27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[cronus]

I dread to think what damage people with a certain mindset could do with tomorrow's robots.

[Audley Strange]

A couple of thoughts.

There are pathological attention seekers. Dead children make news. Spree kills make news, guns are easy to get your hands on if you wish to spree kill. The Spectacle will make them famous.

Guns are not the "problem", a culture in which they are often considered a primary solution to problems may well be though. While I don't think we can blame violent media in the U.S. (Seabass has pointed out correctly that there are many many violent movies from other cultures. Hard Boiled as an example of gun fantasy) However looking at the subtext of that media and of the nation's personal tale. The U.S. seems to be a culture that is so fundamentally driven towards the concept of individual freedom at all costs that it is hardly surprising the gun is an icon of liberty like the cross is of salvation (think about that).

Mix that in with some attention deprived wankers, a tradition of notoriety through child murder, easy access to guns and blammo! Another tragedy.

Much the same as in other cultures you get dickheads who think Magic Allah will give them a handjob it they strap bombs to themselves and hang around outside mosques on a friday. It's not the bombs or guns that are the problem. Its fuckwits who wish to use them for stupid, unreal but culturally acceptable motivations.

[ronmcd]

Looks as if this is going on longer and in more places than the media would have us think:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_at ... ry_schools

One thing that is obvious from that page is that people will use whatever they can get, to maximise damage.
Several of those atrocities were done with explosives, and it seems absolutely obvious that if explosives were easier to get, there would be a lot more use of them.
The same obviously applies to guns. They are easy to get, and there is a lot of use of them. Make it harder to get one, and people have to use something else.
But explosives and guns make killing easy, and impersonal. It would be very hard to keep killing with a knife, when you see people dying slowly and bloodily.
A gun is quick, easy, and not so messy.
Any sane country would make guns and explosives as hard to get as possible, but of course, the USA is insane, in this regard.
They think it makes it ok, if you just fly a flag at half mast the next day, and do fuck-all. The only thing that might change minds, is if gun-lovers lose one of their own.

So at least there is one good thing that came from this. The shooter shot his own mother with her own gun. Good. One down, 100 million to go.
And about half the bereaved parents would have been gun owners. So they might have learn't a valuable lesson.
Nothing's all bad.

Jesus. Half way through reading it I was planning on praising your post, sadly it degenerated into celebrating the death of the shooter's mother. You are correct re the important point being the amount of damage a particular type of weapon can do. The same nutters do exist is every country, not just US, but the chance of being able to get weapons to live out their deranged killing spree is limited in many countries.

As for the US constitution and the politics of gun control, I agree with this tweet:

The constitution is not the Ten Commandments. They were a bunch of bearded dudes in stove pipe hats. They could have got it wrong.

[mistermack]

It's not the bombs or guns that are the problem. Its fuckwits who wish to use them for stupid, unreal but culturally acceptable motivations.

I disagree.
It's the COMBINATION of fuckwit + gun, or fuckwit + bomb.

Fuckwits without guns or bombs can be dealt with. And you can't just remove all fuckwits or there would be hardly anybody left in the states.
You can remove guns and bombs, thus solving the problem of fuckwits with bombs and fuckwits with guns.

You couldn't get em all, but you could get most.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Fucking parasite!

So -- because other people said "we don't want you in our schools", god sat by and let 27 people die, including 18 kids who never had the opportunity to invite or uninvite god into the classroom....?

Put this guy on the fucking list of people I wish I could piss on. What a fucking monster this piece of garbage is. Fuck you, you fucking piece of fucking fish shit on the bottom of the ocean. Kill yourself, now. (referring to the guy on the video)

12610_503755866313841_1917132863_n.jpg (31.64 KiB) Viewed 441 times

[Cormac]

People don't understand that in an environment like a school a knife can be every bit as lethal as a gun. Especially in the hands of someone who has a little training.


This is not an argument either way. While a guy with a gun in hand, safety off could deal with a knife wielding maniac, if the gun was metered or the opponent unarmed, the assailant has a good chance of incapacitating any defender.

[Ian]

People don't understand that in an environment like a school a knife can be every bit as lethal as a gun. Especially in the hands of someone who has a little training.


This is not an argument either way. While a guy with a gun in hand, safety off could deal with a knife wielding maniac, if the gun was metered or the opponent unarmed, the assailant has a good chance of incapacitating any defender.

A knife can indeed be just as deadly. But when was the last time somebody killed 26 people in a matter of minutes with a knife or some other melee weapon? I've only seen that happen in Kill Bill.

[amused]

Regarding American freedom and individuality - It is drilled into us that we are supposed to be self-sufficient in order to be free, and that whatever safety net there may be is tattered and temporary. Competition is the basic ethos, and works well if you can compete at any level. It does introduce a background level of fear into daily life which finds expression in a variety of emotional outlets. Pouring that competition/fear emotion into backing a sports team is one, or going to see violent movies that express our inner desires to kill the bad guys is another. According to the Jung psychologists it doesn't matter if those outlets are real or not, the mind is satisfied with that expression of the Shadow.

I think it's that background level of fear that supports the gun-friendly culture here. We are constantly reminded that the social safety nets are tattered and breakable - See the current cuts to social spending that are on the table to resolve the budget crisis. I think that feeds an underlying fear that society itself is fragile and that we should stand ready to take up individual arms if it collapses. I think that is why the current zombie fad is so popular too - it gives excuse to blast away at people who have been conveniently dehumanized. Notice too how the gun nuts dehumanize everyone else by calling them sheeple, which makes it that much easier to kill if the time comes.

The solution to reducing the background level of fear that supports the gun-friendly culture is a stronger social safety net. That's not gonna happen because it costs the owners of the country too much money. It's cheaper to keep people in fear, particularly fear of each other. For the owners, a shootout isn't a bug, it's a feature.

[mistermack]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsN0FCXw ... r_embedded[/youtube]

[Cormac]

People don't understand that in an environment like a school a knife can be every bit as lethal as a gun. Especially in the hands of someone who has a little training.


This is not an argument either way. While a guy with a gun in hand, safety off could deal with a knife wielding maniac, if the gun was metered or the opponent unarmed, the assailant has a good chance of incapacitating any defender.

A knife can indeed be just as deadly. But when was the last time somebody killed 26 people in a matter of minutes with a knife or some other melee weapon? I've only seen that happen in Kill Bill.

I think it would probably depend on the weapons culture and availability.

It has happened though:

October 10th 1977 Trinidad and Tobago
June 3rd 1982 Hong Kong
August 13th 1983 Thailand
July 8th 1996 England
August 1998 China
September 3rd 1998 Hungary
September 14th 1998 China
February 22nd 1999, Latvia
February 2nd 2001 USA
May 7th 2001 USA
June 8th 2001 Japan
September 4th 2002 South Korea


The list goes on. Knife attacks on primary schools seem more prevalent than on secondary schools.

Also, having examined both lists, while more men are involved, there are women who have committed these crimes too as well as couples.

[Ian]

Yeah, but it's pretty silly to make comparisons.

[mistermack]

How come US police are so fat?

Is there a minimum weight you have to be?

[Jason]

That's what I've been saying this entire time - get at the root of the problem. However, the anti-gun nuts cannot see past their irrational bias and continue to trumpet the war song 'guns ARE the problem'.

It is easier to focus on the means rather than the cause because causes are complex and cause brain pain.

There is a poster on ftb making the sorts of dumb logic fail as yourself. "Teh shooter must be crazy therefore guns are not the problem." She is called Eris Caffee, are you related? Ever thought that every time you orgasm with your gun you might be part of a complex gun culture problem? Or does that cause you brain pain?

Here's a thought, take this emotive drivel that doesn't even manage to be insulting back to FtB where you obviously belong. I won't even charge you, that thought was free.

[Blind groper]

Just a comment about the idea that guns are needed to make a free country.

This is often expressed by Americans, and this logic would imply that America is the freest nation on Earth. How does that stack up with reality?

There is no universal definition of 'free country', so I will offer one. A free country is one that adopts and lives up to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The USA has signed up to this. Does it live up to it?

The short answer is no. The declaration on human rights includes the right to reasonable working conditions, to social security, to food and clothing, to shelter, to basic health care and to education. Because the USA is paranoid about anything that might look like socialism, these rights are neglected.

So if we look at the richest 24 nations, then we can say :
1. The USA has the easiest access to guns, and has 80% of all gun homicides of all those 24 nations put together.
2. The USA is the least free nation in that group based on the rights shown above.

Conclusion.

Easy access to firearms dramatically increase the number of murders, and does diddly squat for personal freedoms.

[MiM]

Oh but that's not freedom. It's enslaving the rich to work for the poor. And worse, signing any international treaty takes the freedom from the nation, so the whole Declaration of human rights is a slave contract.

Don't you see the logic in this? well neither do I