BREAKING: City centre knife rampage leaves 'several injured' as manhunt launched clearly there are not enough laws against knife wielding and stabbing people...
oh...so now its the "death count" that only matters? not the fact that people were injured by some maniac, "finding his way". And by finding his way, I mean finding a way to create chaos. Thats what they do, the instrument doesn't matter. And again, there are plenty of laws against wielding a knife in a threatening manner and stabbing people (attempted murder at the least). Both are against the law I would imagine. Yet, magically he was still able to stab innocent people...so obviously we need more gun laws to fix this too.
I have to say, it's quite enjoyable to watch you guys scramble and squirm when someone points out that you made an argument against yourself. Is it so hard to follow? Country with strict gun laws has very little gun violence...there is some violence, of course...but it's generally less deadly. The death count was always the point. I'm kind of confused about what other reason you thought there would be, to be honest. Why else do you think people are clamoring for gun regulation? Of course people will still find a way. Literally no one disputes that. The goal is to lessen then impact. Your article is a little bit of evidence that maybe it worked. Some of you dudes need to start trying to understand the other side of this argument. I'm not saying that the 'other side' is right, they're probably mostly wrong, like most people about most things. But if we're going to have an honest, intelligent conversation about this stuff, you need to drop the ego, lose the talking points and start trying to understand other points of view, even if you don't adopt them for your own thinking.
Ah! perfect @Continuum, remember my point about car deaths vs pistol vs rifle, you justified the multitude of car deaths as (iirc) an unavoidable outcome of a freedom you dont want to sacrifice. Fair enough (that is our argument as well). But if the count matters, pistols should be your next logical target, but it isn't. I am willing to go to the utter depths of this argument here in public if you would like, and we can see whose position is founded and whose is not. Maybe you will surprise me and I will be forced to change my position, but don't frame the argument like this side is all about ego and imply it lacks intellect or honesty. Lets roll.
I'm certainly not scrambling for anything at all. "drop the ego and understand other points of view". who has an ego here? My point has always been evil will find a way, regardless of the instrument. The instrument doesn't matter. Why are you trying to force me into a box? And I will never apologize for being against my RIGHTS being stripped because some people don't understand what they are talking about.
There have been knife massacres more deadly than Florida, several in China and Japan come to mind. Bombs and vehicles have been used to commit massacres in Europe more deadly than any mass shooting in American history. It's neither a gun problem or a uniquely American problem. Mass killings are neither more common or more deadly in America than they are around the world. There's not even much of a correlation between gun ownership and gun violence, let alone any evidence of a causal link. Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Yeah. The heartbreaking rise in brutal violence in Europe has nothing to do with gun laws, but with migration laws. We let in too many people who have good reason to hate us, and act on that regularly, be it rape or murder. They'll find ways to destroy us. I'll remind everyone here that the truck attacks claimed more lives in many cases than shootings have. It's not about the weapon, it's about the mind of the killer who uses it. As the Jihadists are clear and perfect evidence of.
You've left out an important element of my previous point, and slightly misrepresented my position. That's alright. I justified the multitude of car deaths not as an unavoidable outcome of freedom, but as a unavoidable outcome of an absolutely necessary element of our commerce. If cars were not such a critical element of our economy, and only an entertainment, I might be alright with getting rid of them. Also, I haven't thought too much about deaths that come from pistols (suicides, crime, gang violence), so I don't know what my position on them is yet. But like I've been saying over and over, it's a different problem that likely requires a different solution. My initial thought is that it mostly has to do with socioeconomic status and wealth disparity, combined with poor education and a lack of parenting, but I don't have a very solid idea on how to address that. It is absolutely about ego and nothing else. The desire to keep the AR in order to fight the government is pure paranoia, and the refusal to consider any compromise is ego. It lacks elements of intellect and honesty because of these straw men that are constantly propped up, like crime and Chicago and suicides and knife attacks, which have nothing to due with mass murders.
There's not much here to respond to, except 'evil will find a way', so I guess I'll just respond to that. Yes, "evil" (whatever that means) will find a way and people find ways to express it. No one is suggesting that anything will stop it completely, that would be silly. Isn't it worth it to try and find a way to lessen the impact, to make it more difficult, to dissuade, or to prevent if possible? Let me ask you something; If it turned out (and humor me here), that access to semi-automatic rifles were found to absolutely be the cause of mass-murders, and control and removal of them was possible and would be effective, would you be for a ban?
I think you should reflect on your own history of argument, and where ego may have entered. I have plenty of examples to go on in your history. Some questions to what, according to you, should be easy logic only clouded by ego: 1) How is the ongoing bloodbath in Chicago a straw man? I don't understand. There's tens of thousands of dead young black men over just the last decade. 2) What about the truck slaughters by Jihadists in Europe? Do they point to the fact that limiting rifle ownership will just lead people to different weapons - ones, as you point out, that we need for our vital commerce? 3) How did Norwegian gun regulations - extremely tight as they are - help in preventing Breivik from methodically slaughtering nearly a hundred teenagers with a rifle acquired easily off-market? 4) How do you balance the mental health aspect of this into the equation? I regularly hear that it's an extreme pattern that these mass shooters are on mind-regulating drugs that can numb them to empathy. Breivik famously took many of these pills on purpose, so he would be able to go through with the slaughter. And he sure did. It seems to me that there are many elements of this debate that are underconsidered, and that the strategy of conversation is unfruitful. How much progress do you think you will make with these blades, especially when adding in insult? Do you think, perhaps, that it's time to consider different strategies, some of which may be unorthodox, in order to stop this ongoing tragedy? I think it's harder and harder to claim that simply banning all firearms of a certain caliber or make will make a strong impact. I think that it's just another spiral of meaningless bickering between a citizenry equally horrified by the slaughters, all with no measurable results. For a very long time now.
If it turned out that all the perpetrators of terrorist attacks in Europe were Muslim migrants, and that control and removal of them was possible and would be effective, would you be for a Muslim ban?
1. It's a straw-man not because it's unimportant, but because it's a different problem with a different solution. Crime and murders in Chicago, DC and the like are mostly gang related, which are small, isolated incidents that happen very frequently with a specific target. The root cause of these types of murder is different, so the solution has to be different. 2. How would you feel if Jihadists had open and free access to weapons of war? I would agree that the increase in truck deaths is due to the tight regulations on weapons in Europe, but is that worse than the alternative? Don't you think it would be worse if they could openly buy and sell firearms with impunity? 3. How many of these kinds of mass murders have occurred in Norway since Breivik? 4. Mental health is, I believe, at the very root of the issue we're having here in America. I don't disagree that mind-altering drugs (mostly anti-depressants) play a huge part in this, maybe the biggest. I'm not opposed to some sort of initiative to tackle this, but how in the hell do you do it? It's a massive industry for one, and I don't think the mental state of these people is very well understood. I'm afraid that whatever solution was implemented would be clumsy and ineffective. This is why I suggest trying things alongside of other measures (like some gun control, and arming teachers).
Sorry, missed some: You're probably right that I should have left out the insult. It was late. Yes, I agree that every idea should be considered, regardless of it's orthodoxy. Second part I don't agree with. It still seems obvious to me that it will help. But as always, I'd be willing to alter or reverse my position if the evidence pointed somewhere else, and it's a complex problem that's difficult to wade though. Statistics only get you so far, since the context of them doesn't line up quite right if you're comparing, for example, Europe to America, or Chicago to America, or murders to mass-shootings, or gun violence to other kinds. The argument is mucked up with all kinds of shit like that.
Excellent and diplomatic response, an attitude of communication well worth carrying forward. 1) I completely agree with the nuance. However, this doesn't seem to be carried forward in the general debate. Could you expand on how solutions to gang violence in Chicago seperates from mass shootings, and could you argue how this disproves the importance of the people pulling the trigger over the tool with which they use. Gun control doesn't work on gang violence, at all, it just robs lawful citizens of the ability to defend themselves. Why would gun control work in other cases? Are there not plentiful evidences that it simply doesn't work, Breivik being an excellent example? They get these guns on the black market. You smoke weed, you know how easy it is to get illegal shit on the black market. Breivik didn't have much issue, either, neither did the Muslims who massacred all those concert-goers at Bataclan. We can get into discussion on whether or not it reduces violence, but I can only point to the European truck jihad to prove that it only channels that violence into other means. 2) Gun regulations have not done anything to stop terrorists, even in arming themselves with military grade weapons. The Muslims who murdered the cartoonists (for the gall to draw Muhammed, fcuking racists), had full military kit. In France, which has lots of regulations. The point I am attempting to convey to you here is that evil people will find a way, and that we have no evidence that gun regulation prevents violence from those committed to doing it. Yes? The Jihadists will get his kill score in, no matter how he does it, and taking guns away from the rest of us just means we're helpless slaughter victims when they show up. It's the presence of masses of Muslims from warzones we've been bombing for a decade, not guns, that has us scared over here. The mind of the killer scares us, not his weapon, yes? Think of the reverse of what you propose. What if Muslims got to waltz in off the boat from the mosques of Deir Ezzor and buy guns? Sure. Consider then, what if Europeans were allowed to buy the same guns, and arm themselves? As opposed to the open field of rape and slaughter that there is now? An example to prove my point: In Europe, the magazine Charlie Hebdo drew the prophet Muhammed. A team of Muslims armed with automatic rifles(in a place where they are banned) promptly showed up at their offices, kicked the door in, and proceeded to slaughter them, point blank. In Texas, a draw Muhammed contest was held. Predictably, violent Muslims showed up and began to shoot, and the Texans gunned them all down. Eat Texan lead, Jihadist fucks. As opposed to the tragic slaughter and resulting fear of drawing Muhammed that we have in Europe now. 3) What a strange sentence - Breivik only proves my point, don't you see? No gun slaughters before, none after, because of our culture of social cohesion. We've had the same gun regulation throughout, yes? But then a guy showed up, furious, sick, and prepared to destroy - and he found that way, with assault rifles and explosives, all of which are heavily banned here. Gun regulation did jack shit. We don't have a lot of people here with reasons to be violent, yes? The only thing Breivik proves is that gun regulations didn't stop him. If you're assuming that the absence of gun massacres has anything to do with gun regulation, in a country full of firearms, then I strongly recommend spending some time studying Norway's history of cohesion and violence. 4) Fantastic. This is the most important part of anything you have posted, and I could not agree more. The problem is indeed multifaceted - here is my (purely strategic) suggestion in: progress through the subset of agreeable solutions first, such as regulating the mind-medicine industry, and then begin progressing through the solutions you may find resistance on, where this kind of needless bickering shows its face. As with the slaughters in Europe, I'm very interested in preventing further damage by the best possible route. If I encounter opposition, as I certainly have when discussing Muslim migration in large numbers to Europe, then I have diverged into other methods of convincing. Taking things to private conversation is, for example, an excellent way to avoid the feather-showing we all do here in the public forae, where, as you point out, our egoes are on the line. Fascinating. Not even I hold that stance, and I'm not fan of Muslim migration. I was not expecting that reply, I was looking to make a point on the 'no' answer, but that point goes moot. No comment to your final post, with which I tend to agree. Where I tend to disagree is rather mild; it's in the effectiveness of the strategy, and how a political tactician may go forward. What I read now in the gun debate is the same I've been reading for the decade that I've been paying attention. Has much changed there, in the gun debate, that I've missed?
No I would not. I'm in favor of enforcing laws already on the books as opposed to making new ones that don't mean shit. Your asking if everything else was removed and it was proven 100% that was the only cause, would I be for removal? No I would not. I can guarantee you that the driver behind the wheel is just as responsible as the alcohol he drinks before he/she gets into a car and runs over a family of four going to church in the morning. Obviously alcohol, in this instance, was a factor, obviously his/her ability to drive was a factor, hell the car was a factor. So let me ask you a question then. Why don't you call for prohibition again every time you hear about a drunk driver killing a family? Why aren't you calling for banning of vehicles? Why is it the gun is always the focus, when for every other incident that causes a human life to be snuffed out, its not the object being blamed? Can you answer that for me? And then can you also tell me why you think I should give up my right to own a firearm to defend myself and my family because some asshole shot up an easy target, regardless of how horribly inept the broward county sheriff is. Can you tell me...would you give up your car because a drunk driver killed a family? Edit: How about your right to freedom of speech. Would you give up your right to freedom of speech because someone pissed off someone else? If someone you knew was offended by being called a woman instead of a person, would you give up your right for freedom of speech to appease them? How about freedom of assembly. Should we all give up our rights to free assembly because of what happened in charlottesville last year? don't think I need to go on any further here do I?
you are way off here, you act like someone can cross the border and walk into a gun shop and buy a gun. Legal gun purchases are NOT that easy, especially if you are not an actual citizen. Your example is the true strawman, no doubt about it.