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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Guns
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maleveque
Shipmate
# 132
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Posted
I keep waiting for someone else to start this.
I'm not good at Hell threads, but GODDAMN GUNS! GODDAMN guns and all the fucking SHITE they wreak on all of us.
SHIT SHIT SHIT
Like I said, I'm not good at Hell. Not good at rants.
How the fucking hell can a mentally ill person who has been living in the woods for YEARS have possession of not one but TWO guns?!?!?
The Second Amendment can kiss my ass.
- Anne L.
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Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.
Posts: 1496 | From: Washington, DC or thereabouts | Registered: May 2001
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Damned if I know. And thank you for starting this.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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ebeth
Shipmate
# 4474
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Posted
MM is my second friend to die from gun violence.
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"To eat bread without hope is still, slowly to starve to death." --Pearl S. Buck
Posts: 1486 | From: Here | Registered: Apr 2003
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
Let's see, we could blame the Second Amendment, but wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier to blame Ronald Regan's dismantling of the nation's mental health system, plus the Bush Dynasty and the Republican-lead Congress' systematic destruction of our society's safety net that lead a mentally ill man to have to live in a forest for years?
No, wait, easier to blame the guns, because you don't want to face the real reason.
Oh, by the way? Congress is poised to destroy 124 billion with a b dollars worth of SNAP funding this month. You could call them and complain. Or whine about guns some more.
[ 07. May 2012, 01:31: Message edited by: Spiffy ]
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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Loquacious beachcomber
Shipmate
# 8783
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Posted
Piss off, Spiffy.
Right now is a good time for this discussion.
And it fucking well isn't whining.
There is an election for the POTUS this year, and lots of room to discuss your feelings about Republicans. You can probably even vote if you choose to.
This thread is about guns, (hence its title) and I for one am glad it has been started up.
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TODAY'S SPECIAL - AND SO ARE YOU (Sign on beachfront fish & chips shop)
Posts: 5954 | From: Southeast of Wawa, between the beach and the hiking trail.. | Registered: Nov 2004
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
Hear, hear Spiffy.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Silver Faux:
Piss off, Spiffy.
Right now is a good time for this discussion.
And it fucking well isn't whining.
There is an election for the POTUS this year, and lots of room to discuss your feelings about Republicans. You can probably even vote if you choose to.
This thread is about guns, (hence its title) and I for one am glad it has been started up.
Suck it up, buttercup. I have an opinion, and the state-given right to declare it, and my opinion of you, as usual, is lower than that snake's belly in the mud of the Garden of Eden.
Also? Not a Democrat, or a Republican. Not that there's much difference these days.
But hey, thanks so much for making my point that guns are really just what people deflect on to instead of discussing real issues.
Now go waste space somewhere else, pumpkin, the adults are talking about important issues.
[ 07. May 2012, 02:15: Message edited by: Spiffy ]
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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Loquacious beachcomber
Shipmate
# 8783
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Posted
Of course you have a right to express your opinion on party politics, Spiffy.
Perhaps that is why you mentioned Republicans and former Republican Party leaders so often in your previous post.
Why not go do that somewhere else?
This thread is about guns. Hence the title.
Your arroganance is misplaced here.
[ 07. May 2012, 02:19: Message edited by: Silver Faux ]
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TODAY'S SPECIAL - AND SO ARE YOU (Sign on beachfront fish & chips shop)
Posts: 5954 | From: Southeast of Wawa, between the beach and the hiking trail.. | Registered: Nov 2004
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by maleveque:
The Second Amendment can kiss my ass.
That's one of the most beautiful lines I've read in a while.
Poetic genius.
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
quote:
Silver faux posted:
Your arroganance is misplaced here.
Kinda like your junior moderating?
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Silver Faux:
Of course you have a right to express your opinion on party politics, Spiffy.
Perhaps that is why you mentioned Republicans and former Republican Party leaders so often in your previous post.
Why not go do that somewhere else?
This thread is about guns. Hence the title.
Your arroganance is misplaced here.
If you could spell arrogance I might listen... or if you could tell me what SNAP is, or how many of the last 14 Congresses have been Republican-lead and the dollar value of social programs cut during those 14 Congressional sessions--- but I bet you can't do any of those three things so I'm left puzzled why I care about your opinion since it's clearly ill informed.
The thread's about guns. Whoopteedoo. I'm pointing out hungry people can't eat a red herring.
[ 07. May 2012, 02:27: Message edited by: Spiffy ]
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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Loquacious beachcomber
Shipmate
# 8783
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by art dunce:
quote:
Silver faux posted:
Your arrogance is misplaced here.
Kinda like your junior moderating?
You spelled my name wrong, moron.
That comment isn't junior moderating either, but you are probably not bright enough to figure that out.
Can we please get back to talking about guns now?
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TODAY'S SPECIAL - AND SO ARE YOU (Sign on beachfront fish & chips shop)
Posts: 5954 | From: Southeast of Wawa, between the beach and the hiking trail.. | Registered: Nov 2004
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
Spiff,
You are setting up a straw man.
Nobody would deny the importance of the issues that are passionate to you. Please make a thread. I'd be interested to learn.
But that takes nothing away from the relevance of a gun thread.
The Australian experience, which is not readily transferable does suggest a total homicide decrease with strict gun control.
Also, using medical acronyms on a theological site and demanding understanding is possibly a little unfair.
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
Posts: 3511 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
We've lost 2 members in the last twelve months due to guns. Fauxy has described in the past how significant an event, a gun was in his youth.
Yes there is more to it than that.
But I reckon this is like the cancer thread- It is not frigging fair.
There is room to mourn and curse.
And to be politically active and address the societal issues as well.
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
Posts: 3511 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
I do agree that this was a senseless act of violence, and that if the person in question had not had access to a firearm he may not have gone down the path that he chose.
However, one is left to wonder: Given the fact that he was mentally unstable (as I understand the news stories to be saying), if he didn't have a gun, wouldn't he have simply chosen a baseball bat or a knife or a big stick or something else?
Surely he didn't kill them because he had a gun. The gun was just the tool he used to carry out his misguided act. And if he had chosen a different weapon (baseball bat, for instance), would people be arguing that we should outlaw baseball bats? Can't we carry this out to the logical conclusion that we should all be placed in protective bubbles so that we cannot in any way harm others with whatever "weapons" our environments and intellects give us?
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
Posts: 1621 | From: Warrior Mountains | Registered: Oct 2007
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
The answer is possibly.
Guns have a higher lethality than other means of homicide or suicide. Statistically, they are more lethal.
I could beat you to death with a small kipper, but a gun would be much easier.
By the way, you had better put air holes in your protective bubble...
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
Posts: 3511 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Nothing to say but applauding the OP.
Spiffy, this isn't the time or the place for it.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
if hell isn't the place, what is? I think Spiff gets to say what she will and if our undies get in a bunch we can move on. Same as when other people get all hysterical about guns being the problem - people like spiffy and I get to move the fuck on if we don't like it. suck it up, princess.
I'm gutted by the recent deaths, also. and these are hardly the first gun-related deaths I've been personally connected to. I keep coming back to the fact that guns are inanimate objects, though. It's the people who we have a real problem with. How to fix that? I don't know. Spiffy is dead-on about the total disregard of those with mental health issues, though. it's a start.
I've seen a lot of violent deaths. in my family, in my community. Guns are not even responsible for the majority of them; though they probably have second place. the reality is, there are a shit-load of people who are marginalized in some way or another and we ignore them or tolerate them until they explode. jlg would have been one of my last guesses of someone who'd go bananas with a gun. but she did.
a totally batshit crazy guy is running loose in my town currently, and we're all a bit scared to death. the cops arrest him and let him go; arrest him and let him go. over and over. they can't hold him and unless he checks himself in the mental hospital can do nothing. basically, until he gets really violent (apparently, fists aren't enough. and showing up mostly nude in my driveway at 7 am isn't enough either. neithter is burning down his own house.) He doesn't have a gun - I know because a mutual friend went to his house and stole them. the cops couldn't take them away. but he does have a car (proven over and over a very efficient way to kill people) as well as access to big sticks, knives, axes, chainsaws, sledgehammers, whatever floats your violent boat.
the problem isn't the fucking tool, it's the person who is now completely out of control of their own actions because our system doesn't give a fuck until somebody is dead.
my personal fruitcake is probably going to kill himself, someone else, or both before he gets the care he needs. We're sitting on a timebomb and no one can do anything.
but yes, let's take away all the guns - that will fix it.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
if hell isn't the place, what is? I think Spiff gets to say what she will and if our undies get in a bunch we can move on. Same as when other people get all hysterical about guns being the problem - people like spiffy and I get to move the fuck on if we don't like it. suck it up, princess.
Hhhhmmmnnnnnn......I seem to recall someone asking me to pull back in Hell last time someone died....... ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
Obviously Spiffy commands more respect.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I'm not big on gun rights. But Spiffy has a point, and I think she has a right to say it.
She didn't trash Republicans--she mentioned specific, relevant items. We here in the US don't have a national health care system. So it can be hard to get care for physical problems, let alone mental. Plus many folks in mental institutions were released into the community, years ago, for treatment in more normal circumstances. Except there was no one to make sure they went to the meds dispensary...so many wound up unmedicated and very symptomatic. Many of the homeless here in SF are mentally ill.
So, in this case, anyway, mental health treatment might have helped.
{PS to Spiffy: Last time i checked, your mailbox was full.}
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Padre Joshua:
However, one is left to wonder: Given the fact that he was mentally unstable (as I understand the news stories to be saying), if he didn't have a gun, wouldn't he have simply chosen a baseball bat or a knife or a big stick or something else?
Probably, yes. And in that situation the victims could have seen him coming and run away. It's really hard to run away from a bullet.
This thread's insane. "It's because of guns!" "No, it's because of mental health service failures!" Newsflash: both statements are true! Our friend wouldn't be dead if the mental health service wasn't so shit, and she also wouldn't be dead if the crazy bastard hadn't had easy access to guns.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Padre Joshua:
However, one is left to wonder: Given the fact that he was mentally unstable (as I understand the news stories to be saying), if he didn't have a gun, wouldn't he have simply chosen a baseball bat or a knife or a big stick or something else?
Guns take all the effort out of murdering people. And that's the fucking problem. No effort required. Just point and shoot.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
One thing I learnt from the coverage of the Breivik case is that gun ownership is exceptionally common in peace-loving, Nobel prize awarding Norway. There are apparently 1.5 million firearms held legally in what is basically a very small country. Yet gun-related crime rates are usually very very low, even by European standards. IIRC parts of Canada have comparable rates of gun ownership to the US, again with much lower rates of gun crime. There's something going on here beyond the mere existence of guns.
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I've got into trouble on these Boards and on other unrelated internet boards for opining about the Second Amendment and US gun laws - which look pretty daft to those of us who don't live there. I'm not going to start stirring up the shit now.
Ready access to guns is part of the problem, but not the whole deal - as Spiffy and others have said. I can see that and concede that the US is a completely different context where wider gun ownership would make more sense than it does in Western Europe and other parts of the world.
What I can't be doing with, though, are those pro-gun lobby Americans who seem to regard the rest of us as having less freedoms than they do or else sitting on a powder-keg of fragile democracy just because we don't pack heat.
I'm not saying Spiffy is among them, but it is a view I've come across on these boards and elsewhere.
Conversely, I can see how it irritates the pants off American posters way out West or down in the deep, deep South when Brits, Canucks, Australians, Norwegians or anyone else gets all sniffy about their apparent love-affair with the gun and the Second Amendment that enshrines it in what sounds - to outsiders - as tantamount to Holy Writ.
I wouldn't wipe my arse on the Second Amendment, but heck, no-one's asking me to, I don't live in the US.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
if hell isn't the place, what is? I think Spiff gets to say what she will and if our undies get in a bunch we can move on. Same as when other people get all hysterical about guns being the problem - people like spiffy and I get to move the fuck on if we don't like it. suck it up, princess.
Hhhhmmmnnnnnn......I seem to recall someone asking me to pull back in Hell last time someone died.......
Obviously Spiffy commands more respect.
that someone wasn't me. I know better.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
Gun ownership is exceptionally common in peace-loving, Nobel prize awarding Norway. There are apparently 1.5 million firearms held legally in what is basically a very small country. Yet gun-related crime rates are usually very very low, even by European standards.
What is it about the Scandinavian Countries that make them so different from other Western Countries in this regard ?
This really is a question that requires deep investigation if the rest of us are ever to change . That's if it's even possible to change.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
if hell isn't the place, what is? I think Spiff gets to say what she will and if our undies get in a bunch we can move on. Same as when other people get all hysterical about guns being the problem - people like spiffy and I get to move the fuck on if we don't like it. suck it up, princess.
Hhhhmmmnnnnnn......I seem to recall someone asking me to pull back in Hell last time someone died.......
Obviously Spiffy commands more respect.
Grow up cupcake. On that thread, you were out of the ballpark trying to make the thread all about you and your issues.
The Wondersheep is in the park, at least.
Go reread what Think said.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
One thing I learnt from the coverage of the Breivik case is that gun ownership is exceptionally common in peace-loving, Nobel prize awarding Norway. There are apparently 1.5 million firearms held legally in what is basically a very small country. Yet gun-related crime rates are usually very very low, even by European standards. IIRC parts of Canada have comparable rates of gun ownership to the US, again with much lower rates of gun crime. There's something going on here beyond the mere existence of guns.
Indeed, the rather polemical Michael Moore makes this point in Bowling for Columbine, in relation to Canada.
The big issue seems to be not merely guns but believing that guns solve problems.
I honestly wonder how much influence there is from Hollywood (and also TV, but especially film). Got a problem with someone in your way? Solve it, with a gun!
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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maleveque
Shipmate
# 132
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spiffy:
No, wait, easier to blame the guns, because you don't want to face the real reason.
Fuck off Spiffy.
Your use of 'you' in that sentence would seem to be directed personally at me. If it is not, please clarify.
How the fuck do you know what I want to face or not want to face? How the fuck do you know what I think of Reagan's deinstitutionalization policies? For that matter, if I'm such a Reaganite, why would I be in favor of gun control?
Yes, other weapons could have been used. I've known people who were killed or injured in similar circumstances by other weapons, but yeah, guns make it faster and deadlier.
- Anne L.
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Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.
Posts: 1496 | From: Washington, DC or thereabouts | Registered: May 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
Grow up cupcake. On that thread, you were out of the ballpark trying to make the thread all about you and your issues.
Ah yes. I forgot I was accused of Yorickism.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
Grow up cupcake. On that thread, you were out of the ballpark trying to make the thread all about you and your issues.
Ah yes. I forgot I was accused of Yorickism.
If you want I can be your buddy and when you start doing it again we can have a safe word. "Armageddon" maybe.
AtB Pyx_e
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Loquacious beachcomber
Shipmate
# 8783
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Posted
I have absolutely no empathy for any people on threads about guns who eventually show up to say guns are needed to protect them from others, so they carry one pretty much everywhere.
Second prize in a gun battle is a coffin; first prize may well turn out to be a first-degree murder charge, if the person you shoot turns out to be unarmed, but mistaken for an aggressive enemy.
I also don't like to see people or groups (including Republicans and their leaders) demonized, because that could possibly lead to the idea that if you just wiped out that/those enemies, the problem would disappear.
Hand guns are designed for killing people, or for target practice in order to be prepared to kill people.
They should not be available to any civilians, because if you want one, you are already contemplating using it.
I would sooner die than own or carry a handgun.
I can not imagine how it is possible to live with oneself and yet carry a handgun.
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TODAY'S SPECIAL - AND SO ARE YOU (Sign on beachfront fish & chips shop)
Posts: 5954 | From: Southeast of Wawa, between the beach and the hiking trail.. | Registered: Nov 2004
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
Armageddon
(damn flood control ruins another joke)
[ 07. May 2012, 13:10: Message edited by: Pyx_e ]
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
I own a small collection of firearms for hunting and target practice. I've never bought a gun intending to 'carry' or for 'home defense'.
As someone who is comfortable with guns, who is proficient with guns, who has relied on guns for food, who has had his life saved by guns, and as someone who, frankly, loves the hell out of his second Amendment rights; this kind of event really tears me apart.
I am often very conflicted about whether or not my 2nd Amd. rights are 'worth it' in the face of such loss. I hate the loss of human life on any level.
At the same time I'm hesitant to say that I should be stripped of my rights because others have abused their rights. But I have a hard time being just plain indignant about the negative effect that guns have had in society.
The one thing I do know is that if we gun owners want to keep our rights and maintain (as we do) that guns are not the real problem; then we gun owners damn-well ought to do something about the real problem. What that 'something' is, I'm not sure. But we can't just sit back and indignantly claim that 'it's not the gun's fault when 1+2 still equals 3.
(I know it's not very hellish, but...)
For maleveque: ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) I truely am sorry for you loss, God knows I am. May He comfort you.
Blessings,
~A conflicted gun owner
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
Canada went through the same kind of mental health deinstitutionalization in mental health care in the 1980s as did the US, so that's not the salient difference.
Per capita, gun ownership is much lower here than in the US, and most guns owned by civilians here are rifles and shotguns, mostly owned by hunters, farmers, and ranchers. Legal civilian ownership of handguns or semi-automatic weapons is very very rare. Very few crimes are committed with legally owned guns. Most illegally owned guns are smuggled in from the US.
When a mentally ill person attacks someone around here, a knife is the typical weapon. Yes, a knife can be just as deadly as a gun, but you have to get close to use it, and potential victims have a better chance of getting away.
Restricting guns doesn't make violence disappear. But it can help reduce body counts while other problems are also dealt with.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Loquacious beachcomber
Shipmate
# 8783
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Posted
Politicians usually do not get elected by creating public policy and then running on its merits, IMO.
They get elected by discerning which direction the parade is headed, then getting in front of it and claiming to be leading it.
Uber-villian Ronald Raygun did not single-handedly gut the mental health system stateside.
Close to one hundred million people stood in ballot boxes and decided "Shit, yeah! That's what I been talking about."
And yeah, if you walk around the neighbourhoods surrounding Yonge and University Avenue in Toronto, you will see people on day passes from the Clarke Institute screaming at passersby, trees and telephone poles occasionally.
It ain't just stateside where people once locked away out of sight are now right in your face when you buy your precious iced latte.
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TODAY'S SPECIAL - AND SO ARE YOU (Sign on beachfront fish & chips shop)
Posts: 5954 | From: Southeast of Wawa, between the beach and the hiking trail.. | Registered: Nov 2004
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
[QUOTE]
The big issue seems to be not merely guns but believing that guns solve problems.
I honestly wonder how much influence there is from Hollywood (and also TV, but especially film). Got a problem with someone in your way? Solve it, with a gun!
Yes, so very true . I like watching old 50's westerns , (esp. the 'Gunsmoke series), and this is the message without a doubt.
All in the name entertainment of course, and that's the way I take it . But gun violence , guns meaning power, guns being sexy , it's all a subliminal thing .
Only a seismic shift in our attitudes towards guns can change our relationship with them . In Sweden a gun is regarded as something of a rudimentary instrument such as a garden spade . In America, and increasingly in the UK, it can be seen as an object of absolute desire.
In the absence of that monumental metamorphosis of thinking, may I suggest the simple solution of micro-chipped guns that can be tracked like mobile phones, and automatically deactivated by police in cases of misuse . OK it won't stop every gun nut but it'd certainly get a bead on the situation.
All other guns to be melted or locked away in museums and the ammunition for them discontinued .
But hey , where's the fun in that.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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passer
Indigo
# 13329
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Posted
I'm continually astonished at how a large number of people in the US seem to be totally obsessed with guns, and their right to own them. To the exclusion of all else. I have a friend who is a member of this Facebook group, so I see his posts there, and look at the threads there. I find most of the stuff excruciatingly embarrassing to read.
The contortions these people go through to justify gun ownership dismay me. The faux justifications they propound, the way they pounce on every news item which even remotely touches on gun ownership and twist it to attach a positive spin to the idea of "open carry", and their constant self-promotion as frontiersmen or pioneers of some sort just baffles me. It's like they're trapped in the eighteenth century.
I long ago ceased to discuss the subject with my friend - there's no room for discussion or debate, merely an opportunity to explain to me how wrong I am and how I don't understand. He's right of course - I don't understand.
Posts: 1289 | From: Sheffield | Registered: Jan 2008
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
Irish Lord, you hit the nail on the head for me. thanks for that.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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molopata
The Ship's jack
# 9933
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Posted
Yeah, right. For me too.
And while we're at it, I don't see why I should have to give up my rights at airport security to walk onto a plane like a free man just because some jackasses occasionally grab planes and run them into buildings.
Now seriously, while we're busy working out the real problem, we should at least have a war on guns to stop the brutal, the wild and the deranged from getting such a good shot at killing us.
My wife lost her brother to murder by firearm and a cousin to suicide with military weapon. At least one of these deaths could have been avoided in the absence of guns. I put Geneviève's death squarely in the same category.
[typo]
[ 07. May 2012, 17:02: Message edited by: Molopata The Rebel ]
Posts: 1718 | From: the abode of my w@ndering mind | Registered: Aug 2005
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lothiriel:
Yes, a knife can be just as deadly as a gun, but you have to get close to use it, and potential victims have a better chance of getting away.
Restricting guns doesn't make violence disappear. But it can help reduce body counts while other problems are also dealt with.
Lots of good stuff on this thread, but this wraps it a nutshell for me. We have homeless people in the UK, and food banks, and although mental health provision isn't great, it's better than it was when we first had 'Care in the Community', but we have proportionately fewer fatal incidents. I'm afraid that 'the tool' does have to take some of the blame - as someone else has said, guns make killing too easy. But, yeah, people who have legitimate business can still own shotguns and rifles.
One of the great learning experiences of the ship is that people you like and respect can talk complete horse shit when it comes to guns. But I suspect those of you who want guns and good quality mental health care are in a minority. Gun culture isn't just about the perception that guns solve problems - seems to me it commonly goes with a whole world view which is about looking after your own - solving your own problems - while the weak and the friendless go to the wall. To such people, State welfare and healthcare are as big a threat to civil liberties as gun control - in fact, they're two sides of the same coin.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
You and me both, Passer. I've had Facebook contact with a bloke in Boston who goes on and on and on about guns as if he's - wheehaaa! - livin' on the wild frontier.
I don't get it either.
Out in Alaska, where Irish Lord comes from, I can just about get it. Or out in Wyoming or Idaho. But not a city like Boston. Ok, so there are lots of armed nutters out there, but even so ...
I could get it if there will still only muzzle-loading muskets and rifles around and the US didn't have a standing army and had to rely on a citizen's militia - as was the case when the Second Amendment was drafted.
By it's the way that it is presented as the sine qua non of democratic or human freedom that boggles my mind ... like the right to free speech. If these gun-nuts were equally as obsessed with health-care and equitable welfare and so on, I could perhaps buy it.
But they aren't.
This Facebook dude I know happens to be Orthodox but he's just as bat-shit gun-crazy as any red-neck fundamentalist. He keeps posting pictures of armed platoons of monks in the 1913 Greece/Balkan war to demonstrate how guns and Orthodoxy should co-exist. He's not canonical Orthodox so he's likely to be more fruit-cake than the average, but even so ...
Of course, the average US gun-owner is law-abiding, responsible and takes great care not to cause accidents or leave their weapons lying around for kids to play with etc. And it is a fact that most gun crime in the States is carried out by people with illegal weapons and not your average, law-abiding Joe. Of course.
But there are 85 fatal shootings in the US a day. 85 a day. Ok, here in the UK we've got a different set-up but even here I think that around 12 to 20 gun deaths a year from a population of nearly 60 million is too much. The US homicide rate is 10 times that of Western Europe according to some statistics.
And when I point that out to some of these US gunslingers they simply shrug and say that 'Freedom comes at a heavy price.' My arse.
This Orthodox guy is convinced that the Armenian genocide during WW1 wouldn't have happened if the Ottomans and then the Young Turks had allowed the civilian population to pack heat. He also quotes Gandhi to suggest that the British Raj wouldn't have lasted as long if the British authorities had allowed the Indian people to be armed. Well, how does he explain the ethnic cleansing and genocide that happened after the ending of British rule? I'm not saying the Raj wasn't culpable to some extent but arms and sectarian divisions make for an explosive mix.
When you push him he'll even say that he needs his guns just in case the Government comes after him or in case he has to defend himself against fundamentalist rednecks from the Deep South or the Mid-West ...
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
It gets even whackier if you ask a rhetorical question, such as: how many deaths did he think there might have been during the London riots last summer if the rioters had started using guns on any big scale? He'll just shrug and say that the rioters and people in the inner-cities, black and other ethnic minorities ought to have guns in order to fend off Government interference ...
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
What planet do these people live on?
What kind of fucking Frankenstein's fucking monster has that made-sense-in-the-18th-century-but-makes-no-fucking-sense-now Second Amendment created?
I try to understand, I really do, but faced by that kind of bullshit bilge (and I'm not including Irish Lord in this) then I begin to despair.
What planet, what kind of fucking fucked up fucking planet ...?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Bean Sidhe
Shipmate
# 11823
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Posted
From this side of the pond, the issue can seem very, very strange. Two incidents have shaped UK gun law in fairly-recent decades. In the 80's the Hungerford massacre, when a guy armed with a legally-owned AK47 and other similar weapons roamed the town killing at random. Automatic weapons were then banned. Then the Dunblane shootings, when a whole class of 5 year olds was slain by a disaffected rejected scoutmaster, using handguns which were subsequently banned as well. The UK pistol-shooting team has to train for the olympics abroad. I don't know what the arrangements will be for the London games this summer.
Who needs guns? Military, police, farmers, gamekeepers... anyone else? Maybe if you live somewhere there are bears in the woods. I can't believe anyone in Europe or North America needs to shoot for food. People who enjoy target-shooting or killing small animals can take up archery.
The trouble with guns is they make killing so easy. What was that incident in a US trailer park a year or so ago? Some crazy family row, like we can see on daytime reality shows if we really want to watch, but there was a gun and suddenly people are dead, and the perpetrator is probably doing life, or maybe on death row by now. Yes we have violence here, sometimes with illegally owned guns, it happened just down the road a little while ago, but more often it's knives or bottles or whatever and sometimes people end up dead but more often, not.
I concede I'm prejudiced, I find something sordid about weaponry. During the debate after Dunblane, I saw footage of a gun club, maybe 30 or so guys, filmed from behind while they stood shoulder to shoulder, target shooting with handguns. Scruffy looking, slouching in anoraks and crumpled, baggy trousers, I could have believed they were wanking. What a sight.
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How do you know when a politician is lying?
His lips are moving.
Danny DeVito
Posts: 4363 | From: where the taxis won't go | Registered: Sep 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
From what I can gather, Bean Sidhe, it isn't that long ago that people in remote parts of the US had to rely on hunting to supplement their diet. Spiffy and perhaps Irish Lord might tell us that this is still the case. Which would be fair enough. Hunting rifles are one thing, handguns and automatic rifles something else again.
I wouldn't begrudge the average US farmer a shootin' iron in case of rattlers and bears.
I don't think that's the issue. It's just that sensible gun-ownership in the US seems to have gone beyond what the rest of the civilised world would deem acceptable. The problem is, it's become linked in many Americans' eyes with their view of themselves, their civil liberties and their democratic rights.
And lobbyists like the NRA don't play fair. A Guardian article (I could get the link if you wanted it) recently suggested that the NRA actually HELPS the hoodlums and even potential terrorists with its refusal to countenance even the most sensible of reforms.
I showed this to my batshit crazy Bostonian friend and he simply responded by sending me a link to a news-story about a woman who always carried a gun in her car getting the better of a shoot-out with an armed gang who were attempting a hold-up somewhere.
So that makes it alright then ...
Who gives a monkey's whether hoods and terrorists can get hold of weaponry just as long as Calamity Jane there can carry a gun in her vehicle in order to thwart armed robbers ...
I know this is stereotypical and patronising, but I get the impression that these guys have watched too many Westerns.
I don't know whether it's apocryphal but at school we were told that there were two armed guards in front of the button that the President would need to press in the event of an all-out nuclear war. The idea was that if one of the guards went nuts the other one would shoot him before he could get to the nuclear button ...
Which presupposes, of course, that the good guy is always going to be quicker on the draw ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
In Europe we believe the way you tell a sound government is when it is not hauling guns around on the streets.
Basically if we don't have them then the government don't need them when they come for us, so that increases our survival chances.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Loquacious beachcomber
Shipmate
# 8783
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Posted
Couldn't you just keep a few pitbulls and mastiffs?
That's what our inner city drug dealers do, to be ready for when the narcs come for them.
Except in Ontario; pitbulls are illegal here.
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TODAY'S SPECIAL - AND SO ARE YOU (Sign on beachfront fish & chips shop)
Posts: 5954 | From: Southeast of Wawa, between the beach and the hiking trail.. | Registered: Nov 2004
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spiffy:
I have an opinion, and the state-given right to declare it ...
You obviously don't have the ability to read the U.S. Constitution. The first amendment does not grant you the right to state your opinion; it merely says that Congress can't make a law abridging the freedom of speech. Moreover, it's highly problematic to talk about state-given rights, as what the state gives the state may take away. The Bill of Rights exists to protect rights that you have because you're a human being, not to grant you rights.
So the second amendment can kiss my ass, because owning a gun is not a natural right and shouldn't be in there with the freedoms of speech, religion, press and assembly and the right to petition the government when it's fucked up.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
But we're still not addressing the basic issue. The gun didn't pull it's own trigger. Yes, I agree the guy shouldn't have had the gun. I agree that this was a senseless killing. But it's not the gun's fault.
Wouldn't it be a better use of our time and resources to cure the mental instability (or at least minimize it) that caused that man to pull that trigger? Wouldn't it be better to find ways to keep kids out of gangs and away from drugs? I'm telling you: You can take away all the guns, but I promise the killing won't end. The violence won't end. Taking away the guns won't solve the problem. The guns aren't the whole issue. The mindset is more of a problem than the firearms themselves.
People have been killing each other since the dawn of time. And I'd love to see numbers -- actual, non-massaged numbers -- that show that the violent crimes rate has risen in the few hundred years since the advent of personal firearms. My guess is that it hasn't. Granted, we have a different view on bloodshed now than people a couple thousand years ago (we don't go to the Coliseum to watch gladiators fight to the death, for instance), but even so if guns are so evil, I'd have thought the murder rate would have skyrocketed.
Another point: Restricting guns will not automatically keep guns out of the hands of those who least need them. Instead, it will put additional pressure on those who are, and who always will be, law-abiding citizens. Trust me, if you want a gun bad enough, you'll get the gun. Show me an effective way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals without putting undue stress on those who will not misuse guns and I'll vote for it.
So how about this? How about we find a reasonable form of gun control, one that helps to remove guns from criminals? And how about we spend most of our time and energy on figuring out how to keep kids off the street, how to keep drugs out of our communities, and how to help those who have mental and emotional needs that would lead them to violence? Wouldn't that be better than putting a bandaid on the symptom while ignoring the cause?
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
Posts: 1621 | From: Warrior Mountains | Registered: Oct 2007
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