If the Sandy Hook incident does not bring on changes due to the NRA NO

[Pogo]

This will be an atrocity. There are so many things that could be done to assure that this never happens again. But if there is mention of gun laws or anything to do with guns the NRA says NO.

They don't represent the majority of gun owners anymore. They respresent the manufactorers. Sooner or later, the NO, is going to start costing them memberships.

Hopefully, but they tend to be a brainwashed bunch.

I use to have dinner at a bar after work and quite often one of the higher ups in the NRA would have dinner there too. He was a nice enough guy and he would mention to the bartender that he had to attend a meeting somewhere shortly in the future. Occasionally, he would talk about the NRA, so I asked him if he knew of court decisions that caused things to change. I never studied the case law and was just curious. I couldn't get an answer out of him. On another occasion when he was talking about the NRA, I asked since the Constitution says arms and not guns, where do you draw the line? I had to futher explain between a knife and a hydrogen bomb, what weapons should people be allowed to have and not have? The only thing I remember getting out of him was people shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

These people are taught to believe in something and not really think it through. They believe the government is screwing them of their liberties and if everybody had a gun, crime would disappear. That's possible after everybody kills each other off.

I don't know about the whole membership of the NRA, but the ones that really believe in it aren't the types to easily change or leave the organization. They view any restriction on guns is an infringement of their sacred rights and liberties.

Interesting -- did he elaborate on why people should not have nuclear weapons and why the Second Amendment would not apply? That might be a useful distinction as a starting point.

 

[Ernie S.]

Ironic post from a guy who walks around stalking me in the forums to toss negs about posts he wasn't even involved in, don't you think? Again, as before-- what the **** business is it of yours?

The fact is this coward claimed " you're more than happy to use the blood of 20 schoolkids to push your pre-existing agenda" and that that "agenda" was "Limiting the 2nd amendment rights of the law abiding to the greatest extent possible, regardless of any protection afforded to said rights by the constitution" --- and when I challenged him to back any of that up, he ran away.

That's what I call a coward. And even though it's got zero to do with you, you can like it or lump it. You make an assertion on me, you back it up or you walk. He walked. You might follow his example.

I don't stalk you. I find it impossible to avoid you and I'm generally offended by what you post, and I frequently use the rep system to point that out.
You are a reasonably intelligent young lady and use your intelligence as a substitute for substance. You rarely add anything to a discussion other than ridicule and insult. I don't know where you've posted before. Maybe your style gained you some notoriety or power there, but here, you need substance. If you learn to discuss issues instead of personalities, you might just be a quality poster here. If not, I suspect you will leave here the same way you left your last board.

Oh poster please. Every single time you've come around to neg me, without exception, it's been because you disagreed with my opinions. This last time you jumped in on an exchange that didn't even involve you, about a simple pun that somebody else didn't get. So don't give me your sanctimonious crapola about "can't avoid you" when you're following me around, and spare me the "ridicule and insult" song and dance while you deliberately sitting there misrepresenting my gender, speaking of childish. You don't have a kickstand to stand on.

Sure, you'd like to play the part of rhetorical sniper. Problem is, I return fire. If you can't handle that then shoot somewhere else. I don't put up with it. Period.

Your opinions? Yes I disagree with your stated opinions in most cases. I believe I have thanked 1 or 2 of your posts as well. It is your arrogant attitude that I object to.
You might have such an inflated opinion of yourself that you would think people would actually seek you out, but you are not that important to me.
I view most of the threads here and see your narcissistic rantings quite often. Most, I skim for content and finding none I move on, taking note that I still find you an egotistical boor, but every 48 hours, the system provides me a means to point out that I find you objectionable. I take advantage of it as I will again tomorrow evening, most likely. I'm sure I will run across some of your typical egocentric crapola while scanning threads. I won't have to look far.

 

[Dubya]

This will be an atrocity. There are so many things that could be done to assure that this never happens again. But if there is mention of gun laws or anything to do with guns the NRA says NO.

They don't represent the majority of gun owners anymore. They respresent the manufactorers. Sooner or later, the NO, is going to start costing them memberships.

Hopefully, but they tend to be a brainwashed bunch.

I use to have dinner at a bar after work and quite often one of the higher ups in the NRA would have dinner there too. He was a nice enough guy and he would mention to the bartender that he had to attend a meeting somewhere shortly in the future. Occasionally, he would talk about the NRA, so I asked him if he knew of court decisions that caused things to change. I never studied the case law and was just curious. I couldn't get an answer out of him. On another occasion when he was talking about the NRA, I asked since the Constitution says arms and not guns, where do you draw the line? I had to futher explain between a knife and a hydrogen bomb, what weapons should people be allowed to have and not have? The only thing I remember getting out of him was people shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

These people are taught to believe in something and not really think it through. They believe the government is screwing them of their liberties and if everybody had a gun, crime would disappear. That's possible after everybody kills each other off.

I don't know about the whole membership of the NRA, but the ones that really believe in it aren't the types to easily change or leave the organization. They view any restriction on guns is an infringement of their sacred rights and liberties.

Interesting -- did he elaborate on why people should not have nuclear weapons and why the Second Amendment would not apply? That might be a useful distinction as a starting point.

I had to press to get that much out of him and then he clammed up. It was back in the WMD days, so that may have influenced his opinions.

I wasn't trying to debate him, I just wanted to know his opinion and why he believed it was right.

Later on, I did check into the minutes of Congress and the case law.

 

[M14 Shooter]

I use to have dinner at a bar after work and quite often one of the higher ups in the NRA would have dinner there too. He was a nice enough guy and he would mention to the bartender that he had to attend a meeting somewhere shortly in the future. Occasionally, he would talk about the NRA, so I asked him if he knew of court decisions that caused things to change. I never studied the case law and was just curious. I couldn't get an answer out of him. On another occasion when he was talking about the NRA, I asked since the Constitution says arms and not guns, where do you draw the line? I had to futher explain between a knife and a hydrogen bomb, what weapons should people be allowed to have and not have? The only thing I remember getting out of him was people shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

This is, at best, a gross mischaraterization of your experience, if indeed you had any such experience.

These people are taught to believe in something and not really think it through.

Yes... and those who blindly push bans on 'assault weapons' that don't actually ban anything are such deep thinkers.

 

[Dubya]

I use to have dinner at a bar after work and quite often one of the higher ups in the NRA would have dinner there too. He was a nice enough guy and he would mention to the bartender that he had to attend a meeting somewhere shortly in the future. Occasionally, he would talk about the NRA, so I asked him if he knew of court decisions that caused things to change. I never studied the case law and was just curious. I couldn't get an answer out of him. On another occasion when he was talking about the NRA, I asked since the Constitution says arms and not guns, where do you draw the line? I had to futher explain between a knife and a hydrogen bomb, what weapons should people be allowed to have and not have? The only thing I remember getting out of him was people shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

This is, at best, a gross mischaraterization of your experience, if indeed you had any such experience.

These people are taught to believe in something and not really think it through.

Yes... and those who blindly push bans on 'assault weapons' that don't actually ban anything are such deep thinkers.

You Asswholes all have the same thing in common and that's the simple fact that you can't compartmentalize what you know in your brains. Can't you tell you are living a fantasy?

 

[Skull Pilot]

This will be an atrocity. There are so many things that could be done to assure that this never happens again. But if there is mention of gun laws or anything to do with guns the NRA says NO.

They don't represent the majority of gun owners anymore. They respresent the manufactorers. Sooner or later, the NO, is going to start costing them memberships.

So restricting LAW ABIDING citizens would have helped in Ct?
How so??

Law abiding citizens are not committing these massacres now are they?

How about we look into the mental health industry and look at banning "gun fee zones"?

Btw, if the NRA doesn't represent me and other LAW ABIDING citizens, why has their membership grown by over 100,000 NEW members?

There is one and only one person to blame for Sandy Hook.

The mother of the shooter whatever her name is. Period.

Blaming everyone who owns a gun and every company that manufactures guns is beyond idiotic.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

I don't know if there was a point coming here but back up to that school killing with 37 children and "about four" adults. How do you count "about four" adults? And no link? That's damn sloppy. So I had to look it up myself.

Turns out this incident in Bath Township Michigan (1927) was executed by dynamite planted in the school's basement, so no, having teachers armed would not have saved the "26" (read: 44) lives at the school. The perpetrator wasn't even in the school. If anything having teachers armed may have caused more deaths in the explosion.

There's a detailed account of that incident in a recent article, and it just aligns with what I've posted in 179 about personal power.

Lessons from America's First School Massacre
It was looking like May 19th would be a beautiful spring day.

By about 8:00 am children began arriving at the new school. Mr. Kehoe sat on his porch in the morning sun, enjoying the sounds of children playing and of cars on the way to the schoolyard.

At about 8:45 is where the story gets tricky. Some witnesses reported that Mr. Kehoe detonated his own farm before the 1,000 pounds of dynamite he'd squirreled in the school’s basement and under its floorboards were triggered by a timer. Some said the school exploded first, and then the Kehoe farm went up in flames. Everyone agrees that townsfolk raced to the school. Nearly every family in town had a child enrolled. As mothers and fathers tore frantically at the rubble in search of their children, Mr. Kehoe drove into town, up to the mayhem, and blew up his car, killing himself, the school superintendent, and a few rescuers.

The death toll by the end of the week had climbed to 37 children and 7 adults. The numbers would have been about six times as high, but Mr. Kehoe wasn't as good an electrician as he'd thought. A main switch had a gap, and as a result only one of the wings of the school exploded.

After the wounded and dead were pulled from the scene, some townsfolk made it over to the Kehoe farm to try to puzzle out what had happened. At the perimeter fence they found the sign that Mr. Kehoe had so carefully kept out of harm's way. "Criminals," it said, "are made, not born."

After the slaughter in Bath Township, Michigan, there was a 39-year pause in mass killings on a campus. Then, on a hot August day in Austin in 1966, former Eagle Scout Charles J. Whitman climbed the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin, where he used his Marine sniper training to kill 14 people. Between that day and December 14’s deaths in Connecticut, over 150 more children and adults died in massacres on America’s school and university campuses. (more here)

1927 was, of course, way before AR-15s, video games, mass media or a legacy of shooting rampages from which to copycat.

(Note that this article is limited to school killings, not movie theaters, malls and other public places)

The point was (figures I have to spell it out for you) that a person does not need a firearm to kill a lot of children.

I agree. And that's why I spelled out details on that incident. What I challenge is the premise -- the premise that the objective is killing. It isn't. That's a byproduct. The objective is carnage. And the distinction is crucial to understanding how these things happen.

"Killing" can be accomplished any number of ways, and has been with us since the beginning, way before guns. It's objective is to end the life of some person, for whatever reason -- jilted lover, business cheat, witness to a crime, etc.

Kehoe and Lanza and Holmes and Klebold and Harris didn't have that motivation; theirs was massacre, which means there's no particular care whether person A or B or C is the next vicitm; it's random. Any warm body will do.

"A massacre is an incident where some group is killed by another, and the perpetrating party are perceived to be in total control of force while the victimized party is perceived to be helpless and/or innocent with regard to any legitimate offense." (Wiki-- crucial part in bold)

Once again, and I guess I'll say it until it sinks in, massacre is to murder as rape is to sex. It's about power. It's not about killing, where the objective is to end a life; it's about carnage, where the objective is to wield power. It doesn't matter to a massacreist whether the vicitm's life ended; what matters is that he is the one who wielded the power to end it.

Massacres, in our time, are committed with the technology we have. As noted above, AR-15s and their ilk were neither extant nor glorified in 1927. So Kehoe used dynamite. Today, nothing says carnage like an AR-15 (meant generically). That's just the time we live in.

I get the idea this conflation of massacre with murder is just a rhetorical tool to avoid dealing with the issue. And the issue is not that guns exist, or that they have this or that restriction. The issue is why we want them. And again, it comes back to the same word:
Power.

And that is the equivalence we have to fix. It's not a constitutional issue; it's a psychological one.

The object is killing. You people need to learn the definition of words before you use them.

Carnage is the result from killing. Not killing as being the resul tof carnage.

Massacre is the result of killing, not vice versa.


Again for the unintelligent among you.

The second amendment is in the Bill of Rights. Not the Bill of Needs or the Bill of Wants.

And it is a Constitutional issue.

 

[Pogo]

The point was (figures I have to spell it out for you) that a person does not need a firearm to kill a lot of children.

I agree. And that's why I spelled out details on that incident. What I challenge is the premise -- the premise that the objective is killing. It isn't. That's a byproduct. The objective is carnage. And the distinction is crucial to understanding how these things happen.

"Killing" can be accomplished any number of ways, and has been with us since the beginning, way before guns. It's objective is to end the life of some person, for whatever reason -- jilted lover, business cheat, witness to a crime, etc.

Kehoe and Lanza and Holmes and Klebold and Harris didn't have that motivation; theirs was massacre, which means there's no particular care whether person A or B or C is the next vicitm; it's random. Any warm body will do.

"A massacre is an incident where some group is killed by another, and the perpetrating party are perceived to be in total control of force while the victimized party is perceived to be helpless and/or innocent with regard to any legitimate offense." (Wiki-- crucial part in bold)

Once again, and I guess I'll say it until it sinks in, massacre is to murder as rape is to sex. It's about power. It's not about killing, where the objective is to end a life; it's about carnage, where the objective is to wield power. It doesn't matter to a massacreist whether the vicitm's life ended; what matters is that he is the one who wielded the power to end it.

Massacres, in our time, are committed with the technology we have. As noted above, AR-15s and their ilk were neither extant nor glorified in 1927. So Kehoe used dynamite. Today, nothing says carnage like an AR-15 (meant generically). That's just the time we live in.

I get the idea this conflation of massacre with murder is just a rhetorical tool to avoid dealing with the issue. And the issue is not that guns exist, or that they have this or that restriction. The issue is why we want them. And again, it comes back to the same word:
Power.

And that is the equivalence we have to fix. It's not a constitutional issue; it's a psychological one.

The object is killing. You people need to learn the definition of words before you use them.

Carnage is the result from killing. Not killing as being the resul tof carnage.

Massacre is the result of killing, not vice versa.


Again for the unintelligent among you.

The second amendment is in the Bill of Rights. Not the Bill of Needs or the Bill of Wants.

And it is a Constitutional issue.

No, you have it backwards. I took pains to define the words, and the whole theory, yet again, in the prior post, and you apparently glazed right over it. All you did here was contradict without making a point, and toss in snarky insults. You didn't even breathe on my reasoning. That ain't debate.

I don't know why this point is so dangerous that it has to be swept under the rug. Or maybe it's just too much thought, and it's far easier to pretend paranoia and hide behind the Constitution and the "gun-grabber" mentality. Shades of the Nixon Checkers speech. And it's not a "constitutional" issue just because you like that strawman and don't care to think in complexities of human psychology.

That's what we've been doing all this time up to now -- ignoring the problem.

 

[Pogo]

I use to have dinner at a bar after work and quite often one of the higher ups in the NRA would have dinner there too. He was a nice enough guy and he would mention to the bartender that he had to attend a meeting somewhere shortly in the future. Occasionally, he would talk about the NRA, so I asked him if he knew of court decisions that caused things to change. I never studied the case law and was just curious. I couldn't get an answer out of him. On another occasion when he was talking about the NRA, I asked since the Constitution says arms and not guns, where do you draw the line? I had to futher explain between a knife and a hydrogen bomb, what weapons should people be allowed to have and not have? The only thing I remember getting out of him was people shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

This is, at best, a gross mischaraterization of your experience, if indeed you had any such experience.

These people are taught to believe in something and not really think it through.

Yes... and those who blindly push bans on 'assault weapons' that don't actually ban anything are such deep thinkers.

You Asswholes all have the same thing in common and that's the simple fact that you can't compartmentalize what you know in your brains. Can't you tell you are living a fantasy?

Seems to me their minds are locked shut like some kind of vault, lest anything get in there to challenge preconceptions. They've convinced themselves, by themselves, that anyone who deplores gun violence is after their gun-pacifiers, and no amount of logic will penetrate the vault. M14 told me that my own agenda was watering down the Second Amendment even though I've never mentioned any such thing. They've got their preconceptions and they're determined to protect them from any outside challenge.

That's exactly how we stay mired in the same morass -- held back by those determined to be obstacles, no matter what. Those that would have us do the same things over and over and expect different results, as if simple expectation will make it so.

It's a weird psychology. Frankly the psychology of massacre is easier to understand than that of abject denial.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

I agree. And that's why I spelled out details on that incident. What I challenge is the premise -- the premise that the objective is killing. It isn't. That's a byproduct. The objective is carnage. And the distinction is crucial to understanding how these things happen.

"Killing" can be accomplished any number of ways, and has been with us since the beginning, way before guns. It's objective is to end the life of some person, for whatever reason -- jilted lover, business cheat, witness to a crime, etc.

Kehoe and Lanza and Holmes and Klebold and Harris didn't have that motivation; theirs was massacre, which means there's no particular care whether person A or B or C is the next vicitm; it's random. Any warm body will do.

"A massacre is an incident where some group is killed by another, and the perpetrating party are perceived to be in total control of force while the victimized party is perceived to be helpless and/or innocent with regard to any legitimate offense." (Wiki-- crucial part in bold)

Once again, and I guess I'll say it until it sinks in, massacre is to murder as rape is to sex. It's about power. It's not about killing, where the objective is to end a life; it's about carnage, where the objective is to wield power. It doesn't matter to a massacreist whether the vicitm's life ended; what matters is that he is the one who wielded the power to end it.

Massacres, in our time, are committed with the technology we have. As noted above, AR-15s and their ilk were neither extant nor glorified in 1927. So Kehoe used dynamite. Today, nothing says carnage like an AR-15 (meant generically). That's just the time we live in.

I get the idea this conflation of massacre with murder is just a rhetorical tool to avoid dealing with the issue. And the issue is not that guns exist, or that they have this or that restriction. The issue is why we want them. And again, it comes back to the same word:
Power.

And that is the equivalence we have to fix. It's not a constitutional issue; it's a psychological one.

The object is killing. You people need to learn the definition of words before you use them.

Carnage is the result from killing. Not killing as being the resul tof carnage.

Massacre is the result of killing, not vice versa.


Again for the unintelligent among you.

The second amendment is in the Bill of Rights. Not the Bill of Needs or the Bill of Wants.

And it is a Constitutional issue.

No, you have it backwards. I took pains to define the words, and the whole theory, yet again, in the prior post, and you apparently glazed right over it. All you did here was contradict without making a point, and toss in snarky insults. You didn't even breathe on my reasoning. That ain't debate.

I don't know why this point is so dangerous that it has to be swept under the rug. Or maybe it's just too much thought, and it's far easier to pretend paranoia and hide behind the Constitution and the "gun-grabber" mentality. Shades of the Nixon Checkers speech. And it's not a "constitutional" issue just because you like that strawman and don't care to think in complexities of human psychology.

That's what we've been doing all this time up to now -- ignoring the problem.

It's not an insult, it's an observation and an accurate one at that.

Fact is you cannot have carnage nor a massacre without killing.

The right to own firearms is a Constitutional issue.

I'm not trying to look into the minds of these idiots. That is not my concern, my concern is the liberal idiots thinking that guns kill people.

I could really care less why they chose to go on rampages. I'll leave that to the bleeding heart liberals to figure out, and knowing liberals they will find a way to blame it on society.

 

[Pogo]

The object is killing. You people need to learn the definition of words before you use them.

Carnage is the result from killing. Not killing as being the resul tof carnage.

Massacre is the result of killing, not vice versa.


Again for the unintelligent among you.

The second amendment is in the Bill of Rights. Not the Bill of Needs or the Bill of Wants.

And it is a Constitutional issue.

No, you have it backwards. I took pains to define the words, and the whole theory, yet again, in the prior post, and you apparently glazed right over it. All you did here was contradict without making a point, and toss in snarky insults. You didn't even breathe on my reasoning. That ain't debate.

I don't know why this point is so dangerous that it has to be swept under the rug. Or maybe it's just too much thought, and it's far easier to pretend paranoia and hide behind the Constitution and the "gun-grabber" mentality. Shades of the Nixon Checkers speech. And it's not a "constitutional" issue just because you like that strawman and don't care to think in complexities of human psychology.

That's what we've been doing all this time up to now -- ignoring the problem.

It's not an insult, it's an observation and an accurate one at that.

Fact is you cannot have carnage nor a massacre without killing.

-which shows me you glossed right over my distinction spelled out several posts ago. The killing is not the objective; the massacre is.

The right to own firearms is a Constitutional issue.

-- which nobody even brought up. You're shooting at a strawman.

I'm not trying to look into the minds of these idiots. That is not my concern, my concern is the liberal idiots thinking that guns kill people.

Same as above. Why do you insist on debating your own strawmen instead of what's on the table?

I could really care less why they chose to go on rampages. I'll leave that to the bleeding heart liberals to figure out, and knowing liberals they will find a way to blame it on society.

I presume you mean the opposite, that you couldn't care less, and that's exactly what I just said in my last post. A lot of y'all have your preconceived strawmen and that's all you want to deal with. That's running away from the problem. Can't be bothered, as long as Numero Uno has his firepower.

So we've got one side clamoring for gun laws, which puts a band-aid on the symptom and ignores the problem with a superficial solution. Then we have you guys tilting at strawmen about paranoid constitutional fantasies, completely ignoring the problem, offering no solution at all.

Not hard to see why these massacres don't stop, is it?

 

[M14 Shooter]

I use to have dinner at a bar after work and quite often one of the higher ups in the NRA would have dinner there too. He was a nice enough guy and he would mention to the bartender that he had to attend a meeting somewhere shortly in the future. Occasionally, he would talk about the NRA, so I asked him if he knew of court decisions that caused things to change. I never studied the case law and was just curious. I couldn't get an answer out of him. On another occasion when he was talking about the NRA, I asked since the Constitution says arms and not guns, where do you draw the line? I had to futher explain between a knife and a hydrogen bomb, what weapons should people be allowed to have and not have? The only thing I remember getting out of him was people shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

This is, at best, a gross mischaraterization of your experience, if indeed you had any such experience.

These people are taught to believe in something and not really think it through.

Yes... and those who blindly push bans on 'assault weapons' that don't actually ban anything are such deep thinkers.

You Asswholes all have the same thing in common and that's the simple fact that you can't compartmentalize what you know in your brains. Can't you tell you are living a fantasy?

Translatuon, - you dont like being called out on your lie.
Solution: Don't lie.

 

[Pogo]

Speaking of liars, M14, how's that search for my Second Amendment "agenda" coming along? Any leads yet?

​

 

[asterism]

I don't know if there was a point coming here but back up to that school killing with 37 children and "about four" adults. How do you count "about four" adults? And no link? That's damn sloppy. So I had to look it up myself.

Turns out this incident in Bath Township Michigan (1927) was executed by dynamite planted in the school's basement, so no, having teachers armed would not have saved the "26" (read: 44) lives at the school. The perpetrator wasn't even in the school. If anything having teachers armed may have caused more deaths in the explosion.

There's a detailed account of that incident in a recent article, and it just aligns with what I've posted in 179 about personal power.

Lessons from America's First School Massacre
It was looking like May 19th would be a beautiful spring day.

By about 8:00 am children began arriving at the new school. Mr. Kehoe sat on his porch in the morning sun, enjoying the sounds of children playing and of cars on the way to the schoolyard.

At about 8:45 is where the story gets tricky. Some witnesses reported that Mr. Kehoe detonated his own farm before the 1,000 pounds of dynamite he'd squirreled in the school’s basement and under its floorboards were triggered by a timer. Some said the school exploded first, and then the Kehoe farm went up in flames. Everyone agrees that townsfolk raced to the school. Nearly every family in town had a child enrolled. As mothers and fathers tore frantically at the rubble in search of their children, Mr. Kehoe drove into town, up to the mayhem, and blew up his car, killing himself, the school superintendent, and a few rescuers.

The death toll by the end of the week had climbed to 37 children and 7 adults. The numbers would have been about six times as high, but Mr. Kehoe wasn't as good an electrician as he'd thought. A main switch had a gap, and as a result only one of the wings of the school exploded.

After the wounded and dead were pulled from the scene, some townsfolk made it over to the Kehoe farm to try to puzzle out what had happened. At the perimeter fence they found the sign that Mr. Kehoe had so carefully kept out of harm's way. "Criminals," it said, "are made, not born."

After the slaughter in Bath Township, Michigan, there was a 39-year pause in mass killings on a campus. Then, on a hot August day in Austin in 1966, former Eagle Scout Charles J. Whitman climbed the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin, where he used his Marine sniper training to kill 14 people. Between that day and December 14’s deaths in Connecticut, over 150 more children and adults died in massacres on America’s school and university campuses. (more here)

1927 was, of course, way before AR-15s, video games, mass media or a legacy of shooting rampages from which to copycat.

(Note that this article is limited to school killings, not movie theaters, malls and other public places)

The point was (figures I have to spell it out for you) that a person does not need a firearm to kill a lot of children.

I agree. And that's why I spelled out details on that incident. What I challenge is the premise -- the premise that the objective is killing. It isn't. That's a byproduct. The objective is carnage. And the distinction is crucial to understanding how these things happen.

"Killing" can be accomplished any number of ways, and has been with us since the beginning, way before guns. It's objective is to end the life of some person, for whatever reason -- jilted lover, business cheat, witness to a crime, etc.

Kehoe and Lanza and Holmes and Klebold and Harris didn't have that motivation; theirs was massacre, which means there's no particular care whether person A or B or C is the next vicitm; it's random. Any warm body will do.

"A massacre is an incident where some group is killed by another, and the perpetrating party are perceived to be in total control of force while the victimized party is perceived to be helpless and/or innocent with regard to any legitimate offense." (Wiki-- crucial part in bold)

Once again, and I guess I'll say it until it sinks in, massacre is to murder as rape is to sex. It's about power. It's not about killing, where the objective is to end a life; it's about carnage, where the objective is to wield power. It doesn't matter to a massacreist whether the vicitm's life ended; what matters is that he is the one who wielded the power to end it.

Massacres, in our time, are committed with the technology we have. As noted above, AR-15s and their ilk were neither extant nor glorified in 1927. So Kehoe used dynamite. Today, nothing says carnage like an AR-15 (meant generically). That's just the time we live in.

I get the idea this conflation of massacre with murder is just a rhetorical tool to avoid dealing with the issue. And the issue is not that guns exist, or that they have this or that restriction. The issue is why we want them. And again, it comes back to the same word:
Power.

And that is the equivalence we have to fix. It's not a constitutional issue; it's a psychological one.

What do you propose as a solution for this problem?

 

[Pogo]

The point was (figures I have to spell it out for you) that a person does not need a firearm to kill a lot of children.

I agree. And that's why I spelled out details on that incident. What I challenge is the premise -- the premise that the objective is killing. It isn't. That's a byproduct. The objective is carnage. And the distinction is crucial to understanding how these things happen.

"Killing" can be accomplished any number of ways, and has been with us since the beginning, way before guns. It's objective is to end the life of some person, for whatever reason -- jilted lover, business cheat, witness to a crime, etc.

Kehoe and Lanza and Holmes and Klebold and Harris didn't have that motivation; theirs was massacre, which means there's no particular care whether person A or B or C is the next vicitm; it's random. Any warm body will do.

"A massacre is an incident where some group is killed by another, and the perpetrating party are perceived to be in total control of force while the victimized party is perceived to be helpless and/or innocent with regard to any legitimate offense." (Wiki-- crucial part in bold)

Once again, and I guess I'll say it until it sinks in, massacre is to murder as rape is to sex. It's about power. It's not about killing, where the objective is to end a life; it's about carnage, where the objective is to wield power. It doesn't matter to a massacreist whether the vicitm's life ended; what matters is that he is the one who wielded the power to end it.

Massacres, in our time, are committed with the technology we have. As noted above, AR-15s and their ilk were neither extant nor glorified in 1927. So Kehoe used dynamite. Today, nothing says carnage like an AR-15 (meant generically). That's just the time we live in.

I get the idea this conflation of massacre with murder is just a rhetorical tool to avoid dealing with the issue. And the issue is not that guns exist, or that they have this or that restriction. The issue is why we want them. And again, it comes back to the same word:
Power.

And that is the equivalence we have to fix. It's not a constitutional issue; it's a psychological one.

What do you propose as a solution for this problem?

Whew- thank you for listening. That's been elusive.

Obviously we're talking about deeply ingrained cultural dynamics. We all grew up on cowboys-and-indians/cops-and-robbers television where every little thing is dichotomized into "good" vs. "evil" and we were all told in pictures and legends that the way to settle any argument is at gunpoint, and if the bad guy wins this battle, you have to go after him (armed of course) to win the war. That's part of our national psyche. And it needs to go away.

That psychological background seems to be what sets us apart from other "developed" nations that have the same urban blights and the same violent media, but just don't have the gun mentality, and as a result they don't have anywhere near the level of gun violence we do. It's not our guns; it's our hearts.

I'm sympathetic to the arguments of violent media, yet a causal relationship doesn't seem to follow; Japan and Canada (for example) have access to the same media violence yet don't go out massacring each other anywhere near like we do. The background, the gun mythology, seems to be the difference between here and there. Regardless of that though, it can't be good for the psyche to be (a) desensitized to the idea of slaughter and (b) see it glorified by bloodthirsty action "heroes". We need to start standing up and saying it's not OK and stop buying this crap..... like we already do with sex. There's two weird hangups that really ought to trade places.

First thing we have to do is put down the rhetorical superficialities of "gun grabbers' versus "gun nuts" and forget about the idea of "banning" them. That ain't going to happen-- the genie is way out of the bottle. Instead of drowning out the issue in a meaningless cacophony of "you NRA freaks don't care" and "you libtards want to take my pistol away", let's find out what it is that makes people go off half cocked with a firearm to settle every little squabble. And let's quit walking around in a world of paranoia, and jettison the insane idea that the answer to violence is more violence.

We have to change not what's in our Constitution, or in our firearm cabinets, but with what's in our hearts. It's not our guns or our laws, but our values. That's where the issue lies, and as long as it does, we won't see change. We take on these mantras on a message board and shoot them like bullets at each other in the same mentality that creates the problem in the first place. And nothing gets done.

That's the whole reason I came to this board, to make this point. And I guess I'll keep making it for as long as it takes. I started on a Fox Sports board with the Bob Costas commentary, pointing out to the endless revisionists that he was talking about gun culture, not gun "control". People seem to run from that point as if it was the Plague (and still do here). They'd seemingly rather live in a simpler world where a three-sentence superficial sound bite about either "protecting our guns" or "protecting our children" is all you need and you've done your part.

It just ain't that simple. And I don't believe we get off that easy.

Thanks for reading.

 

[OODA_Loop]

let's find out what it is that makes people go off half cocked with a firearm to settle every little squabble. And let's quit walking around in a world of paranoia, and jettison the insane idea that the answer to violence is more violence.

.

8583 Firearms deaths out 238,000,000 etimated firearms in private ownership in 2011

FBI numbers

 

[Old Rocks]

The more the rabid gun owners rant, whine and lie, the greater the likelihood rational citizens will demand Congress take some action to control guns. Many of the posts since Sandy Hook on this message board are quite disturbing, so disturbing as to cause a rational reader to wonder if some of you should ever be trusted to own, possess or have in you custody and control any gun.

We of the gun owners world are the rational ones. Do you have something to suggest that hasn't already been tried?

Ah yes, from Columbine to Sandy Hook, we surely have seen that.

 

[GuyPinestra]

But don't penalties only address the crime after the fact? Wouldn't it be prudent to check out those crazy enough to want the weapons in the first place? I mean just yearning after such weapons ought to be a tip off as to the sanity of the purchaser.

You just outed yourself, idiot.

Paraphrased... "Anyone who wants a gun is likely too crazy to own one."

**** off....

 

[GuyPinestra]

I could not give a damn what you think about my attitude when you carry that 'guns are cool' attitude around. Guns are the tools that make mass shootings possible. They pose a real and present danger to the public safety and no wannabe Rambo has a say in keeping them around just because his warped view of culture says they are too cool to rid ourselves of.

You have yet to sugest anything that could possibly improve the situation. All your BS boils down to the demand everyone else should cater to your paranoia and make things easier for those who commit violent crime. YOU are the menace to public safety and your continued whining is getting really old. Feel fee to try to grow a pair.

I suggested stricter background checks and they were roundly rejected. I suggested elimination of the gun show loophole and it was roundly rejected. I suggested elimination of the straw man purchasers and that was roundly rejected. I suggested elimination of the sale, manufacture, distribution and importation of high capacity magazines and guess what? That was roundly rejected.

No gun enthusiast has put forth ANY solutions. That leads me to this unfortunate conclusion: gun enthusiasts do not see any problem with gun violence, perhaps even they welcome it. What else is anyone to think?

NONE of your suggestions would do ANYTHING to SOLVE the problem!

How many times do you need to get beat over the head to understand that one GLARING fact?

 

[asterism]

I agree. And that's why I spelled out details on that incident. What I challenge is the premise -- the premise that the objective is killing. It isn't. That's a byproduct. The objective is carnage. And the distinction is crucial to understanding how these things happen.

"Killing" can be accomplished any number of ways, and has been with us since the beginning, way before guns. It's objective is to end the life of some person, for whatever reason -- jilted lover, business cheat, witness to a crime, etc.

Kehoe and Lanza and Holmes and Klebold and Harris didn't have that motivation; theirs was massacre, which means there's no particular care whether person A or B or C is the next vicitm; it's random. Any warm body will do.

"A massacre is an incident where some group is killed by another, and the perpetrating party are perceived to be in total control of force while the victimized party is perceived to be helpless and/or innocent with regard to any legitimate offense." (Wiki-- crucial part in bold)

Once again, and I guess I'll say it until it sinks in, massacre is to murder as rape is to sex. It's about power. It's not about killing, where the objective is to end a life; it's about carnage, where the objective is to wield power. It doesn't matter to a massacreist whether the vicitm's life ended; what matters is that he is the one who wielded the power to end it.

Massacres, in our time, are committed with the technology we have. As noted above, AR-15s and their ilk were neither extant nor glorified in 1927. So Kehoe used dynamite. Today, nothing says carnage like an AR-15 (meant generically). That's just the time we live in.

I get the idea this conflation of massacre with murder is just a rhetorical tool to avoid dealing with the issue. And the issue is not that guns exist, or that they have this or that restriction. The issue is why we want them. And again, it comes back to the same word:
Power.

And that is the equivalence we have to fix. It's not a constitutional issue; it's a psychological one.

What do you propose as a solution for this problem?

Whew- thank you for listening. That's been elusive.

Obviously we're talking about deeply ingrained cultural dynamics. We all grew up on cowboys-and-indians/cops-and-robbers television where every little thing is dichotomized into "good" vs. "evil" and we were all told in pictures and legends that the way to settle any argument is at gunpoint, and if the bad guy wins this battle, you have to go after him (armed of course) to win the war. That's part of our national psyche. And it needs to go away.

That psychological background seems to be what sets us apart from other "developed" nations that have the same urban blights and the same violent media, but just don't have the gun mentality, and as a result they don't have anywhere near the level of gun violence we do. It's not our guns; it's our hearts.

I'm sympathetic to the arguments of violent media, yet a causal relationship doesn't seem to follow; Japan and Canada (for example) have access to the same media violence yet don't go out massacring each other anywhere near like we do. The background, the gun mythology, seems to be the difference between here and there. Regardless of that though, it can't be good for the psyche to be (a) desensitized to the idea of slaughter and (b) see it glorified by bloodthirsty action "heroes". We need to start standing up and saying it's not OK and stop buying this crap..... like we already do with sex. There's two weird hangups that really ought to trade places.

First thing we have to do is put down the rhetorical superficialities of "gun grabbers' versus "gun nuts" and forget about the idea of "banning" them. That ain't going to happen-- the genie is way out of the bottle. Instead of drowning out the issue in a meaningless cacophony of "you NRA freaks don't care" and "you libtards want to take my pistol away", let's find out what it is that makes people go off half cocked with a firearm to settle every little squabble. And let's quit walking around in a world of paranoia, and jettison the insane idea that the answer to violence is more violence.

We have to change not what's in our Constitution, or in our firearm cabinets, but with what's in our hearts. It's not our guns or our laws, but our values. That's where the issue lies, and as long as it does, we won't see change. We take on these mantras on a message board and shoot them like bullets at each other in the same mentality that creates the problem in the first place. And nothing gets done.

That's the whole reason I came to this board, to make this point. And I guess I'll keep making it for as long as it takes. I started on a Fox Sports board with the Bob Costas commentary, pointing out to the endless revisionists that he was talking about gun culture, not gun "control". People seem to run from that point as if it was the Plague (and still do here). They'd seemingly rather live in a simpler world where a three-sentence superficial sound bite about either "protecting our guns" or "protecting our children" is all you need and you've done your part.

It just ain't that simple. And I don't believe we get off that easy.

Thanks for reading.

I don't agree with all of your assumptions but I do think there is something to your logic regarding the source of this problem. One of your points about Japan and Canada is interesting because they are smaller homogeneous cultures.

Another point being made by many (not you) is how the US compares to industrialized nations, and then a list is cherry picked to fit the point. I don't think in terms of violence the "industrialized" part matters. Tuvalu is non-industrialized and it's tranquil. Moscow is down right brutal and yet Russia is quite industrialized.

I'm not sure it's the "gun culture" as you say that causes this problem otherwise higher ownership and usage of guns would translate to more shootings. This seems to be an issue only among people with severe psychological problems, and those being mainstreamed at that. None of these people on the recent rampages were under intensive psychological care and all were on some powerful medications.

Anyway those are just some early thoughts I have on this.