The Connecticut Massacre

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Sat Dec 15, 2012 6:52 pm

Someone want to explain to me why, in the wake of such an awful event, it seems all gun junkies care about are defending their guns?

Seriously, of all the issues that divide America, the issue of gun laws has me most perplexed. I just don't understand why, even after a tragic event like this, gun junkies can for a second defend the current gun laws and take personally an attack on the NRA.

If you go on Facebook, it's infuriating to read the ridiculous opinions of the assholes. I suppose next they're going to say we should have armed those kindergarten children?

I asked one of them why they felt so strongly about guns, and their argument was that if citizens don't bears arms, then the only ones who will have guns are the government. And if the government gets more corrupt, they may in dictatorial fashion illegally confiscate one's possession under marshall law. What???? You're trying to tell me that having a gun is going to stop a government that has at it's disposal an entire ******* military?

******* idiots.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Sat Dec 15, 2012 9:25 pm

Yaya wrote:Someone want to explain to me why, in the wake of such an awful event, it seems all gun junkies care about are defending their guns?

Seriously, of all the issues that divide America, the issue of gun laws has me most perplexed. I just don't understand why, even after a tragic event like this, gun junkies can for a second defend the current gun laws and take personally an attack on the NRA.

You have to think of firearms as just another "thing," like cocaine or turkey or coffee and not a "special thing because it is uniquely designed specifically for killing people."

In that logic, it's the same reason why you wouldn't raise the drinking age or install breathalyzers in every single car like seatbelts after a rash of alcohol-related car crashes. Yes, we can outlaw things or set restrictions, but the infringement upon individual liberty harm is greater than the benefits received to the collective good. (This also usually coincides with an ideological affiliation towards wanting smaller government/being distrustful of big government to successfully or fairly enforce laws)

I asked one of them why they felt so strongly about guns, and their argument was that if citizens don't bears arms, then the only ones who will have guns are the government. And if the government gets more corrupt, they may in dictatorial fashion illegally confiscate one's possession under marshall law. What???? You're trying to tell me that having a gun is going to stop a government that has at it's disposal an entire ******* military?

******* idiots.

Actually, it DOES make a difference. First off, perhaps no one has tanks, but I'd bet that if you saw what kind of military hardware was contained in the civilian population, you'd be shocked. Secondly, an armed populace does offer more resistance to dictators, totaliterianism, etc. Governments DO have military, tanks, aircraft, etc., but that does not mean that's their first option when it comes to dealing with uprisings. Furthermore, when it comes to actually putting those kind of heavy pieces into play against your people, you get condemnation and they might not even be effective. Example Syria: the rebels do not have tanks or aircraft, the government was driven to use tanks and aircraft against them, and the rebels have persevered. Also Example China: If the Tiennamen Square protesters had had arms, history may well have been changed.

Anyway, I'm not trying to say it's essential or that a bunch of handguns can defeat a modern military, I'm just saying that having a populace that has personal access to weaponry is important and necessary both ideologically and politically IMO, although obviously in the US we've taken it way too far.

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Sat Dec 15, 2012 10:47 pm

Why are people allowed to buy ******* machine guns and bazookas? There is no need whatsoever. It's insane.

We have gun control in the UK and we have pretty damn low gun crime. I don't think thats a ******* coincidence.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 12:39 am

Given Smooth's posts, it's a whole different mindset, but Japan seems to get by just fine with stringent gun laws. Maybe it's the class of criminal over there, but I'd still like to try their restrictions.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 1:33 am

I woke up yesterday to dozens of non-specific Facebook memorials. When I checked the news and saw that 27 people, mostly children as young as five years old had been killed in a primary school, I couldn't stop crying. That kind of...event...was more than I could process. I walked around the apartment, trying to distract myself from it, and hide my grief from my wife. But after a few hours, it just knocked me out. I went back to sleep for a few hours. And when I woke up, the news just kept getting more and more upsetting. Not "worse," mind, but "upsetting."

First, I saw this article on the Onion, which summed up my feelings almost perfectly:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/[composite word including 'f*ck']-e ... rts,30743/

“I’m sorry, but **** it, I can’t handle this—I just can’t handle it anymore,” said Deborah McEllis, who added that “no, no, no, no, no, this isn’t happening, this can’t be real.” “Seriously, what the hell is this? What’s even going on anymore? Why do things like this keep happening?”

Continued McEllis, before covering her face with her hands, “Why?”

Despairing sources confirmed that the gunman, armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle—a ****ing combat rifle, Jesus—walked into a classroom full of goddamned children where his mother was a teacher and, good God, if this is what the world is becoming, then how about we just pack it in and ****ing give up, because this is no way to live.

By the time I'd woken up, read that article, felt a little better, took a shower, collapsed again in grief in that shower, composed myself, toweled off, and gotten dressed, I was sent this article, with quotes from the director of the American Family Association:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/f ... e-he-not-w

Fischer said that God could have protected the victims of this massacre, but didn't because "God is not going to go where he is not wanted" and so if school administrators really want to protect students, they will start every school day with prayer:

Those poor kids, killed less than two weeks before Christmas, at an elementary school, in front of their friends and classmates weren't even cold yet. And this guy is already using this, literally unspeakable (I still can't talk about it without breaking down) tragedy to wag his finger at people who don't want his particular brand of religion starting off their days in ****ing kindergarden.

Here is what he should have said.

"People will ask, where was God, during all of this? God was and is everywhere. He is with the broken hearted parents and with their friends and loved ones, giving them support and comfort. And he was with those children, easing their pain as they closed their eyes in this world, and opened them again in His eternal kingdom."

But offering comfort in a time it was truly and undeniably needed was too much. He had to take that moment and use it to get his listeners to turn their grief into anger against people who don't share their religious views. And, honestly, if this is a man who speaks for God, and God actively chose to wait by the sidelines because those children didn't pray between 9 and 3, then how can you blame people for not wanting that in schools?

That statement does ignore certain other shootings in the past, though. All of the church shootings, for example. Or the Amish girls' school that fell victim to a deranged gunman.

After all of that, the pro-gun Facebook posts started.

"The only defense against bad people with guns is good people with guns." was one quote I'd seen posted.

By that logic, the shooters at Columbine, NIU (a year after I'd graduated), Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, were good people with guns.

I was reminded of the aftermath of the Aurora Dark Knight Rises shooting. Where a man armed with smoke grenades, automatic weapons, and head-to-toe body armor killed and wounded more than four dozen people. And people suggested that if the other theater-goers had been armed, they could have stopped the shooter.

But, and here's where I get a bit selfish, here, I have a problem with that. I don't want to have to strap on body armor and a sidearm because I wan to watch a movie. And I certainly don't want to spend the time becoming so proficient with that side-arm that I could fire shot in between a shooter's body armor plates, in a smokey room full of panicked people, from across a crowded theater, at 12:30am.

Will crazy and just plain evil people still find ways to hurt and kill without guns? Of course they will. Just the other day, a man in China attacked a classroom full of kids with a knife. He injured 22 people. But here's the important part. None of those injuries were life-threatening. Nobody died. Terrible? Absolutely. But everyone's alive.

"When guns are outlawed, only criminals will have guns." is another quote I've seen tossed around since yesterday.

That one is pretty much true in Japan. The only people* who have guns are, by definition, criminals. And they're yakuza guys who have 20-40 year old revolvers and maybe enough bullets to fill them up once. So banning handguns isn't 100 percent. And it's not done overnight. But, over time, nearly all the guns will be collected and disposed of.

*unless you remember that the police are people and can still carry guns. How about that? The people who are paid to protect people can still carry guns. And they are trained to use them! They are the people who actually have a chance at making that shot across a crowded theater into an unarmored spot on a heavily armed killer.

And finally, we have the one quote that gets thrown around everywhere. Facebook, message boards, water coolers. The second amendment. "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Notice the "..." up there? That's not a typo. There's a whole other part of that sentence. As ratified, the 2nd amendment is as follows:

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.

I don't think that anybody could read that sentence for the first time and think that it means that every person in the country has the right to any kind of weaponry that exists. I CAN see how, growing up and living in the US, people can have been trained to take that away. But I don't know that I've ever met a member of a well-regulated militia. Even the militia members that sometimes appear on the news (for various reasons) don't seem all that well regulated.

I'm exhausted. My brain isn't set up to comprehend the loss of 20 young children in a kindergarten in Connecticut. Not at the same time that it needs to process people with audiences blaming the tragedy on those who don't believe that God needs to be prayed to before every kindergarten class, while simultaneously saying that any discussion of firearms restrictions is just politicizing a tragedy.

I'm sorry for the long post. I'm sorry if I've offended anybody reading this. And I'm sorry that "this kind of thing" is actually a thing. And I'm going back to bed.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 2:02 am

* claps *

Well said, Smooth.

ruby_moon · Post by **ruby_moon** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 7:37 am

I am deeply saddened and hurting from this travesty. My heart aches for the families of these precious angels and I hope that we can pass some kind of legislation to at least give the parents some sort of I wouldn't even call it justice. Relief perhaps? I can't come to the word that suits. If we can do ANYTHING to prevent future instances.
I don't however think banning guns is the option either. To clarify, that doesn't mean I don't believe there should be harsher controls on guns and who can get them.
To quote a very close friend of mine, "the bad guy's are gonna have guns or knives or whatever no matter what the law is. They are going out of their way to break the law, why not illegally acquire the means? If a legal carrier of a concealed handgun drops the bad guy, fewer people will die as would if they waited on police to respond." But, it can cause other dangers such as someone getting shot on a false alarm (such as a student with a color guard or training rifle for ROTC.)
I feel as though we need to focus on mental wellness as well as stricter gun control. People who are going to go on a killing spree are going to, if we focus more on screening for the mental illnesses and quirks that lead to mass shootings, we can stop it at a place where it isn't harmful to other humans.
Gun regulations need to be even across the nation. Criminal and mental health screenings need to be required. A high level of accountability should also be required. If X steals your gun and kills someone with it, you should be responsible for the death in part because if someone steals your gun, you aren't taking the responsibility as a gun owner seriously enough.
On the school side of things, students don't need to be taught lock down and cover drills, but instead something along the lines of A.L.i.C.E. In short, students are taught to avoid, and actively fight against the offender by moving and heading towards the exit--it's much harder to shoot a moving target, and ten people can overwhelm one quickly.
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162712905 ... fight-back
http://www.responseoptions.com/pages/home.asp
I think that training programs that have students sit quietly in a room and hope the killer doesn't check is offering your life without fighting for it.
Sorry to offend anyone if I have. It's a grim lose/lose situation any way we look at it.

Post by **Kaylee** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 10:28 am

Professor Smooth wrote:I woke up yesterday to dozens of non-specific Facebook memorials. When I checked the news and saw that 27 people, mostly children as young as five years old had been killed in a primary school, I couldn't stop crying. That kind of...event...was more than I could process. I walked around the apartment, trying to distract myself from it, and hide my grief from my wife. But after a few hours, it just knocked me out. I went back to sleep for a few hours. And when I woke up, the news just kept getting more and more upsetting. Not "worse," mind, but "upsetting."

First, I saw this article on the Onion, which summed up my feelings almost perfectly:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/****-e ... rts,30743/

“I’m sorry, but **** it, I can’t handle this—I just can’t handle it anymore,” said Deborah McEllis, who added that “no, no, no, no, no, this isn’t happening, this can’t be real.” “Seriously, what the hell is this? What’s even going on anymore? Why do things like this keep happening?”

Continued McEllis, before covering her face with her hands, “Why?”

Despairing sources confirmed that the gunman, armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle—a ****ing combat rifle, Jesus—walked into a classroom full of goddamned children where his mother was a teacher and, good God, if this is what the world is becoming, then how about we just pack it in and ****ing give up, because this is no way to live.

By the time I'd woken up, read that article, felt a little better, took a shower, collapsed again in grief in that shower, composed myself, toweled off, and gotten dressed, I was sent this article, with quotes from the director of the American Family Association:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/f ... e-he-not-w

Fischer said that God could have protected the victims of this massacre, but didn't because "God is not going to go where he is not wanted" and so if school administrators really want to protect students, they will start every school day with prayer:

Those poor kids, killed less than two weeks before Christmas, at an elementary school, in front of their friends and classmates weren't even cold yet. And this guy is already using this, literally unspeakable (I still can't talk about it without breaking down) tragedy to wag his finger at people who don't want his particular brand of religion starting off their days in ****ing kindergarden.

Here is what he should have said.

"People will ask, where was God, during all of this? God was and is everywhere. He is with the broken hearted parents and with their friends and loved ones, giving them support and comfort. And he was with those children, easing their pain as they closed their eyes in this world, and opened them again in His eternal kingdom."

But offering comfort in a time it was truly and undeniably needed was too much. He had to take that moment and use it to get his listeners to turn their grief into anger against people who don't share their religious views. And, honestly, if this is a man who speaks for God, and God actively chose to wait by the sidelines because those children didn't pray between 9 and 3, then how can you blame people for not wanting that in schools?

That statement does ignore certain other shootings in the past, though. All of the church shootings, for example. Or the Amish girls' school that fell victim to a deranged gunman.

After all of that, the pro-gun Facebook posts started.

"The only defense against bad people with guns is good people with guns." was one quote I'd seen posted.

By that logic, the shooters at Columbine, NIU (a year after I'd graduated), Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, were good people with guns.

I was reminded of the aftermath of the Aurora Dark Knight Rises shooting. Where a man armed with smoke grenades, automatic weapons, and head-to-toe body armor killed and wounded more than four dozen people. And people suggested that if the other theater-goers had been armed, they could have stopped the shooter.

But, and here's where I get a bit selfish, here, I have a problem with that. I don't want to have to strap on body armor and a sidearm because I wan to watch a movie. And I certainly don't want to spend the time becoming so proficient with that side-arm that I could fire shot in between a shooter's body armor plates, in a smokey room full of panicked people, from across a crowded theater, at 12:30am.

Will crazy and just plain evil people still find ways to hurt and kill without guns? Of course they will. Just the other day, a man in China attacked a classroom full of kids with a knife. He injured 22 people. But here's the important part. None of those injuries were life-threatening. Nobody died. Terrible? Absolutely. But everyone's alive.

"When guns are outlawed, only criminals will have guns." is another quote I've seen tossed around since yesterday.

That one is pretty much true in Japan. The only people* who have guns are, by definition, criminals. And they're yakuza guys who have 20-40 year old revolvers and maybe enough bullets to fill them up once. So banning handguns isn't 100 percent. And it's not done overnight. But, over time, nearly all the guns will be collected and disposed of.

*unless you remember that the police are people and can still carry guns. How about that? The people who are paid to protect people can still carry guns. And they are trained to use them! They are the people who actually have a chance at making that shot across a crowded theater into an unarmored spot on a heavily armed killer.

And finally, we have the one quote that gets thrown around everywhere. Facebook, message boards, water coolers. The second amendment. "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Notice the "..." up there? That's not a typo. There's a whole other part of that sentence. As ratified, the 2nd amendment is as follows:

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.

I don't think that anybody could read that sentence for the first time and think that it means that every person in the country has the right to any kind of weaponry that exists. I CAN see how, growing up and living in the US, people can have been trained to take that away. But I don't know that I've ever met a member of a well-regulated militia. Even the militia members that sometimes appear on the news (for various reasons) don't seem all that well regulated.

I'm exhausted. My brain isn't set up to comprehend the loss of 20 young children in a kindergarten in Connecticut. Not at the same time that it needs to process people with audiences blaming the tragedy on those who don't believe that God needs to be prayed to before every kindergarten class, while simultaneously saying that any discussion of firearms restrictions is just politicizing a tragedy.

I'm sorry for the long post. I'm sorry if I've offended anybody reading this. And I'm sorry that "this kind of thing" is actually a thing. And I'm going back to bed.

1000 times, yes.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 5:08 pm

ruby_moon wrote:I am deeply saddened and hurting from this travesty. My heart aches for the families of these precious angels and I hope that we can pass some kind of legislation to at least give the parents some sort of I wouldn't even call it justice. Relief perhaps? I can't come to the word that suits. If we can do ANYTHING to prevent future instances.
I don't however think banning guns is the option either. To clarify, that doesn't mean I don't believe there should be harsher controls on guns and who can get them.
To quote a very close friend of mine, "the bad guy's are gonna have guns or knives or whatever no matter what the law is. They are going out of their way to break the law, why not illegally acquire the means? If a legal carrier of a concealed handgun drops the bad guy, fewer people will die as would if they waited on police to respond." But, it can cause other dangers such as someone getting shot on a false alarm (such as a student with a color guard or training rifle for ROTC.)
I feel as though we need to focus on mental wellness as well as stricter gun control. People who are going to go on a killing spree are going to, if we focus more on screening for the mental illnesses and quirks that lead to mass shootings, we can stop it at a place where it isn't harmful to other humans.
Gun regulations need to be even across the nation. Criminal and mental health screenings need to be required. A high level of accountability should also be required. If X steals your gun and kills someone with it, you should be responsible for the death in part because if someone steals your gun, you aren't taking the responsibility as a gun owner seriously enough.
On the school side of things, students don't need to be taught lock down and cover drills, but instead something along the lines of A.L.i.C.E. In short, students are taught to avoid, and actively fight against the offender by moving and heading towards the exit--it's much harder to shoot a moving target, and ten people can overwhelm one quickly.
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162712905 ... fight-back
http://www.responseoptions.com/pages/home.asp
I think that training programs that have students sit quietly in a room and hope the killer doesn't check is offering your life without fighting for it.
Sorry to offend anyone if I have. It's a grim lose/lose situation any way we look at it.

Sorry, Ruby, but I think Smooth's post and the low level of gun crime in Japan points to the fact that restricting guns really does work. Criminals will get guns anyway, but it's ridiculous to think that NOTHING will change if we impose any restrictions on the current situation, in which any would-be killer can head down to the gun show and buy an assault rifle to use in a school, crowded theater, hospital, mall, or college campus.

The "criminals will get them anyway" is a fallacy in many ways, not least of which is appealing to probability--you say that if something could happen, like an extended illegal gun trade, then it's not even worth trying to stop. We should just keep on with the mass shootings.

It's like saying "this marriage won't work out in the long run, I know, so we should just divorce now instead of trying." Which translated to: "I just plain don't want to be married to you at all."

FFS it's long, drawn-out process to be able to drive a car in America! Can you imagine the problems we would have with driving and accidents if you could just buy a car and start driving it?

And for crying out loud, the answer is to teach students HOW TO RUN BETTER? How to fight back against a machine-gun wielding maniac?

It's documented that both gun violence and suicides dropped when Australia instigated tighter gun control. It's well-documented that Japan has an extremely low rate of gun violence.

We cannot seriously imagine that this would be a safer world if the teachers and principle were all carrying sidearms and yanked them out to fire on the shooter. A school full of guns? Everyone carries a gun, and that's a safer world, because we can shoot the crazies faster? What could go wrong in a school full of guns?

I do think you are right about mental health. Of course, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) has made mental health more accessible to the poor and disadvantaged, so it's not like the Right is doing ONE GOD DAMN THING to stop these shootings.

I have two, soon to be three kids. I don't want them to live in a country where we consider it a "right" to go buy a deadly assault weapon over-the-counter at a gun show and shoot whoever the hell we damn please, and where it's justified by ridiculous post-hoc fallacies.

Post by **snarl** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 5:28 pm

If you think you need to own a gun in order to protect your family...

Chances are, you're a ****.

Like this guy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19756499

I think this is just going to keep happening over and over again, it'll never change in America as long as enough of your citizens insist on keeping this bizarre right to kill people and have easy access to machines that make the process very simple.

And this idea that if you ban guns it takes away a citizen's ability to defend themselves?

Are you serious? Has the right to bare arms successful ended any of these gun rampages? Do people genuinely walk around with guns on the off chance a nutter decides to spray his local town with bullets?

Who wants to live in a world like that?

Sadly, far too many people are intrinsically backwards. You shouldn't give backwards people access to machines that allow them to kill with great ease and efficiency, that is ******* OBVIOUS.

How many ******* stab rampages has there been, ever?

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Mon Dec 17, 2012 5:05 am

I'd like to get a few my thoughts on guns, and other related issues, out there.

I'm not going to argue that guns are bad. Because, a gun is a tool. But it's a really useful tool. It is designed, above all else, to kill things. And, if you're going to come with me on the rest of this thought-dump, I need you to be with me on that. A gun's purpose is to kill. Defense? "Defense by killing." Intimidation? "Intimidation by threat of death." As much as a hammer's purpose is to hammer, and a knife's purpose is to cut, a gun's purpose is to kill. I'm tempted to dial it back a notch for "target shooting," but that seems to be, above all, and with some exceptions, "practicing to kill."

A gun, if used properly, is used to kill. Used improperly, it still causes great pain and misery. I know people who collect guns (and other firearms). They enjoy them for their appearances and construction. And I, like most everyone else here, won't begrudge a person for collecting something that they are interested in. But those things that they are interested in have the ability to greatly amplify death, destruction, pain, and misery.

It's that word "amplify" that gets me. We've all heard that argument, that "guns don't kill people. People kill people." But people with guns can (and will, and do, and have) kill a lot more people with a lot less effort.

Just the other day, a man injured 22 children with a knife. But none were killed. None of those injuries were life threatening. 22 kids hospitalized because of a crazed man with a weapon would be a tragedy recognized the world over...except that on the same day, another crazed man with a weapon KILLED 20 kindergarten students with a gun. 22 kids sent to the hospital is tragic. 20 sent to the morgue is (or should be) unthinkable.

The man with the knife, by the way, used his tool incorrectly. His knife was not meant to be used against people. In fact, it was not meant to be used against anything in motion. While the gunman who murdered 27 people (including his own mother and 20 children) used his tool as it was meant to be used.

Please don't think me naive. I know that people set on killing others will do so without guns, if they're not available. A few years ago, a man rented a car, crashed it into a crowd of people in Tokyo's Akihabara shopping area, got out, and started slashing and stabbing people. Before he was subdued by police, he'd killed at least a dozen people. When interogated as to why he'd done it, the man replied that he "just woke up and wanted to kill as many people as possible."

More than a dozen people were killed by a crazed person that day. But if you've never been to Akihabara, please allow me to describe it for you. It is among the most tightly packed areas in the most tightly packed city on Earth. If, instead of his car and knife rampage, he'd have had an automatic weapon, the casualties could have been several times what they were. And if he'd have chosen a packed train at rush hour? A train moving quickly, sealed against easy entry and exit? He could have killed hundreds of people in seconds. But he didn't, because he didn't have access to a gun.

There's no way to fully protect against homicidal maniacs with mental problems. Some will ALWAYS slip though. But that doesn't mean that they should have easy access to a tool that functions in much the same way that your TV remote does. As an off-switch for human beings. There are plenty of things that we, as members of polite society give up in favor of public safety. We don't allow heroin to be sold over the counter, even though we know people are going to use it. We have laws against drinking and driving, even though we know some people are going to do it.

You know that old saying, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns?" I want you to take a look at some of the most well-known instances of gun violence in the US in the past. You'll notice that they weren't perpetrated by "outlaws." These killings weren't robberies gone wrong. They weren't done for any kind of gain, or to prove a point. The kids at Columbine, NIU, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and others. Those weren't the acts of criminals or even terrorists. They were the acts of sick, deranged, people. And while those attacks may have happened, they'd have been a lot less tragic if knives and improvised explosive had replaced automatic weapons.

A year ago, dozens of people, including a member of the US congress and a small child (born on 9/11/01) were injured or killed by another crazy guy with a gun.

Another deranged killer injured or killed dozens of people attending the premiere of Dark Knight Rises. Again, it wasn't a robbery. It wasn't a terrorist making a statement. It was a sick person with access to high powered weapons.

And, when that happened, people said that, if the theater patrons had been armed (and armored) they could have stopped him. After the Sandy Hook tragedy, one TV commentator said that he "wished to God the principal had kept an M4 (basically a machine gun) in her office.

I would like all of you, right now, to take a step back and think about a world where this is the norm. Where school principals (and teachers) have easily accessible assault rifles in every office and classroom. Not only that, but they have the training to maintain and accurately fire those weapons in rooms filled with smoke and screaming children. Because that, without even a hint of sarcasm or hyperbole is what some in the US media (and government) are suggesting.

Earlier, we heard a suggestion that kindergarten students should be taught how to fight back against suicidal, homicidal, assault weapon wielding maniacs that may, at any time, burst into their classrooms.

Is that the kind of world you want to live in? A world where everybody is not only heavily armed, but wearing body armor in public? Where nearly everybody has firearms training, and has been practicing how to defend against suicidal madmen since long before they'd lost their baby teeth?

Is that the kind of place you'd want to live? Is that the kind of place you'd even entertain the notion of visiting? Is that, honestly, a better idea that even thinking about incremental restrictions on weapons ownership?

Will ANY new gun laws have an overnight effect? Probably not. But they can, over time.

If the US government followed Australia's lead and offered a buy-back of firearms and ammo. That could get plenty of guns off the street within a few years.

Immediate ban on the production and sale of new guns and ammunition? A lot of guns in my hometown of Chicago would find themselves empty in short order. And once their empty, and ammo is scarce, you'd find more guns being sold back, taken out of the public hands forever.

Take it a step further. Any further crimes committed with guns result in the automatic and permanent confiscation of any and all guns owned by the offender. Restrict (or outright ban) concealed weapons in public. Caught with a gun, it's confiscated, your house is searched, all other guns and ammo taken away permanently.

Eventually, maybe years (or even decades) down the road, the only guns in public hands are used for hunting. Will a few of those still be used to kill people? Yes. Will they kill entire classrooms, theaters, and political rallies full of people. No. And that, I think, is something at least worth trying for.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Mon Dec 17, 2012 8:22 am

The right to bare arms has never stopped any massacre from taking place, only allowed it.

Having a gun does not protect you, unless you carry it like a cowboy then a criminal with a gun will always have the drop on you.
Also looking at gun crime in the US it had never in the slightest deterred any criminal from committing gun crime.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:03 am

I keep hearing that line in my head, over and over. "I wish to god that the principal had had an M4 in her desk." It's like the chorus of an awful song you want out of your head. "I wish to god that the principal had had an M4 in her desk." It's driving me mad.

And I know why.

Because that day, there WAS a woman with a similar automatic weapon. A similar automatic weapon, several other firearms, ammo, AND the training to use them. And do you know what happened to that woman? That woman with multiple firearms and proficiency in their use?

She was murdered by a madman with her own weapons. The same madman that would steal those same weapons and use them to murder 26 other people. People that, according to reports, had been her friends, co-workers, and students.

Is that what you want, gun owners? Is having guns, for "fun" or for defense worth that? Not only did her guns and training not keep her safe. Her own son would use those same guns to murder her friends, co-workers, and nearly two dozen six and seven year old kids.

Who's the blame? HIM! The madman! The guy who pulled the trigger! Of course! But, at the very least, 20 kindergarten students and six members of the Sandy Hook school would still be alive today if that madman's mother had not bought a pile of guns for "fun" and "protection."

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:14 pm

As I said, the love of guns has me more perplexed than any other issue out there. I don't understand the fascination with it. If I'm to die by some criminal getting the jump on me with a gun, then you know what, it was just my time.

That dialogue by Commisioner Gordan in Batman Begins is true, the one about escalation. He said something along the lines of "We get guns, they get automatics, etc". You know the speech. Well, it's spot on. Guns solve nothing.

Also Smooth, you left out that village of children that was slaughtered in Afghanistan by that deranged soldier. That happened, and no one here so much as batted an eye. No tear was shed. They were children. IMO, that is a problem. In my mind, that speaks to a very skewed perspective on the value of life, that until that changes, things like this will continue to happen.

Guns have assumed the status of idols, is really the only conclusion I can come to. We have somehow psycholgically latched onto the gun as a symbol of security and dominance, as a means to fix whatever problems we have and exorcise whatever demons may being settling in our minds. At the cost of the sanctity of human life.

Oh, and just to let us know evil does not sleep:
http://news.yahoo.com/bomb-threat-adds- ... 21712.html

Beeeeeep...beeep...beeep.beeep, this just in....beep....crazy ****s still running the streets:

http://news.yahoo.com/ind-man-47-guns-a ... 28349.html

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:37 pm

* brain explodes, cannot think about dead kindergartners anymore *

So... how bout them Transformers?

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 4:15 am

Will all due respect to the families of the victims of that tragedy in Afganistan, it's not even close to the same situation. The person responsible for that horrific tragedy had weapons because, if I recall correctly, he was in the middle of a war zone. The madman at Sandy Hook was in a middle school in a nice school district.

You don't see the appeal of guns? Loud. Deadly. Powerful? What part is surprising to you? The power of life and death, in the palm of your hand. A few twitches of your finger, and you can be the cause of a national tragedy, your name etched into the rock of not only United States, but WORLD history.

Now, it's my belief that getting rid of, or restricting guns in the US would, over time, greatly reduce murders (and suicides) in the United States. That's my opinion, and I believe I've done my level best to base it on evidence. I didn't do it in reverse, picking an opinion and then looking for evidence to support it.

Moreover, I've heard the arguments against gun control. I gave those arguments my full attention...and found them wanting.

Cars kill more people than guns. Should we outlaw cars?
No, because the purpose of a car is not to kill. And, in an effort to minimize automobile related fatalities, we impose certain restrictions on the ownership and operation of said automobiles. You need to pass a test, both written and practical to be allowed to drive one legally. You can't drive an 18-wheeler with a regular license. You can't drive one while intoxicated. You can't drive over certain posted speed limits. You can't drive them down the sidewalk. You can't park in certain areas.

Does that sound, at all like it could apply to gun ownership with excellent results? Can't come within 10 feet of what you're aiming it? Practice more before you can take your gun home. Can't answer basic questions about gun safety? Study more before you take a gun home. Want an automatic weapon? That's a special license, with its own restrictions and fees.

But they don't. The US has INCREDIBLY low standards for buying, owning, and carrying weapons. And the NRA spends millions of dollars trying to get those regulations relaxed even further. Which is their right. America is a democracy, after all. And that's what it all comes down to, in the end.

The majority of the American voting public are, apparently, more worried about losing their guns than they are with the 30,000+ people killed using guns every year. They feel that having their guns, and being able buy more, increasingly more deadly firearms, is worth 20 dead kindergarten students, dozens of dead theatergoers, a sitting congress woman's permanent mental impairment and the other 11,900+ murders committed every year using handguns.

And if that's how the voting public feels, truly, then there's very little that can be done about it. To everybody that tries to do something, instead of just up and leaving the country (as some have done), I thank you.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:12 am

War zone or not, innocent children were killed on a rampage by a man who sneaked out in the middle of the night for the very purpose of massacring children. Both were lunatics who exorcised their demons by becoming one themselves. The point I'm making is, well, the point you're making. Put a gun in the hand of someone who has little regard for the sanctity of life, who has developed an inflated sense of self empowerment, and how easy it becomes for them to commit such atrocities.

The majority of the American voting public are, apparently, more worried about losing their guns than they are with the 30,000+ people killed using guns every year. They feel that having their guns, and being able buy more, increasingly more deadly firearms, is worth 20 dead kindergarten students, dozens of dead theatergoers, a sitting congress woman's permanent mental impairment and the other 11,900+ murders committed every year using handguns.

Infuriating. It's just....how have we even made it this far with this kind of mentality.

I'm in full agreement with you about restricting access to guns. The gun junkies arguments are so lame, I can barely get into an intelligent discussion with one without suffering an aneurysm. They say it won't stop the violence, that criminals will find guns illegally if need be. To that I say, that isn't the point. Yes, you can't stop it. But you sure as hell can slow it down.

I posed this question to one such dumbass who made that argument. I said let's say with the current gun laws, ten different shootings occur with ten children getting killed. Now, let's say we pass more stringent gun laws, and instead of ten shootings, we get nine with nine children getting killed. I said, tell me asshole, if that one child gets spared, whereas he wouldn't have been before, were those restrictions not worth it? How valuable to you was saving that one child's life? The asshole turned red and starting mumbling **** about "preserving our freedoms are more important", yadda, yadda. Tell that to the parents of those children in Connecticut, you jackass.

I will grant them this. It's not just about the guns (as they are so quick to point out.) It's about the minds that use them. When Call of Duty becomes the number one selling video game, played by millions of children the world over, where digital human beings are so easily shot and killed, it's an easy next step for a frustrated child to use what he's 'learned' in a real life scenario.

As you say Smooth, guns lend to the person who wields them a sense of power. I never realized that a weapon could reach the status of an addictive narcotic, and yet right before my eyes it has become just that very thing. Guns have now become the means for young minds to solve their problems. Any problems. Don't like a teacher? That girl cheat on you? You parents grounded you? The world been unfair to you?

Very, very sad. And I see no positive change in sight. Gun laws need to be implemented immediately, there needs to be increased funding and attention to social workers and therapists for the young in schools and at home, laws need to be passed to prevent the media from sensationalizing these events, and video games based on shooting and killing other people need to be banned, especially to children.

"If you kill a life unjustly, it is as if you have killed all of humanity. And if you save a life, it is as if you have saved all of humanity."-Holy Quran

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:42 am

As far as the Call of Duty (and other shooting-type games) go, I think you may have it backwards. I think that violent people seek out violent video games. WAIT a sec. I don't mean to say that people who play video games are violent people. I just mean that, a certain subset of people who play violent video games do so because they like violence. In much the same way that people who are interested in fantasy may be interested in Final Fantasy video games, and Game of Thrones. Somebody fascinated by violence will be more likely to have violent video games in his (or her, I guess) collection.

So, whenever I hear that whichever shooter had Battlefield or Grand Theft Auto, or whatever in their collections, I think two things. The first is that those games sell tens of millions of copies. The second is that, if you're the kind of person who would wind up shooting up a public space before taking your own life, Cooking Mama and Katamari Damashii might not have been all that appealing to you.

Now that that's out of the way.

Another argument that I get thrown my way is similar to what you said above. That since nothing will completely stop gun violence, we shouldn't even try. And to that I offer the following.

We're never going to stop people from getting high. If they want to bad enough, they'll get illegal drugs, or just huff some potentially deadly household chemicals. But that doesn't mean that the US should suddenly legalize crack, heroin, and crystal meth. Does that mean that we also outlaw permanent markers and paint? No. But there's a balance. You can Sudafed at most drug stores...but you can't use it to manufacture meth legally. See? Balance.

The other, similar argument is that "people who want guns are going to get them, even if it's not legal."

Again, SOME will. But how many of the 30,000 gun deaeths in the US every year were at the hands of somebody who would, realistically, have been able to get their hands on an illegal weapon, sometime after the ban had gone into effect? I mean, honestly? How many people would have had the money and resources necessary to procure something like that. Not just the gun itself, but the ammunition as well? Would the suicide victim have gone though with it if he'd had to find an underworld contact to get the gun? Would he have cashed out his savings for the bullets? Since most suicides seem to be more "spur of the moment" things, I have to assume that at least a few lives would be saved that way.

And how many 20-something would-be gunmen would have had the the money, contacts, and resources to get their hands on an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammo if both were heavily restricted? Hell, no. You'd be looking at tens of thousands of dollars to get something like that. And that's not cash that the Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, NIU, or Virginia Tech killers would have had access to.

Let's say you're a career criminal, making his living off of robbing banks. Yeah. That guy might be able to get his hands on a gun. Local thugs and gang members? Not after the ammo on the streets dries up.

We'll never be completely free of killers. But we can lessen their efficiency.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:13 am

I want to quote you to the world, Smooth. Well-said.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:24 am

The other, similar argument is that "people who want guns are going to get them, even if it's not legal."

This arguement drives me mad - on this basis literally nothing should be illegal.

Although what drives me more mad is that it's catch phrase rhetoric crafted especially to prevent a proper debate.

Thought Obama's speech was phenominal.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 10:42 am

I teach English in elementary schools. Normally, I try to act cool. But the last two days I've been swinging in between "these kids are so great and I'm so glad they're having fun" and "oh, god! An entire class of kids is dead! Somebody came into a classroom like this one and killed everybody! 20 kids! Twenty beautiful children! Why?!?!?!"

TransFans.co.uk

The Connecticut Massacre

Re: The Connecticut Massacre