27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[Gallstones]

Oh, I see, it's someone else's fault and you are holding it against your will.
I wouldn't suck your ass if it was made of chocolate.

Lame.

I never said I wanted the 2nd Amendment repealed, though it certainly wouldn't bug me if it was. I just want far, far more restrcitions on what guns are available and who has access to them.

The status quo is a goddamn disgrace. Don't tell me you can look at Sandy Hook and think otherwise.

Don't implicate me with that.

Okay, if you think status quo has produced unacceptable results, let's hear some suggestions for what needs to be changed.

Improve the state of the art of diagnosing and treating mental illness and non-mental illness aberrations. Insure easier access to services and care. Remove the stigma on having a mental illness that is extant in society so people don't need to feel ashamed. Effectively address bullying and harrassment.

[Ian]

Okay, so guns aren't the problem at all. Brilliant. So, if we diminish this problem through improving mental health, I'm sure we can count on your vote for the next major healthcare expansion.

Now... how about the thousands upon thousands of people who are shot in non-spree killing circumstances, by people who would not qualify as mentally unstable?

[Tero]

We forgot the 50% of gun owners who are not ill, just stupid.

If you are too stupid to drive, we don't give you a license.

[orpheus]

Oh, I see, it's someone else's fault and you are holding it against your will.
I wouldn't suck your ass if it was made of chocolate.

Lame.

I never said I wanted the 2nd Amendment repealed, though it certainly wouldn't bug me if it was. I just want far, far more restrcitions on what guns are available and who has access to them.

The status quo is a goddamn disgrace. Don't tell me you can look at Sandy Hook and think otherwise.

Don't implicate me with that.

Okay, if you think status quo has produced unacceptable results, let's hear some suggestions for what needs to be changed.

Improve the state of the art of diagnosing and treating mental illness and non-mental illness aberrations. Insure easier access to services and care. Remove the stigma on having a mental illness that is extant in society so people don't need to feel ashamed. Effectively address bullying and harrassment.

Gallstones, there's been some heat between us this evening here and at RatSkep. I actually agree with you that all these things should happen. I strongly agree. But I also agree with Ian's response. I don't think it will sufficiently address the problem. Mental illness and gun violence are, I suspect, two only partially overlapping parts of a Venn diagram. And I don't know how big the overlap is.

And then there's the problem I pointed out earlier (I think here) that the gun proponents often are the same people who vote against health care reform.

[FBM]

We forgot the 50% of gun owners who are not ill, just stupid.

If you are too stupid to drive, we don't give you a license.

Not sure about the 50% figure, but whatever that number really is, they need to be culled, yes. First.

[Kristie]

So, if you had to kill something, what would you prefer to use?

I would prefer not to kill something. Except bugs, but I stomp on them.

I don't like killing either, but the deed needs to be done and you can't stomp a horse to death.
BTW, I don't kill bugs or spiders et al unless there is a need. I otherwise leave them be because I'm not blood thirsty and irreverent towards other life forms as a matter of course.

I wouldn't want to shot a horse to death either. If it needs put down, I'm sure there are drugs for that.
Yes, I'm a blood thirsty spider stomper!

Yes there are drugs.

So in your compassionate opinion it is better to wait out the fetching of a vet, allowing the horse to struggle and be in pain and panic, just so it's last moments are to experience being forcibly restrained, and be stabbed in the jugular for an injectable euthansia--that takes several minutes to have effect, rather than end it's misery in seconds by shooting it in the head because the latter is aesthetically or emotionally icky?

I'm not an animal person. I have no emotions attached to how a horse dies, which is precisely why I don't have one.

[Kristie]

Do you think freedom came free? No one gave their life for the liberty you enjoy and take for granted today?

The problem with that suggestion is that Americans are not free. They are less free than peoples in the other 23 richest nations, which do not have the so-called "right" to bear arms.

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that people should have the right to good medical care, a living, and education. In the USA these are not rights. They are freely available to the wealthier people and denied to the poor. The USA is not a free country. If you dispute this, go and ask a poor person.

I am a poor person.

Not too poor. You're on the Internet and you buy guns. You must have a bit of cash flow.

I have a job.
And how I increase my income to buy things I normally can't is not something you are entitled to know. But it is something that I can do if I choose, earn extra money for extra things--the old fashioned, and completely ordinary way. And when I do that I can spend that money on whatever I please.

I don't give a flying fuck where you're net comes from or what you spend it on. But don't claim to be one of the poor Americans not able to buy food or medical care when you're spending money on guns.

[laklak]

Excuses excuses. We can go 'round all day on this. You're using a very effective interpretation of the amendment for the 18th century. We're living in the 21st.

No, she's using the current interpretation of the amendment as handed down by SCOTUS in Heller vs DC and McDonald vs Chicago. Until SCOTUS reverses itself or further clarifies the scope of the 2nd in other cases the right to keep an bear is a fundamental right that applies to all jurisdictions in the U.S.

[orpheus]

Excuses excuses. We can go 'round all day on this. You're using a very effective interpretation of the amendment for the 18th century. We're living in the 21st.

No, she's using the current interpretation of the amendment as handed down by SCOTUS in Heller vs DC and McDonald vs Chicago. Until SCOTUS reverses itself or further clarifies the scope of the 2nd in other cases the right to keep an bear is a fundamental right that applies to all jurisdictions in the U.S.

Well, SCOTUS is wrong on this. They need to get into the 21st century too.

[laklak]

That's your opinion, orph, which you are absolutely entitled to hold and express. Mine differs. But our opinions don't actually mean shit, because SCOTUS doesn't make rulings based on public opinion or the latest poll numbers.

[Jason]

My internet comes from a motherfucking satellite. In space. I could be surfin' on my laptop while I surfin' on a tube behind my boat on the pacific ocean - surfin' like a boss.

[Gallstones]

I don't give a flying fuck where you're net comes from or what you spend it on. But don't claim to be one of the poor Americans not able to buy food or medical care when you're spending money on guns.

Kiss my ass you sanctimonious bitch.

And stop lying about me--I claimed none of those things.

[Kristie]

I don't give a flying fuck where you're net comes from or what you spend it on. But don't claim to be one of the poor Americans not able to buy food or medical care when you're spending money on guns.

Kiss my ass you sanctimonious bitch.

And stop lying about me--I said none of those things.

Ewww, no thank you!

[Kristie]

And stop lying about me--I claimed none of those things.

You said you were poor. Do you know the definition of poor?

[JimC]

The price of the freedom to own machines which fire little pellets of alloy so fast they can kill people is that you tolerate those little pellets killing people at a level most of the world finds breathtakingly puzzling and staggeringly stupid.

However I doubt that this blind spot in your national psyche is going to change much at all in the near future.

Fools.

Do you think freedom came free? No one gave their life for the liberty you enjoy and take for granted today?

Soldiers, sailors and airmen legitimately employed by a government were a vital part of ensuring western freedom, sure - none of us is running a pacifist or anti-military or law enforcement angle... In WW2, people in the armed forces gave their lives in what was arguably a just war.

Selfish civilian gun freaks have nothing whatsoever to preserving liberty, and everything to do with enabling sick fucks to shoot little children.