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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10528
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:39 pm 
 

Techno Viper wrote:
Sandy hook and Aurora shooting foretold in new Batman movie :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8nTZKpmtlQ

I'm sure it's just a coincidence! :o

The next person to post trolling tripe like this is getting shown the door. Just a friendly warning, y'all.
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Unifying_Disorder
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2011 6:52 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:23 pm 
 

Morrigan wrote:
Anyone who thinks the writers of the Second Amendment were considering assault rifles and machine guns when they wrote what they had in mind is deluding themselves. And I can guarantee you that if the US government became a "tyranny", a bunch of hicks wouldn't stand a chance against its military, so yeah, it is outlandish, to anyone with common sense.


Several founding fathers were inventors, and repeating guns already existed on a small scale by then.

Secondly, citizens overthrowing a tyrannical regime is possible. The Soviet Union had a difficult time in Afghanistan to say the least. Admittedly, attack choppers were a problem until we sent Stinger missiles, but "Tank beats gun!" is not a given. It's more about tactics.

America is not even close to genuine tyranny, however, private gun ownership does make genocide very difficult. In 1944, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto fought back against the Nazis with what few guns they had. They held them off for a month. If every Jew had a gun, and the will to use it, the holocaust wouldn't have happened.

For instance, lets say every Jewish household had an average of 4 members, and a gun that they were willing to use. Let's say the Gestapo was given a quota of rounding up the members of 5,000 Jewish households. If one Gestapo soldier was killed for every Jewish household, that's 5,000 dead Gestapo, and 20,000 dead Jews. Still a far cry from the 6 million who perished.

So the Gestapo loses a fraction of their men, ones who volunteered. They would have to replace those 5,000 with fresher possibly less able, less willing recruits. As time goes on, they lose their will to carry out genocide. Also, even with a total media blackout like Nazi Germany had, you can't hide that. Word would spread. The Holocaust was done largely in secret. You couldn't keep that secret.

The 1st amendment is our most important freedom. The others, the 4th, 5th and so on are also important, they all support each other. The 2nd was intended to be the safety net of individual liberty.

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The_Beast_in_Black
Metal freak

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:34 am
Posts: 7455
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:28 pm 
 

Unifying_Disorder wrote:
Morrigan wrote:
Anyone who thinks the writers of the Second Amendment were considering assault rifles and machine guns when they wrote what they had in mind is deluding themselves. And I can guarantee you that if the US government became a "tyranny", a bunch of hicks wouldn't stand a chance against its military, so yeah, it is outlandish, to anyone with common sense.


Several founding fathers were inventors, and repeating guns already existed on a small scale by then.

Nothing even remotely like a machinegun or even a true "repeating" gun.
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Unifying_Disorder
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2011 6:52 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:36 pm 
 

Quote:
Nothing even remotely like a machinegun or even a true "repeating" gun.


There were volley guns, "pepper-box" guns, and repeating air rifles. The concept of a repeating gun was there.

Regardless, they couldn't picture radio, television, or the internet. Should we curb what communication devices are allowed based on that standard?

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Zodijackyl
63 Axe Handles High

Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:39 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:31 am 
 

Hey, anyone want to talk about anything other than guns that weren't used in this shooting?

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Unifying_Disorder
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2011 6:52 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:36 am 
 

Yes. It is tiring. There are parents who have lost a child, and the rest of the world is using the situation to argue about trivial details and debate semantics.

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GuntherTheUndying
Crimson King, Eater of Worlds

Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:36 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:52 am 
 

Riffs' post on the third page is exactly how I feel about the issue and worded better than I ever could. :thumbsup: Good work.
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Det_Morkettall
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 12:02 am
Posts: 614
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:16 am 
 

Everybody wrote:
"tragic" school shooting involving Kindergateners being massacred?

- GUN CONTROL
- POLITICS
- CONSPIRACY THEORIES
-THU GUVRMINT


-Leaning against the doorway, slurping soda through a straw, watching the ordeal-

But seriously, come on guys, are we going to derail this thread so far? I mean, I get that there's not a lot to discuss in terms of the incident when you isolate the actual happenings, but really? Black ops? The Bill of Rights? None of that stuff has anything to do with the Sandy Hook massacre. I accept that it happened, accept that it's generally viewed as tragic, and move on. The actual cause and future preventative measures are overthought way too much, and then politically-minded folks attempt to use the grief and loss of the other families as ammunition when furthering their political agenda (the biggest offenders are probably pro-lifers, either side of the arms argument, and of course this will further damage the reputation of quiet, introverted young people a world over).

Why don't we just... do something nice for the families? Seriously, as a board I mean. As the Metal-Archives community, if we "care" enough about this event to keep it going in 4 pages of discussion, why don't we try to brighten their faith in human kind? As a sort of Christmas gift, I mean.
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Is he fucking that sloppy cunt of Morrigan's? She is a hypocrite! Calls me a child, then after she bans me she uses my name to make a fake post!

Lol

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orionmetalhead
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:54 am
Posts: 2327
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:28 am 
 

Det, what do you propose? Let's all get them a copy of Rob Halford's Christmas album?

Edit... but seriously, do you have any logical ideas?
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Det_Morkettall
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 12:02 am
Posts: 614
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:34 am 
 

Sure. I mean, why don't we all contribute $5 or so into an elected paypal account or other form of donation collection, and we send the money to the town? I don't know. Anyone else have any ideas? Seemed like a good idea at the time. All I know so far is that the general concept involves money, or we can send it directly to the homes of the families with bills in USD and a Metal-Archives card design. That'd be cool.
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whatajoke wrote:
Is he fucking that sloppy cunt of Morrigan's? She is a hypocrite! Calls me a child, then after she bans me she uses my name to make a fake post!

Lol

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Riffs
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:48 am
Posts: 1077
Location: Montréal, Québec
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:03 am 
 

Unifying_Disorder wrote:
Yes. It is tiring. There are parents who have lost a child, and the rest of the world is using the situation to argue about trivial details and debate semantics.


Man, what? Gun issues are "trivial details"?

And I should do what? Indulge in CNN misery porn, close-ups and slow-motions featuring crying children and a bunch of dumbfounded people waving candles near a church while reporters shove a microphone in their face and ask them how they feel?

Fuck that noise!

You have it the other way around. Dwelling upon the misery of strangers who have lived a tragedy serves absolutely no purpose. It's just a perverse impulse that voyeuristic zombies have. It will accomplish nothing. You're not gonna revive those children, you're not giving the parents any relief... instead you're just contributing to a spectacle conceived by the media at the expense of the victims' dignity. And that's fucking shitty.

On the contrary, the only productive thing people can do at this time is to find out whether there are ways to limit tragedies like this from happening. And even if not everybody agrees, it is appreciated when people give their point of view on this supposedly "trivial issue".

Maybe if more people hadn't been sitting on their asses thinking just "how awful" it is when people die in shootings all the fucking time and excluding any rational thought process to instead focus on the victims, those children would actually be alive today.
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Napero
GedankenPanzer

Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:16 pm
Posts: 8817
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 4:13 am 
 

Delta_Wing wrote:
Besides the lunacy already mentioned comes the harsh reality that this country has already crawled down the rabbit hole too far and for way too long. There is no way of tracking who has what weapon at this point anymore.

Fallacy. No nation EVER has had any idea of the ownership before some controls and registrations were introduced. And yet it has worked quite well all around the world. BTW, the counter-argument is not "there just are so many of them", it's just a matter of scale, just like national health care and whatever; the idea that the scale of the problem is somehow important in these matters is ridiculous, as a matter of fact the unit cost should go down as the number of items increases.

Unifying_Disorder wrote:
Regardless, they couldn't picture radio, television, or the internet. Should we curb what communication devices are allowed based on that standard?

And which amendment would be the one to say that every American is entitled to a TV and a transistor radio? This is a lame analogy if I ever saw one.
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Riffs
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:48 am
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Location: Montréal, Québec
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 4:53 am 
 

Napero wrote:
Delta_Wing wrote:
Besides the lunacy already mentioned comes the harsh reality that this country has already crawled down the rabbit hole too far and for way too long. There is no way of tracking who has what weapon at this point anymore.

Fallacy. No nation EVER has had any idea of the ownership before some controls and registrations were introduced. And yet it has worked quite well all around the world.


While I agree with the sentiment and think the problem should be addressed, it's not gonna be easy.

America is the #1 country in the world for gun ownership per capita by a ridiculously long margin. It is also a huge and populous country that has a long history with gun-entitlement. Guns do not really have an expiration date nor do they require very complicated maintenance to be functional.

To complicate matters, criminals get their firearms by stealing from citizens so you can bet there's an impressive amount of illegal firearms owned by criminals or on the black market in the US.

Any undertaking to fix this would be long, difficult and very costly. It would be the most challenging project of this nature in history.

The more they wait, the more challenging it will get, though.
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Napero
GedankenPanzer

Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:16 pm
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Location: Finland
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 10:34 am 
 

Another angle to the arms against a tyrannical government... It sounds like the logic here is essentially as follows:
1) There is a shift in the government, and it turns into tyranny.
2) The constitution specifically allows weapons for this purpose.
3) People haul their asses onto the streets, wielding various firearms.
4) The superior firepower of the armed forced does not matter, because the soldiers won't shoot their own friends and families anyway, and everything returns to normal.

What I don't get here is the purpose of the weapons in a case like this. Gandhi's method was sort of like the same, only without hillbillies with guns.

Anyway, in case this happens, the firearms of the civilians will not really make a difference. A coup rarely works unless the army allows it, and if that's the case, you can bet riot batons, assault rifles, napalm, Hellfire missiles, that nasty gas that makes you poop and vomit uncontrollably at the same time, and cluster munitions are on the menu if necessary.

Also, the idea of having to shoot 10% of the population to get their weapons is silly. Once the process starts, all that's needed is to wipe out 1/3 of the people in Butthill, Texas, with light armor and flame throwers, and have a couple of news channels documenting it, and I'll bet the average American will freely give his .38 Specials away. There might be a lunatic fringe of a percent or so left after that, but people, especially in the overweight and lazy-as-hell western world, do not like to be killed for trivial reasons, such as a grocery bag full of guns.

Please note that the last scenario is at least as hypothetical as the tyranny itself.
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Delta_Wing
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:20 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 10:53 am 
 

Napero wrote:
Delta_Wing wrote:
Besides the lunacy already mentioned comes the harsh reality that this country has already crawled down the rabbit hole too far and for way too long. There is no way of tracking who has what weapon at this point anymore.

Fallacy. No nation EVER has had any idea of the ownership before some controls and registrations were introduced. And yet it has worked quite well all around the world. BTW, the counter-argument is not "there just are so many of them", it's just a matter of scale, just like national health care and whatever; the idea that the scale of the problem is somehow important in these matters is ridiculous, as a matter of fact the unit cost should go down as the number of items increases.



Napero,

I agree that gun registration has been successfully implemented in place like Europe. For example I have family in Germany and two of my uncles there are avid hunters and sport marksmen and they have a considerable collection of arms (vintage WWI and WWII rifles & pistols and hunting single action bolt rifles, etc). These weapons are fully registered as are the owners. A separate license is required for every weapon. In addition they are required to carry insurance for every weapon and must provide any transfer of ownership to the local authority, and prove safe keeping of these weapons. If they run into a trouble with the law a full reevaluation of their right to bear arms is performed, including psychological tests. The licenses can vary between right to use and right to keep within a collection depending upon the weapon’s use.

However, this strict code of weapons ownership has been in place in Germany, since the end of WWII and was actually implemented in part by the Allies as a way of disarming the defeated German people.

Now in regards to my statement which is based upon the current American situation, I have to disagree to it being a fallacy within real world terms. In a country like the US, the right to bear arms has never had any stringent restrictions placed on the individual owners at any time. There are so many cracks where weapons disappear into the underground whether with malice or without. At this point in time weapons are abounding throughout the US population and a good proportion of these are at this time unknown. There are millions of guns floating around that are basically untraceable having been bought and sold over and over and the tracks have gone cold. This is prevalent even among law abiding citizens, as there is no checks and balance in place in many cases after the initial purchase.

The US is also based upon individual freedoms and we as people are not open to the federal government peeking through our closets and cupboards. The problem gets even more complicated when the idea of individual states rights come into play. The laws concerning gun sales and ownership vary also greatly between one US state to another, and the federal government is pretty powerless in regards to individual states rights. Therefore we see federal bans on certain weapons, like the again proposed federal assault rifle and magazine capacity ban which in reality will do nothing to stop the problem of gun violence in the states. The actions of the shooter in Newtown, or Virginia Tech or Aurora, CO or the Oregon mall will never provide better nationwide gun ownership regulation, just more bans which in the end will not truly resolve the problem.


So in regards to being down the rabbit hole too far I can’t from experience say that that is false. All of these factors and many more are working against creating any meaningful laws, which will actually make a difference in reality to stopping the violence, besides being words written on paper. The amount of guns on the streets is staggering. In certain states, like Virginia no back ground check is even required to purchase weapons at a gun show. The flood gates are open and the Federal Government is talking about plugging a pin hole where there is gapping crater next to it.

To give an actual example, I live in area which is not a major metropolis but a just an average midsized city where on average a gun fatality occurs every 2 weeks, and at least one to two shots fired (with and without injury) are reported every couple of days. This doesn’t take into account all of the shootings that go unreported. The sad thing is that most of this is within the poor African American communities so middle class America doesn’t shed a tear. Only sickening events like spree killings wear on the public conscience. I hate to ramble but I hope that this gives you an insight into my earlier statement and why I feel the way I do. BTW I support the right to bear arms, but changes are definitely required, but I can't see these ever happening without a show of force, which I hope we never come to.

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Napero
GedankenPanzer

Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:16 pm
Posts: 8817
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:54 am 
 

All things that relate to laws, the supposed inability of the federal law to surpass state laws and whatever are just cases where the only thing really lacking is political will. If you want, you can change the constitution, you can change the state laws, and you can nuke the separate county rules. It's just a matter of will, nothing more. Yes, I know it won't happen, but it will boil down to that.

And even if there is a bunch of illegal firearms in criminal hands, it doesn't matter. No one with a bit of sense could in any case expect every illegal firearm to disappear immediately; I mentioned two decades as a guess for a time frame in my first post here, and I don't think you could reach any reasonable level in less than a dozen years. BUT!

Unless something is done now, the same two decades will simply be postponed. And in my limited life experience, things tend to go along the lines of the 80/20 or 90/10 rules, i.e. the great majority of items to be processed are easy, and there's a minority that forces you to work hard. Let's assume that there's, say, 10 million firearms of various kinds in circulation among criminals in the USA, and out of the total of 200 million or so other weapons, another 10 million are owned by people who will stall and try to prevent all sorts of registrations and any restrictions. Now, if European type of laws come into effect, that would still mean that 180 million firearms would be registered, stored securely, and used by checked folks. Because, hey, the argument is always about "law-abiding citizens", and I assume most people in the USA still fit that definition, and would not really mind after a few months of grumbling and wailing and complaining about costs of safe cabinets and such. That would leave 20 million firearms, and out of the 10 million in criminal hands, I'd expect a drop of 15 or 25 percent annually, because they could be effectively confiscated and destroyed much more efficiently than before, and the flow of weapons to replace them would be hampered by the new laws. The other 10 million would experience a similar decline in numbers, mostly due to such everyday things as coming to ones senses after comparing the benefits against the drawbacks of getting prosecuted in case the firearm is used in home defense or such, or simply the death of the owner and the heirs doing what's right. In two decades, the turnover due to the last method alone would be about 30%, considering the average age of firearm owners and the fact that the grumpy whiners that won't adjust are always old geezers. And surprise, in two decades, there would perhaps be one to three million firearms without any data on them in circulation, and the flow of new stuff to the black market would be a dribble, not a stream.

It's all about political will and some practical issues, and a huge amount of effort and patience. There's nothing impossible there, if there's will to do it. And surprisingly, you people let the NRA, with 3 or 4 million members tops, dictate your opinions and future with pretty low-brow propaganda that either amounts to fear-mongering or the equivalent of an educational version of Boobs & Guns pin-up calendar. The second amendment is, in the eyes of the rest of the western world legislation, an equivalent of a toothless geezer yelling "get off my lawn", and so badly out of date that it rightfully makes your country seems amusing. And what's worse, the bible-like literate reading of those few lines is just rule-lawyering, and somehow adds to the entertaining character of the discussion.

Yeah, I know any ideas or advise by an European doesn't mean shit here, and that you will desperately grip onto your precious guns, but it indeed is a horribly tragi-comical performance on a fundamentally simple issue, and what you people need, once again, is common sense in the middle ground between safety scissors and atomic chain cannons.
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Delta_Wing
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:20 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:22 pm 
 

Riffs wrote:

Any undertaking to fix this would be long, difficult and very costly. It would be the most challenging project of this nature in history.

The more they wait, the more challenging it will get, though.


I absolutely agree with you and they have already waited too long. The cost alone will cripple any plan that may be devised. The US tax dollar is fought for tooth and nail in Washington by lobbyists, and an undertaking of this size is unimaginable in a country where our taxes are constantly being kept lower in relationship to other industrialized developed countries.

There is only so much capital around to support the US military industrial complex, our war against terrorism, our war against drugs, sustaining one of the largest militaries in the world with some the most advanced weapon$ on the planet, new proposed healthcare system, our public education, our infrastructure, plus our endless pouring of cubic dollars into countries like Pakistan to be our allies.

The US is already so financially strapped that infrastructure (new roads & bridges, new underground electrical networks, new sewer & plumbing and pipelines) and public education are already taking a back seat. As long as a large portion of US politicians and voters refuse to tax the upper classes properly, we will never even come close to having the necessary funds for financing such an undertaking.
Not to mention that all government projects are immediately over budget, due to wasteful spending and fleecing.

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Delta_Wing
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Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:20 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:30 pm 
 

Napero your last post about "Will" demonstrates something that is clearly lacking here. Most people are too apathetic to care if it doesn't directly affect them, so why bother. Only in tragedy, like with these little kids, is there a knee jerk reaction. Once these dark clouds pass, life will be back to normal. The average Joes won't care, the few who want serious logical change will be ridiculed again for wanting to change the holiest document in the land, and the gun lobby will be back to business as usual. Maybe this time things will be different, but I doubt it.

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Zodijackyl
63 Axe Handles High

Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:39 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:48 pm 
 

Riffs wrote:
And I should do what? Indulge in CNN misery porn, close-ups and slow-motions featuring crying children and a bunch of dumbfounded people waving candles near a church while reporters shove a microphone in their face and ask them how they feel?
...
Maybe if more people hadn't been sitting on their asses thinking just "how awful" it is when people die in shootings all the fucking time and excluding any rational thought process to instead focus on the victims, those children would actually be alive today.


Ignore the media, do not patronize them at this time. If you're inclined to do so, write a sentence or two about why you're disgusted by interviewing children and tweet it and post it on comments on news networks - they probably wont bother to read it, but comments like this are seen by your friends, and it's something that should be very, very easy to reject. It's disgusting that anyone does that, especially ravenous reporters, because having children recount traumatic events the way they do makes the impact worse on them.

What can you do? You know people who had the reaction you just described, explain to them why we need to connect with and help people with troubles. There is a cycle of implication where details of a shooter's life are paraded and people point to them as something that needs to be forcibly stopped, and anything that contributed to the shooter's life needs to be scrutinized. The way people do that is better described as persecution than helping, it gets a very negative feel because people are thinking about it only because of its connection to an infamous person. You can help others understand that if anyone is identified as having problems in common with a school shooter, the last fucking thing you should do is think of them as being similar to a school shooter, but as a normal person who needs to be included when we come together as communities and as a nation.

Instead, we have details of the shooter's life strung out and paraded with as much sympathy as a witchfinder. There is a culture of violence and hate that is hugely reflected in our contempt for the shooter, but hating a dead man does no good here, and it only reflects in what we see in the living. The motive here was twisted and convoluted by mental illness so that it is very difficult to understand, and it is not something we can stop with force. However, a lot of the struggles that led up to this happen to countless others who don't snap and kill others - for every person who dies in a school shooting, 100+ teens kill themselves, and more have struggles that don't end in a bang. Something terrible happened and we can't change it by force, and we will only make the problem worse by targeting "potential" perpetrators. I'll repeat this once again as the point seems to have been missed.

Zodijackyl wrote:
Something that concerns me is how people express their contempt for the shooter, someone dead and gone who we have learned very little about. There is nothing left there to grasp, but the fragments of his identity that we now know of are being projected onto others as a means to give this something tangible. The disgust and contempt is understandable, but it can do nothing good at this point. As we learn a few things about him, people try to identify someone who is still alive that they can label in their mind as being like the killer. All this does is make the lives of troubled people more difficult when what they need is for people to not feel uncomfortable with them, rather to be open to them and not think of them in a bad way.

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GTog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:07 pm 
 

I don't think that tangential discussions around criminals and guns is serving anything here. None of these mass shootings - not Virginia Tech, not Aurora Colorado, not Tuscon, and not Sandy Hook - were committed by criminals. They were committed by unstable people, who retroactively became criminals because they killed people.

There already are restrictions on criminals obtaining firearms, and they obtain them anyway. Not the point. Strengthen background checks, close the gun show loophole, do whatever you want. Ask this question: Would it have stopped Aurora, Tuscon, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, etc? If the answer is "no" then you're on the wrong track.

Find out where the answer can be "yes". No kind of background check would have prevented Sandy Hook. They weren't even his guns. What are you going to do, forbid anyone who knows or is related to a mentally unstable person from owning a gun? Can't do that.

The NRA chief today, predictably, blamed everyone else and called for armed personnel in every school. Never mind that it's an idiotic thing to say, ask the same question - would it have prevented the mass shooting?

Virginia Tech, no. Tuscon, no. Aurora, no. Sandy Hook, no. (It would have reduced the body count, at best. Not prevented it.)

So that's not it either. What then? I'm not being contentious. I'm asking in all seriousness. Give me something that would have prevented any one of thoe incidents. There are definitely answers.

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Riffs
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Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:48 am
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:54 pm 
 

GTog wrote:
I don't think that tangential discussions around criminals and guns is serving anything here. None of these mass shootings - not Virginia Tech, not Aurora Colorado, not Tuscon, and not Sandy Hook - were committed by criminals. They were committed by unstable people, who retroactively became criminals because they killed people.

There already are restrictions on criminals obtaining firearms, and they obtain them anyway. Not the point. Strengthen background checks, close the gun show loophole, do whatever you want. Ask this question: Would it have stopped Aurora, Tuscon, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, etc? If the answer is "no" then you're on the wrong track.

Find out where the answer can be "yes". No kind of background check would have prevented Sandy Hook. They weren't even his guns. What are you going to do, forbid anyone who knows or is related to a mentally unstable person from owning a gun? Can't do that.

The NRA chief today, predictably, blamed everyone else and called for armed personnel in every school. Never mind that it's an idiotic thing to say, ask the same question - would it have prevented the mass shooting?

Virginia Tech, no. Tuscon, no. Aurora, no. Sandy Hook, no. (It would have reduced the body count, at best. Not prevented it.)

So that's not it either. What then? I'm not being contentious. I'm asking in all seriousness. Give me something that would have prevented any one of thoe incidents. There are definitely answers.


I don't think you're being contentious. These are legitimate concerns. But obviously, some people have views that may appear drastic to others.

For instance, you say you can't forbid anyone who knows a mentally unstable person from owning a gun... I say you can do even more than that. I don't find any legitimate use for guns in a modern society outside of hunting. And so, I think owning automatic weapons and handguns to be bullshit because their only practical use is to do shitty things.

And yes, there are restrictions on criminal obtaining guns but the problem is, the more guns you have, the easier it is to have a black market. The argument that the US should keep going in this direction is just gonna keep on making it easier for criminals to obtain gun. This is exactly what the NRA and other gun nuts want to happen. They know fully well that a portion of their guns end up in criminal hands, and then they play up to this fact to instill fear, so that more people buy guns... a portion of which ends up on the black market.

Rinse, repeat.

That old teaching hag had no legitimate reasons to own these type of firearms.
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Delta_Wing
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:18 pm 
 

GTog wrote:
I don't think that tangential discussions around criminals and guns is serving anything here. None of these mass shootings - not Virginia Tech, not Aurora Colorado, not Tuscon, and not Sandy Hook - were committed by criminals. They were committed by unstable people, who retroactively became criminals because they killed people.

There already are restrictions on criminals obtaining firearms, and they obtain them anyway. Not the point. Strengthen background checks, close the gun show loophole, do whatever you want. Ask this question: Would it have stopped Aurora, Tuscon, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, etc? If the answer is "no" then you're on the wrong track.

Find out where the answer can be "yes". No kind of background check would have prevented Sandy Hook. They weren't even his guns. What are you going to do, forbid anyone who knows or is related to a mentally unstable person from owning a gun? Can't do that.

The NRA chief today, predictably, blamed everyone else and called for armed personnel in every school. Never mind that it's an idiotic thing to say, ask the same question - would it have prevented the mass shooting?

Virginia Tech, no. Tuscon, no. Aurora, no. Sandy Hook, no. (It would have reduced the body count, at best. Not prevented it.)

So that's not it either. What then? I'm not being contentious. I'm asking in all seriousness. Give me something that would have prevented any one of thoe incidents. There are definitely answers.

Nothing could have prevented them; however stricter laws and better oversight can cut down their frequency. With as many guns in US homes as there are now, the probability of them falling into an individual’s hands that is unstable(or criminal) is much higher, therefore we in the US will continue to see spree killings much more frequently than the rest of the civilized world. Adam Lanza and the recent Oregon Mall Shooter are a prime examples of that. Lanza's mother must have known he was unstable but made a conscious decision to keep weapons in her home anyway. The OR Shooter stole a relatives weapons.

James Holmes and Seung-Hui Cho on the other hand were able to lawfully aquire their weapons, albeit Cho somehow beat the criminal background check for being registered mentally unstable. IIRC he bought his weapons at a Virginia gun show (no background check).

Not saying countries with stricter gun policy are immune, as events aboard has shown as well, but they happen far less frequently, and these countries have far fewer murders pre capita to begin with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

As far as preventing them completely, I see no way, as even with regular mental health screenings, some person with mental illness will still slip under the radar and if determined will find a way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:55 pm 
 

So, I take it we're all in agreement that other things need to happen, like changing attitudes towards mental health as well as better and more accessible psychiatric care. Since that's all taken care of and nobody disputes it, let's talk about guns. It seems that people who own and use guns don't want them taken away because they don't understand that they're capable of killing and are used for killing. Why do these people insist on owning guns if guns are made to kill people? Couldn't we just take their guns away and nobody would be killed by guns?

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orionmetalhead
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 4:59 pm 
 

Zod you go try taking Ted Nugent's guns away. LOL.
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GTog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:20 pm 
 

That would be swell, except:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The 2nd Amendment is like a negative space exercise. What it doesn't say is as important as what it does say. The text grants citizens a certain right, but that doesn't mean anything unstated is forbidden. It's just not written down. I'm convinced that the framers of the Constitution did that on purpose. And anyway, the Supreme Court already decided that.

For example, what it doesn't say is Only because A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. That would've solved a lot right there. As written though, no particular reason for keeping and bearing arms is a requirement.

Neither does it say A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, and the type/quantity thereof ,shall not be infringed. Gun owners, you do not have the right to an arbitrary amount of firepower.

Last one. It does not say A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear and use Arms, shall not be infringed. A lot of town ordinances prohibit the discharge of firearms within residential zones, and that's not unconstitutional.

So at the end of the day, only restrictions on the type and quantity of firearms, and their use, is going to have any legs. So back to my original question: What would have prevented Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tuscon, and Sandy Hook?

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Delta_Wing
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:44 pm 
 

What would help to prevent these incidents? Maybe a public service campaign identifying young men at risk of snapping. Better education for teens and young adults to spot potential warning signs and try to get the potential perpetrators the help they need. Informed friends, parents and teachers / professors that could step in and find help for these people. Each one of these killers showed open warning signs of a person in distress yet none of their family / friends either recognized or knew how to help.

In the 1980s 1990s there were public service campaigns aimed at preventing teen suicide, maybe now we need to have something for teens who are depressed , and turning their depression to rage and cannot properly channel it non-violently. This is a growing epidemic and answers should be found.

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:45 pm 
 

You know that we can change the Constitution, right? It hasn't happened because there hasn't been strong enough support to do so.

People don't support the second amendment because it tells them to do so, they support it because they value what it guarantees them. Laws can and have been made restricting that right, and laws can still be made to restrict it both selectively and as a whole. We had an assault weapons ban for a decade, and several times in the last eight years, it was not renewed. Connecticut has an AWB in place, though it is weaker than the federal AWB was.

It's been over 13 years since the Columbine massacre and there have been a lot of school shootings in the US (around 80?), among those one highly lethal, high-profile incident at Virginia Tech. What action was taken following those? Was it effective? What's different this time in terms of what can be done to prevent it?

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:51 pm 
 

Delta_Wing wrote:
What would help to prevent these incidents? Maybe a public service campaign identifying young men at risk of snapping. Better education for teens and young adults to spot potential warning signs and try to get the potential perpetrators the help they need. Informed friends, parents and teachers / professors that could step in and find help for these people. Each one of these killers showed open warning signs of a person in distress yet none of their family / friends either recognized or knew how to help.

In the 1980s 1990s there were public service campaigns aimed at preventing teen suicide, maybe now we need to have something for teens who are depressed , and turning their depression to rage and cannot properly channel it non-violently. This is a growing epidemic and answers should be found.


Is anyone going to seek or accept help because they're labeled as a potential killer? Why shouldn't we be aiming to help people who can channel it non-violently? This is one, rare outcome of a much larger problem that needs to be addressed.

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Delta_Wing
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:54 pm 
 

Btw it is funny that this discussion is happening with so much civility on a metal forum, where all of the deranged and damaged kids supposedly hang out. I have seen some disgusting examples of humanity talking with pure loathing and pure hatred toward one another and people not sharing their exact opinion in regards to this general topic else where. But a bunch of people, that have probably all listened to "entrails ripped from a virgins cunt" are handling this with much more maturity. Everybody stay save out there.

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:04 pm 
 

Delta_Wing wrote:
Btw it is funny that this discussion is happening with so much civility on a metal forum, where all of the deranged and damaged kids supposedly hang out. I have seen some disgusting examples of humanity talking with pure loathing and pure hatred toward one another and people not sharing their exact opinion in regards to this general topic else where. But a bunch of people, that have probably all listened to "entrails ripped from a virgins cunt" are handling this with much more maturity. Everybody stay save out there.


What? You think that reactions to school shootings in the past have unfairly placed blame on someone or something?

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GTog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:15 pm 
 

Delta_Wing wrote:
What would help to prevent these incidents? Maybe a public service campaign identifying young men at risk of snapping. Better education for teens and young adults to spot potential warning signs and try to get the potential perpetrators the help they need. Informed friends, parents and teachers / professors that could step in and find help for these people. Each one of these killers showed open warning signs of a person in distress yet none of their family / friends either recognized or knew how to help.

In the 1980s 1990s there were public service campaigns aimed at preventing teen suicide, maybe now we need to have something for teens who are depressed , and turning their depression to rage and cannot properly channel it non-violently. This is a growing epidemic and answers should be found.


This I like. We've had massive nationwide campaigns for seat belts, for chrissake, certainly we can do it for at-risk youth.
But not from the perspective "because they could turn out to be a crazed killer". Metal health care already has enough problems with the stigma attached. It will take a long and consistent effort, but it can work.

But it can't be an excuse to dodge to gun question. Let's do that, and put some reasonable rules around ownership of assault weapons or ammo clips or something, too. It shouldn't be that big of a deal. You don't even have to ban them. Car enthusiasts can build hot rods with 700hp under the hood and have all the fun they want, just not at 200mph on the nation's highways. You would think that owners of assault rifles would welcome the chance to be portayed as the responsible gun owners that most of them no doubt are, rather than lunatics prepping for armageddon.

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:24 pm 
 

GTog wrote:
Delta_Wing wrote:
Metal health care already has enough problems with the stigma attached.


:lol:

GTog wrote:
But it can't be an excuse to dodge to gun question. Let's do that, and put some reasonable rules around ownership of assault weapons or ammo clips or something, too. It shouldn't be that big of a deal. You don't even have to ban them. Car enthusiasts can build hot rods with 700hp under the hood and have all the fun they want, just not at 200mph on the nation's highways. You would think that owners of assault rifles would welcome the chance to be portayed as the responsible gun owners that most of them no doubt are, rather than lunatics prepping for armageddon.


What "reasonable rules" are you talking about? Anything that isn't already in place?

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kingnuuuur
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:36 pm 
 

Yeah, guns are sure going to go down the fast way, with politicians talking about arming teachers like it's a football game, because hey, "The best defense is a good offense, y'all".

GTog wrote:
For example, what it doesn't say is Only because A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. That would've solved a lot right there.

Or better yet: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, is a fucking stupid idea in this day and age. End of discussion.

GTog wrote:
So back to my original question: What would have prevented Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tuscon, and Sandy Hook?

Are you really asking people to repeat the obvious for the billionth time? Only the absence of guns would've 100% guaranteed the prevention of those shootings. But then you would've probably had a couple of stabbings instead, and there's not much you can do to prevent those. Or who knows, maybe even a bombing? Chances are someone's going to get fucked, but at least they're not getting sprayed with bullets along with 30 other people.

Zodijackyl wrote:
It's been over 13 years since the Columbine massacre and there have been a lot of school shootings in the US (around 80?), among those one highly lethal, high-profile incident at Virginia Tech. What action was taken following those? Was it effective? What's different this time in terms of what can be done to prevent it?

Read this, specifically chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10. So far, progressively tighter gun control in the UK has worked pretty well for them, so why shouldn't it work for you? Oh wait, the second amendment, of course. :facepalm:

EDIT: Changed the link. More stuff to read.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 90075.html
http://www.care2.com/causes/5-things-ab ... he-us.html
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orionmetalhead
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:30 pm 
 

Different societies should be overseen and regulated differently so comparing the USA, with it's own specific political traditions and philosophy, to other countries with a far different demographic and political landscape isn't really appropriate. The laws our politicians pass should be molded around the Constitution that was adopted when the country was founded. At least I believe so.
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Delta_Wing
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:39 pm 
 

Zodijackyl wrote:
This is one, rare outcome of a much larger problem that needs to be addressed.


Well what do you see as the much larger problem? Is it our environment, the fact maybe we are being overloaded with information at a rate some people can no longer process healthily within their psyche and they just snap? The pressure of modern life is a heavy load to bare, maybe some of these people can't handle it, or maybe life has been too easy without sacrifice and many modern western men have become spoiled little sissies.
Is it Hollywood, video games, music, the constant barage of negativity on the news? Or is it a generation without a true cause to fight for anymore because most of society as a whole is no longer unified but instead compartmentalized? The vast majority appears to be doing ok. But are we really? I mean people tend to treat each other like shit, just look around.

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GTog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 9:00 pm 
 

Quote:
Are you really asking people to repeat the obvious for the billionth time? Only the absence of guns would've 100% guaranteed the prevention of those shootings. But then you would've probably had a couple of stabbings instead, and there's not much you can do to prevent those. Or who knows, maybe even a bombing? Chances are someone's going to get fucked, but at least they're not getting sprayed with bullets along with 30 other people.


The question may be repeated indefinitely. The answers however vary. That's what makes it a discussion and not a lecture. Anyway, I'm not talking about trying to prevent all gun crime, or stabbings, or whatever alternate means unstable people choose to wreak havoc. I'm talking specifically about Virginia Tech, Tuscon, Aurora, and Sandy Hook. Victims of other crimes will just have to fend for themselves for now.

Responding to Zod - Actually, I've been asking other people what they would think are reasonable rules, but since you asked I'll offer my opinion. A restriction on ammunition is a reasonable rule. Clips/magazines that hold more than x bullets should not be manufactured. I don't know what x is, I imagine it varies by weapon type. Clips/magazines get to be impractical once they reach a certain size, no? So why make them?

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Metalfuckingrules
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 9:42 pm 
 

I found this on Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/adam-lanza-motive_n_2329508.html
Check it out, it basically explains why this all happened.

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 10:47 pm 
 

Delta_Wing wrote:
Zodijackyl wrote:
This is one, rare outcome of a much larger problem that needs to be addressed.


Well what do you see as the much larger problem?


Mental illness that leads to suicide. Severe depression is a major contributor to around three quarters of teen suicides, and there are a lot of other problems that can be concurrent or related. There are are 5000 per year in the US, and somewhere between 10 and 25 attempts for each successful one. Very, very few end up taking others lives, but those are the ones that are not forgotten.

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Riffs
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:35 am 
 

kingnuuuur wrote:
GTog wrote:
So back to my original question: What would have prevented Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tuscon, and Sandy Hook?

Are you really asking people to repeat the obvious for the billionth time? Only the absence of guns would've 100% guaranteed the prevention of those shootings. But then you would've probably had a couple of stabbings instead, and there's not much you can do to prevent those.


The thing with stabbings is that they are less likely to result in multiple deaths. Around the same time the latest tragedy happened in the USA, some dude attacked 22 children and an elderly women with a knife in china.

No deaths, apparently and very few serious injuries:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012 ... chool.html
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Riffs
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:39 am 
 

Delta_Wing wrote:
Btw it is funny that this discussion is happening with so much civility on a metal forum, where all of the deranged and damaged kids supposedly hang out. I have seen some disgusting examples of humanity talking with pure loathing and pure hatred toward one another and people not sharing their exact opinion in regards to this general topic else where. But a bunch of people, that have probably all listened to "entrails ripped from a virgins cunt" are handling this with much more maturity. Everybody stay save out there.


I agree. For the most part, what I have seen here is a lot of well-written posts from people with very different point of views. It's really cool.
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