This time it got worse...
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/12/1 ... 9020121214

Another sad day... as usual, nothing is going to change.

I know the usual response of the gun lobby is "if more people carried guns then they could have stopped this from happening". I haven't heard that come out this time yet but pre-emptively I'd like to say why it wouldn't work: This is in a school. Guns should be nowhere near children and you'd be really worried if a teacher was carrying a gun into school.

If only people could see clearly that the NRA mantra of "Enforce the gun laws we already have, don't make new ones" is not working. They have been spewing that line for decades. It has not stopped even one tragedy. We have given enough time and lives to trying to curb violence by enforcing (poorly) the laws we already have.

We need to enact new laws, but they will be hard to write. They will be hard to write because while they are needed to keep people from being killed or hurt by guns, they must also respect the constitutional prohibition against restricting gun ownership. It will be made nearly impossiblely difficult with the opposing sides very loudly (in the big media, etc.) trying to convince everyone that their way is the only way. We will get presented with the usual black-white fallacy, which, sadly, too many Americans will fall for.

It is sad to say that my belief is that while President Obama broke down when he discussed the Connecticut shootings, the NRA's very effective lobbyist Marion Hamer and her cronies were already hard at work figuring out how to spin the tragedy to their favor. Possibly something like: [sarcasm]"Maybe all elementary school children should be trained in gunmanship and be allowed to carry concealed weapons! Then at least one of the kids at that school could have shot the killer dead."[/sarcasm] My guess is that the only reason that Ms. Hamer would have teared up or broken down over this is because of the powerful argument that this event gave her opposition. She is a really tough, manipulative old bat, who is blind to any argument except her own.

There is one other way to help reduce the numbers of psycho killings too. If we would get rid of the death penalty and study these killers, really study them, we could eventually learn enough to carefully screen people, then divert and treat them before they destroy others and possibly themselves.

But then my ideas require some intelligence to understand and quite a bit to put into practice. And, as we all know, the lawmakers and the public who oppose ANY new gun laws (and possibly even effective enforcement of those we already have), are limited in intellectual ability and empathy. The same applies to the ones that oppose ending the death penalty.

When in the hell is our society going to wake up and try to do something rational and fair to both sides about these problems?

Yet again another tragic waste of human life that could have been prevented.



I have no idea who this woman is but your description reminds me of a Winston Churchill quote.

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."


Andy

Your Churchill quote sums up Ms. Hammer well. And, I misspelled her name in the above posting, it is "Hammer," not "Hamer."

For more info about Ms. Hammer, click here. The whole, two-page article is a quick read and informative. The photo on the first page says much.

Draw your own conclusions.

Palin's friend, I guess.

And now we begin to hear from the conservatives. Nothing from big-name conservatives yet, but this trickle that is starting will probably lead to a flood of insane dipshittery from the big right wingers.

Click here

Does the NRA get tax exemption for being a religion?

If we had at least as strict regulations on guns as we have on cars and driver's licenses then we would be better off.

Things like intensive training, a test, regular inspections, insurance, fines. Since guns are designed to harm and cars are designed to be transport, there ought to also be a psychological test and a full background check for ALL sales - and there certainly is no reason to have magazines bigger than 6 bullets.

All the children killed in this latest tragedy are 6 or 7 years old. Twenty children with their whole lives ahead of them murdered with guns.

Why are we allowing this to happen over and over again? When will we ever learn?

And . . . three more conservatives comment on the shooting in Connecticut:

Victoria Jackson, click this line

and

Steve Dulan, board member of a gun advocacy group says, among other things that the tragedy could have: "if not prevented, then perhaps minimized," if we armed the teachers in the schools. Click here.

Finally,

Rush Limpballs himself speaks out about how the liberals will try to twist this tragedy to further their agenda.

We very desperately need to do something about our society. Not only are guns sold like candy and essentially unregulated, but many of the public have come to treat ignoramuses like these as political, philosophical, and religious leaders, guides and icons.

I will repeat something that I have said before.

Why does this happen in America so frequently relative to the population.?

Canada, has a similar quantity of gun ownership to America and yet there is considerably less gun crime overall (per capita) and a lack of frequent school massacres (per capita).

The difference especially on the Massacre question rather than the overall gun crime question must be in the American psyche and not the Canadian psyche.


Andy

^^
Interesting data:
According to 2012 stats, Canada has about 1/3 of guns per 100 residents than the US (30 vs 90).
According to 2002 Nationmaster.com firearms murders (144 vs 9360), we can deduce that firearms murders rate in Canada is about 7 times lower than in the US.
According to 2012 Guardian (UK) stats, the rate raised at 6 times lower than the US. According to gun ownership data, it should be 3 times rather than 6.
There's a non linear growth that must be explained somehow.

Just having a lot of guns in a country doesn't mean that they are as easily accessible as in the US, or that they are of a type that lends themselves to multi shooting sprees. So the sheer number of guns is a limited factor.

I'm sure their will be forensic examination of any computer he would use and investigation of groups or interests that he might have. I would be interested to know if he had ever heard of the Dunblane massacre or even if he planned to recreate it himself. It's remarkably close as it was also a suicide spree and aimed at younger children, unlike many major US school shootings which are carried out by older children taking revenge on classmates.

In US anyone over 18 can buy a gun. In most of the other countries, you need a gun permit which is usually linked with psychiatric check. That is the reason why do you have such big difference. In US it is harder to get beer than to get a gun.

Below is a link to a blog or article that goes a long way to answer your question. Read it through. While it doesn't explain everything that is wrong with the U.S. today, it does explain a lot, a whole lot. In doing so, it starts with the shooting and its causes, then goes into other things, but it all relates to the problems that this entire thread covers. And too, notice that he points out the liberal's contribution to the problems too. It really is not just the conservatives, the liberals share the blame too.

Click here for the article.

He's a bit harsh and it's too rhetorical to go back to native Americans, Lincoln and so on (leave the remote past in the remote past), but I guess sometimes such behaviour is justified. At least he shows how being a Christian doesn't mean you're blindly supporting some right-ish political views.
He pointed out some matters which should be discussed at national level. I have relatives in NJ, I myself have been quite a few times in the US, and this Frank Schaeffer views' aren't too different from ours.
That being said, if I'm not wrong the guy who shot had a mental illness. Living in a house surrounded by firearms, he was... a bomb waiting to explode.

Agree with flapane, the article's a harsh rant and to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the author's right about several issues. Gun control is key but in a society that glorifies war and violence (by the way, no, that is not specifically and exclusively American), gun control alone will not suffice.

Of interest to the many gamers who visit SPCR is this excerpt from the above rant:

"We also accept as a normal state of affairs that children stare into little stupid screens 24/7 playing violent video games that greedy nihilistic a-hole game designers churn out."

How often have computer component manufacturers in recent years made use of cruel or necrophiliac themes? The blinking skull on high-end Intel boards? Corsair's love affair with the word "vengeance"? All for the gamers, the ones who most buy the expensive hardware.

Does the gaming culture encourage adolescent pseudo-commandos like the Newtown killer and others with their agenda of anger, resentment, and payback?

Tens of millions of people all over the world play graphically violent computer games very day, just a few hours ago I was playing Far Cry 3, I am not about to go on a murderous rampage of indiscriminate violence, and neither are the tens of millions of other violent computer games players. In exactly the same what that people who play car racing games don't jump into their piece of shit low performance car and drive like they are trying to beat their personal best time driving from A to B, real-life is real, computer games are obviously not real.

I will not deny that violent computer games have not been an "influence" to some crazy murderous people, but they are not a "cause" of mental illness and hatred.

In a slightly different tone...

"President Obama has asked for "Drastic Solutions" to stop future school massacres in America. The Republican Party have responded by suggesting that schools should be banned."


Andy

Home schooling is a pretty big deal for the Christian right in America. It's the only way of avoiding that pinko commie liberal Darwin heresy that schools keep on pushing.

"President Obama has asked for "Drastic Solutions" to stop future school massacres in America. The Republican Party have responded by suggesting that schools should be banned."

I watched both Obama speeches--I didn't notice any call for "drastic solutions," just "meaningful" action. In the Newtown speech, though, he indicated that Americans had reached a crossroads, and he seemed pretty fed up with the gun lobby. More power to him, but let's see what action will result.

"Schools should be banned": i.e., home schooling. Well, good luck with that. That, surely, cannot be the solution.

I have friends who game all the time. Gets to be an obsession if not an addiction. I have avoided gaming so far, with the exception of chess, so I am on the outside looking in and probably not a good judge and not qualified to moralize. Note the question marks in my above comment.

That said, I'm not happy about being stuck with a grinning skull on those Intel motherboards whether I like it or not, or the word "Vengeance" on Corsair RAM chips. I like to think that I'm not about those things. I don't want to build a PC that reminds me of the incessant, grinding waste of human lives in useless wars and conflicts.

What I posted was actually a minor re-wording of a "joke" I found on the internet, I didn't aim for it to be conveyed as anything other than to ridicule (some) American politicians and gun Lobbyists. I failed to check the actual words that Obama used

Basically the point of it was to suggest that some people in America would rather see school banned before machine guns, and that both camps want to see an and to these regular wastes of innocent human life, agreement is going to be the next problem, and I simply cannot see that happening.


Andy

@ Andy

I was reading, I think in the "New York Times," that some Newtown residents were talking about the option of home schooling to evade shootings and other mayhem in schools. I misinterpreted the joke as an allusion to that discussion.

Would the introduction of metal detectors in public offices (schools included) be fool? It wouldn't be a "drastic solution" that would be opposed as much as a Constitutional change affecting the right to bear an arm as a whole.

And what would it help ? Ok, it would beep. So what ? Do you really think that solves anything ? What stops the shooter from shooting the guard at the metal detector and then ignoring the metal detectors ?

So why not firing TSA agents? They're useless, after all a terrorist could detonate a bomb in front of an agent, he'd surely kill a lot of people.
So what's the point in passing under a metal detector while entering in a State Capitol? I could easily shoot at the guard and ignore the beep. Is a State Capitol any different from other public offices?

They're not useless if they dissuade someone from a terrorist act. Stopping a terrorist act is much harder than dissuading someone from doing it in the first place.

Or you could walk around it, or pass your bag full of guns around it. People do this to avoid anti-theft barriers in shops so I think you'd find the same thing happening. It's a stupid approach. Are you then going to reinforce all emergency exits so that they can't be broken into? And are you also going to seal up all windows and put bars over them to stop anyone breaking in with weapons?

Just control the weapons instead.

Of course I was ironic. However, dissuading makes a good point of avoiding something bad.



A public office (or even better, a US Capitol bdg) is supposed to be controlled better than a small shop. I've been through security in Iowa Capitol, they have metal detector at Texas Capitol, too. I can't see nothing wrong in them, neither the poor dead children parents do (I guess).



I don't think this is gonna happen anytime soon, that's why I think that dissuading would be a nice starting point.

Ok, guys the real solution to the problem has been provided by Florida state representative Dennis Baxley.[/sarcasm] If you have heard of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, it was Baxley who wrote it. George Zimmerman invoked the "Stand Your Ground" law in the world famous Travon Martin shooting.

Baxley's reasoning, if it can be called "reasoning," in calling for someone to submit a bill like the one proposed in the article is mind blowing.


I knew it wouldn't be long before the right wing nut cases started speaking out.



http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/17/3146137/fla-lawmaker-favors-ending-ban.html