Seriously thoughtful The three mass shootings this month - are they related to the recession?

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Also, someone above said it is EASY to get assualt weapons and such. That is not true. Assult weapons have been banned in the US for quite some time. Although it may have expired in 2004 there are several attempts to re-instante it. With the dems in control again I am pretty sure it will happen this year.

BOb

The assault weapons ban had nothing to do with what people perceive as assault weapons and has been thoroughly debunked as such since it's inception. Unfortunately the mainstream media continues to flat out lie about it, and current replacements. To clear something up, the assault weapon ban has nothing AT ALL to do with fully automatic firearms or machine guns. Those have in fact been highly controlled for many years, as class 3 weapons they have had their own laws applied to them since the '30s and has been continuously updated through the decades. In fact most of the deciding factors for the so-called assault weapons ban were determined by senators passing around gun catalogs and deciding what features looked 'evil'. (Not a rumor, this was done in full view of the public and press)

The media, in all its sensationalist glory continues to misinform the public on this issue. Which is nothing short of fearmongering. Every time the topic comes up the news like to show video footage of fully automatic AK-47's and AR-15's and talk about how this (or that) ban is designed to deal with the issue of criminals hosing down children and law enforcement with thousands of rounds of ammo. Just so we are clear, EVERY gun banned by the assault weapons ban fired ONE shot when the trigger was pulled. This blatant and disgusting misrepresenting of facts by lawmakers and the media should be downright criminal.

If you are against owning firearms, that is your business and I respect that, but deceiving the public and spending decades misrepresenting the facts is abhorrent. The media has also ignored the fact that a study to determine the effectiveness of the Assault Weapons ban that was instituted by the Clinton administration when it was passed was surpressed when it was determined that (I forget the length of the study, 10? 12 years?) the ban had no measurable effect on crime or the availability of weapons to criminals. In other words, 'our study didn't support our claims so we won't release it.' It is available, it just wasn't reported on.

I'm not citing sources since quite frankly I don't think anyone would read it and I'm not going to waste my time digging up the information.

-MJ

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by taosaur

With events like this one, it seems like people split two ways: some people only consider whose fault it is and how they should be punished, and others think about how to understand it and relate it to larger trends. When the two groups hear each other, wires get crossed and the 'enforcers' think the 'sociologists' are misattributing blame, while the 'sociologists' think the 'enforcers' are misunderstanding causality.

It may seem that way to you. Not to me. I tend to look at both what actually happened as well as the big picture. And, I try to keep both in perspective.

The people who like to argue about social vs. individual responsibility will generally twist the facts of any event to try to make their point. A man who had his weapon legally for ten years becomes someone for whom it was "far too easy" to get a gun. A person who was probably mentally ill becomes a whole raft of criminals roaming the streets.

I have been a victim of violent crime. I certainly didn't invite it to happen, unless someone wants to trot out the idea that lying in your own bed behind a locked door is an invitation to be assaulted. Not to certain how I should have been more "assertive" while I was fast asleep, but I did manage to survive, so I guess I did something right.

I certainly never thought to blame society for the crime perpetrated on me. I also didn't start seeing rapists around every street corner. I did what, in my opinion, more people should do .... I survived, dealt with the thing that had been done to me and the person who did it, and got on with my life.

Now that we've considered how things seem to you, I'll tell you how they seem to me. It seems to me that a lot of the people who like to debate violent crime don't know all that much about it and have probably never experienced it.

[slayda]

So to satisfy Harry about the US having more violent crime that the UK and/or Switzerland, I propose that we in the US pass a new law to share our violent criminals with them. Instead of putting them in prison and confiscating their weapons, we'll ship them both (weapon & criminal) randomly to either the UK or Switzerland. Our statiscics should soon even out or hopefully thay will do so eventually.

For the "too lax gun laws" - stuff & nonsense. We only have too lax enforcing (in the courts) of existing laws. Many "bleeding hearts" are against the death penalty. They say it costs more than life imprisonment. This is only due to the courts being too lenient with appeals. And the death penalty is a deterant - putting a criminal to death will indead deter him (or her) from commiting another such act (at least in this life time). Perhaps if we chose one of the bleeding hearts at random, gave them & the convicted criminal a knife and put them in a dark room and turned loose the survivor (if there was one) we could eventually either have fewer criminals or fewer bleeding hearts so we could better punish the criminals.

Some years ago I read a letter to the editor of the NRA magazine from a deputy sheriff in west Texas. He said that his county had the highest per capita number of guns in the nation and the last muder in his county was when "one man beat another man to death with a rock". Perhaps their "rock control laws" were too lax.

And finally the post about breaking the nation up into more smaller nations - we tried that once and after a good butt whupping were made to rejoin the larger nation.


Getting back to the original "Dr. Drib" question, I wonder "should we reduce the population since there are now fewer jobs or increase the population to provide more consumers, thus requiring more manufactured goods which would provide more jobs?

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

I have been a victim of violent crime. I certainly didn't invite it to happen, unless someone wants to trot out the idea that lying in your own bed behind a locked door is an invitation to be assaulted. Not to certain how I should have been more "assertive" while I was fast asleep, but I did manage to survive, so I guess I did something right.

I don't know how much more explicitly I could have said it: I'm not saying crime victims are in any way responsible for being attacked--the aggressor and only the aggressor bears responsibility. I was responding to desertgrandma's suggestion of paranoia as a strategy for urban survival, and you seem to agree with me that it's not the way to go.

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

The people who like to argue about social vs. individual responsibility will generally twist the facts of any event to try to make their point. A man who had his weapon legally for ten years becomes someone for whom it was "far too easy" to get a gun. A person who was probably mentally ill becomes a whole raft of criminals roaming the streets.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand you prove my point. You see HarryT say that this and other violent crimes might be "related" to lax gun laws, and the OP asking if the economy is a factor, and they become a whole raft of "people who like to argue about social vs. individual responsibility." Even the person making the strongest (and least informed) claim about the influence of gun laws,

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

It's the fault of the immigrant and the lax gun laws. If this was a shooting purely out of frustration, had that person not been able to get a gun easily, I doubt it would have happened. He would have gone through a lot of trouble just to get a gun, preferably with a long cool-down period. By the time he had gotten the gun, he probably wouldn't feel the same anymore. Unless he'd gotten it from the black market, but then it's premeditated murder without a doubt...

was not absolving the perpetrator of one iota of guilt.

I agree with you that it's ridiculous to seek a legislative solution to the actions of a madman, but it's also clearly the case that ready access to an arsenal contributed to the body count and the economy was a stressor on the perpetrator.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by slayda

Getting back to the original "Dr. Drib" question, I wonder "should we reduce the population since there are now fewer jobs or increase the population to provide more consumers, thus requiring more manufactured goods which would provide more jobs?

How about if we just stopped outsourcing everything??

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by taosaur

I don't know how much more explicitly I could have said it: I'm not saying crime victims are in any way responsible for being attacked--the aggressor and only the aggressor bears responsibility. I was responding to desertgrandma's suggestion of paranoia as a strategy for urban survival, and you seem to agree with me that it's not the way to go.



Aaaaaaaaaaaaand you prove my point. You see HarryT say that this and other violent crimes might be "related" to lax gun laws, and the OP asking if the economy is a factor, and they become a whole raft of "people who like to argue about social vs. individual responsibility." Even the person making the strongest (and least informed) claim about the influence of gun laws,

was not absolving the perpetrator of one iota of guilt.

I agree with you that it's ridiculous to seek a legislative solution to the actions of a madman, but it's also clearly the case that ready access to an arsenal contributed to the body count and the economy was a stressor on the perpetrator.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, rereading your post, I would have to agree with much of what you said.

And, yes, access to weapons is pretty much always going to increase the body count. That's been true since the first knuckle-dragger picked up a rock and bashed some other k-d over the head with it. However, in this particular case "ready access" was simply a fact, not the fault of society or the government. I've got ready access to any number of potential weapons, knives, poisons, guns .... all of them quite legal everywhere (unless the UK and other nations have outlawed possession of steak and butcher knives and insecticides). It's not the access that prevents me from creating a body count. It's the fact that, no matter how much someone may piss me off, I do not believe that an injury done to me is worth killing over.

If you want to talk about ready access creating a body count, then forget guns ... let's talk chemicals that you can purchase at any store. Nails and pipes and a little reading on the internet .... a little bit of effort and you've got yourself a handy dandy pipe bomb. Favorite pastime of people like Eric Rudolf and Ted Kaczynski. As I recall even those dickless wonders at Columbine made bombs.

Or, let's talk poisons. Lots of them quite legal, and not all that difficult to use. Plus, if you don't give a rat's ass about being caught, then you don't even have to worry about whether they can be detected. After all, we are just talking about upping the death toll. What was Jonestown if not for a mass murder??

Ready access to alcohol and automobiles probably kills more people every year in the US than are killed by guns. Several people have purposefully run into crowds with their cars in an attempt to kill people.

Some people with ready access to fuel and matches have killed numbers of people in arson attacks. So .... should we consider a waiting period for the purchase of those items?

Mind you .... I am not arguing with you on these points. I am simply expressing the ideas as an extension of what we have already discussed. It's just that there has always been and always will be "ready access" to things that one or more human beings can use to kill lots of other human beings. Just like there have always been and will always be stressers that trigger certain people to do certain nasty things. If it's not the economy, then, trust me, the people who are prone to blame their troubles on something outside of themselves, will find something else to blame them on.

It's the economy!!
No, it's the (insert your least favorite ethnic group here)!!
No, you're both wrong!! It's the (insert your least favorite country here)!! In other words, blame Canada!!

Essentially, most people don't want to be held responsible for their own actions, they want to be free to do what they want to do, and they expect the government (or "society" or "religion") to keep a tight rein on everybody else. There is a disconnect there. A big one.

Going back to the man in New York .... if you read the article, carefully, you would see that he was losing his grip over a long period of time. And, it wasn't the "economy" that caused him to lose his job. He just stopped showing up at work one day. Gee .... guess what .... you don't go to work, you are going to get your ass fired. That has nothing to do with the economy.

That's what gives me the chuckles about various people using this man as an example of things that loom large in their mind, but have absolutely zip to do with what actually happened .... in ..... this ..... particular .... case.

It wasn't the economy. It wasn't the guns. It was that he lost his freaking mind. If he hadn't gone nuts, he'd still be employed. Once he'd gone down that bumpy road, if he hadn't had the guns, he would have found another weapon, and he still would have killed a lot of people. Anyone here ever hear of a certain Ted Bundy?? That man did a lot of damage in the Chi Omega house in Tallahassee and he didn't use a gun. Rough estimates are that he killed at least thirty-five people during his lifetime, and I'm pretty sure he didn't shoot them.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

How about if we just stopped outsourcing everything??

Maybe we should outsource congress.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by slayda

And the death penalty is a deterant - putting a criminal to death will indead deter him (or her) from commiting another such act (at least in this life time). Perhaps if we chose one of the bleeding hearts at random, gave them & the convicted criminal a knife and put them in a dark room and turned loose the survivor (if there was one) we could eventually either have fewer criminals or fewer bleeding hearts so we could better punish the criminals.

Except that it's not a deterrent. And, I'm not against the death penalty. I think it serves a valuable purpose as societal vengeance. It's just not a deterrent.

Here's why. You have three basic types of people who commit murder (as that term is defined by most laws in the United States anyway). The first is the person who is convinced that they are smarter than everyone else, and that they are not going to be caught. The death penalty is not a deterrent to them because they have no intention of having it applied to them. Those types include not only your basic serial killers, but a lot of people who commit murder. Really, they are certain that they are going to get away with it ... and a fair amount do. Or, they get away with it for one hell of a long time before anybody finally figures it out ..... a la John Wayne Gacy.

Then, you've got people like this nut job in New York or those asswipes at Columbine. They have no intention of coming out alive. Their plan is to take as many people as they can along for their little suicidal rampage. It's mass murder followed by suicide by your own hand or by cop. The death penalty certainly isn't a deterrent there .... those people aren't planning to stick around for a trial and execution.

Then, you've got those idiots who commit murder, but didn't really intend to kill anyone. It just happened. Yes, what they did was really stupid, and yes, someone died as a result .... but, those types are not eligible for the death penalty anyway ... even in states that have the death penalty.

It might .... I repeat might .... make someone think twice before killing someone in a bank robbery ... maybe, but then again, maybe not ... because, again, career criminals who have been in and out of jail their whole damn lives, know the system. And, even they commit their crimes thinking they won't get caught.

No one plans or carries out a crime with the deterrent in mind. The idea is to get away with it, or get killed .... or the crime had an unintended consequence.

The death penalty makes the survivors and society (or at least some people in society) feel better .... like they are doing something proactive to prevent future crime. They aren't actually, but it's one of those lovely societal delusions that we all fall into because .... well, just because.

I sometimes think that what sets man apart from the animals is, we're the only species that can come up with a totally bad and unworkable idea, and when the idea proves itself to be just as bad as you would expect, we decide that what will work is to do more of the same. Sure ... bound to get you a different outcome eventually.

Originally Posted by slayda

Maybe we should outsource congress.

Or set up term limits with the death penalty when they leave office. It would be really interesting to see who would run under those circumstances.

[RickyMaveety]

That last post reminded me of the time I debated my Criminal Law prof on the death penalty .... I had the pro position, he was against.

I don't think he was prepared for the path I chose in the debate. I suspect he was thinking that I was going to argue things like deterrents, which I didn't because I don't believe it works as a deterrent.

I made two primary points, that societal blood lust and a need for some good old cathartic justice at the end of a rope (so to speak) has always had a place in human society. And, to a certain extent we still need it today. I know I felt rather good when Gacy was executed, and Bundy too

The other point I made was on the issue of cost. Yes, right now it is expensive, but if you limit the appeals process and streamline the assembly line, you could decrease price through volume.

Bed time....night all.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

In Harry's world view (as I take it from his posts), that immigrant didn't have any responsibility for his actions. Heavens no ... it's the fault of lax gun laws. No criminal should have to take responsibility for his crimes ... it's the fault of the people who make the laws.

Please don't "invent" what you think I am saying, especially when it is totally wrong, as it is here. Of course this man was to blame for his actions. All that I am saying is that it is highly improbable that he would have been able to kill 13 people had he not had access to guns, but was forced to use, say, a knife. Guns are not "responsible" for crime, people are; but guns can certainly make the consequences of crime a lot more horrific than they would otherwise have been.

[Donnageddon]

All that I am saying is that it is highly improbable that he would have been able to kill 13 people had he not had access to guns, but was forced to use, say, a knife. Guns are not "responsible" for crime, people are; but guns can certainly make the consequences of crime a lot more horrific than they would otherwise have been.

Harry, you are so right.

What amazes me is how you are so wrong (ie. disagree with me) so often.

This is why I try not to post on serious topics in MR. Too many smart people, agreeing and disagreeing with me all the time.

I prefer posting in about this stuff in political forums. Nothing but idiots there.

[astra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Absolutely not, but remember that the majority of murders are "domestic" and carried out by people without any previous criminal record. If you have a gun in the house, it's at hand if you have a row with your husband/wife. If all you have at hand are kitchen knives, etc, you're far less likely to kill the other person.

Only mutilate. Is it preferable?

[HarryT]

I don't think we're talking about the "mad slasher" here, astra, but someone who snatches up a knife in the heat of an argument and stabs someone. That's relatively unlikely to kill them, unless they hit a vital spot. If you shoot someone, it's far more likely to be fatal.

Is it preferable to live than to die? I think that, in most circumstances, the answer would be "yes".

[Alexander Turcic]

Guys, I understand this may be a sensitive topic, but please, let's all try to relax and unwind for a moment.

Thank you!

[DixieGal]

I think there may be a few more massacres in the news lately, but that is no reason to condemn our whole nation, Harry. I think if you consider the size and population of the US, you would see that we are not a nation of criminals and victims. Tens of millions of us live our entire lives happily without being involved in violence of any sort.

On the other hand, Tim and I have been attempted victims in Rome (twice) and Paris. He had his pocket "examined" by a woman carrying a baby outside the Vatican walls, but I shook my finger at her and scolded her. Then, on a city bus, a group of 20somethings seperated us when the bus pulled up and pushed him onto the bus via the exit doors. In a minute, he hollered from the back of the bus, "Hey Honey! I'm getting mugged again!" So I squeezed back there and scolded them. They were stuck on the bus until the next stop, and actually apologized. Quitters! In Paris, a gang of adolescents tried to hustle us toward a subway stop late at night. They did that whistle routine where they circle around like a pack of wolves and communicate with whistles. We looked them right in the eyes and stood our ground (topside, didn't go down like they wanted us to), and pretty quickly the whistles backed off and the kids began to vanish. I guess they must have found more willing victims.

We just laugh at all of that while it is happening. Our pockets are empty, because every single thing we carry is in a wallet that hangs around the neck inside the clothing. In groups of people, we walk with our hand on the camera around our necks, not hanging loose where anyone could snatch it from our necks.

We have found that the would-be criminals are basically lazy and cowardly. They will go off and find someone easier to rob.

What I'm saying is that while we have never experienced crime in the rooting shooting US, it has been fairly common to us in Europe, where the criminals do not have guns. Discussion?