thing as you personally take her firearms away. If you couldn't look her in the eye while you take her guns then you don't have the courage of your convictions. Would leave this woman defenseless against her attacker?
We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom, and we will actively urge people in our communities to avoid such jailed systems.
Plenty of people have criticized Apple and locked devices generally. This is not exactly out of left field from FSF. One difference though is that Apple do not put their lockdown requirements on other manufacturers, only on their own devices. The danger is that MS, by their influence over many manufacturers, might be able to end the era of open general purpose computers. Whether they would be able to accomplish that is debatable but given their history it seems most likely that it is their intention. It is appropriate to oppose them.
Inventing something doesn't give you the right to restrict other people's use of language. The FSF isn't lobbying for legislation to change the names manufacturers can use to refer to their products. What words you choose to use are entirely up to you.
Nevertheless I personally think there is a case to be made that we should demand truth in advertising and that if a computer is marketed as secure it directly implies that security is for the buyer against third parties, not for third parties against the buyer. Restricted is a more accurate term for the latter case.
They don't need to do anything to your phone, in Australia the networks won't connect phones reported stolen. The phone itself isn't tampered with in any way AFAIK, so if your phone got reported by accident you wouldn't lose your data.
If you think guns are what a modern government would use to keep control over you, you might have missed the importance of the control of information.
It hasn't escaped my attention, in terms of the US constitution that's 1st amendment. You might have noticed that the governments of the world aren't doing as well as they'd like controlling the information, with the internet and wikileaks et al.
What do you think they would bring to bare if it was a local national issue and not some distant country?
US citizens do not think bombing in Iraq threatens them. If the US military started bombing US cities the response would be a whole lot different.
It's not just about the ability to have a rebellion. If you have enough support to win a rebellion you could win an election anyway. Also, in a fight against the federal government you'd likely have the states involved, it wouldn't be a matter of a few rugged survivalists against Leviathan. It's also a matter of self defense rights. The Australian legal system is strongly contradictory on this point. Self defense can be a legal defense in case of killing someone but you are not allowed to arm yourself for self defense purposes so it's really self defense for the strong or unarmed combat trained.
Susan Falls shot her husband with an illegally acquired handgun. She was found not guilty (self defense) but self defense is not a valid reason (in Australian law) to possess a firearm. If it was not illegal for her to shoot him, how can it be illegal for her to acquire the firearm? You can't really have it both ways, Australian firearm laws are absurd.
Obviously they would need their explanation before they died and I would happily and without shame explain my position to them. Could you disarm that woman, who has prepared herself against her aggressor, and look her in the eye as you did it? You go on and on about the fear you presume gun owners to have. Well this woman indeed has fear. My presumption is that you would be too gutless to look her in the eye as you took her guns and you would instead have others do your dirty work for you.
If my interpretation of the second amendment is along the right lines, it was to intended to make sure that a government could be overthrown by the people, I think you guys need to reevaluate how effective any gun you can own is in a modern age. You would be up against the largest military in history.
Don't you even know your own history? Try reading up on the Eureka stockade, you don't always need overwhelming firepower to win your cause. For an example of US citizens rebelling against local government tyranny, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946) so you don't necessarily have to be ready to take on the whole Federal government and military either.
And yet, in the US, there are no mass murders with knives and uncountable ones with guns..
They are not uncountable. Hyperbole doesn't generally assist with rational debate. Another poster has stated that the US has had 3 such attacks with 20+ victims, the most deadly being a bomb attack. While tragic for those involved it's not exactly a major killer.
I'm in Australia and the murder rate hasn't been shown to have dropped here as a result of gun laws. What we do have that we didn't 20 years ago is a fear of bike gangs to the point that we have now introduced "anti-association laws" so that the police can get a secret hearing with secret evidence to declare your group a "criminal enterprise" and ban you from associating with your friends, even family members. Be careful what you wish for.
Looking logically at the school mass killings, I doubt any of them would be prevented by gun laws because they seem to be pre-planned, giving the attacker time to make a bomb.
Can you please tell us how you would explain to this woman why she shouldn't be allowed to have a gun? Would you be prepared to explain it to her personally?
Really? Most mass murders seem to be only a few people, dozens killed would put a killing up in the top few instances. In the Rwandan genocide, about half a million were killed, mostly with machetes.
For most mass murders, the issue is not the individual weapon but a captive group of victims insufficiently armed to overcome their attacker{s}. If you can't kill schoolchildren with a knife you are an incompetent murderer and a gun probably won't help you much. Of course it is to be hoped that murderers would always be incompetent but that is not the case, thus we need victims to be suitably armed or defended.
And ALL of this ignores the real problem. That we have people who need help and aren't getting it. And these people can and are dangerous to the public.
I think the question bears asking "Is there something about our society, perhaps our schools, that produces such people?" after all, schools seem to be a popular target. Why?
Like there is some sort of factory somewhere that just stamps them out for officers to pick up. Does this not bother anyone else?
I regard them as a byproduct of the factory schooling system we have. I'm not sure what the solution is, obviously an illiterate population isn't it. For some people, school is years of unremitting rejection and social isolation. Of those people, a few of them commit mass murder.
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These people are all in their 60's and 70's. So I don't quite get it.
I think a lot of people have a negative emotional response to the word "computer" and don't think of tablets as computers.
I am, however, anti-rape, though that does not inform my opinion on guns.
I suggest that you watch the video. To be honest, I was expecting a flamebait mod for that sig, not a reply. It was on topic for another thread I was posting in though. The standard of moderation has declined, obviously. Nevertheless, we all see the victims of shootings on the news and should rightly have compassion for them and try to prevent them. I think that similarly we should have compassion for those that have taken responsibility for their own defense and not strip that defense from them.
Labeling people pro-rape is not a reasonable way to frame an argument.
No, it's an emotional provocation because it's an emotional issue, I've now removed that statement. Perhaps it would be better to say that Australia implemented the National Agreement on Firearms in 1996 and that according to the government report from Australian Institute of Criminology sexual assault numbers went from 14,542 in 1996 to 18,211 in 2006. There isn't room for that in the sig. It's also not a definitive argument for a particular position but it's worth consideration.
Considering your sig equates anti-gun with pro-rape, your opposition to my logic is unsurprising.
The majority of pro gun ban arguments are full of emotional hysteria. To be fair, the majority of political arguments on both "sides" are full of emotion and misleading "facts" and interpretations of those facts.
I've been challenging people to watch the video and tell me if they could look her in the eye and explain their reasoning as they personally confiscated that woman's guns. It seems obvious and very logical to me that if you have a right to self defense then you have a right to suitable tools necessary for that defense, suitable tools being guns. So far no gun banner has been willing to write that they would be willing to personally take her guns while looking her in the eye. How about you? The idea is that by having emotional reasons to not ban guns to conflict with their emotional reasons to ban guns that people might actually seek out facts because rationalizing their position would become more difficult.
If it so happens that your position on this topic is based on logic rather than emotion I salute you. If that's true, you are a very rare individual and are not the intended audience for my sig.
Labeling your opponent, then arguing based on that label is neither a fair, nor reasonable approach.
"Secure boot" is not a person or my "opponent". Calling it secure when it's being sold to me meaning it is secure from me is not a fair or reasonable approach. If you're referring to the sig, I'll answer your objection after you watch the video and tell me the explanation you'd give her as you personally confiscate her guns. If you're not willing to do that your conviction that gun bans are good is not as strong as you think.
My emotional response to a particular event isn't the basis for a good policy
Yet that was the basis of bringing in our gun laws. You just don't want to admit that you are capable of an emotional response that would support gun ownership because it conflicts with your emotional response that supports banning guns. It's much easier to rationalize your opinion if your emotions aren't conflicted.
Like it or not, both "sides" of most political arguments consist entirely of emotional certainty and distortion of facts. I can point out factual distortion by both sides in the gun debate. Can you find the distortions made by those whose position you agree with?
As for calling you names, the closest I came is saying "Don't be an idiot" when you said Susan Falls ability to defend herself wasn't removed if she didn't have a gun. I apologize. I still don't think you'd kill me for that and have no problem with you owning a gun and if you don't have any criminal convictions or mental illness, it IS legal for you to buy a gun if you go through the licensing process. I just think that self defense should be a valid reason to acquire it. You ask me about the reasoning of our judicial system. I think I am more in line with it than you because I assume you are innocent of murderous intent until shown otherwise.
Leaving off discussion of whether guns should be legal though, I'll point out a difference in Australian law and US law. Our gun laws are constitutional and legal because we have no constitutional limit on our state governments preventing them from passing that law. I don't expect to get my way all the time in a democracy, so while I disagree with aspects of our laws I'm still ok with them. IMO the US second amendment protects the right of the people to retain firearms of a type that would be useful in military conflict. I can see why people might think it's a bad idea but I don't see that it can be reasonably read any other way. John Howard got the states to bring in uniform gun laws by threatening a referendum to give the federal government power to legislate this matter, ie: he was going to follow the law and constitution the whole way. US politicians circumvent their constitution to illegally bring in gun control.
This is why Australians gave up their guns when the laws came in but Americans won't, IMO, and are more likely to prepare for civil war.
So would you or would you not be able to look her in the eye as you took her guns? Why is it that you are unable to answer that question? As for what options Susan Falls had, that argument was exhausted in court. You also keep on arguing against things I haven't said. As a result this discussion isn't worth any more of my time.
People here would know if they are interested and inquiring. These policies are not hidden or secret.
Way to miss the point. We have the information he published, we know he got arrested. He didn't disappear in secret. In any case, if you say it's not important to have guns because information is more important and you concede control of information to the government (as you appear to) then you have in effect accepted dictatorial control. Since you have accepted dictatorial control, your opinion of the role of firearms in maintaining freedom isn't worth listening to. The US still has the death penalty for treason, I'm sure that is more of a deterrent than Manning's treatment bad as it is.
so you don't like me using - cast as a traitor
It's not that I don't like you using that, it is indeed a popular opinion. It is just absurd. It's also irrelevant to the topic of gun control.
Just owning a vehicle that isn't road worthy isn't a crime because it poses no threat. The moment it's driven it is a threat, which is why that is not legal
It was illegal for Susan Falls to obtain and possess the gun she used, but according to the jury, not illegal for her to use it. That is an absurdity in our legal system. No amount of car analogies will change that. She had to break the law to exercise her self defense "rights".
It is not that her ability to defend herself was removed if she didn't have a gun
Don't be an idiot. Look at a picture of her and her husband side by side. She is a little woman and he was huge. Guns are an equalizer, without them violent confrontations will almost always be won by the strongest.
You might be lucky and meet a stupid unsophisticated attacker and win with your gun.
Going by that "logic" then mass murderers with guns will only succeed against stupid unsophisticated victims. Or are you claiming that guns are really effective in the hands of criminals but don't work very well in the hands of the law abiding?
And, by the way, if this is the reasoning - why refer to the second amendment at all
The reference to the militia in the second amendment is not a limitation on the right to bear arms. There is a linguistic analysis here:http://www.constitution.org/2ll/schol/2amd_grammar.htm
As I said in my original post - the process of removing guns from the social environment is one that calms the situation over time.
That's not demonstrated. I grew up in rural Australia (just because I defend the second amendment doesn't mean I'm American) and everyone we knew had guns, nobody we knew were "gun nuts" (despite what you may think of me I do not actually own any guns and haven't fired one in over 20 years). Nobody was scared of bikers, we didn't need "anti-association legislation" and things like "glassing" were unheard of in mainstream pubs and clubs.
The murder rate in Australia was declining for a couple of decades before the gun laws were brought in (yes, even including the three mass shootings we had) and kept declining at approximately the same rate. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology - Australian crime : facts and figures 2007 http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/facts/1-20/2007.html
From 1996 to 2006 murder rate went from 354 to 319, assault went from 114,156 to 170,907, sexual assault from 14,542 to 18,211, robbery from 16,372 to 17,248 and kidnapping from 478 to 725.
Did you watch the video? What I really want to know is if you can watch that video and have the guts to look her in the eye as you take her guns. The link is in my sig now.
He can issue presidential directives without the legislative branch and fire the director. That's direct control.
Sadly, it's hard to clean something up when you're blocked by the house of representatives and a filibuster happy senate.
Stop making excuses for him. The FBI is under the direct control of POTUS.
Of course, very few people apply even the least bit of logic to their religion.
Apply to much logic to your god or your wife and you will have neither one.
Hmmmm... guess that is why Julian Assange is held up in an embassy in London scared shitless he will be deported to the USA and tried as a spy. Similarly your suggesting that what is happening to Bradley Manning doesn't have a cooling effect to anyone else in the military who thinks it might be a good idea to leak classified documents?
We all know about it, unlike your scenario of secret detentions. Bradley Manning and everyone else already knew that if you have access to military secrets as part of your job you get in a lot of trouble if you leak them. You may decide to do so anyway but it is at your peril.
My impression of what the average joe american wants to do to Assange is not pretty at all. He is not seen as the information freedom advocate but rather cast as a traitor.
Most people don't think. It is clearly impossible to be a traitor to a country of which you are not a citizen. Perhaps it could be decided in Australia that he was guilty of treason since the US is an ally but the AFP don't seem to think so.
I think the leaders of dissent would be quietly removed before they ever became a serious concern.
And yet you still have the greens and Bob Katter. There is plenty of dissent in our society. It's not perfect but as a civilian you can speak freely against the government, as a member of the military not so much.
If I use your example with Susan Falls, and she had been driving an unregistered car to effect her self defence - are you claiming the unregistered vehicle should somehow be okay simply because she had to use to it protect herself?
It is legal to purchase an unregistered vehicle. It is not legal to purchase a silenced .22 pistol. See the difference? If, before the lethal confrontation, she was found to have an unregistered vehicle in her possession she would face no charges. If she had been found with a silenced .22 pistol she would have faced criminal charges and be presumed by people like you to be a violent criminal.
I'm going to put this bluntly: to deprive such a person of their self defense rights is evil. Have you seen the video "A Message To My Rapist"? I challenge you to watch the video then post here the explanation you would give her as to why it's a good thing as you personally take her firearms away. If you couldn't look her in the eye while you take her guns then you don't have the courage of your convictions. Would leave this woman defenseless against her attacker?
We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom, and we will actively urge people in our communities to avoid such jailed systems.
Plenty of people have criticized Apple and locked devices generally. This is not exactly out of left field from FSF. One difference though is that Apple do not put their lockdown requirements on other manufacturers, only on their own devices. The danger is that MS, by their influence over many manufacturers, might be able to end the era of open general purpose computers. Whether they would be able to accomplish that is debatable but given their history it seems most likely that it is their intention. It is appropriate to oppose them.
Inventing something doesn't give you the right to restrict other people's use of language. The FSF isn't lobbying for legislation to change the names manufacturers can use to refer to their products. What words you choose to use are entirely up to you.
Nevertheless I personally think there is a case to be made that we should demand truth in advertising and that if a computer is marketed as secure it directly implies that security is for the buyer against third parties, not for third parties against the buyer. Restricted is a more accurate term for the latter case.
They don't need to do anything to your phone, in Australia the networks won't connect phones reported stolen. The phone itself isn't tampered with in any way AFAIK, so if your phone got reported by accident you wouldn't lose your data.
If you think guns are what a modern government would use to keep control over you, you might have missed the importance of the control of information.
It hasn't escaped my attention, in terms of the US constitution that's 1st amendment. You might have noticed that the governments of the world aren't doing as well as they'd like controlling the information, with the internet and wikileaks et al.
What do you think they would bring to bare if it was a local national issue and not some distant country?
US citizens do not think bombing in Iraq threatens them. If the US military started bombing US cities the response would be a whole lot different.
It's not just about the ability to have a rebellion. If you have enough support to win a rebellion you could win an election anyway. Also, in a fight against the federal government you'd likely have the states involved, it wouldn't be a matter of a few rugged survivalists against Leviathan. It's also a matter of self defense rights. The Australian legal system is strongly contradictory on this point. Self defense can be a legal defense in case of killing someone but you are not allowed to arm yourself for self defense purposes so it's really self defense for the strong or unarmed combat trained.
Susan Falls shot her husband with an illegally acquired handgun. She was found not guilty (self defense) but self defense is not a valid reason (in Australian law) to possess a firearm. If it was not illegal for her to shoot him, how can it be illegal for her to acquire the firearm? You can't really have it both ways, Australian firearm laws are absurd.
They are still mass murders that happened with machetes, but hey, for your sake, since you are google disabled:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/hungary/9190732/Hungarian-man-kills-four-members-of-his-family-with-large-machete-after-row.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiguan_kindergarten_attack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_school_massacre
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/190923522.html?dids=190923522:190923522&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=OCT+22%2C+1921&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=KILLS+11+AND+ENDS+OWN+LIFE&pqatl=google
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-71884392.html
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LME-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=bkwMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5902%2C7437434
While these aren't in the US, it would be incredibly stupid to think that mass murders won't happen if guns aren't present. The biggest mass murder in the US was done with a fertilizer bomb FFS.
Obviously they would need their explanation before they died and I would happily and without shame explain my position to them. Could you disarm that woman, who has prepared herself against her aggressor, and look her in the eye as you did it? You go on and on about the fear you presume gun owners to have. Well this woman indeed has fear. My presumption is that you would be too gutless to look her in the eye as you took her guns and you would instead have others do your dirty work for you.
If my interpretation of the second amendment is along the right lines, it was to intended to make sure that a government could be overthrown by the people, I think you guys need to reevaluate how effective any gun you can own is in a modern age. You would be up against the largest military in history.
Don't you even know your own history? Try reading up on the Eureka stockade, you don't always need overwhelming firepower to win your cause. For an example of US citizens rebelling against local government tyranny, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946) so you don't necessarily have to be ready to take on the whole Federal government and military either.
Duh. However, teh ratio of gun massacres to (wholly hypothetical) knife massacres does approach infinty, I think.
As long as you don't count half a million Rwandans. Or incidences like this:Nigeria: riots leave 500 dead after machete attacks
But I'll admit that these machete massacres aren't really the same as the school shootings. Many more people killed, not the same at all.
And yet, in the US, there are no mass murders with knives and uncountable ones with guns..
They are not uncountable. Hyperbole doesn't generally assist with rational debate. Another poster has stated that the US has had 3 such attacks with 20+ victims, the most deadly being a bomb attack. While tragic for those involved it's not exactly a major killer.
I'm in Australia and the murder rate hasn't been shown to have dropped here as a result of gun laws. What we do have that we didn't 20 years ago is a fear of bike gangs to the point that we have now introduced "anti-association laws" so that the police can get a secret hearing with secret evidence to declare your group a "criminal enterprise" and ban you from associating with your friends, even family members. Be careful what you wish for.
Looking logically at the school mass killings, I doubt any of them would be prevented by gun laws because they seem to be pre-planned, giving the attacker time to make a bomb.
Have you seen "A Message To My Rapist"?
Can you please tell us how you would explain to this woman why she shouldn't be allowed to have a gun? Would you be prepared to explain it to her personally?
Any idiot can pick up a gun and kill dozens.
Really? Most mass murders seem to be only a few people, dozens killed would put a killing up in the top few instances. In the Rwandan genocide, about half a million were killed, mostly with machetes.
For most mass murders, the issue is not the individual weapon but a captive group of victims insufficiently armed to overcome their attacker{s}. If you can't kill schoolchildren with a knife you are an incompetent murderer and a gun probably won't help you much. Of course it is to be hoped that murderers would always be incompetent but that is not the case, thus we need victims to be suitably armed or defended.
And ALL of this ignores the real problem. That we have people who need help and aren't getting it. And these people can and are dangerous to the public.
I think the question bears asking "Is there something about our society, perhaps our schools, that produces such people?" after all, schools seem to be a popular target. Why?
Like there is some sort of factory somewhere that just stamps them out for officers to pick up. Does this not bother anyone else?
I regard them as a byproduct of the factory schooling system we have. I'm not sure what the solution is, obviously an illiterate population isn't it. For some people, school is years of unremitting rejection and social isolation. Of those people, a few of them commit mass murder.
In a system where the reserve bank manages the economy with a non-zero target for unemployment I think we have an obligation to the adults too.