Says the man who used a chainsaw on a ladder like Conan ... :neutral:

Therein lies the problem. Guns are NOT toys - even fake ones. Especially as dusk or the waning hours of daylight. What he did was not only "very dangerous" it was incredibly stupid. VERY LUCKY to have not been met by an overzealous neighbor or rookie cop.

They don't do a traveling dog & pony show, they're making a structured program available for local initiatives. Really the only way it can be effective is getting the parents involved. Otherwise they send their kids to one of these presentations, like they would to the Saturday matinée, and won't have a clue what the kid saw, or retained. Plenty of parents could use the training too.

You're right. Better get those handguns away from "overzealous neighbor"s. I guess they didn't have guns, or they would have shot, instead of calling the cops.:cool:

question
 

I have limited time and haven't been through the (whole) thread, so this may have been addressed already. If not...


Folks have been known to off others with all manner of things (baseball bats, razors, hammers, guns, fists, etc.).

If Joe kills one, ten, 100, with an item, the item should then be restricted or regulated for every one else?

Please cite an incident in the US where a mass of innocent people have been massacred by an American with anything but a gun.

"Please cite an incident in the US where a mass of innocent people have been massacred by an *American with anything but a gun."

9/11: Twin Towers.

*shrug*

Not relevant to my question.









*yes, not Americans, I know, but living here, working here, etc.

Not an American. Should have gone McVeigh/OK city for the win. Explosives are illegal.

How about the happy practice of giving the Native Americans blankets infested with small pox? :eyebrow:

"Not an American."

Yeah, I said that.

#

"Should have gone McVeigh/OK city for the win. Explosives are illegal."

Wasn't going for 'the win', was answering your question, "Please cite an incident in the US where a mass of innocent people have been massacred by an American with anything but a gun.” The legality of the instrument was not part of the question. However, since you bring it up: yes, explosives are illegal...fat lot of good that did for OK City... ;)

Again: all irrelevant to my question which I'll rephrase since I think it's poorly constructed.


>If Joe does something stupid, bad, or inhumane with an item, why should Jack be punished by way of restrictions on that kind of item?<

How about rephrasing the question in a less biased way.


Every action an individual takes, no matter how large or small, affects the environment around that individual. At what point should society decide that restricting an individual's action benefits society more than not restricting the action?

You think he would have been the first? Perhaps your attitude would be different... or not.


Not the Ammonium nitrate he used. Its a common fertilizer. The rest, maybe.


from Wiki ...
" The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19 children under the age of 6 and injured more than 680 people.
The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen-block radius,
destroyed or burned 86 cars, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings.
The bomb was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage."

AND NOT ONE GUN USED.

Some guns were used in this:

Constable, civilian, gunman confirmed dead after shooting near Texas A&M campus

No gun here, people still died.


Woman stabs boyfriend in neck during argument

Same here:

Bride stabs, kills fiancé hours before wedding in Philadelphia

It's true, people kill people, and they're creative in their choice of weapons.

ph45,

You really think your rephrasing is less biased that either of my versions?

My iterations are neutral; yours drips with bias.

#

"Every action an individual takes, no matter how large or small, affects the environment around that individual."

Demonstrably not the case.

If Joe, who lives alone, masturbates himself to sleep every night, how does this affect anything (other than his bedsheets)?

Your rephrasing trades precision and accuracy for bias.

#

"At what point should society decide that restricting an individual's action benefits society more than not restricting the action?"

I'd say you restrict the individual when the individual does something worth being restricted for...that is, when he or she commits a crime. To restrict (action, ownership, etc.) before hand, in anticipation of a crime, well, defend that position if you can.


>And 'my' question stands (rephrased yet again): If Joe does wrong, with bare hand or with gun, why should Joe’s actions affect Jack's hands or Jack’s ownership of a gun?<

It shouldn't. But when Joe, Jim, Bob, Harry, Fred, Susie, Steve, Kenny and Eric do it too I think it would be responsible to think about it at least.

Neutral? C'mon. You are just saying why should Person 2 get punished for the stupid actions of Person 1.

This is an extremely libertarian way of thinking. I'm pretty sure no one else but libertarians or traditional small government conservatives solely think this way.

How old are you? First of all, to be nitpicky (since you were), you affect take in electricity, water, and produce wastewater when washing your sheets. Second, I assumes we were mature enough not to be nitpicky when making generalizing statements.

Back to my point. Almost everything we do affects someone else somehow. If I smoke a cigarette I exhale toxic chemicals that can be inhaled by someone else. If I get drunk I can break other people's properties, commit crimes, verbally and physically abuse people, etc. If I use electricity I am getting that from some energy source which most likely releases CO2 and toxic gas into our environment. If I preach hate I can potentially get other people to act on my beliefs, hurting and killing people. If I vote for a politician, I have some responsibility for the politician's votes. I can go on forever.

The point is that we as a society are constantly trying to find an equilibrium between individual rights (right to smoke, drink, use electricity, speech, vote, etc.) and social rights (rights not to inhale toxic chemicals, not to be a victim of someone's misuse of alcohol, not to be affected by man-made climate change, not to be a target of hate, etc.).

There is no formula or line where we can put actions into "allowable" and "not allowable" because we feel differently about them. We recognize electricity is a necessity so we don't ban its use even though the negative consequences can be great. We failed at banning alcohol because our culture will not allow for it and we feel the positive personal effects outweigh the negative personal and social consequences. We banned weed because there is a social stigma against it even though its positive consequences are greater and negative consequences are much less than alcohol.

This leads me to your quote:

You see gun laws are not enacted because the actions of one person. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. People try to ban guns because there is a history of gun owners using guns for violence. If both Joe and Jack try to get guns, it is very difficult to determine that Joe will use it for violence while Jack will not. There is that uncertainty so it leads people to try to ban them all together.

I disagree with banning guns and support tougher regulation but, once again, it largely comes down to culture. Also, to complicate it, if Joe has a nuclear weapon, he has the power to kill millions of people and we as a society do not trust that power with any non-government official. The power of the weapon has a large influence in regulation as well.

Nope, not illegal. Explosives are restricted to licensed users.

Jack is not being punished any more than he's being punished by having to stop at a stop sign. People like those Columbine students, Aurora movie goers, Wisconsin Sikhs are being protected.

Stupid: masturbation doesn't kill masses of innocents.

My mistake. I was wrong

Gun owner think and state that they have guns to protect themselves in their homes. Let's see if it's true. In the next month, I'm going to infiltrate Classicman's home, unarmed, and kiss him on his ear. Let's see if he can shoot me before I can do it.

A coincidence of postings.... :D

:notworthy

I take it that you are not in favor of imposing sanctions or worse on countries like Iran or N. Korea to prevent them from developing automic bombs and other WMD's. They are just researching the ebola virus to benefit mankind. Iran is just going nuclear because they have an altruistic desire to send all their oil to other countries and you gotta get electricity somehow.

You bet.

Spexx is gonna get buttfucked in the mouth, then shot.

I was gonna say bring your camera/pics or it never happened...something, but bruce's reply was far more betterer.

Okay, fellas, the whole homo-erotic phallic-firearm things is getting out of hand.



Next three posters have to play soggy biscuit.

Ok, first I had to look up 'boganesque' because of Ducks and now I have to ask what is 'soggy biscuit' -? Is it an Oz thing or a dirty guy thing?

Ph45,

Leaving aside the irrelevant bias of your or my posts: you really mean to say that Jack’s use of ‘this’ or ‘that’ (his ease of use, his ease of acquisition) legitimately depends on what ‘the people’ have to say?

Jack may understand ‘the people’ will certainly try -- by way of the stick called ‘LAW’ (codified and sanctioned force) -- to, in his view, hobble him for the good of ‘the people’, but Jack may fundamentally disagree with ‘the people’s’ (shifty, shifting, capricious) wisdom and do as he can to navigate ‘round ‘the people’.

You might say this makes Jack a criminal.

Jack might say, ‘I’m okay with that.’

Stalemate.

*shrug*

#

Spexx,

I can’t see how a stop sign (one of several devices for regulating traffic) is in the same ballpark as saying, ‘No, Jack, because a whack of folks have done bad things with this item, you are not allowed to own the same kind of item, or, you must jump through all manner of legal hoops to get this item.’

#

Sam,

The Hebrews have a saying: ‘If you know someone is coming to kill you, get up early and go kill them first.’ Iran, N. Korea, and others have made ‘their’ intentions clear. I say, ‘kill them first’. In any event: if Jack buys a gun, the act (of buying) is not an active threat against any one, so, why should he be penalized for what he ‘might’ do?

#

“Spexx is gonna get buttfucked in the mouth, then shot.”

I want a DVD of that.

Only if Classic packs 100% of the time, including when he answers the door. If he answers the door without pointing the gun at me, I'll get him.

If you know he has a gun, you aren't going to his door.

I bet nobody can sum this up in one NORMAL (un-tw like) paragraph but the post about spexx getting buttfucked in the mouth and then shot got my attention.

what the hell is going on??

Dieter says: Now is the time on Sprockets when we DANCE!

Filling in for Merc?

Exactly!!

**extra** careful, otherwise, I'd've been injured. Injured bad.

Classic isn't going to shoot me. He already posted that he can "get upstairs to his gun". That's a long way. He's also a responsible gun owner. That means that he has his weapons locked in a gun safe or has trigger locks on them, so those who shpuldn't have access don't have access.

Oh look, he just got back from the range and it's on his living room table.

If you know he has a gun, you aren't going to his door, unless you're a moron.

Wait! What? Classic has suddenly become a serial killer or maybe a mass murderer? :eek: Did somebody find a stock pile of AK47's and vials of ebola virus in his basement?

Gee, he always seemed so quiet and well mannered. Such a nice young man. It's hard to believe. You just can't trust anyone anymore these days. ;)

Thats when you get the baseball bat. After a couple whacks I'll have all the time I need to make coffee.

So you admit that you don't use your gun to protect yourself from home invasion. I accept your apology.

No, I never said it was the first line of my defense.

Feel free to try again, though. You seem to draw some very odd pleasure out of this.

Or maybe he has them out cleaning them and he's just finished the job...and then you knock on the door, after a day of telling him what a dick he is, and he's just had enough.

So he smiles a small smile to himself and thinks about how fate works in mysterious ways as he steadily walks towards the door, knowing the bane of his existence is waiting for him on the other side...

...to be continued...

... there's a loud sound, then he looks through the peephole in the door for the person who'd been knocking, the peephole that wasn't there a few moments ago ...

No pleasure. I'm compelled to debunk foolish thinking.

And he killed the UPS man, goes to jail, and anyone who was counting on him for food, clothing, shelter, etc, is fucked.

... and confirms that he has killed a menacing Landshark, which he recognized through the closed door when he heard it say "Telegram." The President later awarded him the Medal of Freedom and sent him a candygram.

Widespread gun ownership immediately preserves property and earning capacity -- for the dead do no work and earn no bucks, life insurance settlements being quite another matter, not part of earning -- to the tune of US$2.5BN each year in the United States alone. See John Lott.

There's also the little matter of its being the only known societal vaccination against genocides.

Pretty well buttfucks the ideas of the hoplophobic ragers against self-defense. Which article q.v. in the JPFO website.

make of this what you will...
 

Politically correct gone wild.:mad:

but it's not political correctness at all. it's out-and-out ableism. it's a clear assault on the rights of the deaf and the disabled. that's the opposite of political correctness, isn't it?

You could make a case for that, but most people would give you the stink eye and walk away muttering about Ivy league twits.

It's stupid fucking behavior by people who want to be politically correct (or fear not to be), following rules set by people who are trying to be politically correct (or fear not to be).
Nobody want to make a logical judgment call for fear of being crucified. Just pass the blame on to faceless zero tolerance rules, no matter how inappropriate for the situation. I realize they worry about their jobs or litigation, but these gutless assholes make me sick.
I'm willing to bet, in a private one on one conversation, every one of the people involved with this would admit it's stupid bullshit.

I'm not sure it has anything to do with his being deaf. If the kid's parents had named him Gunner, would the school also have an issue? I suspect they would.

[Devil's advocate tangent]And even then, there is a moderate line--what if they'd named him Motherfucker? I think most would agree that, at SOME point, it doesn't matter if it's his name, it's still unacceptable. [/tangent] Anyway, this is clearly the type of school that has their panties in a wad about everything, not just deaf handsigns.

It's not political correctness; it's zero tolerance. They're different issues. You can have zero tolerance on a politically correct subject, but this is zero tolerance for violence.

And I'm with you all the way on zero tolerance.

And this ridiculous bullshit doesn't come from trying to be politically correct? Horeshit, when I went to school there was zero tolerance on violence. They didn't tolerate it. Period. Not being able to shape your hand like a gun and pew pew pew on the playground has nothing to do with violence. It's about control, shaping body and soul into politically correct minions.

Good thing his family name isn't Raper.

The problem with zero tolerance is that it is very easy to fall down a slippery slope. First it starts out as physical violence. Then, some messed kid up draws a picture of students shooting a teacher and it gets found. The logical outcome is to punish the student justifying themselves with "zero tolerance" on violence, which I would say is logical in that particular situation. Then, since they punished a kid for the threat of violence, that gets expanded to "zero tolerance" on any form of violence, whether it be a student harmlessly drawing a picture of a gun or whatever. Its stupid because there is no end to it. I can get just keep getting pushed further and further.

I'd seen this story a couple days ago and raged at the television (and anyone in earshot) about the idiocy of such a stand taken by the school district. But I seem to be a little late to the story in this thread. Here's my take on it.

A little background first. My eldest son is deaf. I've been involved, though not immersed in Deaf Culture for 25 years. I'm slow but functionally fluent in sign language. I've dealt with school administrators and teachers and other employees for many years. I've been helped by and hindered by various policies at various times.

Good grief.

All of the comments above indicating disdain for "zero tolerance" policies are right on target as far as I'm concerned. Every one of them is just a bureaucratic fig leaf for "zero judgement". Of course I don't want violence in my kids' school. Of course I don't want weapons in my kids' schools. Of course I don't want drugs in my kids' schools. But each of these, and practically any other fairly wide category, has exceptions that are acceptable. And there are endless examples of specific objects or actions that, in context, are perfectly acceptable, but could, in a different context, run afoul of some "zero tolerance" definition. This story is a perfect example.

The problem is not his name. Nor his name sign. Nor is it a policy that restricts weapons. The problem is very stupid people opening their mouths and letting the stupid out. I scanned around a bit and found examples of his family signing his name sign. There's No. Way. In. Hell. that it's anything like a threat. In the video at the link I've included here are a couple scenes where the sign is made. Watch it, judge for yourself. It's not a threat and it's not a violation of anything. It's the kid's name for fucking fuck's sake. That's my factual refutation of the stupid that leaked out of the stupid people.

...

My other more emotional reactions to this story make me glad I'm not closer to Grand Island, Nebraska. I'd like to be at that PTA meeting or School District meeting to tell everyone in the room how I feel about it. There might be some of these stupid people in the room, but I doubt they'd get it. His sign isn't even the letter H, it's the letter R (the crossed fingers, like you might make behind your back when you're telling a lie). I have a member of my extended family named Gunnar (those crazy Norwegians). That's his freakin name. What in the world would the school do with that? Obviously NOTHING. The double standard this case represents makes me incandescent with anger.

As I followed up on this story, I found this news report. It seems that the school district is in full reverse on this subject, saying "Grand Island Public Schools is not requiring any current student with a hearing impairment to change his or her sign language name."

O.R.L.Y.

Where did this story come from then? The Liberal Mainstream Media? I hope the parents get satisfaction on this case. This isn't a little bit of a problem on both sides like many other issues. This is all, *all* on the school district and those who open their mouths on their behalf to let the stupid out.

.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/...fter-killing-2

This guy probably wanted to use a bat or a knife, he could have fucked up way more people if he did.:rolleyes:

I thought I read that he stole the gun from a friend. So any background check or waiting period type of regulation wouldn't have worked here. The only way to prevent this would be to completely ban guns.

And I'm glad he used a long rifle in the mall. It's serious looking, but in a confined space like a mall, a long rifle is a bad choice for doing serious damage. A handgun or some sort of short barrel would have been much worse. Look at the numbers. Only 2 dead. Terrible, but it could have been much worse.

I expect that this guy will be found to by mentally ill. That's the real story. We need to do a better job as a society of identifying and treating the mentally ill before they do stuff like this. I think it ties in to affordable health care. You can attack this problem from the health care side instead of the gun grab side and probably be more effective.

The gun debate is over. The Supreme Court ruled a couple years ago when it said that the DC gun ban was unconstitutional.

There is no liberal bias it is a bias towards laziness and sensationalism, which this reeks of both.









**************************************************
The last three shoots have been done by people whom have had mental health issues and were not treated for them.
We don't have a gun problem in the US we have a mental health care problem

Where was the law-abidin' gun-totin' heroes ready to pull out their concealed carry and pop a cap in the skull of these nutjobs? They never seem to be around. If they are, they're scared, or realize the danger of shooting into crowds.