Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

emergency.mit.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 389 posts

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#181

Post by Tangaroa »

giardini wrote: post #75
rickdale wrote: post #29

I just want to say as an American, I am so fed up with all these gun stories. I understand there is debate about gun control and this and that, but we are having a much larger cultural problem here. The attitude of helping your neighbor or even someone less fortunate is slowly disappearing and being replaced by a fear for protecting what we have, as if someone else is after it. In my mind it's cyclical, if we help th…

"I just want to say as an American, I am so fed up with all these gun stories." Me too. But it won't end soon. Currently every shooting in every city is a candidate for promotion to a national media campaign that is focused on gaining additional restrictions on firearms, especially at the federal level (but also state level: Colorado is at this moment passing new highly-restrictive state firearms laws). Every opportu…

True, there was no national dialogue on guns until the Democratic Party-controlled press fabricated one. The Newton shooting was going to be another crime story to be largely forgotten in a month except that the Democratic press made it the top headline of every party-run newspaper for over a week. (Meanwhile, where the hell are the news articles about Benghazi and the second September 11 attacks? Our "nearly defeated" wartime enemy launches simultaneous attacks on dozens of US facilities around the world, with tens of thousands of fresh recruits, and there is NO news coverage? WTF?) It is a classic "pseudo-event" as Boorstin called them, or in common parlance, a fake news story. It is obvious that the Democrats are using their near-monopoly power over the media to create the image of a public frenzy where there was none, for the purpose of raising enough public support through the bandwagon effect to shoot another hole in the Constitution. They are doing this partly by slandering the Constitution's supporters as "gun nuts" and potential murderers. Imagine if the political cartoons in your newspaper regularly portrayed EFF and online free-speech activists as child rapists, kidnappers in bondage gear dragging screaming little girls away, because a few people use Tor and Linux for trading kiddy porn. That is how the Democratic Party is depicting anyone who believes in the Constitution and the orderly process of law whether they are gun owners or not.

This is not intended to be a partisan statement. I am a Democrat. I am also able to see what my party is doing, and I don't like it. This also has nothing to do with Obama; the pressure is coming from the party machine, not the White House. Obama is doing nothing significant, proposing minor regulatory changes that stay within the bounds of the Constitution, while giving the appearance of doing something to appease the party's desire for action.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#182

Post by whyleyc »

BryanB55 wrote: post #173

I'll start by saying we do not have a gun problem in this country. We have a people problem. Speaking of people problems, I started reading these comments in hope of finding a different attitude than what I have been hearing around the topic of gun control lately. To me, HackerNews has usually been a place with more educated and informed comments but I didn't really find that here. I'm still finding misinformed peopl…

"I'll start by saying we do not have a gun problem in this country. We have a people problem"

You have a culture problem, not a people problem. A culture whereby you are so fearful of violence that you have to carry a gun on your person every day is a broken one.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#183

Post by rickdale »

BryanB55 wrote: post #173

I'll start by saying we do not have a gun problem in this country. We have a people problem. Speaking of people problems, I started reading these comments in hope of finding a different attitude than what I have been hearing around the topic of gun control lately. To me, HackerNews has usually been a place with more educated and informed comments but I didn't really find that here. I'm still finding misinformed peopl…

I am with you on every point you make except that guns are not comparable to a screwdriver, car or a knife when it comes to life and death. Of course there are similarities between the 'tools', but a gun is a much easier and definitive way to take a life. The differences are what stand out to me. Again, I agree its a cultural problem more than a gun problem, but I do think it all intersects.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#184

Post by aroberge »

TDL wrote: post #127
sergiotapia wrote: post #43

How many people need to die before people in the US realize that having easily obtained firearms is not a good idea?

The U.S. is at historically low point in violence, concurrently there is a historically high percentage of gun ownership in the U.S.

First of all, correlation is often not causation: you can't draw a causal link between the decline in violence and gun ownership. If you compare with other developed countries, it will be very clear that the U.S. has a lot more violence in general and violence using guns specifically.

Secondly, violence using guns requires the presence of guns, so it may be possible to establish a causal link between gun ownership and gun violence. Then, looking at statistics from developed countries, it becomes clear that the U.S. greater gun violence is directly related to greater gun ownership.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#185

Post by Tangaroa »

tome wrote: post #177
BryanB55 wrote: post #173

I'll start by saying we do not have a gun problem in this country. We have a people problem. Speaking of people problems, I started reading these comments in hope of finding a different attitude than what I have been hearing around the topic of gun control lately. To me, HackerNews has usually been a place with more educated and informed comments but I didn't really find that here. I'm still finding misinformed peopl…

Does anyone here really believe that when your life is imminent danger that you are better off with a cell phone in your hand calling the police and waiting for them to arrive to save your life than you are with a gun in your hand using everything you possibly can to protect yourself and your family? In the UK, yes we really believe this.

It used to be common law in the UK that the police and soldiers were only trained experts in performing a part of the civic duty of all of the people. This changed around the Cold War.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#186

Post by nitrogen »

89vision wrote: post #12
cbau wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty simple-- As an American, I have a right to the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I don't want to give up any rights I don't have to. That includes the freedom to buy and carry a gun.

Your freedom to buy and carry a gun infringes on my right to feel safe in public

This is not the best argument for gun control, because it's very easy to insert any other words in that sentence. Some examples:

"Your freedom to work out like mad and become significantly stronger than I am infringes on my right to feel safe in public."

"Your freedom to wear tattoos infringes on my right to feel safe in public."

"Your freedom to have that skin color infringes on my right to feel safe in public."

"Your freedom to choose to whom you are attracted infringes on my right to feel safe in public."

You need to define an actual danger that goes beyond feeling unsafe.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#187

Post by phaus »

knowtheory wrote: post #162
phaus wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there hasn't been a precedent for mass murderers circumventing locks, but that's partly due to the fact that mass murders typically occur in public, where doors are kept unlocked for the most part. Some lock circumvention techniques take almost no skill, and no time at all. I've seen cipher locks that cost thousands circumvented by lightly tapping the housing with a rubber mallet or sticking a paperclip…

Right, but think about the mechanics of this. Shooter has his gun(s) out, he approaches door, he now has to holster gun, get out bump key, focus on and fiddle with door, and once it's unlocked, open up the door, unholster his weapon, and then enter the door. How many times do you think the shooter is going to expose himself like that? Does that feed into the fantasy of stalking people through the hallways shooting th…

Soldiers used to struggle with this issue, but someone (probably a Soldier) invented a new type of sling that eliminates it. With the old slings, basically every time you needed to use your hands, you had to sling your weapon on your back, but the newer version keeps your weapon suspended in front of you, a little lower than chest level. All you have to do is let go, and your weapon stays exactly where you need it.

If a shooter is using a handgun, well with just a little bit of practice, you can learn to draw a handgun in a fraction of a second.

Basically, I don't think it's a good idea to assume what will or will not be reasonable in the eyes of a mass-murdering lunatic.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#188

Post by curiousdannii »

tome wrote: post #161
bmelton wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To everyone who assumes that "tyrannical government" is always read to mean "our" government, here's a primer. 1) Everybody should (and probably already does) know that the United States was essentially formed out of that exact type of rebellion. The arms that won us the war of Independence were all provided by private citizens, just as the cannons were, the ships that formed our navy, etc. If we hadn't had private w…

Everybody should (and probably already does) know that the United States was essentially formed out of that exact type of rebellion. The arms that won us the war of Independence were all provided by private citizens, just as the cannons were, the ships that formed our navy, etc. If we hadn't had private weapons, we wouldn't have had anywhere remotely enough arms to have won the war. Do US Americans really think it wo…

Well we in Australia are so very disadvantaged in that not only are guns hard to buy, but our banks are strongly regulated too. Oh, and don't forget about Medicare, all those doctors being paid by the government. It's depressing.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#189

Post by rmc »

BryanB55 wrote: post #173

I'll start by saying we do not have a gun problem in this country. We have a people problem. Speaking of people problems, I started reading these comments in hope of finding a different attitude than what I have been hearing around the topic of gun control lately. To me, HackerNews has usually been a place with more educated and informed comments but I didn't really find that here. I'm still finding misinformed peopl…

On the Constitutional rights front it's funny how many of the same groups fight for there to be as little restrictions as possible for one right (owning a gun) but often fight for putting as many restrictions as possible for another right (getting an abortion).

Why not make getting a gun as hard as getting an abortion? Mandatory waiting period, show photos of gun violence, require that a professional explain the horrors of gun violence etc?

:-P

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#190

Post by lifeisstillgood »

rickdale wrote: post #29

I just want to say as an American, I am so fed up with all these gun stories. I understand there is debate about gun control and this and that, but we are having a much larger cultural problem here. The attitude of helping your neighbor or even someone less fortunate is slowly disappearing and being replaced by a fear for protecting what we have, as if someone else is after it. In my mind it's cyclical, if we help th…

I would like to suggest that gun control and healthcare are linked to the same cultural problem. To have a system where millions of people know that any disease they catch they simply will never afford to cure, and the rest of the country stands by and allows it to happen, comes from the same place as standing by while those self same people are shot by guns they can afford.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Post reply on HN