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Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

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Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#101

Post by jivatmanx »

hyperbovine wrote: post #70
TallGuyShort wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say the same thing when people in oppressive regimes are silenced with no recourse because the government has no reason to fear it's own citizens. Sigh. I did not downvote your post, but frankly I'm angry that you just assume everyone who is pro-2nd amendment just isn't as enlightened as you are.

Oh, that is such a straw man. In America, the country in which I (and presumably you) live, what's the body count on the ol' oppressive regime-vs-AR15 wielding madman debate anyways? I'm thinking it's on the order of 0 to a couple hundred thousand. If everybody in North Korea owned a shotgun, yes, the world would be a better place. I don't understand why that means children should be murdered en masse, or that I shou…

Greatly in favor of the regime, with civilian casualties of the Iraq War.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#102

Post by paulhauggis »

A news anchor on CNN had a theory about how as a society, we are becoming less empathetic because of our tendency to have more and more online relationships.

Just look at the people on Twitter and even here on HN. You act very differently than you would in real life. I almost wonder if there is something to this and has an effect on some people, which leads to less empathy in real life.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#103

Post by jacquesm »

chimeracoder wrote: post #79
jacquesm wrote: post #56

The psychology behind the kind of people that could do a thing like this baffles me completely. Insanity doesn't begin to describe it. Parents should not have to worry about whether or not their children are safe in school. At the same time armed guards at school are not a solution either, then you might as well turn it into a mini prison. What a sad sad day. Even countries with gun control have instances like this (…

> This world could be so nice, why does it have to be such a crappy place? Nice stuff happens. It just doesn't make (or sell) the news. But that doesn't mean the world isn't nice.

Nice stuff happens but I find it hard to come up with a single instance that offsets grade schoolers being murdered in cold blood. Stuff like this just makes me want to cry.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#104

Post by untog »

bcoates wrote: post #43
untog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I mean talk seriously . Even in the presidential debates, both candidates ran away from a serious discussion on the topic. I know it's divisive, I know people feel strongly about it, but it appears that no politician is interested in starting a real debate.

Politicians talking about a topic is not the cause of political change, it's the result of one. There is currently a public consensus against your preferred policy position to the extent that it's disadvantageous for politicians to promote themselves with it. Changing that consensus won't lead to victory on its own, but it's a necessary precondition.

I think you have too much faith in the political process. The gun lobby ensures that there is no debate on gun control.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#105

Post by protomyth »

balanceiskey15 wrote: post #23
untog wrote: post #4

I can't wait until the part where we all don't talk about gun control and carry on as usual. Sigh. EDIT: I see my post is being downvoted. I know that it may come across as insensitive to immediately leap to the gun control debate, but frankly I'm more angry than upset by this news. How many times does it have to happen? We have a good 48 hours of emotional outpouring and then everyone forgets it ever happened.

Well, why don't we bring it back to technology then? Everyday on HN there's this drone about the next Instagram or 37 Signals. Or who will produce better email or flamewars regarding the next dominant mobile OS. Time wasted, honestly (Oh yeah, 'I figured out project management, again.') Where's the debate on HN on how best to handle gun control in the U.S. using technology? Can this community not produce answers for…

Because its worthless to focus on what they used when finding out why and working on brain chemistry and mental health research using technology would be so much more beneficial to society.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#106

Post by nollidge »

watty wrote: post #69
untog wrote: post #4

I can't wait until the part where we all don't talk about gun control and carry on as usual. Sigh. EDIT: I see my post is being downvoted. I know that it may come across as insensitive to immediately leap to the gun control debate, but frankly I'm more angry than upset by this news. How many times does it have to happen? We have a good 48 hours of emotional outpouring and then everyone forgets it ever happened.

The reason we carry on as usual is because we don't believe gun control is the solution. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57559179/china-school-kn... Guess we need to control sharp objects as well? It's easy to get angry at dangerous items but in reality it's the people we need to control.

NONE OF THEM DIED. How do you think that incident would have turned out if the guy had a gun?

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#107

Post by slantyyz »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #72
untog wrote: post #4

I can't wait until the part where we all don't talk about gun control and carry on as usual. Sigh. EDIT: I see my post is being downvoted. I know that it may come across as insensitive to immediately leap to the gun control debate, but frankly I'm more angry than upset by this news. How many times does it have to happen? We have a good 48 hours of emotional outpouring and then everyone forgets it ever happened.

This has nothing to do with gun control. Guns exist, that can't be stopped any more than preventing alcohol from existing (prohibition), and some bad guys will always have access to guns. Or knives, or diesel fuel, or explosives. Was the Oklahoma-city bombing a wake-up call for "explosives control"? Was the 2009 Chengdu bus-fire ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Chengdu_bus_fire ) a wake-up call for diesel control?…

>> Was the 2012 Toronto mall shooting a wake-up call for gun-control in Canada, which already has extremely stringent gun-laws?

IIRC, the talk after the shooting in Toronto was for more countermeasures against illegal guns being smuggled in from the US.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#108

Post by pdeuchler »

purplelobster wrote: post #98
jacquesm wrote: post #56

The psychology behind the kind of people that could do a thing like this baffles me completely. Insanity doesn't begin to describe it. Parents should not have to worry about whether or not their children are safe in school. At the same time armed guards at school are not a solution either, then you might as well turn it into a mini prison. What a sad sad day. Even countries with gun control have instances like this (…

Can pro-gun people please stop using Switzerland as their go to argument? Do you know why they have so many guns? Because people who have done military service are required to keep a rifle locked up in their house. These are trained people who have gone through psychology tests and military training. That is very very fucking different than the situation in the US.

Because as we all know, psychology tests and military training are foolproof for sifting out the crazies.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#109

Post by jwwest »

First off, the school shooting is a complete tragedy, there's no two ways about it. It's sickening and frustrating and depressing. I can't imagine what something like this does to a person or how a person is drawn to do something like this.

However, our world isn't any different than it was. There's hope in everything. Crazy, murderous people have always existed and will always exist. Life has always had tragedies, even ones bigger than this. As humans, we're designed to look at the most recent thing and go "oh my god, this is the worst thing ever" in order to deal with problems - it's just how we're designed.

What I'm getting at is that the world will be here tomorrow, and it's not ending any time soon. There's plenty of hope in this world, we just lack the proper context sometimes:

1) Your children are more at risk dying in a car accident or eating crappy food than a school shooting.

2) You're more likely to die of a lightning strike than a terrorist attack.

3) If we couldn't have guns, he would have used a knife.

Be hopeful for the world.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#110

Post by [deleted] »

DannoHung wrote: post #34
TallGuyShort wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say the same thing when people in oppressive regimes are silenced with no recourse because the government has no reason to fear it's own citizens. Sigh. I did not downvote your post, but frankly I'm angry that you just assume everyone who is pro-2nd amendment just isn't as enlightened as you are.

The weapons needed to resist a regime are not weapons we allow people to generally have in America at any rate. If we really believed in the 2nd Amendment, people would be allowed to own serious weapons of war but not be allowed to own concealable personal firearms.

[deleted]
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