Connecticut (et al)

[orpheus]

The anti-gun nuts always ignore the obvious, that the killer was insane. You can not restrict peoples rights because of what insane people might do. Laws must be geared towards normal people, and the insane must be segregated from society.

Untrue; most anti-gun people I know acknowledge that mental health is a component of the problem. It's only the gun nuts who erect this straw man. Second, I'm pretty sure I've said this elsewhere, but I'll repeat: consider that the entire mental health field is in its infancy. That is why there is so much controversy about psychiatric medications, for example. We know comparatively little about many aspects of various mental illnesses. It's getting better, thank goodness, but as a medical science it's got a very long way to go. On the question of gun violence, do we really want to put all our eggs in only this basket?

Moreover, would you be in favor of the massive increase in national mental health spending that would be necessary even to begin to approach this problem effectively?

[mozg]

LOLWUT Armed guards in every school? And when the next massacre occurs on a school bus, or on (insert lication) you place armed guards there? Seth's vision sounds more like Soviet Russia. Take the responsibility for self defence away from the individual citizen and place it in the hands of a state appointed individual. I'm begining to think that young Seth is a Soviet sleeper planted in the USA to undermine the sacred Constitution.

Why don't you ask the wealthy NBC "Meet The Press" host David Gregory why he mocks the idea of armed guards when he sends his own kids, the Sidwell Friends school that has a full time 11 person security staff? Note that this does not include Secret Service for the Obama daughters.

Or do only rich kids need protection?

Why did David Gregory break Washington, DC law by possessing a 30 round magazine which he displays on air while interviewing Wayne LaPierre?

Does he find himself above the laws he expects others to follow?

I want a two changes in firearms laws.

One: National reciprocity for carry licenses.
Two: Individuals with license to carry are no longer prohibited from doing so in any K-12 school.

Let people take responsibility for their own safety.

[aspire1670]

LOLWUT Armed guards in every school? And when the next massacre occurs on a school bus, or on (insert lication) you place armed guards there? Seth's vision sounds more like Soviet Russia. Take the responsibility for self defence away from the individual citizen and place it in the hands of a state appointed individual. I'm begining to think that young Seth is a Soviet sleeper planted in the USA to undermine the sacred Constitution.

Why don't you ask the wealthy NBC "Meet The Press" host David Gregory why he mocks the idea of armed guards when he sends his own kids, the Sidwell Friends school that has a full time 11 person security staff? Note that this does not include Secret Service for the Obama daughters.

Or do only rich kids need protection?

Why did David Gregory break Washington, DC law by possessing a 30 round magazine which he displays on air while interviewing Wayne LaPierre?

Does he find himself above the laws he expects others to follow?

I want a two changes in firearms laws.

One: National reciprocity for carry licenses.
Two: Individuals with license to carry are no longer prohibited from doing so in any K-12 school.

Let people take responsibility for their own safety.

The post above is too dumb to parody.

Why don't you try reading my post for comprehension or do your gunz get in the way? Then you can run along and play with your gunz, cos gunz keep you safe doncha know. But leave the grown ups to pick up the pieces.

[mozg]

The post above is too dumb to parody.

Why don't you try reading my post for comprehension or do your gunz get in the way? Then you can run along and play with your gunz, cos gunz keep you safe doncha know. But leave the grown ups to pick up the pieces.

So are you aware that up until President Obama cut funding for it, there was a national program in the United States to put armed police officers in public schools?

Yeah, started by Clinton.

It was called COPS in School.

Now you can keep engaging in revisionist history to paint this as a ridiculous 'gun nut' idea... or you can be intellectually honest and admit that it came straight from the man who gave us the so-called 'Assault Weapons Ban' of 1994.

[Tero]

So are you aware that up until President Obama cut funding for it, there was a national program in the United States to put armed police officers in public schools?

Yeah, started by Clinton.

It was called COPS in School.

We can't have that, we would need to tax the job creators. Boehner had to go home cause his lot is not up to taxing anyone. The hell with public schools. That's Marxism!

[aspire1670]

The post above is too dumb to parody.

Why don't you try reading my post for comprehension or do your gunz get in the way? Then you can run along and play with your gunz, cos gunz keep you safe doncha know. But leave the grown ups to pick up the pieces.

So are you aware that up until President Obama cut funding for it, there was a national program in the United States to put armed police officers in public schools?

Yeah, started by Clinton.

It was called COPS in School.

Now you can keep engaging in revisionist history to paint this as a ridiculous 'gun nut' idea... or you can be intellectually honest and admit that it came straight from the man who gave us the so-called 'Assault Weapons Ban' of 1994.

Hmm, lets see if I can follow the logic of your argument. Dumb President Clinton funds a dumb idea; President Obama recognises dumb idea and cuts the funding therefore President Obama is responsible for murdering school children because guns don't kill people, people kill people. And from this you conclude it's a good idea to let as many people as possible take guns wherever they please. What part of people with guns kill people don't you understand? And given your inability to comprehend this why should anyone take on trust your confident belief that you could never become one of those people with a gun that kills people? Poor Mozg, I doubt you could pour piss out of a boot even if it had tip me stencilled on the heel.

[Jason]

An

armed

society

is

a

polite

society.

Of course what Seth means here is that you had best not 'insult' him or he'll shoot you. He pines for the days of yore when duelling was a gentlemanly affair and a polite way to settle disagreements.

[Jason]

On the question of gun violence, do we really want to put all our eggs in only this basket?

No, but let's put away the cracked ones and the basket cases hey? Mandatory Psych profiling before issuing licenses and every year thereafter would do a great deal of good in keeping legal firearms out of insano hands. It would also do a great deal to advance criminal psychology - the method would improve more rapidly over time to correct errors and include new discoveries and data than it would have if we all threw up our hands and, falsely, cried 'mental health is in its infancy!'. Perhaps on the treatment side, but that's of less concern when the goal is to identify and deny potentially dangerous persons access to firearms through legal channels and see that they are treated, as necessary and as well as the science allows at the time - if necessary some may be placed in permanent facilities. It should be required of all persons who wish to continue possessing firearms legally and instituted in every state. It would do far more to reduce killing sprees, and everyday occurrences like "Hank's McChicken tasted fishy. Hank flipped his lid, went home, shot his kids and wife, and blew his head off." It won't reduce gang-related killings, at least not measurably, but neither would any other type of proposed gun control.

[Blind groper]

The idea that arming everyone will reduce gun deaths is what we can call a speculation. The closest this idea has come to being implemented is the USA versus other civilised nations. As a weird experiment, the US government permitted gun ownership to the extent that the US now has 88 guns per 100 people (meaning more than one firearm per adult). Every other civilised nation has a lot fewer guns.

The result of this weird experiment is that the USA now has 80% of all firearms murders of the wealthiest 24 nations all put together. It has a per capita murder rate twice that of the next worst civilised nation (Finland) and four times as bad as most of the rest. And, surprise, surprise, two thirds of all those American murders are with guns.

The idea that adding even more guns will reduce this is totally ludicrous. That idea comes from completely ignoring the facts, which are that more guns mean more gun deaths. The idea that adding more guns will reduce gun deaths is not even a speculation. It is, instead, a self serving tactic by the NRA to rationalise the fact that they want to play with lethal toys.

[orpheus]

On the question of gun violence, do we really want to put all our eggs in only this basket?

No, but let's put away the cracked ones and the basket cases hey? Mandatory Psych profiling before issuing licenses and every year thereafter would do a great deal of good in keeping legal firearms out of insano hands. It would also do a great deal to advance criminal psychology - the method would improve more rapidly over time to correct errors and include new discoveries and data than it would have if we all threw up our hands and, falsely, cried 'mental health is in its infancy!'. Perhaps on the treatment side, but that's of less concern when the goal is to identify and deny potentially dangerous persons access to firearms through legal channels and see that they are treated, as necessary and as well as the science allows at the time - if necessary some may be placed in permanent facilities. It should be required of all persons who wish to continue possessing firearms legally and instituted in every state. It would do far more to reduce killing sprees, and everyday occurrences like "Hank's McChicken tasted fishy. Hank flipped his lid, went home, shot his kids and wife, and blew his head off." It won't reduce gang-related killings, at least not measurably, but neither would any other type of proposed gun control.

You're right about treatment - that will take a long time and for this purpose it's less the goal. I may have been unclear. What I meant is that given what we know about mental health at this point, we can't reliably identify the "cracked" ones. Those who we would deny - well, we won't know for sure if they were really a risk. And there will be plenty who are approved who turn out to be "cracked eggs". We simply don't know enough yet. Which is why I favor a combination of beefing up psychological profiling; increased awareness, affordability, access, and funding for research for mental health; legislated gun control (which may or may not necessitate a change to the 2nd Amendment); and in the meantime taking steps to make guns socially less acceptable, such as outlawing concealed carry; let's see who has the guns. (That would also have the benefit of making self-defense even more effective: if you're carrying a gun in the open, there will be less of a chance people will fuck with you, and consequently less of a chance you'll need to use it.)

[Ian]

Seth - let's say the public actually thought your ideas were rational (well, maybe as many as 13% do, though I think the real number is half that at best) and that's exactly the course American society took: armed guards everywhere you look, nearly everyone packing a sidearm, i.e genuine ubiquity of firearms. Ignoring for now the ludicrous opinion that this would make things safer, is that really the vision of America you want to see? Do you really feel such a society would be worthy of the term Civilization?

Yup. An armed society is a polite society. It's also a safe and peaceful society. Criminality reigns when governments make helpless victims of their citizens.

Gotcha. And this is why I rarely give you a serious reply. Intellectual ideas deserve intellectual discussion. Ridiculous ideas only deserve ridicule. Yours tend to be the latter; this one certainly is.

[klr]

Seth - let's say the public actually thought your ideas were rational (well, maybe as many as 13% do, though I think the real number is half that at best) and that's exactly the course American society took: armed guards everywhere you look, nearly everyone packing a sidearm, i.e genuine ubiquity of firearms. Ignoring for now the ludicrous opinion that this would make things safer, is that really the vision of America you want to see? Do you really feel such a society would be worthy of the term Civilization?

Yup. An armed society is a polite society. It's also a safe and peaceful society. Criminality reigns when governments make helpless victims of their citizens.

Gotcha. And this is why I rarely give you a serious reply. Intellectual ideas deserve intellectual discussion. Ridiculous ideas only deserve ridicule. Yours tend to be the latter; this one certainly is.

It would be interesting to know if Seth is politer in person than he is on-line. Let's face it, Seth does tend to use FU (and derivatives) a lot here, and other things besides. Is this because he does not fear the ire of a person who is safely out of reach, and who cannot do him harm? Because someone who gives and takes offence so easily on-line surely cannot behave that way in real-world situations where both he and those opposed to him are likely to be armed. Such a person would long since be dead, or in prison, or executed. So if Seth is politer in real life, it would support his statement above.

But ...

I prefer to be polite to people as a matter of course, because I find that life tends to flow easier for all involved that way. Not always of course, but the point is that I don't need the presence of guns to make me polite, or for others to be polite to me. And on the flip-side, there are plenty of documented cases where guns have been drawn and even people shot and killed during the heat of an argument, often over something of little consequence.

[Blind groper]

there are plenty of documented cases where guns have been drawn and even people shot and killed during the heat of an argument, often over something of little consequence.

Absolutely, and this points to a major flaw in Seth's arguments. If everyone was armed, as he claims to want, then there would be literally millions of people out there carrying guns who were prone to losing their temper when drunk, or when in an argument with their wives. Right now they just use their fists. If they were carrying guns, the murder rate would go through the roof.

[Seth]

Seth - let's say the public actually thought your ideas were rational (well, maybe as many as 13% do, though I think the real number is half that at best) and that's exactly the course American society took: armed guards everywhere you look, nearly everyone packing a sidearm, i.e genuine ubiquity of firearms. Ignoring for now the ludicrous opinion that this would make things safer, is that really the vision of America you want to see? Do you really feel such a society would be worthy of the term Civilization?

Yup. An armed society is a polite society. It's also a safe and peaceful society. Criminality reigns when governments make helpless victims of their citizens.

Gotcha. And this is why I rarely give you a serious reply. Intellectual ideas deserve intellectual discussion. Ridiculous ideas only deserve ridicule. Yours tend to be the latter; this one certainly is.

Why is it ridiculous? In spite of Hollywood propaganda, the ubiquity of firearms in the frontier period resulted in a much more peaceful society than we have today.

The vast majority of gun violence today is perpetrated by thugs and gang members in the inner city slums against one another. The innocent victims are the good citizens of these areas who are, by and large, disarmed by their own government (Chicago, Detroit, LA) and are therefore helpless to prevent the criminality that seethes around them. The police cannot, or will not take decisive action, and inner-city gang warfare is exactly the sort of civil disorder that the Militia Act was intended to address.

There are many more law-abiding citizens than there are gang-bangers, and if the government can't put a stop to drug violence and gang warfare, then the citizens should organize themselves, block by block, to do so. The first step in that process is for them to arm themselves against the criminals and start shooting back.

With universal firearms and marksmanship training taking place in the public schools, the next generation of kids will grow up with the respect for firearms and their fellow citizens that I experienced growing up. I carried my .22 rifle on the school bus, with ammunition, to school every week for NRA-sponsored firearms training and marksmanship. Nobody got shot. I kept my guns (age 10) in my room and was responsible for their safe handling. The consequences for mishandling were severe, but I was well and thoroughly trained in their use, so I had no excuse for making a mistake. Nor have I ever done so. I've never experienced a negligent discharge precisely because I was trained from an early age how to properly handle firearms, as were most of my rural friends.

Your mistrust of your fellow citizens is perfectly obvious. This is the typical liberal mindset (based in Marxist principles) that the individual is not to be trusted to exercise his own liberties properly, and government must supervise everything to eliminate any undesirable behavior.

My belief is that most people are capable of exercising their liberties properly and that government is not the boss of the people, the people are the boss of the government.

Now, you may have a point about not arming everyone, because obviously those of a criminal bent ought not be armed. But then again it's already illegal for them to have arms if they have a criminal intent, and they will ignore any laws that forbid them arms anyway.

But if you're a law abiding citizen who CHOOSES to carry a gun, like I do, your possession of that gun is no more dangerous, and in fact is far LESS dangerous to me than your possession and use of an automobile, and it also provides positive social benefits by keeping criminals guessing who might be armed against their attacks.

The fallacy that anti-gun liberals seem to labor under is their false belief that merely possessing a firearm is going to negatively affect the mental stability or competence of the gun owner, and that given a gun, most people will find occasion to misuse it or simply and inexplicably go insane and start shooting up the joint.

Of course this mindset is laughable insanity, as proven by the decades-long experiment with lawful concealed carry that shows quite clearly that good citizens do not suddenly turn into criminals or mass murderers if they are permitted to carry a gun.

I'd much rather deal with an armed citizenry and the very few problems that poses than deal with an armed criminal class, an armed nutbag class, and a government that feels immune from the wrath of the people if it oversteps it's legitimate authority because it's succeeded in disarming the people.


The phenomenon of school shootings didn't emerge until fairly recently and is indicative of a culture/society wide sociopathy that needs to be addressed.

[Jason]

There's something wrong with the person who gets angry and decides the best way to deal with it is to shoot someone.