School shooting: but don't mention guns!

[zeggman]

Please cease deluding yourself that you have unrestricted free speech - you don't. You have it to the extent your government decides it won't infringe on the rights/safety of others. Like we do. How many instances do you think you have more freedom of speech than we do in say the UK.

Our freedom of speech is not unrestricted. It's less restricted than yours is in the UK.

Ironically there's another thread going on where people are proposing protests, and in some cases, violence towards the Westboro people exercising their free speech. Personally I find the Westboro folk disgusting, but some people very pro protection of the second amendment seem more flexible about the first amendment if it is used by people they don't like.

I am pro-2nd and pro-1st amendment. I think the Westboro Baptist Church are clowns looking for attention, and I give them the same amount of my attention I give to Honey Boo Boo and Kim Kardashian.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Of course it does, just as easy availability of automobiles contributes to the rate at which people are killed and injured by automobiles. Easy availability of guns also contributes to injuries and deaths due to accidental shootings.

We have made a choice, that the freedom to own a firearm is important enough to accept a few additional casualties. You may consider it "heartless" to express it so frankly, but these deaths really are part of the price of freedom.

We also have the freedom to make a difference choice whenever we so choose. And the weighing should not be an abstract notion versus lives lost needlessly, as that is heartless and impossible to discuss. The better argument would be utility in saving lives and other things versus lives lost needlessly.

 

[ServiceSoon]

Just because you ban/restrict one thing doesn't mean you have to ban/restrict other things. If there is evidence that banning/restricting gun ownership will reduce the number/severity of spree killings and people want to reduce the number of spree killings more than they want to own guns, then guns should be banned/restricted. The same argument applies to machetes, axes etc... Banning one doesn't mean that you would necessarily have to ban the others though. Why would it?

All of the studies I've browsed have repeatedly found no link that reducing the amount of certain firearms (aka assault weapon ban) will reduce the amount of killing sprees, or crime in general. Between 80 & 90% of crimes committed with guns are handguns.

I'd also note that the amount of mass killings in the United States is not becoming more common.

Sorry but this is just contrary to what actually happens in the real world. We seem to manage very well in many countries including the USA to decide that some forms of weapons are not suitable in the hands of everyday folk. (Many of us probably also think they shouldn't be in the hands of anyone but that's a different discussion.)

Ditto above and your last sentence is very telling. I applaud you on your honesty.

 

[ServiceSoon]

Our freedom of speech is not unrestricted. It's less restricted than yours is in the UK.

A lot less restricted. I saw an article recently where a teenager posted jokes on his facebook page about a missing child. The jokes were done in bad taste and wouldn't have been funny even if they were told after the child was found. He was sentenced to jail.

 

[Information Analyst]

Clearly they must, as poor people are far more likely to be victims of crimes in every single category.

Except not all crimes are aquisitive. For example, assault and/or murder can be the "desired" end result, not the byproduct of attempted theft.

 

[zeggman]

I suspect you could have more of a reasoned conversation about regulating swimming pools than regulating guns. People seem much more attached to guns than swimming pools. In the UK lots of public swimming pools were closed when polio was a big problem. Maybe that was the right thing to do, maybe not, but I don't think it would be sensible to claim that we had some kind of inaliable right to swimming pools that trumped all conversations about their societal cost/benifit.

I own neither a gun nor a swimming pool.

Maybe you only think you could have a reasoned conversation because no one is proposing a ban of the bigger baby killer.

There is plenty of emotion on both sides.

 

[Alt+F4]

I saw an article recently where a teenager posted jokes on his facebook page about a missing child. The jokes were done in bad taste and wouldn't have been funny even if they were told after the child was found. He was sentenced to jail.

I don't understand. What was he charged with? What was he convicted of? Jail is not for post-sentenced incarceration, prison is.

 

[zeggman]

We also have the freedom to make a difference choice whenever we so choose. And the weighing should not be an abstract notion versus lives lost needlessly, as that is heartless and impossible to discuss. The better argument would be utility in saving lives and other things versus lives lost needlessly.

Yes, we have the freedom to make a different choice.

Do guns save lives? Undeniably, they do. Do they also take innocent lives? Again, yes, undeniably.

Automobiles? Yes, to both questions.

Backyard pools? Yes, to both questions.

 

[zeggman]

I don't understand. What was he charged with? What was he convicted of? Jail is not for post-sentenced incarceration, prison is.

The terminology may be different in different places, but jails are routinely used to house those convicted of misdemeanors in the United States.

 

[Dorian Gray]

Of course it does, just as easy availability of automobiles contributes to the rate at which people are killed and injured by automobiles. Easy availability of guns also contributes to injuries and deaths due to accidental shootings.

We have made a choice, that the freedom to own a firearm is important enough to accept a few additional casualties. You may consider it "heartless" to express it so frankly, but these deaths really are part of the price of freedom.

Wait a minute! The Second Amendment says nothing about firearms. It says arms. Since we can't have nukes, hand grenades, tanks, etc., then it is already acceptable to ban the population from having these things. Thus, it is clear that the Second Amendment was never intended to allow citizens to have access to all weapons.

And please, can you stop making the ultra lame "other things kill, so why don't we ban them too" argument? Have you ever read a story where a "carman" drove a car into a school and ran over 28 people, killing them?

 

[Ambrosia]

Throwing standard title one firearms (as semi-auto non-National Firearms Act are considered legally) into the NFA runs afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Heller case, which stated that individuals have a right to possess firearms "in common use" for personal protection - no "sporting use" nonsense is applicable. A handgun was the specific firearm in question in Heller, but the use of the term "in common use" becomes a real problem for the anti-gun segment as the most popular class of firearms in America for the last twenty years are the rifles, handguns and shotguns they'd choose to ban.

I knew there were SC rulings, just not up to speed on the details of them.

For the record I am against banning guns. For the same reasons that I am against prohibition of drugs, namely prohibition doesn't work.

I don't own a gun. I don't want to own a gun. I do enjoy shooting them from time to time.

I think what can work is good/better regulation.

If an individual wants a gun they ought to be allowed one, provided they pass the background checks and what have you. I think that looking at the types of guns the general population can keep themselves would be a good thing to do. I don't see why joe public ought to be allowed semi-auto anything, or high powered rifles (anything higher than what you'd need to drop a deer sized animal)

I'd allow private citizens to go shooting whatever ordnance they dam well wanted to at a licensed shooting range, but anything that's not allowed in the hands of joe public would remain locked up at the gun range when not being used.

If someone wants to use and carry higher powered weaponry they are free to join the military/police.

Not sure how feasible any of those changes might be to introduce given the rulings of the SC, but if there was enough public support for such measures then they could get passed.

I do think it would be a Very Good Thing[tm] for the US to have a rethink about it's gun laws. There are too many mass shootings imo. While no legislation is ever going to stop all of them perhaps better regulation can ameliorate the effects a little.

Perhaps the majority of the US likes it's gun laws the way they are right now, perhaps a reform is in order, I do think a debate about what better regulation might be enacted is in order.

but if you've got the money, Mini-guns are available- in the 200 K $ range that is.

Didn't realise that, thanks for the correction. That's one thing I'd like to go to a range somewhere and shoot before I die.

 

[BStrong]

Our freedom of speech is not unrestricted. It's less restricted than yours is in the UK.


I am pro-2nd and pro-1st amendment. I think the Westboro Baptist Church are clowns looking for attention, and I give them the same amount of my attention I give to Honey Boo Boo and Kim Kardashian.

Well stated.

My experience w/the westboro bunch comes from first hand observation riding with the Patriot Guard -they "protested" a funeral for a Marine KIA.

Their "Protest" took place in a place set aside specifically for that purpose, they filmed themselves, yelled and carried on for maybe 20 minutes tops, and then piled into rented vans and split w/ police escort.

It's ******** fundraising and assault/civil suit bait only.

 

[Autolite]

The reason for that would be that him mother wouldn't have had the gun in the first place because it would either not be socially acceptable, or illegal for her to have it.

You're suggesting making the private ownership of firearms illegal or at least socially unacceptable in order to prevent them from being stolen (in this case by a mentally unstable individual) and used in a criminal manner. Am I understanding this correctly?

So where then do we draw the line???

 

[shuttlt]

A lot less restricted. I saw an article recently where a teenager posted jokes on his facebook page about a missing child. The jokes were done in bad taste and wouldn't have been funny even if they were told after the child was found. He was sentenced to jail.

This is kind of a new thing and the law is still finding it's feet on the issue. In the first instance he was arrested for his own protection. I hope something like this might have happened in the US. Amongst the difficulties are that I think he posted it publicly on facebook. Now, if I went around Newtown putting up posters making jokes about dead 6 year olds, then I'd be an idiot. Maybe I'd be in trouble in the US, maybe I wouldn't. I don't see that it's obvious that I shouldn't be in trouble for doing something so cruel and hurtful. The law in the UK is still deciding, I think, whether and in what sense posting nasty little messages on the internet is like this example.

By the sound of the case, after the media had got everybody going on this, he was lucky that the law got to him first.

 

[Alt+F4]

Do guns save lives? Undeniably, they do.

In 2010, 70% of all homicides in the U.S. were caused by firearms.

You are wrong.

 

[shuttlt]

You're suggesting making the private ownership of firearms illegal or at least socially unacceptable in order to prevent them from being stolen (in this case by a mentally unstable individual) and used in a criminal manner. Am I understanding this correctly?

So where then do we draw the line???

I'm suggesting you could do this, if you want random unhinged teens to find it difficult to shoot 20 children. You then draw the line where you want to draw it. A while later you look at the line and either move it, or leave it alone. There is surely no reason why gun ownership should be held above an ongoing discussion of societal cost/benifits, unless you think in the long run that process would lead somewhere you don't want to go?

 

[Hungry81]

In New south wales (Australia) kids drowning in swimming pools was a big issue about 20 years ago. The state made it a requirement that new and existing pools have a certain standard of fencing around them. Existing pools were given a generous time period to comply. This cut right down on child backyard drowning deaths. Occasionally you will hear that a child has drowned or almost drowned but these are usually cases where a fence was not installed, a gate was left propped open or a supervising adult was momentarily distracted.
There are not inspections of houses to ensure compliance but if a child drowns in a household without a pool fence there are severe penalties for the owner.
Another example of reasoned and intelligent regulation saving lives

 

[Ashles]

Our freedom of speech is not unrestricted. It's less restricted than yours is in the UK.

And I ask again, in what way? What way are you allowed to express your freedom of speech that I am not?

 

[Rat]

If this sort of blind inclusive list-making is too unfair, do you think perhaps mental health assessments solely for the purpose of purchasing a gun might be a better way to go?

Yes, without a doubt; at least as long as the assessments don't end up saying "this person has a mental illness and therefore can't own a gun", since that would be the same end as the original suggestion. As it is, there is no evidence that most people with mental illnesses are a danger to others, or generally to themselves. If that were the case, then there would be a lot more of these cases than there are, since there is a lot more mental illness around than most people realize.

If it's just about the fact that mentally ill people are more likely to do this than others, then as far as I can tell, black people, for example, commit far more murders per capita than white people (or at least are convicted for it). The proper response to that is not to outlaw selling guns to black people, but to combat the reason that things are that way (presumably at least partly gang killings, but I don't know).

 

[Alt+F4]

There is surely no reason why gun ownership should be held above an ongoing discussion of societal cost/benifits, unless you think in the long run that process would lead somewhere you don't want to go?

I call it the "Constitution Freak-Out". How dare anyone try to take away American's 2nd Amendment rights! The Founding Fathers! Blah, blah, blah....

The Constitution, when written, allowed slavery, women couldn't vote and there was a whole bunch of other horrible things in there....but hey, it was 1787.

The best thing about the Framers is that they drafted a living Constitution, one that could be amended as time went by. Could anyone argue today that the 19th Amendment (women's suffrage) is a bad idea just because it wasn't in the original document?

We need to move beyond the 2nd Amendment, we have live in the world we have now. I'm certain that Washington, Hamilton, Franklin and Madison would agree with me.