The vast majority of people (I would hope) find the idea of killing strangers abhorrent. I would even think that most of us would find it extremely difficult to bring ourselves to murder someone we particularly disliked. Even in a hypothetical situation where someone straps a bomb to you and says “go in there and start firing or I trigger it” there is going to be an internal debate over weather you can do this or would you rather get blown up.
So I guess the question is, where is the disconnect in these people? How are they capable of, even intent on, doing things that the rest of us find horrific?
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Yep. If there had been a ‘good guy with a gun’ in there, there probably would have been more people dead.
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It’s Really Hard to Be a Good Guy With a Gun
Worth a read, even if it is Gawker.
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Did you see the “UK knife” comment above? You’re psychic!
Getting the hang of the quoting system now, I think!
Because it always comes up: The UK doesn’t have guns (except of course it does, shit loads, mostly shotguns, every farmer in the land has one and you can have one from 16 years old, plus plenty of rifles).
Their counter to this is the rampant knife crime that is plaguing the land.
I can only assume there are (alleged) news outlets in the US that are highlighting UK knife crime, for their own agenda.
Sorry, the knife crime is barely noticeable. We don’t have political leaders going on about it, we don’t have the newspapers using it to sell papers, we don’t have groups of people on both sides advocating one way or the other.
We have a little bit of the above (mainly the newspapers), who try and get some outrage sometimes, but it dies away as the problem isn’t significant.
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So provided we ignore a lot of the gun deaths our gun death rates are pretty low. Also, let’s just not talk about mass killings, since they aren’t as common as the normal daily 80 gun deaths per day in the US since mass killings are barely a blip and are sensationalist.
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This. Also, the copycat effect means that if we stop talking about them, there will be fewer of them.
But news outlets have to band together to decide not to be ghouls first.
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Correct, I have never seen one. I’m hoping you are not trying to attribute the word ‘ludicrous’ to me, that would lessen your post even more.
Feel free to post links where I can buy the above item.
And educate me on how I’m unable to buy a normal kitchen knife and I have to buy the item above, that is not available in any shops.
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So basically “ignore the problem and it will go away?”
That approach doesn’t even work for schoolyard bullies or internet trolls, but it’s supposed to stop mass murderers?
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I was agreeing with you. You’ve not seen that knife for sale because it’s a stupid solution to a nonexistent problem. Knifecrime island is a ludicrous fantasy that only exists in the minds of the Daily Mail, Evening Standard, and NRA members trying to invent an equivalence to gun crime in the US.
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Small correction…
The simple fact is that the additional background check needed to keep most guns from most mentally ill would have zero affect on law abiding citizens. But that would be bad business. You see, news like this increases sales. Sales to people who fear this sort of thing could happen to them. Sales to people who desire to do this sort of thing. The motivation for blocking a change in the law is simple: greed.
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Mass killings are an anomaly and probably the hardest thing to prevent. A lot of crime deaths could be considered heat of the moment. IIRC arguments are the #1 thing that leads to murders. They don’t wake up that day planning to kill someone.
Mass killings are planned. They are going to be more successful because people wake up that day with a plan. How exactly do you combat that?
And again - per JonS’s link:
- On average, 4.4 mass killings a year between 1999 and 2013 could be defined as mass public shootings.
- Only 20 of the 68 offenders in mass public shootings were arrested. The majority killed themselves or were killed by police.
Something that happens 4.4 times a year is hardly an epidemic. Most of them were killed in the process. It is pretty clear these people are sick, want to die, and take people with them. That there is crazy evil. HOW do you make laws - which they will disregard - to stop something like that. Please suggest some with out getting too Orwellian.
BB is a big privacy advocate, anti domestic spying. But I bet if we key logged and tracked their computer activity for a month, we would see some clues for a lot of these people. Would you support mandatory key logging and history report sent to the gov. anonymously, and if you get flagged, then someone monitors your activity? Why or why not?
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Xeni- I think this is far more about mental health issues than gun control, racism, etc - or any number of other hot button topics.
I look at the Dylan Roof event: yes racist overtones. But was that the reason, really? There are plenty of racists out there, but none of them engage in mass shootings in public places. Let’s face one thing: you can be racist, but it takes a special kind of crazy to actually shoot people. Think about it. Killing another human being isn’t playtime, it’s peak human horror. Even in war, men and women are horrified at the prospect - they do what is needed, but they live with that horror a lifetime.
Roof is like every other nutbag who engages in mass destruction: they latch onto one thing and that’s their driving obsession. But it’s only what justifies in their fevered, insane and disturbed minds. And you can bet on one thing:
Someone knew these shooters are sick, insane people…and did nothing.
If it’s not a gun it’s an axe, a knife, a homemade bomb, take your pick. It’s not about the weapon, it’s about us. We MUST be willing to stand up and say something when we see and hear genuinely disturbed people. Authorities must be willing to investigate these individuals - and this would be labor intensive I know. But it must be do-able somehow. We can’t be afraid of who we offend by suggesting they’re off their nut. Political correctness has to be damned.
This shooting is probably like a lot of others: mentally unstable people who ought to have been dealt with long ago - but no one said anything, or did anything, when the warning signs were all over - for fear of what might be said by authorities and / or the person being pointed out.
I don’t know what the answer is, or what the problem of mental health stems from (state of the world? economy?), or how to deal with it. My point is only that it’s clear to me that people killing other people (not in a war type situation) is patently absurd, and involves a clearly demented mind.
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Yet every single first-world country has managed to do so, with one glaring exception.
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But you were evaluated.
When you got your mortgage, there was an exhaustive inquiry into your ability to make the payments.
When you got your driver license, you had to pass a written and practical exam.
The exam was relevant to your fitness to own a home, or to drive a car.
What would an exam for gun ownership look like?
I have a proposed answer, and it might raise some eyebrows, but here goes anyway.
I think it would look a lot like Basic Training.
When I went through, decades ago, it was weeks before they ever put a weapon in our hands, weeks during which we were put under some pretty serious stress, and our reactions were evaluated
Once the let us touch our rifles, it was still more time before they ever let us handle ammunition. And all that time we were being watched, evaluated.
When they finally gave us live ammo, it was three rounds at a time, and they literally counted the rounds going onto and coming off of the firing line.
I won’t go through every stage of BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship), partly because I’m suspicious that you and I have that experience in common.
So the “evaluation” I’m proposing goes something like the Swiss model.
Do you want to own a gun? No problem! We have this little course you’ll need to complete first. We call it Militia Training, to honor its roots in the Second Ammendment.
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What about the mass shooters that do it for public reasons? Like not being able to get a date? Or they really hate Sikhs or Muslims? Are they mentally ill? And if so why do they have guns?
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Balls. Sorry!
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4.4 times a year… and yet that adds up to how many dead? What is an acceptable number of dead for you to talk about? What is the baseline? I’m curious.
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You are amazing. The rate has quadrupled, and your response? Meh, t’ain’t no thang.
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As in, balls == I made a mistake and I’m sorry. Written words really don’t do enough.
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