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On January 05 2013 15:13 Destine3 wrote: i hate to see people use the phrase "ITS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS!" Cause they KNOW that is like that so the British wouldnt come into our houses and kill us (along with wild bear... -_-) some hundred years ago. It is obvious that times has changed and the laws should flex along with it.
Except that's not why it's in the Bill of Rights. It's in the BoR because the founding fathers wanted to the people to always be able to defend themselves from tyranny, both foreign and domestic.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. " - Thomas Jefferson
On January 05 2013 12:00 Rassy wrote: My first guess is that people who are going for a mass shooting, are going to crowded places. My second guess is that crowded places are often gun free zones.
ya, Gun free zones, or zones with exercised gun control are put in places where the damage or chance of shootings is considered as high. Locations with high density of people in a small area, like schools, or locations witch contains high valuable objects, like banks. If someone would want to kill allot of people or steal something with the help of weapons then this are the places they would go to. And they would do this regardless if it was a gun free zone or not.
So what's the point of a gun free zone again?
If the topic still is suicidal mass shooting, It prolly has very little effect since the culprit who kills himself afterwards won't worry too much about any law he might brake. I mean you can't exactly sentence him to death since... he is already dead.
It is possible that a reason why mass shooters are attracted to gun free zones is because they know the odds of someone getting in their way are small. In other words, it's possible having no crowded place where it's unlikely to encounter an opponent with a comparable weapon would reduce attempts at mass shootings. On the other hand, it's difficult to prove this one way or the other due to confounding variables.
Armed civilians are actually a better deterrent. A shooter can quickly scan a crowd, spot the security, and either shoot them first, or try to avoid them. Civilians armed with concealed weapons are much harder to spot, and thus harder to counter.
This is of course assuming your shooter is highly trained, highly precise in his shooting, and is facing such a low level of security that if had walked through the front door guns blazing it wouldn't have made a difference. Now from the police side, it's hard to tell who the bad guy is that you have to shoot and kill when you get down to the nitty gritty. Is it the guy in a t-shirt and jeans with a pistol, or the guy in a t-shirt and jeans with a pistol, both shooting at one another?
I think a good start would be to license people and to require a psych eval to get said license. Do the eval for free on top of the minimal license fee and do it at the DMV, DPS, etc. I think the number of people buying guns would justify the cost of the staff.
As long as we have the second amendment, we have a right to bear arms. That does not and should not equate to unfettered access, but rather as long as access is reasonable then it is not infringing too much to require registration.
BTW the truth is that people in America have to do a better job with mental illness. That means if you have reason to believe that child may have a problem the solution is not to take them to the ****ing gun range with you so that they can better execute children. The fact that mental illness is a taboo subject in America IS the problem. We have fake offense fights about the word "retard" because it lets us pretend like we care about the subject.
On January 05 2013 15:13 Destine3 wrote: i hate to see people use the phrase "ITS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS!" Cause they KNOW that is like that so the British wouldnt come into our houses and kill us (along with wild bear... -_-) some hundred years ago. It is obvious that times has changed and the laws should flex along with it.
That same argument could be made for restricting the first amendment because the technological increases gained in the years since the writing. It being obvious that times have changed doesn't make loose constructionism any more correct than strict constructionism. They are two opposing legal philosophies that actually both take the changing of times into account. strict constructionism just happens to believe that the advancement of time does not alter what they see to be basic and essential rights.
On January 05 2013 15:33 red_b wrote: BTW the truth is that people in America have to do a better job with mental illness. That means if you have reason to believe that child may have a problem the solution is not to take them to the ****ing gun range with you so that they can better execute children. The fact that mental illness is a taboo subject in America IS the problem. We have fake offense fights about the word "retard" because it lets us pretend like we care about the subject.
That becomes an issue for another thread I think. One that I fear would be closed quickly because of how uninformed and drastically different opinions on the topic seem to be; to the point of being truly offensive. For instance, I think the problem doesn't lie in mental illness being a taboo subject. I think too many emotional responses (especially in childhood) are treated as illness and medicated for, which causes them to become mental illnesses. I have put 0 time into researching those opinions in any literary sense though, and have come to them simply through my own experiences with the "mentally ill" and with prescription and non-prescription drug use.
On January 05 2013 12:00 Rassy wrote: My first guess is that people who are going for a mass shooting, are going to crowded places. My second guess is that crowded places are often gun free zones.
ya, Gun free zones, or zones with exercised gun control are put in places where the damage or chance of shootings is considered as high. Locations with high density of people in a small area, like schools, or locations witch contains high valuable objects, like banks. If someone would want to kill allot of people or steal something with the help of weapons then this are the places they would go to. And they would do this regardless if it was a gun free zone or not.
So what's the point of a gun free zone again?
If the topic still is suicidal mass shooting, It prolly has very little effect since the culprit who kills himself afterwards won't worry too much about any law he might brake. I mean you can't exactly sentence him to death since... he is already dead.
It is possible that a reason why mass shooters are attracted to gun free zones is because they know the odds of someone getting in their way are small. In other words, it's possible having no crowded place where it's unlikely to encounter an opponent with a comparable weapon would reduce attempts at mass shootings. On the other hand, it's difficult to prove this one way or the other due to confounding variables.
Armed civilians are actually a better deterrent. A shooter can quickly scan a crowd, spot the security, and either shoot them first, or try to avoid them. Civilians armed with concealed weapons are much harder to spot, and thus harder to counter.
This is of course assuming your shooter is highly trained, highly precise in his shooting, and is facing such a low level of security that if had walked through the front door guns blazing it wouldn't have made a difference. Now from the police side, it's hard to tell who the bad guy is that you have to shoot and kill when you get down to the nitty gritty. Is it the guy in a t-shirt and jeans with a pistol, or the guy in a t-shirt and jeans with a pistol, both shooting at one another?
The responsible armed civilian will put his gun down when the police say to, the psychopath will not. It's not that hard for the police.
Like I said earlier, most gun-free zones ARE very low security, one or two guards at most. My old High-School actually has no armed guards at all.
Jon Stewart just explained it perfectly - "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." In terms of Gun Control in America.
On January 09 2013 13:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Jon Stewart just explained it perfectly - "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." In terms of Gun Control in America.
Yea I saw that too. He has a point, but hasn't actually provided us with any useful suggestions. It was funny at times, though :p
On January 09 2013 13:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Jon Stewart just explained it perfectly - "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." In terms of Gun Control in America.
I don't see how having two sides represented in a discussion about changing one of the foundational rights of American citizens stops anyone from addressing current issues. Actually I don't see how having active representation of all opposing sides of any debate about proposed legislation prevents the addressing of important issues. If anything it helps to better illuminate all aspects of whatever issue is on the table for a more informed decision. If the argument is that legitimate concern about the possible repetition of historical tyrannies should be ignored in favor of blind progress in an undefined moral direction then I think the argument is about the effectiveness of democracy as a political process, not about gun control.
On January 09 2013 13:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Jon Stewart just explained it perfectly - "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." In terms of Gun Control in America.
The problem with that argument is that it is absurd to refer to the present as dytopic. The only reason anyone would describe it as such is due to media oversaturation instead of actual facts. The average person is convinced crime is getting worse over time when it has been on a downward trend for not only the last few decades, but for the entire nations history.
It clearly shows that almost all sorts of crime are higher in the EU, even violent crime. You do not have to read the paper (although it is VERY interesting, just watch all the graphs from page 3-17, this will only cost one or two minutes of your life or less
On January 09 2013 13:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Jon Stewart just explained it perfectly - "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." In terms of Gun Control in America.
what? that doesn't explain shit, it's just a catchy phrase, it's like quoting some stuff Albert Einstein said and then claim that you now know more about Physics. I mean, what the hell does that even mean, "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." how does it even relate to the modern gun control debate.
It clearly shows that almost all sorts of crime are higher in the EU, even violent crime. You do not have to read the paper (although it is VERY interesting, just watch all the graphs from page 3-17, this will only cost one or two minutes of your life or less
The OP opens this thread with discussion about gun control debates in Finland after several school shootings there. It centers around the US a lot at the moment because of the most recent school shooting, to my knowledge. All views on the topic are relevant. It's just that when discussing the possibility of legislation resulting from events local to specific nations, people of that nation will most likely be the most outspoken about the issue. I for one am fascinated by the way foreign nations deal with the issue. In the US we have the second amendment to point to to help maintain our right to keep firearms, and thus far it has held up long enough for emotions to cool and has kept any overbearing legislation from passing or at least has been used to eventually overturn it. Overbearing laws created because of emotional responses are my biggest fear with the democratic process.
As for the study you linked, it has been brought up before: after someone used the graphs which people accused of coming from a biased web blog that was likely using fictitious charts in an attempt to solidify their radical views. If I remember correctly the conclusion is that the fall in crime rate in the US compared to in the EU is due to the very hard stance on crime the US has taken in recent decades, along with the harsh prison sentences and by my inference the death penalty. Legalization, and even social acceptance of abortion has no measurable effect on crime, and the effect of police forces and narcotics use were mentioned but I don't think were examined. Overall, it has very little if anything to do with gun regulation, which varies across EU nations where the actual crime statistics were argued here based on local definitions of crime.
On January 09 2013 13:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Jon Stewart just explained it perfectly - "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." In terms of Gun Control in America.
That's a great quote.
But yeah, the general debate is pretty prickly for us out-of-USA people to get involved in because we're so used to not having guns in regular circulation that we can't relate to the Americans. However, my general argument is that although the US and UK have comparable violent crime rates, the US murder rate hovers around 11,000 per year and the UK around 450. The US is roughly 5 times the size of the UK, so our murder rate is 2500 in proportion. 11,000 v 2,500. The only sensible explanation for that disparity is the fact that guns are a) harder to run away from and b) more likely to kill than knives. So yeah, as far as I can see it, guns are wicked things that damage and don't protect a society.
The only arguments left are a) we need guns to overthrow the government and b) we need guns to defend from home invasions. I don't accept b) because the chances of a malicious home invasion are just too small to model your entire society around, and if it's just a burglary, let them have their shit and get it back on insurance (still very rare). I accept the spirit behind a) but I can't sympathise with the mentality that allows that to override the previously explained danger that guns present to a society.
After the recent shooting in the US gun sales went up. After the recent shooting in Switzerland, more people than before gave up their gun ownership.
It's just a diffrent mentality you cowboys got over there ^^. Arguing about it is pointless because for some reason, guns in the US seem to be a very emotional thing, seemingly to the extend of nearly being something religious. You can't argue with faith, be it faith in god or faith in guns...
On January 05 2013 15:13 Destine3 wrote: i hate to see people use the phrase "ITS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS!" Cause they KNOW that is like that so the British wouldnt come into our houses and kill us (along with wild bear... -_-) some hundred years ago. It is obvious that times has changed and the laws should flex along with it.
Except that's not why it's in the Bill of Rights. It's in the BoR because the founding fathers wanted to the people to always be able to defend themselves from tyranny, both foreign and domestic.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. " - Thomas Jefferson
Whatever happened to having sensible people in charge?
I guess if you can't scare the people, you make them stop caring.. Works well in our time. The bill of rights should be changed to cater to these newer times. In first world countries, they don't rule by making people afraid, they rule through apathy..
On January 09 2013 13:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Jon Stewart just explained it perfectly - "Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future keeps us from addressing our actual dystopic present." In terms of Gun Control in America.
That's a great quote.
But yeah, the general debate is pretty prickly for us out-of-USA people to get involved in because we're so used to not having guns in regular circulation that we can't relate to the Americans. However, my general argument is that although the US and UK have comparable violent crime rates, the US murder rate hovers around 11,000 per year and the UK around 450. The US is roughly 5 times the size of the UK, so our murder rate is 2500 in proportion. 11,000 v 2,500. The only sensible explanation for that disparity is the fact that guns are a) harder to run away from and b) more likely to kill than knives. So yeah, as far as I can see it, guns are wicked things that damage and don't protect a society.
The only arguments left are a) we need guns to overthrow the government and b) we need guns to defend from home invasions. I don't accept b) because the chances of a malicious home invasion are just too small to model your entire society around, and if it's just a burglary, let them have their shit and get it back on insurance (still very rare). I accept the spirit behind a) but I can't sympathise with the mentality that allows that to override the previously explained danger that guns present to a society.
What if there is a natural disaster like in new orleans and people are looting homes? Or perhaps riots like in london and people are looting stores? Insurance may cover all my personal possessions, but what about my food and water supply? What about the fact that waiting for insurance to come through, having my store repaired/cleaned up, and replacing my merchandise, could put my store out of business for a prolonged period of time? This is all assuming of course that you are right about guns being responsible for the homicide rate, which is doubtful because there are a million possible factors, and Switzerland has a very low homicide rate despite having a lot of guns.
After the recent shooting in the US gun sales went up. After the recent shooting in Switzerland, more people than before gave up their gun ownership.
It's just a diffrent mentality you cowboys got over there ^^. Arguing about it is pointless because for some reason, guns in the US seem to be a very emotional thing, seemingly to the extend of nearly being something religious. You can't argue with faith, be it faith in god or faith in guns...
Its hard to argue with an irrational fear of firearms derived from not growing up around and shooting them. I live in rural america. We go shooting regularly, regardless of political beliefs. Most people own guns, again, regardless of their political beliefs. I shot guns before I was 10. When some city slicker tells me my culture is unacceptable it sounds snobbish, arrogant, and self-important. The last murder in my town was years ago, and wasn't even done with a gun. We're not worried about it.
After the recent shooting in the US gun sales went up. After the recent shooting in Switzerland, more people than before gave up their gun ownership.
It's just a diffrent mentality you cowboys got over there ^^. Arguing about it is pointless because for some reason, guns in the US seem to be a very emotional thing, seemingly to the extend of nearly being something religious. You can't argue with faith, be it faith in god or faith in guns...
I don't really see what's hard to understand, shooting happens in the US > gun owners fear a ban on guns. Makes sense to me. Yes it is a different mentality but it isn't illogical nor irrational by any means. Isn't giving up your guns because some guy in your country used his guns on innocents a very emotional reaction ?
EPT
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