Because the post I just put up on the Newtown shooting is so troubling and disturbing, I am setting up this separate thread so people can discuss the shooting without having to deal with or think about MRAs.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
i keep wanting to say something about this and I am just stumped at ‘they were babies’. I don’t get it. At all. Like, people try to make sense of other school shootings, and they say so and so was bullied, etc- I think it’s just beyond making sense of this. Gun control would help, to be sure, but it won’t cure that kind of sickness.
It might not help underlying problems but just making it harder for people to commit mass murder is reason enough.
What we’re seeing here, with gun nuts rocking their guns to sleep and saying “It’s okay, we won’t let the big bad Democrats take you away”, is people who desperately need to believe that life has no side effects, and that their actions don’t connect to other people and things.
Oh, no arguments here, Kitteh’s Help- throw all the guns into the sun. It won’t cure the crazy, but at least the crazy won’t be so hurtful.
There was a teacher that saved 15 students during the shooting. She hid them in a closet while the gunman tried to get in. I hope her story gets out there because she was so brave.
The hero Maryrose Kristopik
That was mentioned in The Age article, thebionicmommy! They didn’t have her name then but did say how she saved the children. She’s a hero, all right.
I was in a self-imposed media blackout today (last day of work before vacation). I believe I shall go back to that.
The news media are goddamn vultures on this one-
http://gawker.com/5968650/abc-reporter-reaches-out-to-possible-sandy-hook-victim-is-told-to-eat-a-dick
Unimaginative- do that. Absolutely do that. And maybe extend it to a month or so. I’m almost there with you.
I have had my home invaded by men with guns, and was held at gunpoint along with my family. It was terrifying.
I would like for there to not be guns, but there are guns. There are 300 million guns just in the US and they certainly will not disappear with a “ban.” I would never want to be in that situation again without a gun to defend myself so I cannot get behind a law that would criminalize me doing what I need to do to stay safe.
I am all for gun control, I wish they did not exist.
But having said that, I also realize that trying to control things that people want, with laws and legislation does not work. Just look at alcohol prohibition or the war on drugs, these things are and were miserable failures. These kind of things cause many more problems than they fix.
We have to find the solution, this violence cannot continue!
It’s times like these when the world seems to be going horribly wrong – people blaming feminists, liberals, women, conservatives, etc., for what happened in Newtown – that I wish that I did not have to live to see what the world will look like in twenty to forty years.
The hardest thing that I’m trying to grasp is the fact that we will not be able to save or help anybody or improve the world just a little for everybody who’s suffering.
I just want this death and destruction to end.
@Jeff. Alcohol and drugs are physically addictive.
Was just talking about things that people want (like guns) and the fact that prohibiting things that people want does not work and the fact that the prohibition of these things would cause even more crime and more problems.
Some people want to kill other people and then eat them. They want to do that very, very much! But it’s still illegal. Lots of things that some people want are illegal.
Cassandra
Has any law prevented any crime that it was meant to prevent?
People still kill other people. People still do drugs.
All I am saying is that adopting laws against a particular thing is not a very good deterrent.
Sorry Jeff it works in other countries. Pricks still want guns in aus for example but it’s fucking hard to get them. They don’t just duck down to the local gun show and buy and assault weapon to take out their ex wife. That’s the bloody difference.
oh, So I guess they just go to their local Home Depot and buy a ball peen hammer and use that.
Should we outlaw sticks and rocks too?
Jeff — logically fear of the consequences of being arrested does deter a certain amount of crime. I’d be guessing to say what amount, but it can’t be 0% — of course there’s that segment of assholes that doesn’t give a shit, and the sorts of crimes that result from necessity (eg stealing food so as to avoid starvation).
I’m not sure this example will quite fit your point, but I know Victorian psychology better than crime — it used to be frightening easy to have someone committed, and in the case of a woman, that would mean her assets fell to the husband. So if a man wanted to inherent his wife’s property while she were alive, he just had to convince an asylum that she was insane (which meant more like improper in that period) — these days, in the US anyways, you need clear evidence that the person is an imminent danger to themselves or others. And the only way a husband is inheriting his wife’s property is if she dies and leaves it to him, or it passes to him intestate (that’s a big legal word for dying without a will).
/Victorian lesson
*sigh* Yes, a hammer could be used as a weapon, but at least then the potential victim stands a fighting chance.
Where is Pecunium when we need someone to be schooled in self-defense? *curses at the cold virii*
Jeff, by that argument there’s not much point in having any laws, is there?
And you can’t kill huge numbers of people with a ball peen hammer. That’s the thing with guns, especially the automatics and semi-automatics. They’re made for no other purpose than to kill large numbers of people at speed.
I live in Australia. We have much tighter gun laws than the US. And guess what – they were tightened after the Port Arthur massacre, and there was a big gun buy-back. Saying “people will still break the law” is not an argument for not having laws.
Jeff, look at our recent Chinese fucktard. Stabbed more than 25 kids and a teacher NONE died. Slight difference there? News reports from this town in the US say the school shooting was over in 3 mins. No wounded, all died. Give me max the hammer every fucking time.
Wow, Jeff is stupid. OK, Jeff, let’s make this very simple. If a person buys, say, a very large hammer, they can indeed kill someone with it. Can they kill over 25 people in a couple of minature with that hammer without even breaking a sweat? Nope.
Another thought experiment! Even with murder being illegal, it still happens. Do you think it would happen more or less often if it was perfectly legal to kill someone who pissed you off?
PS – There are lots of countries where gun ownership is heavily restricted. The entire world is not the US.
Minutes, not miniature. It’s Jeff’s capacity for logic that’s miniature.