It Has Happened Again...

[Polaris]

IN OUR WORLD, NOTHING MOVES THROUGH THREE DIMENSIONAL SPACE FASTER OR MORE DRAMATICALLY, THAN A BULLET SHOT FROM A GUN.

Shrapnel from a bomb moves usually 10x as fast as a rifle bullet.

 

[qayak]

It seems obvious to me that Claus does not care if people die, he only cares that they die from something other than a gunshot wound.

No way could any reasonable person draw this conclusion from his posts.

Simply put, if any other weapon was used, barring perhaps bombs, the number of lives lost would be far fewer. Fewer lives lost = More lives saved. Claus is interested in saving as many lives as possible.

Think about this: You are an unarmed security guard in a school with 1000 students. An announcement that someone has entered the school and is trying to kill as many people as possible with the weapon he carries in his hand. You are told that the only hope is to get everyone out through the one unblocked entrance but you are not told which one that is so you will have to use trial and error. As soon as people get outside that door they are safe but you do not know which door it is or where the attacker is. You are also not allowed to leave the school until all 1000 students are either out or dead. Your job is to save as many people as you can.

The only thing you get to decide is what type of weapon the attacker uses. Would you prefer him to have a fully automatic gun with 1000 rounds of ammo, a semi automatic gun with 1000, a single shot gun with 1000 rounds, a flintlock with 1000 balls & powder charges, a machette, a paring knife, a baseball bat, a broom handle or his fists?

 

[qayak]

Shrapnel from a bomb moves usually 10x as fast as a rifle bullet.

But bombs aren't a realistic occurence in our civilized world.

You can try change the focus of the discussion or you can address the ideas expressed, your choice.

 

[mamapajamas]

No way could any reasonable person draw this conclusion from his posts.

Simply put, if any other weapon was used, barring perhaps bombs, the number of lives lost would be far fewer. Fewer lives lost = More lives saved. Claus is interested in saving as many lives as possible.

There'd be a lot fewer lives lost if teachers were armed and trained in the use of those arms, too.

The thing that has stuck out in ALL of the school shootings is that they started at about the same time schools became zero-tolerance zones for weapons of any kind. The Amish school was chosen specifically because the school was isolated and the Amish are peaceful people.

 

[mamapajamas]

Hence my question. Since there are far more gun killings in the US than in other countries (check the study), there must be something wrong with the way kids are brought up in the US, if you want to make the point you are making.

Since the US generally has more guns than most other countries, having more gun crimes is going to happen anyway. That's the way it works. Math is funny that way.

The question is whether or not more VIOLENT crime occurs, and the answer to that one is, "Hell no!"

 

[RandFan]

Danes are willing to spend a fair amount on just about anything these days. We are experiencing a fantastic economic growth.

Congrats. Seriously. I'm happy for you.

And yes, some spend some of it on something that is not entirely legal: We have drugs too, although not as seriously as in the US.

Agreed. I wish like hell we would get rid of this stupid drug war and legalize drugs. Prohibition only exacerbates problems.

But we don't spend it on illegal guns. Your argument is invalid.

? Danes want guns as much as Americans? Danes believe that it is their right to have guns? I'm sorry but I don't understand your argument. Americans want guns. BTW, Canadians want guns also. Lots of them. In the movie Bowling For Columbine Michael Moore makes the point that there are as many guns per capita in Canada as the United States. Yet there is far less gun homicides.

So, the availability of guns is not the problem. My argument IS valid.

That's because their religion forbids it.

So what? It's a prohibition. Their culture is different than our culture.

Prohibition of alcohol in America = Bad.
Prohibition of alcohol in Saudi Arabia = Not Bad.
No Prohibition of guns and lots availability of guns in Canada = low gun homicide.
No Prohibition of guns and lots availability of guns in America = higher gun homicide.

We can and do, in many cases, compare nations, especially if they are alike in culture. No, there is not that big a difference between American culture and Danish culture.

Is it ok to compare Americans to Canadians? I think American culture is a lot more like theirs than yours but there still is a difference.

Something is wrong here. Perhaps we shouldn't draw hasty conclusions. Hey, that sounds like a good name for a fallacy. Maybe I'll suggest it to the Intl Fallacy board, what do you think?

 

[Zep]

When we are talking about ordinary people, then we can indeed talk about NUMBER = AVAILABILITY.

No, we are talking RESPONSIBILITY. Different argument.

Let me just take you back to 1770 by way of comparison. At that time, MOST households in the USA had at least one gun, and there were no real restrictions on ownership or usage. In many places they were essential tools about the house; frontiersmen needed them to stock the larder, etc. Question: Was life more dangerous then as a direct result of the existence of all these weapons? Conversely, would the people have been more safe without them? I suspect not, although I also suspect there were still problems of gun accidents and wilful misuse just as now.

It isn't as if a few gun owners own all the guns, you know.

I rather suspect you are diametrically wrong on that. I would expect that the few indeed account for many, and that the average man in the US street does not own a gun.

They are also locked up to prevent soldiers from going bonkers and start firing away.

RESPONSIBILITY. Different argument.

That was merely another example of how dangerous guns are, even in the hands of trained people.

RESPONSIBILITY. Different argument.

I'm sorry, but the evidence does support my contention. Having guns is a bad idea.

Have to disagree. You are jumping to a conclusion not directly supported by your own evidence...how odd for you!

I agree you CAN argue that increased availability implies the requirement for increased (or improved) responsibility, and that lack of this may be a causal factor in perceived increases in gun/child/accident related incidents. You could also argue that "responsibility" MAY include imposition of tougher "access" controls as one measure - licensing and law-enforcement. Another measure could be improved safety education in guns, something that responsible gun owners and I heartily agree on.

 

[qayak]

Since the US generally has more guns than most other countries, having more gun crimes is going to happen anyway. That's the way it works. Math is funny that way.

Funny, you advocate that arming teachers would save lives (previous post) and then admit that more guns = more crime. Seems like a direct contradiction.

The question is whether or not more VIOLENT crime occurs, and the answer to that one is, "Hell no!"

Can you back this up with some evidence because it goes directly against all the evidence I have from the Department of Justice website in the US and the Statistics Canada website in Canada. Although I did once hear Charleton Heston say this in one of his rousing speeches.

 

[qayak]

Let me just take you back to 1770 by way of comparison. At that time, MOST households in the USA had at least one gun, and there were no real restrictions on ownership or usage. In many places they were essential tools about the house; frontiersmen needed them to stock the larder, etc. Question: Was life more dangerous then as a direct result of the existence of all these weapons? Conversely, would the people have been more safe without them? I suspect not, although I also suspect there were still problems of gun accidents and wilful misuse just as now.

This is a terrible argument. It is not 1770.

In 1770 Old Bess was the only weapon available, in 2006 we have these. http://www.compfused.com/directlink/3912/

In 1770 there were ??? people in the US (Well, it didn't actually exist yet but you know what I mean), in 2006-7 the US hits 300,000,000.

Etc.

Etc.

Yes, guns made the pioneers lives safer but we ain't pioneers and guns don't make our lives safer.

 

[Piggy]

Caveat: I haven't read the entire thread.

FWIW, here's my personal experience with this kind of thing.

When I was in school back in the late 70s / early 80s, I was part of the outsider subculture -- fractured and incohesive as it was.

Some kids in my sphere were pretty active with weapons, war gaming, building traps out in the woods, making homemade napalm from gasoline and styrofoam, that kind of thing. They read Soldier of Fortune in class, wore camo to school. Carried knives, but not the usual deer knives or Case knives that practically all the boys carried back then (even to school), but butterfly knives and bayonettes.

One of them was our salutatorian, an increasingly alienated kid who was a real sweet, funny, friendly guy when I met him in 7th grade, and by our senior year had carved a swastika on his arm -- he had to burn it off when he got accepted into West Point.

I hated school. And God knows these guys did, too. We were low on the pecking order -- not all the outsiders, but certainly me and these guys -- pretty much the only boys below us were the queers and the ones with obvious physical or mental deformities. Some of us handled it better than others, but we all had fantasies of destroying our school and the people in it, I can tell you that.

The thing is, a "school shooter" wasn't something to be in those days.

Now it is.

Even though the kid in the OP had been planning this for some time, it is also true that the recent publicity surrounding other events was certainly a factor in his decision to act. It's been shown that publicity surrounding, for example, suicides of public figures is correlated with increased suicides in the regions where publicity is available, and specifically suicides by the means mentioned in the media.

For every kid who shoots up a school, I guarantee you there are hundreds who have made detailed plans and never followed through.

 

[Darth Rotor]

But bombs aren't a realistic occurence in our civilized world.

Tell the poor folk of Iraq that.

DR

 

[RandFan]

Tell the poor folk of Iraq that.

DR

Lacking the ability to kill lots of people with a gun a troubled teen will take up butterfly collecting. So let's get rid of the guns and get our children interested in science.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Lacking the ability to kill lots of people with a gun a troubled teen will take up butterfly collecting. So let's get rid of the guns and get our children interested in science.

Science, especially physics and chemistry, is what teaches you how to make things to "boom!"

DR

 

[RandFan]

Science, especially physics and chemistry, is what teaches you how to make things to "boom!"

DR

And the ingredients from the cook book are under your sink and in the garden shed. Shhhh......

 

[Piggy]

Believe it or not, the meme is more important than the means.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Believe it or not, the meme is more important than the means.

Depending upon the desired end , I suspect that what you say is true. Well played.

DR

 

[qayak]

RF Wrote: "Lacking the ability to kill lots of people with a gun a troubled teen will take up butterfly collecting. So let's get rid of the guns and get our children interested in science."

DR Wrote: "Science, especially physics and chemistry, is what teaches you how to make things to "boom!"

RF Wrote: "And the ingredients from the cook book are under your sink and in the garden shed. Shhhh......"

I would just like to add one more point here: Any lazy ass, with half a brain and a hand can pick up a gun and kill people. If nothing else, getting rid of guns and forcing kids to build creative bombs from kitchen ingredients will increase the intellectual capacity of young criminals. That right there is a good reason for a full gun ban.

 

[slingblade]

There'd be a lot fewer lives lost if teachers were armed and trained in the use of those arms, too.

The thing that has stuck out in ALL of the school shootings is that they started at about the same time schools became zero-tolerance zones for weapons of any kind. The Amish school was chosen specifically because the school was isolated and the Amish are peaceful people.

Oh, Ed, then I'm glad I'm not teaching yet. I'd never teach if I had to carry a gun. Not worth it. I'm already wrestling with the petty politics and redundant policies, trying to decide if I can deal with just that much or not.

No, the answer is surely not more guns.

Frankly, though, as far as the human part of the problem goes, I'm pretty cynical.

Removing guns would drastically lessen one symptom, but it wouldn't cure the problem. The problem would remain, and would manifest in other ways.

I mean, we're such big thinkers that we can't move past "Yes, making guns scarce would be good. Then what?" We can't even begin to address "then what"--well, one poster did, but it was kind of vague, wasn't it? "Parents should do a better job." Yeah, another given. Of course parents should do a better job.

We're in trouble. We've always been in this trouble, we humans, but now we have bigger and better and deadlier ways to act it out. I get so cynical, thinking about it. We don't care enough. I don't care enough. Are we in the schools, we citizens? Yes, even those without kids, or with grown kids, grandkids. Why do we expect other people's kids to care about us when we don't really give two good yah-yahs about other people's kids? Not really, not all of us. Not enough.

I was thinking the other day: there's less reason now than there has been in a very long time for a generation gap. We know what today's kids go through better than our parents knew us, or their parents knew them. We had unwed mothers and date rape, STDs and drug use, fast cars and socially isolating technology, latchkey kids and working parents and too much time on our hands. We had bullies and favoritism and popularity contests, keggers and drunk drivers memorialized at graduation because they weren't there to share this special day.....

We've had all that. We know why we were angry, when we were kids.

Why don't we know why our kids are angry? Why can't we help?

 

[Piggy]

We're in trouble. We've always been in this trouble, we humans, but now we have bigger and better and deadlier ways to act it out.

Aye.

Aye.

 

[RandFan]

RF Wrote: "Lacking the ability to kill lots of people with a gun a troubled teen will take up butterfly collecting. So let's get rid of the guns and get our children interested in science."

DR Wrote: "Science, especially physics and chemistry, is what teaches you how to make things to "boom!"

RF Wrote: "And the ingredients from the cook book are under your sink and in the garden shed. Shhhh......"

I would just like to add one more point here: Any lazy ass, with half a brain and a hand can pick up a gun and kill people. If nothing else, getting rid of guns and forcing kids to build creative bombs from kitchen ingredients will increase the intellectual capacity of young criminals. That right there is a good reason for a full gun ban.