Surprise surprise. .another shooting

[TomFoolery]

Lots of people die from malaria, dirty drinking water, and inadequate access to basic medical care in third world countries.

You know what I learned in the Army? There's no perfectly humane way to die. People get angry when they talk about chemical weapons use and about how horrible it is, but it's also pretty horrible to die from having your body ripped apart from a bomb or slowly bleed to death from a bullet too. We try to come up with "nice" ways to die and if the world were a better place, we'd all be doing it peacefully in our sleep at an old age. The fact that we have people dying of these things is shameful, but it doesn't make dying from gun violence "just a thing." They are unrelated.

Obviously, we can't address civil rights until every person on the planet has their basic medical needs taken care of first.

Civil rights and the right to safe drinking water, food and medicine aren't as different as you think. Civil rights gives people the opportunity to be economically independent, and in the modern world, money is right up there with oxygen. I'm going to say we can't fix one without simultaneously fixing the other since without civil rights, we can give everyone medicine and then tell people of certain groups to get to the back of the line to get it. What good is that?

Also, if you're outraged about one, it indicates that you're not outraged about the other somehow.

False. People can care about more than one topic at a time. I would say caring about ONLY one topic is part of what got us into this mess when we have partisan groups all screaming that only the social issue THEY support is relevant when in fact they all are. Racism vs. hungry people sets up a competition in which no one wins.

Gun control is such an easy fix--except it's not because the corporations are in control.

Wait, are you saying the corporations aren't in control? The NRA is probably the best example of a lobbying group practically owned by corporations that you will ever find.

[Baruch]

Mike CL missed a comma ... "except its not, because corporations are in control".  The lack of a single character, destroyed the early Pioneer mission to Mars in the 1960s.  Computers are unforgiving of bad punctuation.  In this case, it made his statement the opposite of what "I think" he meant.

Corporations are made possible by governments.  This is good cop/bad cop ... public vs private corporations, government vs capitalism ... is a false dichotomy.  They have been symbiotic from the start.  But the overall political economy, that gets beyond the he said/she said ... shows that our society has many ills that are becoming necrotic.

Keeping it general and non-partisan ... from my POV ... the US political theory is just as bogus as that of any other society.  You have no rights ... never did.  It was all a con, from George Washington onward.  My cynicism matches Dogbert on this.  The Enlightenment was all powdered wigs and shit.

[hrdlr110]

Ed "guns" hockily, really? This fight is finished, if Ed is in, I'm out.

[Mike Cl]

Wait, are you saying the corporations aren't in control? The NRA is probably the best example of a lobbying group practically owned by corporations that you will ever find.

Not quite sure how you got that.  I thought I was totally clear--creating a fair and consistent gun control policy is an easy thing to do.  Except----Except!, the corporations that make money from the selling of arms and ammo will not allow it.  Congress is in the hip pocket of the NRA corporate shills!

[TomFoolery]

Not quite sure how you got that.  I thought I was totally clear--creating a fair and consistent gun control policy is an easy thing to do.  Except----Except!, the corporations that make money from the selling of arms and ammo will not allow it.  Congress is in the hip pocket of the NRA corporate shills!

I think Baruch is right. A comma completely changes this sentence:

Gun control is such an easy fix--except it's not because the corporations are in control.
Gun control is such an easy fix--except it's not, because the corporations are in control.

I had kind of figured that wasn't what you meant, and after Baruch pointed out the comma, it makes more sense and I can say it aloud and see what you mean.

[Hydra009]

I'm with you on this, Hydra.  To a point.

False. People can care about more than one topic at a time.

Guys, guys.  I was being sarcastic.  I thought that would be fairly obvious.  Apparently, I need to tag this stuff or something.

I was imitating Johan's drunk driving diversion (the accusation that the gun control people aren't similarly outraged by ongoing drunk driving deaths as the latest mass shooting, implying that they ought to be talking about that and not the mass shooting) by sarcastically claiming that we shouldn't be addressing civil rights when there are worse problems out there.

[Mike Cl]

Mike CL missed a comma ... "except its not, because corporations are in control".  The lack of a single character, destroyed the early Pioneer mission to Mars in the 1960s.  Computers are unforgiving of bad punctuation.  In this case, it made his statement the opposite of what "I think" he meant.

Ah---Yes, that pesky comma.  That does give it a totally different meaning.  TomFoolery, if you see me posting stuff in support of corporations then you will know that I have drank of the hemlock.  In other words, the corp people gave me a bunch of money. :))) 

[Shiranu]

Right, do absolutely nothing. That's EXACTLY what I said. I bet  you got little gold starts and your little forehead every day in Mrs Rottencroch's reading class.

So another whacko freaked out and killed a bunch of people? Well god dammit something must be done!!!!! Oh, but a drunk also killed a bunch of people? Well... I drive a car... and I don't really want to give that up... and I have drink now and then so.... I really don't want to give that up either.... so... let's just keep that on the down low shall we.... Yeah lets not talk too much about the hard cold facts, lets just steer the conversation back to the fact that guns have no real purpose and no one who isn't absolutely insane would ever own one. Hypocrites every one of us.

"You are upset about factor A and want to take action about it, but you are not upset about factor B and don't want to take action against it. Therefor you are a hypocrite, and either must take action against factor B or not take action against factor A... elsewise you are wrong."

Besides just being heavily logically flawed, and since people ARE upset over factor B "drunk driving", then the only logical conclusion is that you don't want people to be upset over factor A, "gun violence". Therefor the only way to answer your equation is to not do anything about factor A.

I want this problem fixed. I want the killing to stop.

Good luck with that.

There are always going to be psychos out there who will do shit like this; look at Brevik, who lives in a "liberal haven" country and still got his hands on weapons.

The thing is we don't have to make it so damn easy. And we don't have any reason to have the number of accidental deaths we have. You are acting like all gun violence has to do with mass shooters and maniacs; it doesn't. The overwhelming, vast majority of deaths by guns come from accidents, crimes of bursts of passion and criminals. Reducing the number of the guns reduces the first two... that is a fact that simply cannot be argued argued against. If you don't have a gun, you cant accidentally kill someone with it.

As for criminals, it drives the prices up when you reduce the supply... basic economics. The more criminals you can price lock out of having a gun, the better. Will they still be violent? Of fucking course. But it is still far harder to kill someone with a knife than a gun, and bombs are only used by "intelligent" (high IQ anyways) criminals (for the most part).

You don't want people to be killed in mass shootings and believe that is an issue of our culture or education or whatever; that's great, and I agree with you. But gun violence is overwhelming not a matter of mass shooting but negligence, stupidity, quick bursts of passion and just bad luck. These are all issues that gun reductions WOULD fix, and that is why so many people are in favour of heavy gun regulations.

Edit: IIRC, and it's been awhile since I have looked at the charts, suicides are the number one cause of gun related deaths...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/

[Johan]

"You are upset about factor A and want to take action about it, but you are not upset about factor B and don't want to take action against it. Therefor you are a hypocrite, and either must take action against factor B or not take action against factor A... elsewise you are wrong."

Besides just being heavily logically flawed, and since people ARE upset over factor B "drunk driving", then the only logical conclusion is that you don't want people to be upset over factor A, "gun violence". Therefor the only way to answer your equation is to not do anything about factor A.

You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote.

[Baruch]

Progressives always believe that there are "problems" .. that something must be "done" ... and that they know what that "something" is.  This is not a claim that regressives are any fun either.  They love that hidden hand of Adam Smith up their crotches.

[baronvonrort]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/

In 1996 the government bought back 640,000 guns, by mid 2012 we had imported over 1 million guns to replace the 640,000 that were bought back.

We only had around 50-60 firearm homicides a year before out gun laws were introduced,firearm homicides were trending down long before our 96 laws as was gun suicides.
Hanging is the most common method for suicide in Australia,gun suicides went down while hanging suicides increased,there is evidence of substitution of method.

We still have serious problems with gun crimes in Australia, drive by shootings were unheard of before 1996 now they are fairly common.
google.com.au/?gsw_rd=ssl#q=drive+by+shooting+sydney

There was even a call to have another buy back for illegal AK47 clones recently,does anyone think the criminals will hand them in?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

The world is full of hypocrisy. This is nothing new. Walk sick and close to deaths door into any hospital and tell them you have no insurance and no money and you'll likely be shown the door to the parking lot. On the other hand if you tell them you're sick and close to deaths door and you're going to kill yourself because you can't deal with it any longer and the same hospital will likely sell a wing off to make sure you receive enough care to not die right off.
The hospital doesn't care if you die, but they DO care if you tell them you're the one who is going to do the killing.

[TomFoolery]

Guys, guys.  I was being sarcastic.  I thought that would be fairly obvious.  Apparently, I need to tag this stuff or something.

I was imitating Johan's drunk driving diversion (the accusation that the gun control people aren't similarly outraged by ongoing drunk driving deaths as the latest mass shooting, implying that they ought to be talking about that and not the mass shooting) by sarcastically claiming that we shouldn't be addressing civil rights when there are worse problems out there.

I read over the text of what you originally wrote and I didn't pick up a whole lot of sarcasm, but if that is really how you intended it, I apologize. I'm usually pretty good at picking up irony, satire and sarcasm. :/

Who is saying that? Besides you, I mean.

Oh, and Rick Perry is...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/26/politics/rick-perry-gun-free-zones-movie-theaters/

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I read over the text of what you originally wrote and I didn't pick up a whole lot of sarcasm, but if that is really how you intended it, I apologize. I'm usually pretty good at picking up irony, satire and sarcasm. :/
Oh, and Rick Perry is...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/26/politics/rick-perry-gun-free-zones-movie-theaters/

As I said,  we need more people with loaded weapons in dark buildings and lots of noise so they're all focused on killing (the bad guys) and yes, in case you're immune to it that is sarcasm.

[hrdlr110]

In 1996 the government bought back 640,000 guns, by mid 2012 we had imported over 1 million guns to replace the 640,000 that were bought back.

We only had around 50-60 firearm homicides a year before out gun laws were introduced,firearm homicides were trending down long before our 96 laws as was gun suicides.
Hanging is the most common method for suicide in Australia,gun suicides went down while hanging suicides increased,there is evidence of substitution of method.

We still have serious problems with gun crimes in Australia, drive by shootings were unheard of before 1996 now they are fairly common.
google.com.au/?gsw_rd=ssl#q=drive+by+shooting+sydney

There was even a call to have another buy back for illegal AK47 clones recently,does anyone think the criminals will hand them in?

But very few of the shootings here in Australia target innocents. Most are bikey gangs and drugs wars. At least they are shooting each other, and not school kids, or those trying to enjoy a movie. There's not much workplace violence either, compared to America. Maybe it's the 38 hour work week?