School shooting: In which N. America becomes a police state.

[Death Magnificent]

Heero2334

Dysia

I did some checking. Here's what I found.

so over the last 12 months, approximately 60 or less people were killed (in mass shootings) in a country with over 120 million gun owners. Meanwhile, overseas, over 300 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. More than four times that many Afghans were killed. So about one in 2 million gun owners will go crazy and shoot a bunch of people. Meanwhile, the Pentagon reports over 150 suicides in the military in the first half of the year.
http://www.army.mil/article/88003/Spouse_offers_final_thought_during_Suicide_Prevention_Month/
Considering the population of the military, that's about 1 in 20,000, in half the time. I find the hypocrisy revolting.

The issue is that the military is in a combat zone so it's expect for deaths to happen like that. This on the other hand is citizen on citizen violence and a world wide taboo type of violence to. So there really is no hypocrisy in this. It's just politics doing what it does best.

Bullshitting its way to more power and control.

[Death Magnificent]

Ban

Tadpole Jackson

you're a gun owner who is *for* gun control?

We're done here.

Yeah, I kind of already mentioned that I own a handgun, grew up with guns, et cetera. I also stated that I'm rather ambivalent to the notion of an absolute ban on civilian ownership. Like, a while ago. But, see, interestingly, I don't feel that fact requires me to have ridiculous policy positions like "You want to take my guns? Bring body armor."

Because I'm not ******** insane.

It's okay to be scared, man. Their forces are intimidating. If you feel like the guns aren't worth your life, I don't blame you.

You can't realistically expect to hold onto the weapons with a stand-your-ground approach anyway. But you probably would just give 'em up, not too much shame in that I suppose.

[Death Magnificent]

Final Lucius

"THEY'RE COMING!! THEY'RE COMING!! THE GUN DEBATES ARE COMING! THE GUN DEBATES ARE COMING!" - Paul Revere



...seriously, that's some nice loony right wing rhetoric you got thur. Nothing will happen. Liberals will try to have "the talk" again and the NRA will babble about more guns. Same thing every time.

Times are shifting and everything is connected. Perhaps it is time for them to go too far.

[Ban]

Tadpole Jackson

no, I am proposing violence as a first resort to confiscation, because after confiscation, violence is impossible, and the government can act without fear of repercussions.

Except that's not really true, and never has been. An armed general populace isn't really necessary for revolutions to occur. A good number of revolutions have either been perpetrated by barely armed mobs, or specially organized paramilitary forces backed by powerful internal or external forces.

Of course, the fear of an oppressive government in America is really unfounded, a hold over from anti-Federalists who kind of lost the debate hundreds of years ago. The cultural tradition of republicanism is over two hundred years old. It'd be highly unlikely, given that government is made up of other Americans, that you would get ever a dictatorship worthy of violent resistance. Right now, the most oppressed people are homosexuals, and you don't generally see the guys out of the Castro threatening to shoot people unless they get their equal rights. They deal with it through political means.

Because, y'know, that's the sane thing. Instead of " I will not allow my rights to be infringed under any circumstances" which, in the context of statements about shooting people, sounds crazy.

******** looney tunes, really.

[Wendigo]

Death Magnificent

We bomb a lot of places by remote, surely we've killed more children than that by now. Nobody cares about that?

Considering nobody cared when we were sending manned aircraft to drop cluster bombs on residential neighborhoods in Baghdad, I am inclined to think not.

[Ban]

Death Magnificent

It's okay to be scared, man. Their forces are intimidating. If you feel like the guns aren't worth your life, I don't blame you.

You can't realistically expect to hold onto the weapons with a stand-your-ground approach anyway. But you probably would just give 'em up, not too much shame in that I suppose.

What the ******** are you even talking about? What forces? Your framing of this is just confusing, maybe I don't view law enforcement as some oppressive or alien force. They're just fellow citizens doing a job. I wouldn't try to kill anybody over any other supposed violation of constitutional rights, either, because I grew up in a civilized society, and that's what courts are there to address.

Seriously, people know about courts, right? If you feel that your rights have been violated, there is a court system to deal with that? You can challenge laws you believe violate the constitution? That's generally how, y'know, civilized people who aren't completely deal with a law they don't like. They don't start shooting cops.

[Death Magnificent]

Ban

Death Magnificent

It's okay to be scared, man. Their forces are intimidating. If you feel like the guns aren't worth your life, I don't blame you.

You can't realistically expect to hold onto the weapons with a stand-your-ground approach anyway. But you probably would just give 'em up, not too much shame in that I suppose.

What the ******** are you even talking about? What forces? Your framing of this is just confusing, maybe I don't view law enforcement as some oppressive or alien force. They're just fellow citizens doing a job. I wouldn't try to kill anybody over any other supposed violation of constitutional rights, either, because I grew up in a civilized society, and that's what courts are there to address.

Seriously, people know about courts, right? If you feel that your rights have been violated, there is a court system to deal with that? You can challenge laws you believe violate the constitution? That's generally how, y'know, civilized people who aren't completely deal with a law they don't like. They don't start shooting cops.

They have distinctive haircuts, wear sunglasses, official or military-type uniforms, pack pistols and assault rifles, have some strange dogmatic belief in laws penned by corrupt politicians which none of us had any input on, and will ******** with you for everything they can.

Even if I had the financial status needed to hire good lawyers, the SupremeCourt rarely ever does the right thing.

[Death Magnificent]

Wendigo

Death Magnificent

We bomb a lot of places by remote, surely we've killed more children than that by now. Nobody cares about that?

Considering nobody cared when we were sending manned aircraft to drop cluster bombs on residential neighborhoods in Baghdad, I am inclined to think not.

Might be karma, you never know.

[Death Magnificent]

Ban

Tadpole Jackson

no, I am proposing violence as a first resort to confiscation, because after confiscation, violence is impossible, and the government can act without fear of repercussions.

Except that's not really true, and never has been. An armed general populace isn't really necessary for revolutions to occur. A good number of revolutions have either been perpetrated by barely armed mobs, or specially organized paramilitary forces backed by powerful internal or external forces.

Of course, the fear of an oppressive government in America is really unfounded, a hold over from anti-Federalists who kind of lost the debate hundreds of years ago. The cultural tradition of republicanism is over two hundred years old. It'd be highly unlikely, given that government is made up of other Americans, that you would get ever a dictatorship worthy of violent resistance. Right now, the most oppressed people are homosexuals, and you don't generally see the guys out of the Castro threatening to shoot people unless they get their equal rights. They deal with it through political means.

Because, y'know, that's the sane thing. Instead of " I will not allow my rights to be infringed under any circumstances" which, in the context of statements about shooting people, sounds crazy.

******** looney tunes, really.

I'm sorry that you and a good chunk of ignorant Americans think it's batshit crazy to think that you should be able to defend your rights with force. Law is enforced with force, and are rights not the same as laws? Hypothetically, one wouldn't be wrong. Isn't that also what those old rich guys what ran out the English said to do in the event that we weren't being properly represented, or that our rights were being altered or violated?

[Trickstvr]

I both understand and don't understand at all why people try to compare mass shootings like this and say things like "oh, well, the U.S. has been killing thousands of children overseas, is that not important enough of an issue?"

That's honestly just stupid to say really, because YES, OF COURSE we want to stop drone strikes, air raids, and in general the war overseas. YES, WE AS CIVILIANS REALIZE THE WAR IS BAD. WE DON'T LIKE. That doesn't mean that one issue has jack s**t to do with the other. It's just a cheap way to try to justify our indifference to the problems at hand or somehow make the events that happened seem less significant.

Both issues are valid, but they aren't comparable in the slightest. In this case, there have been ATLEAST four separate mass shootings during Obama's presidency alone, and that's using a LOOSE DEFINITION OF THE PHRASE. What this mean for us is either

A) We can just chalk it up to "bad luck" and continue living in a stupor of self-delusion

or

B) We can recognize that something is clearly wrong with the systems in play.

HOWEVER,

AND I STRESS THIS MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE

GUNS AREN'T THE (ONLY) PROBLEM. THEY ARE JUST A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.

Honestly, I think the biggest change that I would make to the current gun regulations is the addition of psychological screenings to be taken ANYTIME someone needs a gun FOR ANY REASON. Also, it would help to restrict what guns that citizens can purchase legally to hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns. There is literally no reason that anyone ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to own an assault rifle. It's just unnecessary, let's be honest.


Idunno, that's my soap-box stood on.

[Ban]

Death Magnificent

They have distinctive haircuts, wear sunglasses, official or military-type uniforms, pack pistols and assault rifles, have some strange dogmatic belief in laws penned by corrupt politicians which none of us had any input on, and will ******** with you for everything they can.

Just going to point out that a strange dogmatic belief in laws that none of us had input on is pretty much the definition of Constitutionalism.

Death Magnificent

I'm sorry that you and a good chunk of ignorant Americans think it's batshit crazy to think that you should be able to defend your rights with force. Law is enforced with force, and are rights not the same as laws? Hypothetically, one wouldn't be wrong.

Yes, you would be. You can defend your life and property against an immediate threat, just by legal tradition, but if you feel the law has violated some constitutional rule, the proper forum is the court system. Just as police and executive power are the proper institutions for enforcing law, not individual citizens.

******** federalism 101, here.

Death Magnificent

Isn't that also what those old rich guys what ran out the English said to do in the event that we weren't being properly represented, or that our rights were being altered or violated?

Seriously, you guys need to need to learn your early American history. Those dudes thought of themselves as Englishmen, by and large. Most of them viewed the use of force as a very last resort, and were trying to get intervention by Parliament right up until the King declared the Congress traitors. Pretty much the politicians who actually declared us independent did so after their own lives were threatened by the British Crown.

[Pipebracket]

Ban

Because, y'know, that's the sane thing. Instead of " I will not allow my rights to be infringed under any circumstances" which, in the context of statements about shooting people, sounds crazy.

******** looney tunes, really.

I will not go out and SEEK people, no, that's not what I'm saying at all.

But if they come for me, may god have mercy, because I won't.

Defending your life and liberty is not insane, no matter how poisoned your perception may be.

[Wendigo]

Tadpole Jackson

But if they come for me, may god have mercy, because I won't.

Yeah okay, Patton. How's the North African Campaign going?

[Ban]

Tadpole Jackson

Defending your life and liberty is not insane, no matter how poisoned your perception may be.

You're not defending your life. You're not being imprisoned. This is just about whether you can have a gun. Plenty of civilized, first-world countries manage to go without civilian firearm ownership. This line of rhetoric, that a general right of firearm ownership is necessary to operation of a free society, that it somehow is the thin red line between liberty and tyranny, is obviously false, by the simple fact that free societies exist without such a provision.

No, you're talking about killing people over firearm regulation, not in defense of life and liberty. Which is honestly a pretty good argument as to why some people shouldn't own guns, because they have an ideology that views violence as the first resort, regardless of perfectly reasonable non-violent alternatives.

[Pipebracket]

Ban

Tadpole Jackson

Defending your life and liberty is not insane, no matter how poisoned your perception may be.

You're not defending your life. You're not being imprisoned. This is just about whether you can have a gun. Plenty of civilized, first-world countries manage to go without civilian firearm ownership. This line of rhetoric, that a general right of firearm ownership is necessary to operation of a free society, that it somehow is the thin red line between liberty and tyranny, is obviously false, by the simple fact that free societies exist without such a provision.

No, you're talking about killing people over firearm regulation, not in defense of life and liberty. Which is honestly a pretty good argument as to why some people shouldn't own guns, because they have an ideology that views violence as the first resort, regardless of perfectly reasonable non-violent alternatives.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

those nations, therefore, are not as 'free' as you claim.