Shooting at CT Elementary School. WTF AMERICA?!

[Don Coyote]

See the thing is, if someone went fucking batshit and drove a car through a densely packed area and killed 30 people, it is obvious that he is crazy and no one is going to be calling for the banning of cars.

Or someone is serial killing people by drowning them, it's obviously because he is crazy, and no one is going to ask that pools be banned.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

If it wasn't guns, it would have been poison or a bomb or someone driving a bus into the building/playground whatever else. There are an infinite variety of ways to kill people.

If guns are harder to get then they'll use the next easiest thing and the next and the next. In between next new things there will be a lull or a gap until the next fad comes along, then an outbreak, and then wash, rinse, repeat.

Going after the method doesn't change the underlying problem. You can put as many band-aids on a severed limb as you want, but that's not going to fix it.

[Don Coyote]

See, I think there are a ton of ways we could make the country a safer and better place. Banning guns aren't even in my top ten, to tell the truth, even if I believed that there was a functional way to unring that bell and recall all the guns out there on the market, and prevent any more from coming in illegally.

Expanding light rail in order to minimize personal automobile use, largely eliminating the need for personal automobile ownership. How many lives would that save each year, in addition to the reduction in auto accidents? How much war could we avert?

A cost of living stipend for everyone, regardless of income.

Universal health care and free birth control for everyone.

Increased mental health care and greater support systems for mental health issues.

Increased regulations on corporate activities to ensure that their actions are beneficial to the populace.

Changes in farm subsidy policies so that we stop subsidizing largely worthless monoculture crops and corporate farms, and encourage small farmers to diversify their crops.

Tax the fuck out of the super-rich.

End corporate welfare.

Implement a fully subsidized educational system from preschool to PhD.

Shorten the work week to 30 hours.

Significantly increase paid sick time and parental leave.

Significantly increase vacation time, both paid and unpaid options.

If these were implemented, betcha anything that gun (and other types of) violence would become a minimal issue.

I suspect that all this madness of public shootings is a symptom of there being too many people and too much stress of the kind that humanity hasn't evolved to cope with.

[Pæs]

See the thing is, if someone went fucking batshit and drove a car through a densely packed area and killed 30 people, it is obvious that he is crazy and no one is going to be calling for the banning of cars.

Or someone is serial killing people by drowning them, it's obviously because he is crazy, and no one is going to ask that pools be banned.

Nobody is ever violently impulsive at the wheel of a car.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

See the thing is, if someone went fucking batshit and drove a car through a densely packed area and killed 30 people, it is obvious that he is crazy and no one is going to be calling for the banning of cars.

Or someone is serial killing people by drowning them, it's obviously because he is crazy, and no one is going to ask that pools be banned.

Also, this.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Accidental deaths are ok because I want to be able to swim in my pool and drive my car.

At no point have I said anything about any death being okay.  It's a stupid analogy anyway and I should have just ignored it.  Guns are for killing, pools are for swimming.  To outlaw death we'd need to outlaw living.  But you can outlaw intentional death and put up barriers to make mass intentional death more difficult.

SOMEONE SHOULD OUTLAW INTENTIONAL DEATH.

I'M SURPRISED NOBODY HAS DONE THAT YET! 

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Accidental deaths are ok because I want to be able to swim in my pool and drive my car.

At no point have I said anything about any death being okay.  It's a stupid analogy anyway and I should have just ignored it.  Guns are for killing, pools are for swimming.  To outlaw death we'd need to outlaw living.  But you can outlaw intentional death and put up barriers to make mass intentional death more difficult.

SOMEONE SHOULD OUTLAW INTENTIONAL DEATH.

I'M SURPRISED NOBODY HAS DONE THAT YET! 

Isn't suicide illegal? Does that count?

[Pæs]

Accidental deaths are ok because I want to be able to swim in my pool and drive my car.

At no point have I said anything about any death being okay.  It's a stupid analogy anyway and I should have just ignored it.  Guns are for killing, pools are for swimming.  To outlaw death we'd need to outlaw living.  But you can outlaw intentional death and put up barriers to make mass intentional death more difficult.

SOMEONE SHOULD OUTLAW INTENTIONAL DEATH.

I'M SURPRISED NOBODY HAS DONE THAT YET! 

We should start a pention against intentional death.

Something about terrorists using our swimming pools against us or 

[Faust]

See, I think there are a ton of ways we could make the country a safer and better place. Banning guns aren't even in my top ten, to tell the truth, even if I believed that there was a functional way to unring that bell and recall all the guns out there on the market, and prevent any more from coming in illegally.

Expanding light rail in order to minimize personal automobile use, largely eliminating the need for personal automobile ownership. How many lives would that save each year, in addition to the reduction in auto accidents? How much war could we avert?

A cost of living stipend for everyone, regardless of income.

Universal health care and free birth control for everyone.

Increased mental health care and greater support systems for mental health issues.

Increased regulations on corporate activities to ensure that their actions are beneficial to the populace.

Changes in farm subsidy policies so that we stop subsidizing largely worthless monoculture crops and corporate farms, and encourage small farmers to diversify their crops.

Tax the fuck out of the super-rich.

End corporate welfare.

Implement a fully subsidized educational system from preschool to PhD.

Shorten the work week to 30 hours.

Significantly increase paid sick time and parental leave.

Significantly increase vacation time, both paid and unpaid options.

If these were implemented, betcha anything that gun (and other types of) violence would become a minimal issue.

Agreed, it is symptomatic, and if legislation is fruitless then these methods would probably be far more likely to garner results.
Of course if managed correctly at that point gun proliferation can also be tackled and legislation could stop it rising to the high levels again should things get shit again.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And in retarded news from the right...



So, it's either the guns or the internet.  Not the perpetrator being a fucking nutcase or anything.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

See, I think there are a ton of ways we could make the country a safer and better place. Banning guns aren't even in my top ten, to tell the truth, even if I believed that there was a functional way to unring that bell and recall all the guns out there on the market, and prevent any more from coming in illegally.

Expanding light rail in order to minimize personal automobile use, largely eliminating the need for personal automobile ownership. How many lives would that save each year, in addition to the reduction in auto accidents? How much war could we avert?

A cost of living stipend for everyone, regardless of income.

Universal health care and free birth control for everyone.

Increased mental health care and greater support systems for mental health issues.

Increased regulations on corporate activities to ensure that their actions are beneficial to the populace.

Changes in farm subsidy policies so that we stop subsidizing largely worthless monoculture crops and corporate farms, and encourage small farmers to diversify their crops.

Tax the fuck out of the super-rich.

End corporate welfare.

Implement a fully subsidized educational system from preschool to PhD.

Shorten the work week to 30 hours.

Significantly increase paid sick time and parental leave.

Significantly increase vacation time, both paid and unpaid options.

If these were implemented, betcha anything that gun (and other types of) violence would become a minimal issue.

I suspect that all this madness of public shootings is a symptom of there being too many people and too much stress of the kind that humanity hasn't evolved to cope with.

I don't even think it's too many people, as much as just too much stress and an overall very mentally unhealthy population. We work too hard and receive too little reward, we are always stressed, we have little to no hope of ever doing better than our parents did or even as well as our parents did, we have no financial or even physical security at all, and it's terrible for us.

[Sita]

As I said before, The way my brain works is that if you are gonna kill someone it doesn't matter what you use.

So what I'm getting from the anti-gun crowd is that even though you can kill someone with anything, you could possibly not kill as many as fast if that thing isn't a gun.
Also that most people who use a gun to kill wouldn't bother if they didn't have that method.

Now I've thought about it since it was mentioned, and it just may be some flaw with me, but I just can't see anyone that takes the time to get a gun (plus a vest in some cases) being deterred from the time it takes to make a bomb or practice with a knife or whatever.


good god, I get distracted and forget to hit post and like 20 replies go by....still gonna post anyway

[Faust]

See the thing is, if someone went fucking batshit and drove a car through a densely packed area and killed 30 people, it is obvious that he is crazy and no one is going to be calling for the banning of cars.

Or someone is serial killing people by drowning them, it's obviously because he is crazy, and no one is going to ask that pools be banned.

No one is saying a person with a gun on a shooting spree isn't crazy. I haven't commented on motivation in any way shape or form.
If commented on the restricting of access to the easiest method of implementing a killing spree and the car example does happen but is even rarer then knife or club attacks.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Accidental deaths are ok because I want to be able to swim in my pool and drive my car.

At no point have I said anything about any death being okay.  It's a stupid analogy anyway and I should have just ignored it.  Guns are for killing, pools are for swimming.  To outlaw death we'd need to outlaw living.  But you can outlaw intentional death and put up barriers to make mass intentional death more difficult.

SOMEONE SHOULD OUTLAW INTENTIONAL DEATH.

I'M SURPRISED NOBODY HAS DONE THAT YET! 

We should start a pention against intentional death.

Something about terrorists using our swimming pools against us or 

I'm gonna write a letter to my legislators.

[Don Coyote]

See the thing is, if someone went fucking batshit and drove a car through a densely packed area and killed 30 people, it is obvious that he is crazy and no one is going to be calling for the banning of cars.

Or someone is serial killing people by drowning them, it's obviously because he is crazy, and no one is going to ask that pools be banned.

No one is saying a person with a gun on a shooting spree isn't crazy. I haven't commented on motivation in any way shape or form.
If commented on the restricting of access to the easiest method of implementing a killing spree and the car example does happen but is even rarer then knife or club attacks.

And you don't think that desperate people aren't going to turn to the next easiest method of causing mass harm?
Cars are easier to get access to than gun.