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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

#221

Post by washedup »

msutherl wrote: post #87
washedup wrote: post #3

A father of one of the children's... how does our society produce individuals like this? I know there are probably dozens of answers... edit: just to be clear, I am not a father of one of the children. I was told the shooter was a father of one of the children at the school. Not sure if that is correct.

In addition to the problem of wide-spread untreated mental illness, many public schools are much like prisons for kids who have trouble adapting to social norms, both in that they do not grant basic human rights and that inter-student relations are barbaric. I don't know whether the shooter was a student or not, but based on my experience, it is not difficult for me to imagine somebody with less self control acting o…

Sorry, my comment was poorly worded. I have no relation to the children. However, I was told that the shooter was a father of one of the children of the school, but that has not been confirmed.

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

#222

Post by jcromartie »

absconditus wrote: post #212
onli wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look in the history of states which had a problem with gun-violence, you can see that banning guns actually works. After banning, destroying and controlling guns, the amount of massacres and murders falls down. One example of this is germany (i think in the 1970s), but you can look earlier or at the history of other countries to find examples for that. The situation over here is a tragedy, because all school s…

There are numerous counter examples. Chicago had a handgun ban, and held the record for handgun murders for many years while the ban was in place.

Because Chicago is neighbors with cities and states where handguns are easy to obtain, and you don't need a passport to enter or leave Chicago.

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

#223

Post by w1ntermute »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #213
w1ntermute wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not the gun. It never was the gun. It's the person. So what if it's the person? How can you find those people and stop them from getting guns? All the people who knew the shooter in the Oregon mall shooting a couple days ago said that he showed no signs of being anything other than a kind and friendly person. He showed only a marginal interest in guns. But that could describe hundreds of millions of Americans.…

We might be able to do better. But ultimately we have to resign ourselves to the notion that it is fundamentally impossible to prevent all violent crime, even events such as these. This is true whether or not we could magically completely eliminate all guns on Earth. Ultimately it's impossible to be knowledgeable of the bad intentions of every single warped individual on the planet. And some of those folks will have…

> Look at 9/11 as an example of how a handful of well trained and highly motivated individuals armed with only box cutters were able to take control of jumbo jets and ram them into buildings and kill thousands.

Actually, I see 9/11 as an example of TLAs refusing to share information when doing that could have easily stopped the hijackers long before they could do anything. I also see it as something the US brought upon itself with its dependence on oil and constant meddling in the Middle East. So I don't think it's a very good analogy for mass shootings by (usually insane, or at least disturbed) white US citizens.

And just because you can't stop all crime doesn't mean you shouldn't stop any crime. There are simple steps that can be taken. For example, the sales of guns at gun shows needs to be stopped immediately. Ex-felons should not be able to get guns. There are a lot of holes in gun control law that could be easily closed if it weren't for people like you making it political suicide for any politician to even suggest that we need stricter gun control laws.

> I think that the better solution is to empower responsible individuals to act in their own self-defense and in the defense of others.

How would you propose to "empower" elementary school children? How about people in a mall or movie theater were the possession of firearms is not allowed?

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

#224

Post by codegeek »

jcromartie wrote: post #217
r00fus wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Disarm everyone, and 2. Allow everyone to carry weapons. Nice strawmen. There are obviously options in the middle, namely, increasing traceability of weapons and ammo and shutting down channels that where weapons are allowed to change hands anonymously. The proliferation of weapons is one thing, but the fact that these tragedies occur and we don't have a way to follow the chain back to the disreputable dealer wh…

Most mass shootings are done with legally-obtained firearms.

Probably. But still the point is to make it harder to obtain guns legally since most shooters buy guns legally. Illegally anyway you cannot do much.

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

#225

Post by absconditus »

jcromartie wrote: post #222
absconditus wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous counter examples. Chicago had a handgun ban, and held the record for handgun murders for many years while the ban was in place.

Because Chicago is neighbors with cities and states where handguns are easy to obtain, and you don't need a passport to enter or leave Chicago.

Or the problem has nothing to do with access to guns.

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

#226

Post by jcromartie »

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?…

> It's not the gun. It never was the gun. It's the person.

Then we just have an order of magnitude more of that kind of person than Western Europe. If it's not the guns, then Americans are just worse people, statistically speaking, than our more civilized neighbors around the world.

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

#227

Post by proland »

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.

Notice how it says 23 injured, not 30 killed?

That's the difference.

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

#228

Post by purplelobster »

jarcoal wrote: post #130
purplelobster wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make the logical fallacy that just because they CAN still get a gun, that it's equally likely that they will get a gun. It's not. Having to go through hoops to find a gun will result in fewer insane people having guns, it's that simple. It won't prevent all shootings, and certainly wouldn't work very well in the US, since you guys have been flooding the country with guns for a century. In other countries it works…

Couldn't agree with this more, but I'm not sure it's a valid argument in most people's eyes. The Clackamas shooting was a perfect example of an incident that gun control likely would've prevented. It was not premeditated, it was a bad kid on a very bad day that found a gun easily. If he didn't find it, I think it's safe to wager he wouldn't have done it.

Yes, obviously people like Anders Breivik can not be stopped by gun control, but I don't think it's worth flooding the world with guns to try (and probably fail) to protect ourselves from people like him.

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

#229

Post by schrototo »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #129

Listen, there are two parts to this: 1. The horrible tragedy, and 2. The hopes to prevent this from happening again. If we are going to talk about this, we need to all fall under the assumption that we agree that this is both a very tragic act perpetrated by someone who is obviously disturbed/mentally ill, and that it is all of our desires to do what we can to make sure senseless acts of violence like this never happ…

It is utterly fascinating to me how much discussion there is around this, here on this forum and in other places. In no other country in the world would this even be a debate...

Of course you want to disarm everyone!

That is the only sensible option! There is absolutely no need why anyone, save members of the executive branch enforcing the government's monopoly on violence, would ever need to carry a firearm.

"Self defense" and "liberty" are totally crazy arguments, that are only ever brought up in America and are based purely on historical reasons.

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

#230

Post by econnors »

notdrunkatall wrote: post #214
recoiledsnake wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that easy availability of guns amplify the destruction that can be perpetuated by mentally unstable individuals. A similar incident happened in China today where 22 kids were stabbed by one perpetrator but not one had life threatening injuries. What if Walmart China sold guns like the US one does? How many innocent kids would be dead today? > How much liberty do we all give up, to limit the devastation…

The right to bear arms isn't some trivial notion to be tossed aside when it is no longer convenient to maintain. It is a fundamental right that was given to the people by those who founded our government that we would be able to fight back against that same government were it to ever become oppressive. Every day, we increasingly see the infringement of our civil liberties, and it seems obvious that the desire of the…

The problem with this argument is that guns would do little to counteract an oppressive government. What about the airplanes, the navy, the artillery that our military possess? Guns are hardly a "final check against the formation of a potentially oppressive regime."
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