Unlimited "Guns, Fuck Yeah!" Thread

[The Good Reverend Roger]

While a single, "assault weapon" might mow down 20 kids with a single pull of the trigger,

See, this is EXACTLY what ECH and I have been talking about.  That isn't what happened.

Precisely. That isn't what happened in any of the incident I discussed. All of them used pistols, shotguns, rifles etc. The most crazy of all the guns used was the rifle with 100 rounds used at the theater, which wasn't fully automatic and jammed after a third of the rounds had been fired.

Not the point.  An "assault weapon" as available cannot fire fully-automatic.  "One pull of the trigger" gets you "one bullet".  The media frenzy going on right now describes assault weapons as magickal death devices that fire a stream of bullets like a fire hose.  Most people seem to believe that you CAN "mow down 20 kids with a single pull of the trigger.  You couldn't do that with a military grade rifle, because you couldn't keep an aiming point.  Hell, you'd have problems doing that with a light machine gun.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

While a single, "assault weapon" might mow down 20 kids with a single pull of the trigger,

See, this is EXACTLY what ECH and I have been talking about.  That isn't what happened.

Precisely. That isn't what happened in any of the incident I discussed. All of them used pistols, shotguns, rifles etc. The most crazy of all the guns used was the rifle with 100 rounds used at the theater, which wasn't fully automatic and jammed after a third of the rounds had been fired.

Not the point.  An "assault weapon" as available cannot fire fully-automatic.  "One pull of the trigger" gets you "one bullet".  The media frenzy going on right now describes assault weapons as magickal death devices that fire a stream of bullets like a fire hose.  Most people seem to believe that you CAN "mow down 20 kids with a single pull of the trigger.  You couldn't do that with a military grade rifle, because you couldn't keep an aiming point.  Hell, you'd have problems doing that with a light machine gun.

My point was that even if fully auto was available and worked as the media stated, it wasn't necessary. Sorry if it wasn't clear. :/

[P3nT4gR4m]

As long as guns exist, people will use them to harm other people.

If you believe that the second amendment entitles citizens to own some guns, then gun control WILL NOT stop future incidents like these.

We can pass some gun controls laws (disregarding for a moment the constitutional issues) but this will only make us feel better rather than actually solving or helping to solve the problem.

I have to agree with Rat on this one.  And from that, we should be looking at a wider context and work at reducing the larger culture's propensity for violence.  Which leads us (me, at least) to agree with Nigel's idea regarding income disparity.

In WWII, only 20% of front line soldiers pulled the trigger, even when fired upon.

In Vietnam, it was 65%.

In the Iraq invasion, it was 95%.

So, in a period of about 60 years, 75% more people were willing to shoot other people.  This isn't caused by individual gun ownership, because that hasn't changed over that time period (hell, between the world wars, you could own a fully-automatic Thompson submachine gun). 

No, it has to do with the changes in our culture between the end of WWII and today.  And what have those changes been? 

Television (24 is a great example, as are most "crime dramas").
Movies (Rambo being a prime example).
Video games (The DoD subsidizes some development, and even produced their own ("Real War").

All of the above are used to desensitize people to killing, to a degree that would have made a dark ages knight blush.

The problem here isn't the tool being used.

This! It's the comedy flipside of the anti-censorship argument. Most people agree that a "normal" person knows the difference between things they see in movies and things that happen in real life. What most people don't appreciate is how much of your mental processing apparatus makes no such distinction and how much that can impact the decision making part that thinks it's in control.

Upshot - most people only think they know the difference between movies and real life. Put them in a situation where they don't have time to think about it and all bets are off

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Further, issues such as income disparity, gang violence etc may very well help with many kinds of gun violence, it doesn't appear that in any of the examples, the shooter(s) was poor and desperate or a member of a gang.

Why do you people insist on believing that "income disparity" means "poor"?

Poorer nations with less income disparity have less gun violence than the US. It isn't about "poor people kill each other with guns".

Income DISPARITY affects all people who live within the affected nation, regardless of income LEVEL.

That doesn't mean it was the primary influencing factor at Sandy Hook. But we can't really ignore that it has the single most powerful corellation with gun violence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Unless you're RWHN, in which case you can't let silly little things like facts get in the way.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

When it comes to Sandy Hook,

The mother owned the guns because she was FRIGHTENED of her own son. The movie theater shooter's mother's first response was "You have the right person". This implies known psychological problems and a lack of action due to parents.

Should we be looking at responsible parenting and not guns?

Just asking

You're talking out your ass.

No one knows why the mother owned the guns, or, in fact, for certain whether they were hers.

She got the kid plenty of mental health help.

There is no evidence that indicates she should have known this was going to happen.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

As long as guns exist, people will use them to harm other people.

If you believe that the second amendment entitles citizens to own some guns, then gun control WILL NOT stop future incidents like these.

We can pass some gun controls laws (disregarding for a moment the constitutional issues) but this will only make us feel better rather than actually solving or helping to solve the problem.

I have to agree with Rat on this one.  And from that, we should be looking at a wider context and work at reducing the larger culture's propensity for violence.  Which leads us (me, at least) to agree with Nigel's idea regarding income disparity.

It's not really my idea

I'm just siding with some people who have done what appears to be good research in this area.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

When it comes to Sandy Hook,

The mother owned the guns because she was FRIGHTENED of her own son. The movie theater shooter's mother's first response was "You have the right person". This implies known psychological problems and a lack of action due to parents.

Should we be looking at responsible parenting and not guns?

Just asking

You're talking out your ass.

No one knows why the mother owned the guns, or, in fact, for certain whether they were hers.

She got the kid plenty of mental health help.

There is no evidence that indicates she should have known this was going to happen.

The parents are always the first to get blamed.

Income disparity and this don't get mentioned much.

ETA: Not saying the guy shouldn't have been medicated. Just that when a kid has issues, the schools tend to fuck them up worse.

[Suu]

Also, remember in another thread where ECH mentioned that the 2nd Amendment was for slaves?

Bingo. Kai just posted this link.

http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2013/01/20/militias-and-slaves/

[Salty]

I was thinking about this thread and how much it inspired some of my rather glands, then I let up with some people who started gabbering about how clearly, CLEARLY, this Sandy Hook guy was CIA.

AFTER ALL, WHAT WOULD MAKE LIBRUL BLEEDING HEARTS ENGAGE IN NAZI BEHAVIOR MORE THAN DEAD KIDS. Barely paraphrasing there. Also, racial slurs were bandied. Won't be spending much time there.

So thanks, PD. Despite your general terribleness, you are still better than IRL.

[Suu]

I was thinking about this thread and how much it inspired some of my rather glands, then I let up with some people who started gabbering about how clearly, CLEARLY, this Sandy Hook guy was CIA.

AFTER ALL, WHAT WOULD MAKE LIBRUL BLEEDING HEARTS ENGAGE IN NAZI BEHAVIOR MORE THAN DEAD KIDS. Barely paraphrasing there. Also, racial slurs were bandied. Won't be spending much time there.

So thanks, PD. Despite your general terribleness, you are still better than IRL.

The conspiracy theories circulating are absurd to the Nth degree.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I was thinking about this thread and how much it inspired some of my rather glands, then I let up with some people who started gabbering about how clearly, CLEARLY, this Sandy Hook guy was CIA.

AFTER ALL, WHAT WOULD MAKE LIBRUL BLEEDING HEARTS ENGAGE IN NAZI BEHAVIOR MORE THAN DEAD KIDS. Barely paraphrasing there. Also, racial slurs were bandied. Won't be spending much time there.

So thanks, PD. Despite your general terribleness, you are still better than IRL.

The conspiracy theories circulating are absurd to the Nth degree.

In fairness this is true of most conspiracy theories

[Suu]

I was thinking about this thread and how much it inspired some of my rather glands, then I let up with some people who started gabbering about how clearly, CLEARLY, this Sandy Hook guy was CIA.

AFTER ALL, WHAT WOULD MAKE LIBRUL BLEEDING HEARTS ENGAGE IN NAZI BEHAVIOR MORE THAN DEAD KIDS. Barely paraphrasing there. Also, racial slurs were bandied. Won't be spending much time there.

So thanks, PD. Despite your general terribleness, you are still better than IRL.

The conspiracy theories circulating are absurd to the Nth degree.

In fairness this is true of most conspiracy theories

You are correct, but for some reason, "9-11 was an inside job!" seems less nutty than, "Obama faked killing a bunch of kids to take our guns!

[P3nT4gR4m]

Just add "... because of reptilian shape shifters" to any explanation that's not kooky enough for ya, then punch it into google and despair 

[Cain]

I was thinking about this thread and how much it inspired some of my rather glands, then I let up with some people who started gabbering about how clearly, CLEARLY, this Sandy Hook guy was CIA.

AFTER ALL, WHAT WOULD MAKE LIBRUL BLEEDING HEARTS ENGAGE IN NAZI BEHAVIOR MORE THAN DEAD KIDS. Barely paraphrasing there. Also, racial slurs were bandied. Won't be spending much time there.

So thanks, PD. Despite your general terribleness, you are still better than IRL.

What rubbish.

I mean, any idiot can see it's the children who were the CIA agents.