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The moderator would start with questions that establish
that both
debaters are on the same planet before getting into the
more debatable stuff.
"OK gentlemen, first question: should we shoot nuclear
missiles at random countries just for fun? Both
candidates are
shaking their heads. Great,
we all agree on that one. OK,
next question: should nuclear
weapons be used in a first strike against countries who
call
soccer football? I see Doctorremulac3 is pausing... aaand
then no, he's shaking his head too. Both candidates agree
on that one. Next: should nuclear weapons be used in a
first
strike capacity under any circumstances? OK, now we've
got some disagreement here, candidate one, first strike,
go."
This would clarify both the issues at hand and establish
that both candidates are at least partially sane before
they
get into proving that the other person's an inhuman
monster. Plus what a nice way to start the debate, we'd
all feel the love for a moment before the debate really
got started, because we should all love each other, even
if we
disagree.
But seriously, this might be interesting.
I'm adding that this debate outline could also be used as a template that could solve the problem and even a ballot feature that could get voters involved.
Drug related mass killings.
https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/
This needs to be looked into and considered if we're going to find a solution. [doctorremulac3, Feb 17 2018]
Economic laws
Economic_20Law_20Laundry_20Mangle
[pertinax, Feb 18 2018]
On the other hand, this is highly entertaining.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
[pertinax, Feb 18 2018]
Kialo.com
https://www.kialo.com/
attempts to list pros and cons without trolling [theircompetitor, Feb 18 2018]
Arm teachers?
https://www.motherj...top-mass-shootings/
Mixed results. [RayfordSteele, Feb 18 2018]
Handguns, the real killers that nobody talks about outlawing for some reason.
https://www.statist...-weapon-types-used/
Not politically expedient I guess. [doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018]
Idea from 2014
Armed_20Civilian_20Deputization_20Program
Volunteer program with the training of a cop without the pay, benefits, retirement etc. A free auxiliary police force [doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018]
House Fires
https://www.nfpa.or...idential/Home-fires
[theircompetitor, Feb 20 2018]
Homicide rate by year
http://www.thetruth...n-violence-problem/
Is it true? Eh, who cares. Good chart. [doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018]
Armed suspect robs convenience store...
https://me.me/i/18670967
...gets shot by every customer inside. [doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018]
They're posting cops to guard schools.
https://www.nbcmiam...unds-474763143.html
Finally. [doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018]
Some research
https://everytownre...shootings-analysis/
Mass shootings, 4 or more victims not including shooter. [doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018]
Scientific American’s take
https://www.scienti...mes-evidence-shows/
Relevant [RayfordSteele, Feb 22 2018]
"Laughing at your salad happy"
https://www.google....grc=B9-C_VMCpFVzdM:
A goal sold to you by people who sell products that are supposed to achieve this. [doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2018]
Suicide reporting - codes of practice
https://www.samarit...ting-codes-practice
[Loris, Feb 23 2018]
Experts Call for Mass Killers' Names to Be Kept Quiet
https://www.livesci...say-scientists.html
for pertinax [Loris, Feb 24 2018]
Anoter take on the subject.
https://psmag.com/n...ause-mass-shootings
I think this might be one thing to do on the multi pronged approach to this problem. [doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2018]
Trump is insane because he warned somebody who threatened the U.S. with nuclear attack...
http://www.newsweek...-former-bush-769122
... that he had a much bigger, more effective nuclear deterrent and that this would be suicide on their part. [doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018]
And here's the legal genius "Republican" who's leading the 25th ammendment fight against Trump.
https://en.wikipedi...iki/Richard_Painter
Naa, he doesn't look totally insane. Learn to put your tie on straight then we'll talk about you performing a coup single handedly against the American people. [doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018]
That time he was almost a school shooter...
http://www.davideve...t-a-school-shooter/
Sounds about right. [RayfordSteele, Feb 25 2018]
Similar to item 5.
Officially_20don_27...ce_20of_20terrorism
2015 idea. My annotation refers to something earlier but probably gone... [RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018]
Another interesting read...
https://www.nbcnews...ivations-ncna851701
The power-trip phenomenon is real... [RayfordSteele, Feb 28 2018]
God I love this cartoon.
https://www.faceboo...776/?type=1&theater
[doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2018]
And the number one name for new born boys in England is....
https://qz.com/1082...d-wales-not-oliver/
Do you really even need to click this? [doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018]
I think England had a pretty good legal system.
https://www.thenati...a-councils-1.701243
Not everybody agrees. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018]
A very brave Englishman
https://www.youtube...watch?v=a-KHHKuVVRc
Atheist, anti Nazi, feminist and all around smart guy. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018]
Fake?
https://i.pinimg.co...-michael-savage.jpg
Because if not, this is a problem. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018]
One point of view.
https://www.youtube...watch?v=G4FpTvp0tgs
You might disagree with him but this is not a stupid or evil man. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018]
Fake?
https://cdn.images....-Youtube-291093.jpg
Because if not, this is a problem. [MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 04 2018]
A beautiful story about a young Christian girl to counter some of this Christian bashing.
https://www.youtube...watch?v=11z9aGw_iEs
I'd like all young women to be treated with such reverence. [doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018]
The brave and brilliant Pat Condell.
https://www.youtube...EnBl5TO4SCLfSlosjgg
[doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018]
Late but relevant.
https://secondnexus...1e8960f8120478e6c53
Just one problem among many [RayfordSteele, Mar 14 2018]
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// But seriously, this might be interesting. // |
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That's just EXACTLY what Hitler would say ... |
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Orlando: AR-15
Las Vegas: AR-15
Sandy Hook: AR-15
San Bernardino: AR-15
Texas church: AR-15
Parkland: AR-15 |
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Is it agreeable that we could live without this
weapon of mass execution? |
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A good stress test of the forum could be to put bigs
up against doc... or Max... or reality... |
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//Orlando: AR-15
Las Vegas: AR-15
Sandy Hook: AR-15
San Bernardino: AR-15
Texas church: AR-15
Parkland: AR-15// |
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I'm willing to put those on the table if your side
puts the
psycho drugs on the table. Drugs and guns
together? No
way. We can start with a list of all these events
with the
drugs these monsters were on. Just to jump ahead,
if in
defending these drugs someone tells me that
millions of
people use these every day without murdering
anybody
I'm obviously going to say "Are we talking about the
AR-
15s now?" |
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And it's also time to bring back what we used to
call
insane asylums. I'm worried the socialists will start
putting political dissenters in them like
communists do,
but that's just something that would have to be
looked
out for. |
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My solution to the whole gun thing, having a well
regulated militia as specified in the constitution
where to
own a firearm you have to go through the same
training
and background check they do for the police force
got me
called the new improved Hitler 9000 when debated
here. |
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My son's a cop, the psychological stuff they put him
through, the background checks (I had to fill out a
report
on him and I wasn't the only one.) the mind games
they
play with you to see how you react, all these
things are
exactly what I'd want a police officer tasked with
carrying
firearms to go through. You want to carry a gun?
You can't
be insane, it's going to
take a few months of your life and you'll be
checked and
reviewed on a regular basis. |
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And as an aside, almost all gun deaths are from
handguns,
how come no outcry about those? With AR-15 out
of the
picture would school shooters never resort to
handguns
which do the exact same thing? |
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To summarize, guns and psycho drugs - no. Can't
have
both. If you're on these things you're having
psychological
problems. If you're having psychological problems
you
can't have a gun. If that's prejudicial against
people with
psychological problems, well, yea it is. Sorry. |
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Now some of these ideas might be in line with
those on
the left, certainly I'm talking about much more
regulation
and taking guns away from people on happy drugs,
hardly
libertarian, but watch what the reaction will be.
Let me
just cut to the chase and do it myself. (puts on
little
Hitler mustache and goofy Hitler wig.) Ok, just
wanted to
get that over with. |
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I also don't mind having armed guards at school but
I want
somebody to find out why these things never
happened in
the past and are happening now. I think I know,
and it's
not a rifle with a particular shape. The AR-15 come
out in
the 1960s, that's a lot of years of this thing being
available without people shooting up schools. So
what's
changed? THAT'S what we should be looking at. |
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In the mean time, extensive background checks
and
training to own a gun, same as the police go
through and
NO guns for people on psychotropic drugs. Ever.
But
before we do anything, we can't even stop a guy
who's
announced he's going to shoot up a school, that's
the first
broken system we need to fix. (Hears loud buzzer,
sees
clowns with Hitler makeup kits rushing the stage.) |
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Slow down dude. We went from an easy stage to
off-the-wall in 3 seconds. |
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I never took handguns off the table. Yes they are a
larger part of the problem. But one that's more
contentious. |
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I don't think any of the cases I mentioned above
involved any serious drugs. |
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You already know my feeling on your proposal to
have volunteer security folk everywhere. Not a good
foot to start off on. |
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Regarding drugs and guns combined, I agree with
the proposal. Implementation would be difficult for
the same reason gun sale tracking is tough though. |
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Why didn't they happen in the past? |
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Some hypotheses: pace of schooling was slower.
Less disposable income and higher relative cost.
Less sex appeal of guns.
Less stuff being thrown at people in any given day
overwhelming the sensitive and depressed.
Fewer single parents.
More standardization in the timeline of any given
week.
Less 24/7 nonsense disrupting the family life, like
bad work schedules, news exposure, and such. Less
availability of ammunition. Poorer weapon quality
requiring more maintenance. All of the above. |
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I don't know where you define the cutoff for drugs
that are compatible. Might be in the prescription or
side-effects? |
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I take levothroid for thyroid issues in small doses.
Without it I get a bit slow and foggy and probably fat.
I could imagine
that depression could be a side effect of not taking
it. Should I be restricted? Lots of people take this
medication. |
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Let me be clear, I'm not some anti medicine nut, I just
want
to be sure they're not doing more harm than good and if
there are potential side effects, restrict what you can do
on
them. Do they make you sleepy? You can't drive. Do they
make you go insane of you miss your dosage for a few
days?
You can't have a gun. |
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And at the risk of sounding very left wing and un-
libertarian,
in many instances, I don't trust the drug companies. |
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Oh shit, I went to close the page and accidentally hit
"delete" and erased the whole post about shooters and
the drugs they were on. That took me about 20 minutes
to research, damn it! |
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Can we please request an "Are you sure you want to
delete?" button? |
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I'll summarize, 4 out of 6 of the listed shooters were
known to be on psychoactive drugs but I had cut and
pasted all sorts of interesting (to me at least)
corroborating facts on the
individual cases. |
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No worries. I read it. Perhaps its still in your back
buffer somehow? |
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Implementation of such a system could be
impossible-ish. Health records are private for good
reason. A gun restriction database would be
necessarily public. It wouldn't be too hard to put two
and two together. |
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I understand, very hard to implement, but I don't think
making guns less scary looking is going to have any affect. |
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But I'm willing to listen to solutions. Maybe I'm wrong,
maybe pistol grips on rifles cause people to shoot up
schools. May be a copy cat thing going on? |
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I just know I'm buying my daughter a bullet proof
backpack, and no I'm not kidding. |
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Very sad. Wish I had the solution. |
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I just read up on those. Won’t stop an AR-15 round, even
with a pile of textbooks. But seems like a worthy
investment anyway. If the school will let them carry a
backpack in the hall. It seems that they might be
restricted to the locker. |
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I'm all in favour of trying to change the scripts of big "hot button"
debates. However, a word of warning: it can be argued that the
whole tragicomic Godwin's Law situation can be traced back to a
comparable attempt. |
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There was once a very intelligent (though not always wise) man
called Theodor Adorno, who invented a thing called Negative
Dialectic. I only know it by repute (it's still on my "must read that
soon" list), but I *think* its elements included (a) that everything
must be challengeable in a fairly radical way but (b) surely
*everyone* can agree that the holocaust was bad. |
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You can see how that would have seemed sensible at the time
but, with hindsight, you can also see how it got us to Godwin's
Law. |
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//I just read up on those. Won’t stop an AR-15
round, even with a pile of textbooks.// |
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Yea, I'm not seeing any level IV armor equipped
backpacks, guess that's too heavy. |
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Better than nothing. I'm also aware that the
chances
of this being needed are only slightly more than
getting hit by lightening, but even if it's better
than
nothing. |
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//Godwin's Law situation can be traced back to a
comparable attempt.// |
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That is why I come to this site. Where else can you
learn this stuff? |
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Well ... college ... if you're lucky, and duck at the right time. |
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Where indeed ? There is little doubt that a useful proportion of halfbakers are formidably well-read, educated, and well informed on a stupendous range of both mainstream and bizarrely obscure topics, and display on occasion remarkable intellectual and analytical abilities. |
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That probably accounts for all the childish squabbling, name-calling, and dreadful puns. |
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Neither, thank you; Keynes didn't appreciate Parkinson's Law,
while Hayek didn't appreciate Ricardo's Law (see linked idea). Of
course, Keynes had the excuse that Parkinson's Law hadn't been
formulated yet. |
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Very good. Great synopsis of the two opposing
views and
the
guys can actually rap. |
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As for this idea, here's the practical application of
it.
With the horror our society is facing with these
mass
shootings, the consensus questions at the
beginning of the
debate might be used to form a action plan. Can
we all
agree that people who are deemed a danger to
others
because of recorded threats to kill people should
be
locked up? |
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Not sure if there's consensus on that, but the fact
that
several of these mass murderers were "on the
radar
screen" needs to be looked into. Can we use these
guys as
templates for what to look for and what to arrest
and put
into some kind of facility so they can't hurt
anybody? |
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I'm reading too many cases where these mass
murders
were absolutely no surprise to some people who
knew the
perpetrator. |
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We can start outlawing certain features on guns,
pistol
grips, 30 round magazines etc, but can we at least
start
working on consensus stuff first? Or is there ANY
consensus stuff on this issue? |
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Maybe not so much locked up but put into some kind of
intervention thing and kept on a list. |
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Targeted advertising seems to work somewhat well at
identifying what people want; perhaps the same type of
technology could be put to use to create mental health
profiles. |
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It probably already is. I wonder what Langley thinks about
this place... |
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sorry if I'm late to the party. |
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The failure to spot the signs by authorities is the perfect
illustration why you cannot reach consensus. You already
have laws, and rules and processes. The primary result of
additional laws would be to make "rule-obedient" citizens
comply with them, as they comply with others. |
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Unless you're willing to go to confiscation, which is what
was done in Australia. You will not stop it. Further, in
Australia they don't have Mexico as a neighbor, we do.
Watch the mother of all illegal markets explode as guns
start getting smuggled wholesale. |
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And of course, the potential break up of the union, which I
think could be a realistic potential consequence with
confiscation. Consensus to repeal or modify the 2nd
Amendment may emerge. Likely you will first get to robot
guards in the classroom. |
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//Further, in Australia they don't have Mexico as a
neighbor, we do. Watch the mother of all illegal markets
explode as guns start getting smuggled wholesale.// |
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Exactly right, we use the same laws we used to get drugs
off the streets we'll have the same results. |
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That's why I'd look at this from a "Could anything have
stopped any of these?" perspective. Without rules of due
process, making your best guess as to who's nuts and
dangerous (not saying this is a solution, because the
people making the assessment can start doing more evil
than that they're supposed to be preventing) we could
have just grabbed this guy, said you're nuts, here's your
straitjacket, here's your padded cell. We're not moving
towards pre-crime law enforcement here, that IS pre-
crime law enforcement. |
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So anybody who says they have an easy solution, remove
pistol grips and large capacity magazines from rifles and
watch our problems disappear is probably wrong. |
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And I'm even willing to say, who knows? Maybe it's the
copycat effect, nuts see these ARs in action and say "Me
too!". If we're going to do anything, it's going to have not
make the situation worse, and I don't believe just
because people hold a sign and yell they know any better
than me how to handle a problem. I've about had it with
"loudest crowd problem solving" which is more about
virtue signaling than actually getting anything
accomplished. |
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I have emotions too but they have absolutely no bearing
on this situation. I would even argue that if you're very
emotional about a subject you might be less likely to
arrive at a logical solution. |
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I'll propose this: Let's pretend these aren't kids, they're
bags of money. These bags of money are going to a big
campus where's they'll stay all day. It's in the middle of
the most crime ridden area of San Salvador one of the
most crime infested cities in the world. The good
news is, they won't get stolen going to and from the
campus, but while they're there, they're surrounded by
criminals in one of the most crime ridden places on Earth. |
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What would you do to protect these bags of money?
Would you look at the weapons that were used in previous
robberies and try to add more laws to prevent these
robberies? Modifications of the handle, loading
mechanism or flash suppression device? Remember, we're
not protecting children any more, it's
bags of money. Makes it nice and simple. You're charged
with protecting these bags of money in the worst
neighborhood of San Salvador, what would you do? |
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The answer is pretty self evident. So now let's do what
reality
always does, throws a turd in the punch bowl of simple
solutions. Multiply your solution by 100,000, because
that's how many public schools are in the U.S. |
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At this point, I'd say it doesn't matter. Figure out a way to
do it as cheaply and efficiently as possible and do it. |
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//The AR-15 come out in the 1960s, that's a lot of years
of this thing being available without people shooting up
schools. So what's changed?// |
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It's basically a fashion. Or, perhaps more accurately, like
the 4-minute mile or the sound barrier. Nobody thought
it could be done until someone did it, and then lots of
people were running 4-minute miles and breaking the
sound barrier (not at the same time, obviously). |
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School shootings are now just another thing that can be
done, and are a part of American culture. |
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Yea, copy cat killings and, I hate the use the word,
"trendy",
but
that can't be discounted. |
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Almost everything we do is because we saw somebody
else
doing it. There is no doubt that this is a horrific
incarnation
of "monkey see, monkey do". So solve that aspect of it. |
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So that's all I've got man, bags of money. If that's all we
were protecting, we'd figure it out. No emotion, just
logic. Too much emotion around protecting children to
even think straight. For me at least. |
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So schools would all have limited access, metal detectors
and armed guards the same as we have at airports. I'm
old
enough to remember getting on a plane by getting out the
taxi, showing them my ticket and getting on board.
Because of the assholes of the world, we have to do
things differently sometimes. |
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This is just one of those cases. The fences don't
have to be ugly, but there need to be sensors so if you
hop over one the intruder alarm sounds, the school locks
down and armed defenders engage the person. Of course
a problem with this is you're gonna need to have a lot of
access points otherwise you'll have all the students lined
up to get in providing a more dangerous situation than
just having an open school. |
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No easy solutions I'm afraid. |
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School shootings are no different from any other form of
terrorist attack*. If you make schools a difficult target, the
shooters will just go for playgrounds, or junior-league
baseball matches, or whatever; just as terrorists have
largely moved on from aircraft since security was stepped
up. |
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*apart from the fact that the POTUS is strongly opposed to
other forms of terrorism, but isn't particularly against school
shootings. |
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"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little chidren running round, screaming and shouting. |
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Of course, they don't know I'm only using blanks... " |
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//*apart from the fact that the POTUS is strongly opposed
to
other forms of terrorism, but isn't particularly against
school
shootings.// |
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So we just start blaming these things that have been
happening since Columbine in 1999 on Trump? That's
helpful
how? |
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"OK Team Science, goal is to land on Mars. What's the
plan?" |
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Team A: "We've firmly established that team B has stinky
butts and is totally ugly and stupid and could never land
on Mars due to their stinky butt stupidity. |
|
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OK, team B, what you got? |
|
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Team B: We've made great strides, in seeing if we could
build some kind of trampoline and jump to Mars we
uncovered some team A spies. We captured them and
discovered they had bad breath and couldn't get they're
"their/there/they'res straight. Plus they fart, and they
smell like farts. |
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(Misplaced "they're" intentional.) |
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Blame it on Trump and everyone who preceeded him
in the same line of thinking. |
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Well, [Doc], my point really was that presidents in general
(Trump is the present incumbent, and a natural butt in
several senses) are all ready to talk the talk - and even walk
the walk - about most forms of terrorism. |
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But when it comes to school shootings, they put it in a
different folder headed "Gee that's a shame weren't our
emergency responders great", right next to the folders
marked "Tornados" and "Plagues of Locusts". |
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Effective weaponry, distributed in the hands of private citizens, is (a) an essential countervailing force to the excessive power of the State, and (b) an essential protective force for the citizenry to defend that same State - their State - against internal and external threats. |
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The writers of the U.S. constitution knew and recognized this. |
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This makes the society immensely robust. In genuine emergencies, the "frontier spirit" of self-help and self-reliance is remarkable. |
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The downside is that if the rate of appearance of psychopathic nutters is 1 in 300 million per anum, there will inevitably be on average one massacre per anum. |
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An alligator living free in your house is a very effective deterrent to burgulars. The only person who is going to rob you is a professional alligator wrangler, and that's a fairly narrow field of suspects. You just have to accept that, to the alligator, every human is a potential meal. This means you. |
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Ah yes. I was forgetting all those occasions over the last 50
years when the citizens of the US have successfully repelled
the US military and defended the country against invasion.
Shame on me. |
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In times like this we pray to whatever god, political party
or pile of sticks and mud we put all our faith in or find
solace and peace in knowing we can blame it all on Satan,
Republicans or people who eats meat. I unfortunately
have no god, political party or pile of sticks and mud to
give me strength in these situations so I'm going to want
to have an answer to how to deal with the problem. I
don't want to feel comfort or solace in anything but that
answer. Sometimes feeling better about a problem is the
worst
thing you can do. |
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I like 8's idea. Back to the bags of money model, would
there be a problem with putting people with guns in the
room with those bags of money? |
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We'll talk about kids later, these are bags of money. |
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Max, you're an academic, don't know if you're a teaching
or
exclusively a research kind, but since people are talking
about arming you guys, what are your thoughts on the
subject? If you were teaching in America, say as an
alternative to a long prison sentence, would you do it? |
|
| |
I know if I were to be a teacher these days being armed is
the only way I'd take the job. I'd want to know that if
somebody came into my room to hurt my kids they'd
stand a good chance of getting shot in the head. |
|
| |
Something about a music teacher strapped with a Glock
that's intriguing. Gym teachers wouldn't be much of a
stretch. Not sure how safe I'd feel with a drama teacher
packin' though. Now an armed science teacher? I'd feel
very good about that. |
|
| |
More guns to the equation = more confusion and
potential for loss of life. From what I've read, law
enforcement is generally against armed citizens
getting involved. |
|
| |
Here's an article: Mother Jones so its decidedly
from a liberal stance, but good info nonetheless. |
|
| |
Of 62 mass shootings in the past 30 years, none of
them have ever been stopped by a good guy with a
gun. |
|
| |
Because if they were stopped by good guys with
guns
they weren't mass shootings. |
|
| |
The idea that people with guns are powerless to
stop
people with guns doesn't really warrant discussion,
but please, feel free to not be armed. Just don't
ask
me to join your club. |
|
| |
Might want to tell the police about that
breakthrough Mother Jones article though. They
could
save a lot of money by not carrying those
expensive guns around since they don't do anything
anyway. |
|
| |
//Max, you're an academic, don't know if you're a
teaching or exclusively a research kind, but since people
are talking about arming you guys, what are your
thoughts on the subject? // I only teach very rarely, but
my wife teaches - and in a less-than-salubrious
establishment. It would never occur to either of us that
we needed guns to protect either ourselves or the
students, any more than it would occur to a teacher in
the US to seek protection from meteorites. It's just not a
thing over here. Yes, there has been one (probably more
than one) knife attack on a teacher, and guns are not
completely unknown, but it's a very different society over
here, and I like it the way it is. |
|
| |
Furthermore, any of those mass shootings could
have been inturrupted by a "good guy" before they
got worse. |
|
| |
Would you support other teachers carrying firearms?
With proper training and background checks
obviously. |
|
| |
Having some teachers armed might work as
deterrence because the shooter doesn't know where
those teachers are. |
|
| |
But again, if not for the kids, what would we do for
those bags of money? |
|
| |
So Ray, putting aside for a second if it's possible for
a person with a gun to stop another person with a
gun, what would you do with those bags of money?
These are not children you've been tasked with
protecting, they're simply bags of cash in a bad
part of town. |
|
| |
How would you protect that bags of cash from
criminals that would steal them? |
|
| |
I'm fine with you saying "I'd obviously use armed
guards, but that wouldn't work with children
because ______", but can we at least admit that
guns would be the only sane way to protect bags of
cash in the middle of a crime ridden city? |
|
| |
I'll also point out that every day in every city we
have armored cars driving around with two men,
each with a gun on his hip. Nobody questions this,
of course people have a right to protect their bags
of money with deadly firearms. |
|
| |
So why can't we extend that to our children? |
|
| |
If you shoot at a bag of money, nothing happens.
Bags of money are not stressed out by active
shooter scenarios. They are not confused for active
shooters in any sort of situation. Your analogy
ignores the most critical variables. |
|
| |
Bags of money are best kept in safes. |
|
| |
//Furthermore, any of those mass shootings could have
been inturrupted by a "good guu" before they got worse//
Yes, if you already have lots of guns, then everybody
needs one. The alternative is that almost nobody has
guns, in which case nobody needs them. We Brits lose a
little bit of freedom by picking the second option;
Americans lose a little bit of each generation by picking
the first. |
|
| |
//Would you support other teachers carrying firearms?
With proper training and background checks obviously.
// No, [Doc]. Seriously, you don't get it - there just
_aren't guns_ in the UK. Unless you're a gang member
(and even there, shootings are rare compared to the US),
the only guns you're likely to see are carried by a small
number of firearms-licenced police at high-risk areas -
and even then, most Brits opposed letting the police carry
firearms. |
|
| |
Yes, we have had attacks where armed citizens might
have saved lives, but very few. And the evidence from
your own country makes it clear that having abundant
firearms does not lead to a net reduction in deaths - most
people who are shot are victims rather than assailants. |
|
| |
We really, truly, don't have guns and are not a gun
culture. And much as I would personally love to have a
gun (what fun!), I definitely don't need one. They are not
a thing over here, and I'd like it to stay that way. Please,
try to understand, we just don't want guns, and we don't
want your gun culture. |
|
| |
I understand that but the question was what would
you do if you were forced to be a teacher here? |
|
| |
I've only been there a couple of times but I noted
the
un-armed police as a glaring indiction of the
differences between our countries. |
|
| |
Do they have armed armored cars there? Not
making
a point or debating, I genuinly don't know. |
|
| |
//Bags of money are best kept in safes.// |
|
| |
Which take 2 to 3 minutes to break into when
nobody is guarding them, so you'd just donate all
this money to the crime organizations of this city. |
|
| |
So consider yourself fired from the job of
protecting money. Now you want the job of
protecting children? |
|
| |
Or do you? I haven't seen you suggest a solution,
only critiques of my proposals. I don't have an easy
answer, if there is one I'd love to hear it. |
|
| |
And by the way, handguns are used in mass
shootings according to this chart almost 2 to 1. See
link. |
|
| |
So I'm out of ideas, love to hear others and sit in
the "That won't work because..." seat for the rest
of the debate. I think most people are more
comfortable in that position. |
|
| |
//was what would you do if you were forced to be a
teacher here? // If I were a teacher there, I'd want a
firearm. I would also want one if I were a kindergarten
pupil over there. Like I said, if everyone has a gun, then
everyone needs a gun. Anyone without one is at a
disadvantage. |
|
| |
So yes, arm the teachers, arm the students, and arm the
janitors. |
|
| |
This is the US's 18th school shooting of 2018. You're on
track for 131 school shootings by the end of the year.
One hundred and thirty one. Does that seem normal to
you? |
|
| |
//Furthermore, any of those mass shootings could
have been interrupted by a "good guy" before they
got worse//
One of the best things I've read
on guns is this:
"That’s the real fantasy of
the gun – that you will someday be in a situation
of complete moral clarity, rather than stuck in
this muddy welter of decisions otherwise known as
everyday life. There will be bad guys and good guys
and you will know the difference"
The point
is, that guy in front of you with a gun, is he an
armed good guy or is he a 'shooter'? You have a
fraction of a second to make up your mind. |
|
| |
//Does that seem normal to you?// |
|
| |
Are you asking if I think school shootings are
normal or OK? No, neither. |
|
| |
//that guy in front of you with a gun, is he an
armed good guy or is he a 'shooter'? You have a
fraction of a second to make up your mind// |
|
| |
Is he shooting children? Then he's a shooter. Are
there any other questions I can answer for you? |
|
| |
I don't want to scatter the debate, and I haven't any
great ideas at the moment anyway. |
|
| |
I suppose my approach would break a few eggs. I
doubt it would ever pass. I would qualify the limits
of what falls under the 2nd Ammendment as a legal
weapon, eliminating any handgun as a legal firearm,
(its more like a fire hand), as well as weapons over a
certain level of power. This would drain much of the
water out of the swamp. |
|
| |
The black market would be dealt with by an
empowered, aggressive, campaign of some kind.
This is where the most difficulty lies. |
|
| |
Buybacks like Australia would take place. |
|
| |
Did you witness him shooting children? Its amazing
how much situational clarity comes with this good
guy with a gun set. |
|
| |
//Is he shooting children? Then he's a shooter// -
that's exactly what I meant about the fantasy of
moral clarity. Let me describe a more likely scenario
- You see a mad-eyed guy waving a gun around - is he
a 'good guy with a gun' buzzing with adrenaline and
panic, or is he the 'shooter'? Now he's pointing the
gun at those kids - or is he pointing it at that guy
behind the kids? Wait, now he's waving the gun in
your direction - he probably thinks you're the
shooter... |
|
| |
//Did you witness him shooting children?// |
|
| |
Well, he'd be the young guy with the AR-15 walking
around 60 seconds after the shooting started so
he's not the SWAT team, that's one clue. In your
scenario he's suddenly stopped shooting and he's
suddenly sitting at the lunch counter reading? |
|
| |
//good guy with a gun set// |
|
| |
That seems to be the most popular solution I
guess, find comfort in tribalism. Create the
boogieman group and blame everything on them. |
|
| |
At least you're admitting that handguns are used
for pretty much all our murders. Anybody talking
about ending gun murders has to put these at the
top of their target list if they're being honest. |
|
| |
Hippo, the people at these schools would know
each other. They'd know who was carrying guns for
protection and they'd know teachers don't walk
around with AR-15s. But as for you, please don't
ever carry a gun. For the safety of all of us. |
|
| |
Perhaps we can use situational confusion to our
advantage. Imagine if descending upon the school
was the appearance and sound of a virtual SWAT
team? Loudspeakers of helicopters and windows
breaking. Lots of sound and fury to scare the perp
into doing something foolish. |
|
| |
If you think that anyone is sitting at a lunch counter
reading during an active shooter nightmare then you
clearly haven't given it enough thought. |
|
| |
I can't believe the way this discussion goes exactly the same
way every time. Worse yet is that I keep repeating the
same pointless arguments. |
|
| |
Arm everyone and enjoy your freedom. |
|
| |
I love ANY idea at this point. I just want to break
out of this loop of incident/debate/drop the
subject. |
|
| |
At least we can all agree that something needs to
be done. Like I said, nothing's off the table from
my perspective and I DON'T know all the answers, I
just don't want to give up. |
|
| |
Can we at least all agree that this has to stop?
Then I can begin my day and go to the gym. Got a
bunch of other stuff to do today and while "solving
all the world's problems" is someplace on the list
I'm going to have to defer that till another time. |
|
| |
I like "Arm everyone and have a nice day." better.
"Enjoy your freedom" it a bit too obviously
sarcastic. |
|
| |
Doc, please stop attacking your opponents. See your
own idea above. |
|
| |
Ray, please stop attacking me. You're not even
reading my posts at this point. |
|
| |
//In your scenario he's suddenly stopped shooting
and he's suddenly sitting at the lunch counter
reading?// |
|
| |
//If you think that anyone is sitting at a lunch
counter reading during an active shooter
nightmare then you clearly haven't given it enough
thought// |
|
| |
I was painting an absurd picture, not suggesting
this might actually happen. |
|
| |
OK, gotta go, can we just admit failure on both
sides to reach concensus on this? I'll take my share
of the blame. |
|
| |
Have a nice day everybody and stay safe. |
|
| |
//I can't believe the way this discussion goes
exactly the same way every time. Worse yet is that I
keep repeating the same pointless arguments.// - I
feel the same way. I don't live in the only country
in the world where this entirely avoidable
catastrophe regularly happens and where they seem to
have collectively decided that that's OK and they'll
just accept it, so I don't actually care that much. |
|
| |
The problem with this debate are the absurd
pictures. At a certain point they are just absurd
pictures. |
|
| |
You refuse to acknowledge the very real issue of the
fog of war, which stifles progress. |
|
| |
//everyone armed at these schools would know
eachother// |
|
| |
This is a fair point which I'll agree to. The odd man
out is probably the shooter. Training the responding
officers jointly with the armed staff would create
identification clarity and situational improvement. |
|
| |
There are enough gun accidents involving someone
else's weapon though that I'd worry. |
|
| |
In closing, I just read that Trump is proposing
improved background checks. Sorry tribalists, good
luck spinning that one. Is it a solution? Couldn't hurt,
and it at least does something to hit at the narrative
that we're all one election away from paradise on
Earth if we could just get rid of those evil (fill in the
blank). |
|
| |
I was pointing out your response to hippo in which
he should never buy a gun. |
|
| |
Arming everybody isn't a solution I'm satisfied with.
Deputizing a few people who know every nook and
cranny of the school and train together with the local
police, you might talk me into. |
|
| |
10-4, all good but gotta go. |
|
| |
Have a nice day Ray, you too Hippo. Enjoyable
debate but I'm declaring failure to solve this
problem. On my end at least. |
|
| |
// I just want to break out of this loop of
incident/debate/drop the subject//
If you can't fix the
first of these, you can skip the second and move straight to
the third. |
|
| |
"establish that both debaters are on the same planet "
The earth rotated today. |
|
| |
I wonder whether a mass school shooting has ever occurred in an
old-fashioned school - one with uniforms, gender-segregation and
an authoritarian teaching style. |
|
| |
Why would it make a difference? |
|
| |
Well, imagine that your oppressor is your teacher. A classic
example would be that of the narrator of All Quiet on the Western
Front
and his schoolmaster Kantorek. In that case, you know that in a
few years, you'll never have to see him again and, in a few more
years, he'll age and die. Your life will get better if you wait. |
|
| |
Now imagine instead that your oppressors are your
contemporaries. In this case, you realise that you're probably
stuck with them, or people like them, for the rest of your life. Your
life will not get better. |
|
| |
In old-fashioned education, the power relation between staff and
pupils tends to suppress power relations among pupils, and to
promote pupil solidarity. After all, you can all agree on hating the
man with the cane. |
|
| |
In progressive education, the adults back off and allow, or even
promote, the emergence of power relations between pupils.
Hence, the motivation for someone at the bottom of those power
relations to shoot as many as possible of the other bastards, then
himself. |
|
| |
So what we need is a universally hated bully who is
made the fool towards the end of the year. Could be
a paid position. Vice Principal perhaps. |
|
| |
Could be a good book premise; the hated bully/hero,
something like Snape, as told from his perspective.
As a short story, it writes itself. At the end of his
career, the antagonist has to choose from among his
students one who will serve as his replacement. One
who hates him, but has few friends and social links
to lose. To him alone is the secret of the purpose of
his job truly revealed, to be the hated foil, to unite the
classes, and thus focus their bile upon himself
rather than on eachother. |
|
| |
That may be true. Schools in England vary in the degree of
discipline they impose, and not all of them require school
uniforms. But my daughter went to a single-sex school with
uniforms and reasonably tight discipline, and as far as I
know there were no shootings in the school the whole time
she was there. Of course, the students _didn't_ _have_
_access_ _to_ _guns_, which may have been a factor. |
|
| |
to bring this down to basics, people have too much time on
their hands. The cause of most unhappiness is lack of
purpose, and having time to wonder about purpose is
contingent on not being hungry all the time. |
|
| |
Pertinax's theory is as reasonable a hypothesis as
I've seen, so much
as to warrant serious research I maintain. |
|
| |
// I wonder whether a mass school shooting has ever occurred in an old-fashioned school // |
|
| |
You haven't seen If... then. |
|
| |
//to bring this down to basics, people have too
much time on their hands. The cause of most unhappiness
is lack of purpose, and having time to wonder about
purpose is contingent on not being hungry all the time.// |
|
| |
I believe everything needs to be looked into. The
psychology of these cast out beta males, the drugs they
were on, the copycat effect, and I wouldn't take the
weapon's shape and scaryness factor off the table as an
adjunct to that concept. |
|
| |
Wonder what would happen if you made it a law that all
weapons had to be pink? Eh, black spray paint is cheap. |
|
| |
Hey, at least I'm trying. |
|
| |
"What seems to be the problem? Why so sad?"
"People keep starting fires. It's terrible!"
"Well, I notice you have all these pools of gasoline
everywhere - perhaps that's the..."
"No, we're allowed to have pools of gasoline, it's in the
constitution. The problem is people throwing matches in
them."
"Yes, but if you didn't have the..."
"No, pools of gasoline don't start fires. People start fires.
The pools of gasoline are not the problem."
"Yes but..."
"I mean, my wife and I both have several pools of
gasoline, but we've been properly trained on how not to
throw matches in them. It just needs better training and
education."
Yes but..."
"We're starting a program to identify people who might
throw matches into the gasoline pools, and restrict their
access to especially big boxes of matches."
"Yes, but..."
"And if that doesn't work, we're going to give all the
police matches, so they can start fires too."
"Yes, but..."
"We're also starting a campaign to discourage people from
throwing matches into the gasoline pools."
"Yes, but..."
"And we're seeking guidance from the National Open
Gasoline Pool Association. They're very opposed to
people throwing matches into pools of gasoline."
"Yes, but if you'd just get rid of the p..."
"What are you, boy, some kind of fucking communist?" |
|
| |
Getting rid of the pools of gasoline is the difficult part. If
you do so, people who like to have them around will
replace them with alcohol of their own making. |
|
| |
So it's those damned anti-communists! |
|
| |
I knew it! Damn their anti-communist anti-communism! |
|
| |
OK, so death of the author and all that but I'm keen (and yet
not keen, not keen at all) to know what Ray is implying by
ending his school scapegoat annotation with my name... |
|
| |
//Getting rid of the pools of gasoline is the difficult part.
If you do so, people who like to have them around will
replace them with alcohol of their own making.// No,
not quite. Many people here in the UK would like to own
guns if they could (I, for instance, would love a gun, for
the same reasons I like fireworks and fast cars). But
we're not allowed them. A very small number of
criminals own them; a few fanatics smuggle guns into the
country for their own amusement; and doubtless a few
enthusiasts make their own guns covertly. But it's an
incredibly small number. |
|
| |
Imagine, for a moment, living in the UK. It's very difficult
to get a gun in the first place, and there's a fair chance
you'd be caught getting it, especially if you're not already
a criminal with the right connections. Then, if you've got
it, you can't buy ammunition for it, so you again risk
getting caught every time you try to get ammo. If you
have it in your car when you're stopped for speeding, and
the police find it, you're going to jail for a long time. If
there's a gunshot heard a mile away, someone _will_
report it and the police _will_ investigate. If you're a
criminal, and you're caught robbing a shop with a gun, the
robbery will get you a token sentence but just carrying
the gun will land you in jail for years. |
|
| |
It's just incredibly difficult to buy a gun, to get
ammunition, to practice, to carry a gun in the UK. So,
very few people do. _That's_ what I mean when I say
there is a complete cultural difference regarding guns,
between the US and the UK. |
|
| |
Well, I'll repeat my proposed solution because maybe
folks are
more open to alternatives now. You basically have to be a
cop to own a gun... (stops while clowns apply little Hitler
mustache) but have this be a well regulated militia...
(waits for little side part wig to be applied) in that you go
through the exact same training and background check of
a police officer... (hey, this SS jacket is a bit tight for
me) and specify that they can only use these firearms to
protect people being assaulted or robbed. |
|
| |
In zis vay, ve make ze dummkopf verbrecher sind nicht
die einzigen MIT WAFFEN!!! Whoa, sorry there. Dang, that
really works! Phew! |
|
| |
Now let's look at anybody who disagrees with me: |
|
| |
1- They're stinky in the butt. Their butts stink and they
scratch their butts while outlawing guns.
2- They fart a lot. They say "I'm farting now, then I'm
going to hate guns. Then I'm going to outlaw guns while
farting."
3- They eat stinky soup then burp communist songs while
outlawing guns they burp "NO GUNS! STALIN IS COOL!" (In
burp talk)
4- They pick their nose instead of using logic. They are
told "Here are the facts." and respond with "Here is a
booger!" |
|
| |
Hopefully Max, you know that wasn't directed at you, it
was just a parody of arguments on all sides. |
|
| |
I'll add "Except Max, Max is cool." |
|
| |
//You basically have to be a cop to own a gun// |
|
| |
Heyyyyy, there ya go, [doc], you're coming around,
gradually. Once people have stopped goggling over that
radical proposal, you might gently try saying "...and only
a
few special cops are allowed to be gun-cops; and even
most
of those need authorization each time they take a gun
with
them." |
|
| |
//Except Max, Max is cool.// Whoa there, [doc]. |
|
| |
Apparently no one in the UK has access to basic
metal-working tools, or 3D printing technology.
Either that or the last of the machinists went the way
of the Reliant Robin. |
|
| |
Here in the vast wide open spaces, we have, well,
vast, wide open spaces. It's quite possible to shoot
a gun and not be even heard by anyone except the
mime that the tree fell on. |
|
| |
Calum, t'was a short story idea for someone to run
with. We have a few talwnted writers here, and I
couldn't think of all of them, but you popped in my
brain. If I hadn't had to focus on a couple of
upcoming interviews, I might have written it myself. |
|
| |
//Heyyyyy, there ya go, [doc], you're coming around,
gradually.// |
|
| |
Well, thank you but not exactly. I posted this exact idea
May
2014. (See link) Got a ten to two bone to bun ratio.
However I didn't link it with having this replace everybody
else having guns. Maybe that admittedly large detail
adjustment would change the tally. |
|
| |
Interesting flashback, got some good flame war moments.
Thankfully nothing has been changed since then so we're
insured years of invigorating debate on the subject. |
|
| |
//Apparently no one in the UK has access to basic metal-
working tools, or 3D printing technology.// |
|
| |
Well, there are probably a few people living with sub-
optimal finger numbers as a result of 3D printing
attempts. And, whilst it may not be that difficult to
make a gun, most people don't. And if they do, they also
need ammunition. |
|
| |
OK, maybe an analogy would help. You have more
shootings over there than bombs, am I right? I mean, in
general? Now, how many gun shops? And how many
bomb shops? |
|
| |
It's never impossible to get a gun, obviously. But when
they are no more uncommon than toasters, you have a
situation. |
|
| |
Still, I do have to take my hat off to America - few other
populations are patriotic enough to sacrifice their
children for their constitutional rights. |
|
| |
I disliked the idea back then, too, and the way the
debate went down. This time was somewhat better. |
|
| |
Bombs aren't really a thing that most people fool
with, as they necessarily destroy themselves, and
then you gotta go make another. Too labor
intensive. |
|
| |
We do still have bomb issues from time to time, and
schools close due to bomb threats,
however, so that rather blows a hole in the argument. |
|
| |
Lately it seems like every two years something gets
bombed. |
|
| |
//Still, I do have to take my hat off to America - few
other populations are patriotic enough to sacrifice their
children for their constitutional rights.// |
|
| |
Been doing it for over 200 years. That's how we got our
constitutional rights in the first place. From the Battle of
Saratoga to the beaches of Normandy, we've always
known there are fates worse than death and that freedom
comes only after great sacrifice. |
|
| |
As for this new battle we face, it's time to fight back.
Arm and train the teachers. Problem solved. |
|
| |
//Lately it seems like every two years something gets
bombed.// Lately, it seems that every 3.7 days there's a
school shooting. |
|
| |
//Arm and train the teachers. Problem solved. // |
|
| |
Go for it, [doc]. I can't see how your plan could possibly
fail. Of course, we'll miss all those amusing "and finally..."
bits at the end of our BBC News, but that's OK. |
|
| |
Multiply the total number of schools by 3.7 days and rationalize to years. At that point, the problem will have been dealt with, based on the glib and erroneous assumption* that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. |
|
| |
*i.e. the justification adopted by politicians. |
|
| |
I figured that's what you meant, Ray, but the the alternative
reading tickled me too much to pass up. Thank you for the
compliments, though! |
|
| |
//Of course, we'll miss all those amusing "and finally..." bits
at the end of our BBC News// |
|
| |
"And finally" bits about what? You wouldn't refer to
stories about children being murdered as amusing
obviously,
so please
clarify. |
|
| |
Well, as I may have mentioned, school shootings in the US
no longer make the main headlines, unless they're setting a
new record. |
|
| |
I'm not talking about the children being murdered, I'm asking
what you were referring to as "amusing". |
|
| |
The amusing bit is "those crazy Americans" (I could mention
your current president) who tie themselves in knots
explaining why school shootings and guns are in no way
connected, no sir. |
|
| |
I believe the guy you're referring to just announced his
intention to ramp up gun control which I support. |
|
| |
Do you have a link to him saying guns and school
shootings
are in no way connected? I'm sure he did, I'd just like to
see
it. |
|
| |
Only found one BBC story about Trump and gun control
refers to him supporting improved background checks but
only shows videos of him supporting the second
amendment as if they're mutually exclusive. They're not. |
|
| |
If we're blaming him for all of this while he works on
improving background checks, OK, as long as we can at
least take some steps towards making it harder for crazy
people to get guns. |
|
| |
But we'll see what he does. I'm crossing my fingers. |
|
| |
I believe it was in response to the last school shooting
(not the last one, probably, since they happen every few
days, but the last really big one), that he said "this is not
a gun problem". To be fair, it may have been a crossbow
problem - I don't remember the weapon used. But I think
it probably was a gun problem. |
|
| |
More generally, the prevailing philosophy in the UK is,
like I said, "those crazy Americans". The regularity and
predictability numb the senses. And for Trump (and, I
suspect, many presidents before him) to say "we're going
to improve the background checks" is, in all honesty, just
insulting. Even America doesn't take the problem
seriously, and we're 5000 miles away. |
|
| |
If you want to know what "taking it seriously" means - we
had a
shooting at a place called Dunblane in 1996, where 16
children were killed;
this was the worst mass shooting ever in the UK. (You've
had 20
deaths in the last month, by the way.) |
|
| |
In response to the Dunblane massacre, private ownership
of guns
was effectively prohibited in the UK. This happened
within a year
of the shooting. |
|
| |
Since then there has not been a single shooting at any
school in the
UK. |
|
| |
That, [doc], is what "taking it seriously" means. |
|
| |
//You haven't seen If... then.// |
|
| |
On the contrary, I have seen "If". "If" got it wrong. It was fiction,
remember? It fantasised that the cool pupils would rise up
against the teachers, and the uncool pupils would follow them.
That's not the reality. Comparing "If" with actual school shootings
is like comparing, say, "News from Nowhere" with the actual
history of a Communist revolution. |
|
| |
I looked it up, Trump said "This is not a gun problem, it's
a mental health problem." so you're leaving out a pretty
important part of what he said. In fact, you said "Maybe
it's a cross-bow problem." implying that there was no
suggestion on his part as to what the problem actually
was. That's technically changing the facts to match the
narrative. |
|
| |
Not sure who would be insulted by what you see as half
measure attempts to regulate firearms. If a regulation is
put in place that saves a couple of lives that's a good
thing no. Better than nothing? |
|
| |
Anyway my solution is regulating the fuck out of these
things, so if Trump, evil and orange as he is, takes steps
in that direction, I support it. |
|
| |
And can we talk about the militia thing for a second? We'll
get back to the orange monster in a second, but there
used to be classes in school about citizenship, groups like
the Boy Scouts that taught honor and rules of behavior.
Why not a class that everybody takes that outlines duty to
defend the society against things like crazy people with
guns, criminals, thugs etc. Just teach, nobody has to
carry a gun, you just teach what you'd have to do if you
elected to join an armed citizen's group? Core to this
would be talking about how we all need to band together
at all times to protect the sacred lives of our brothers
and sisters. |
|
| |
Can't we discuss what a militia is and how it might be
implemented in such a way that we all agree is beneficial
to society? |
|
| |
[Max] with respect, but if we wanted laws that could subject a
vocal minority to the majority's will that quickly, we'd still be
under the Union Jack |
|
| |
You know, that's brings up another point. I'm going to
loose
my rights because a handful of idiots with a gun voted
with
bullets shot at innocent people overriding my peaceful
vote
at the ballot box? |
|
| |
I say we defend ourselves against evil with deadly force if
necessary, same as we've been doing for centuries. What's
the next right I'm going to lose because somebody brought
violence to the table? |
|
| |
Regulate these weapons as necessary, but don't take
them out of the hands of law abiding citizens who are
willing to do what's necessary to prove they're worthy of
carrying arms. And if some portion of our society has
decided to take up arms against us, fight back. |
|
| |
it's not the size of the gun, or of the magazine. It's a
symbol, dating back even to the point where in Europe, only
aristocrats could wear swords. It says the citizen is
sovereign, not the state. It is absolutely a religious thing,
to whom the US Constitution is a religion. As it is to this
atheist. |
|
| |
There's ample room within the Second Amendment for
regulation -- even
if, for instance, you had to join the National Guard to bear
arms, that could probably pass muster with a sufficiently
inclined Supreme Court. But abolish the Second
Amendment, confiscate guns?
Never. |
|
| |
//"This is not a gun problem, it's a mental health
problem."// |
|
| |
I think the added phrase makes it more pathetic, but I'm
glad I at least got the first part right. |
|
| |
Incidentally, a quick Google threw up the following
quotes (some direct, some reports): |
|
| |
Re. Bush: "The measure, Congress' response to last year's
Virginia Tech shootings, is the first significant federal
legislation in years aimed at tightening gun laws." |
|
| |
Re. Obama "former President Barack Obama is calling for
legislative action on gun control, saying it's "long
overdue." |
|
| |
Re. Clinton (Bill): "Gun control was a major political issue
in the first half of Clinton's first term and during that
time he lobbied for, and signed, two major pieces of gun
control legislation" |
|
| |
Re. Reagan: "Ronald Reagan was present when the
protesters arrived and later commented that he saw "no
reason why on the street today a citizen should be
carrying loaded weapons" |
|
| |
Re. Carter: "I favor registration of handguns, a ban on the
sale of cheap handguns... and a prohibition of ownership
by anyone convicted of a crime involving a gun, and by
those not mentally competent." |
|
| |
Re. Nixon: "He proposed ridding the market of Saturday
night specials, contemplated banning handguns altogether
and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest
in their weapons." |
|
| |
Re. Ford: "The way to cut down on the criminal use of
guns is not to take guns away from the law-abiding
citizen, but to impose mandatory sentences for crimes in
which a gun is used, make it harder to obtain cheap guns
for criminal purposes, and concentrate gun control
enforcement in high crime areas" |
|
| |
I didn't bother going any further back. But I didn't find a
single president who didn't say more or less what Trump
has said. |
|
| |
Watching the US addiction to guns, from the UK, is like
watching an alcoholic neighbour abuse her children while
considering possibly cutting down a little on the vodka. |
|
| |
//As it is to this atheist.// |
|
| |
Hey, another conservative atheist. That makes two of us. |
|
| |
The other guys are surrounding us on all sides. They won't
get away from us now! |
|
| |
Max, here's the only quote I'm defending: |
|
| |
"Any citizen of the United States who wishes to to defend
themselves with firearms may do so providing they pass
the same requirement tests that have been in common
usage for decades to make sure our police are up to the
task. These tests will be exact duplicates of those
psychological profile, background tests and proficiency
tests administered to police recruits every day."
Doctorremulac3. |
|
| |
So, none of the 400 (four hundred, [doc], four hundred)
school shooters since 1900 would have met your
requirements? |
|
| |
I don't know, how many cops go nuts and perpetrate mass
shootings? There's your number. Multiply it by, I don't
know, a thousand? Ten thousand? Let say we multiply it
by a thousand... carry the... um hmm... add the... ok,
approximately, now this is just a rough calculation, with
my proposal in place the number of mass shooters passing
the came background checks, psych evaluations and
training as police officers would result in a thousand fold
increase of mass shootings currently carried out by police
officers so that would be... zero. |
|
| |
One of those quotes about the fruitlessness of any gun
laws
besides total abolition was pretty successful, the
mandatory
gun crime prison sentence outlines. |
|
| |
Are you making fun of the gun crime drop that was the
result of mandatory sentencing laws or just the overall
drop
in violent crime in the US in general? |
|
| |
//how many cops go nuts and perpetrate mass
shootings?// |
|
| |
I don't know, you tell me. |
|
| |
As long as the number is zero, you may be OK. If it's
more
than zero, you'll need to multiply it by the relative
numbers
of people who will be allowed guns under your plan,
divided
by the number of policemen currently in the US. |
|
| |
(Wikipedia tells me that thirteen policemen in the US
have
been convicted of murder, but that's not quite the same
thing, of course, and it doesn't list the murder weapon.) |
|
| |
//Are you making fun of the gun crime drop that was the
result of mandatory sentencing laws or just the overall
drop in violent crime in the US in general?// I'm making
fun of the American denial. School shootings have (at
least according to Wikipedia) risen exponentially and
without any drop since about 1920. |
|
| |
Feel weird that when you saw that no U.S. police officers
have ever committed mass murder you felt bad? |
|
| |
It's ok, debates put us in weird places sometimes. Just
being honest, if I heard of a mass clubbing in the U.K. I'd
be horrified, but yea, I'd by lying if I said I wouldn't take
the
opportunity to feel just a little smug about it. Then I'd
feel horrible for
feeling smug about it, then I'd feel good about feeling
horrible
about it and call it a day. |
|
| |
Actually, in reality, that's not true at all. When I heard
about the people being mowed down on that bridge by a
vehicle, I
felt nothing but horror, anger at the perpetrators and
sorrow for the victims. Stupid
gun control crap or winning an argument didn't enter my
mind at all. |
|
| |
I sell myself short sometimes. |
|
| |
// f I heard of a mass clubbing in the U.K. I'd be horrified, // |
|
| |
Not if it happened in the House of Commons, or a TV studio, shirley ? |
|
| |
Crime has been dropping and if we continue doing
whatever
it is we're going to keep it dropping, it will continue to
drop. The three strikes rule, mandatory gun crime
sentences were very successful. By the way, the left is
trying to loosen those mandatory gun crime sentencing
laws. Hmm. Haven't heard about that have you? |
|
| |
This one crime is going up so arm the teachers. Secretly
at
first, a few that nobody knows are armed, put signs on
the
schools "This is a defensive zone with armed responders
that
will shoot you if you enter and start shooting people." |
|
| |
Lets see if the crazies are crazy enough to pick those
schools
as their target. |
|
| |
Try it or just sit around saying "Nothing but my way is
good enough." |
|
| |
Doing everything perfectly or nothing at all doesn't seem
like a great strategy. |
|
| |
And as you've said, the guns aren't going away anyway so
why even argue the point? Might as well do the best you can
with the situation you've been handed. |
|
| |
I'll close with the posted link. Not sure if this is true, but
pretty good argument against something and for something
else, whatever that is. |
|
| |
Actually, screw that, I'll close with the last (link). |
|
| |
[dre3] Your way might work. The bodycount would be higher (teacher<>student interactions), but might result in better schools, in general, towhit... |
|
| |
- student class attendance increases |
|
| |
(non-windowed doors, locked during session with only communication through intercom, to ensure teach has enough time to draw ; that combined with strays in the hall being automatically drawn on) |
|
| |
- reinforcement of "in loco parentis" |
|
| |
(corporal punishment needs be reinstated as a half-measure to simply drilling a troublemaker in the forehead) |
|
| |
- personal grooming habits are reinforced |
|
| |
(uniforms, fitted correctly, are (re)instated for identification purposes) |
|
| |
dre3, I like that. Got kind of a hip-hop vibe. |
|
| |
:) I get that vibe every time I type it (bit of a change from doktorr mule univac-3, which is the way my brain normally pre-parses your handle). |
|
| |
Anyways, note that teachers/staff would have to be more weapons-proficient than cops or soldiers. |
|
| |
Soldiers don't worry about what's behind the enemy line. Police - after an appropriate period of hand-wringing - are generally forgiven stray shots (but note that there's a reason they really really shouldn't have auto-fire weaponry). Schools, you're talking children, all bunched together. |
|
| |
Its extraordinarily difficult to convict a cop of
murder, let alone excessive deadly force. There have
been more than a few high profile egregious cases in
the news over the last few years. |
|
| |
I have a cousin-in-law who is a cop and who also
happens to be a completely racist asshole off duty.
Guess who he voted for? |
|
| |
No, sorry, thanks for playing. We have some lovely
parting gifts for you. |
|
| |
"The large, angry carrot" is too easy an answer, and would single me out as somebody who believes "racism" is a white-people-only thing. |
|
| |
Just out of interest, do you think he's actually angry, or just good
at lip-syncing to other people's anger? I suspect the latter, which
would make an important difference between him and ... the
Godwin's Law reference point. |
|
| |
I had a horrible thought. It's gonna make Max angry
because it's along the lines of "Are these puddles of gas
round or more oval?" but... |
|
| |
might hours of playing first person shooter video games
have an adverse affect on broken minds? |
|
| |
I'm not suggesting outlawing video games, and fine, ban
all guns, but I'm really wanting to know why we have all
these mass shootings when we didn't have any in the first
couple of decades of the AR rifle. |
|
| |
Keep in mind, I'm not trying to solve this problem now,
just understand it. Why now? What's different?
Psychoactive drugs? AR-15s? Video games? The
decades of anticipation of Donald Trump becoming
president and the final straw of him actually getting
elected? |
|
| |
I think it's ok to ask these questions, even if there's a
simple answer to solve the problem, outlawing guns,
throwing Trump in a gulag, whatever, knowing everything
possible about a problem is the first order of business
when faced with something like this. |
|
| |
More market saturation and awareness. And all of my
answers above. |
|
| |
I think Trump is intelligent but sociopathic and
psychologically bent. His EQ is really somewhere in the
tank. |
|
| |
Or as Max would put it, neurologically damaged. His
decades of being treated like a special rich snowflake have
created a monster. Yes, this is what an old snowflake looks
like. His dad really bent him sideways I suspect. He has no
idea how to work a normal relationship on an equal footing,
so he has to throw in some drama to try and get an upper
hand. |
|
| |
Judging from the reports of chaos from folks who leave the
White House, I’d say there is definitely something wrong
with him. |
|
| |
I'm pretty sure somebody could make a pretty decent living
creating "The Church Of Trump Hate". |
|
| |
The question is would Trump be making money off
of it somehow? |
|
| |
// I had a horrible thought...// Yes, it's possible that
greater exposure to violence (video games, more graphic
movies, the glorification of gang culture in music, more
explicit news reporting) is a contributory factor. It's also
possible that previous school shootings simply make
people realise that it's an option. It's also possible that
it's something else entirely. |
|
| |
So, until someone figures out exactly what's causing it, it
would be not ridiculous to remove the guns, just a stop-
gap for the next few decades. Sometimes you have to
put out the fire first, then go back and find out what
started it. |
|
| |
I'd also like to emphasize the difference between the US
and the UK in addressing the problem. In the UK, we had
one mass shooting of children and then banned guns
immediately. Sixteen dead children was too many. We
still don't really know why the Dunblane gunman did what
he did. We're still working on the problem. When we
solve it, maybe we'll get guns back. Please hold for
updates. |
|
| |
Yea, I got it the 50th time you said you guys are
superior. |
|
| |
See? - it took you 50 times to get it :-) |
|
| |
It's not about the number of guns or the glorified violence in video games though they both amplify the problem. It's about rejection and what isolation does to a forming mind. |
|
| |
I haven't looked into it but I think it's fairly safe to say that there hasn't been a single mass shooter who wasn't a reject.
When you're not accepted by your peers for long enough, then that sad feeling becomes comfortable. Joy becomes something to be avoided because you know it will be fleeting and all of the layers of armor you've donned will need to be painstakingly reattached, so it is easier to remain in the melancholy.
Unless carefully guarded against daydreams turn to ways of hurting those who hurt you. |
|
| |
Live in that state for long enough, pile on a few more emotional and rejectional straws... and any one of us born into those shoes and bearing that weight can one day snap and decide to do a little rejecting of their own. |
|
| |
I'm pretty sure all these guys are rejected beta males.
This really is some kind of weird beta male apocalypse. |
|
| |
We've all been in situations where we've felt frustration,
isolation, rejection, it's part of the human condition. I
also believe there's at least some of these instances
where the parties have had it made quite clear to them
from the women of the world that they couldn't get laid
in a woman's prison with a handful of pardons. |
|
| |
I know
when I was young acceptance of, and being attractive to
women was very important to me. It's just a young man's
wiring. The healthy thing to do if you're not very popular
with the ladies is to self improve, (or take up Dungeons
And Dragons) but that's asking a lot
of somebody whose brain is not functioning properly. |
|
| |
As far as the video game thing, I need to stress I'm not
suggesting that banning them is even on the table. The
Son Of Sam
killer from the 1960s said dogs were talking to him,
directing him to kill. Noting that doesn't in any way
suggest that I support banning dogs. |
|
| |
Although of course frustrated, rejected young men,
violent computer games, dogs and mental illness are
not
issues which are unique to the USA |
|
| |
If we accept that guns don't kill people, people kill people,
we can solve this by taking away the people. I don't propose
to do anything drastic right now but if D Trump could
somehow renege on an agreement - and I am led to believe
that this is something of a speciality for him - with a brightly
clad, peripatetic, woodwind-toter, then within about 18
years the school shooting problem would dissipate and
within about 70 years the the drawbacks of American
foreign policy would be felt less keenly. |
|
| |
Well, if Donald Trump ever dreamed about being the
center of the universe, I guess he's achieved it. |
|
| |
I wonder if our language is going to evolve into one where
Trump is the subject of each sentence. |
|
| |
"How are you today non-Trump?" (friend) |
|
| |
"Trump-punch (good) my non-Trump, very trump-punch." |
|
| |
"I heard you were feeling very Trump-happy (bad)
yesterday." |
|
| |
"Trump-would-say-no, (yes) but I'm feeling much more
Trump-punch today." |
|
| |
Ok, skits over, strike the set, everybody go home. |
|
| |
I saw a 60 minutes special on monks at some amazingly
beautiful monastery once where they interviewed this
one
guy. Very intelligent, nice fellow, but when asked how
many times a day they pray, he laughed. The interviewer
asked what he was laughing at and the fellow said "That
you don't understand that I'm praying now as we speak."
Evidently, for this fellow at least, from the moment he
wakes up to when he goes to sleep at night he's silently
reciting prayers. This is simply extreme OCD with a nice
religious wrapping. To this chap I would say "Thank you
for doing it silently to yourself." (Although I would say
that silently to myself since he's not hurting anyone.) |
|
| |
Similarly, this constant drone of Trump injected into
every subject
is troubling. To me, it would be just as troubling if every
sentence included reference to donuts, or umbrellas. OK,
fine, Trump is evil. At this point I'm fine with firing him
just so I don't have to hear his name eight thousand times
a day. |
|
| |
Really, this is not healthy. |
|
| |
//At this point I'm fine with firing him just so I don't have
to hear his name eight thousand times a day.// Hey! It's
working! |
|
| |
I agree, he does tend to pop up in every US-centred
discussion. On the other hand, Brexit tends to pop up on
every UK-centred discussion (not, perhaps, here; but on
pretty much every UK-based forum). To be fair, though,
Trump as president is completely gobsmackingly amazing,
though - probably even more so than England leaving the
EU. I suspect Nixon was as hot a topic back in the day,
though without the benefit of online fora. |
|
| |
It just occurred to me, I'm ascribing this to some kind of
meltdown of the collective consciousness of the human
animal without realizing what's really behind this: |
|
| |
The media has three prime directives: |
|
| |
1- Make money.
2- Make more money and
3- Don't not make money. |
|
| |
Stories about Trump run once a week saying "Many
disagree with new president about policies but many
support him. I'm sure we'll all work this out. Plus the
weather in your area is pretty nice, why not go take a
walk around the neighborhood?" Is going to not make
money. We're subjects in this money game. We need to
give the
media our eyes, ears and attention. We're all
brainwashed, I'm putting me up front and center on this
accusation. |
|
| |
Case in point: might it be a crime to not pay attention to
the news? To not consume this product? My first answer is
"Of course! What if aliens come down and start killing all
the old women on welfare along with their little dogs? To
turn a blind eye to this is being complicit! Bad me!" |
|
| |
So after hearing the drumbeat of "Watch us! Obsess about
us! Consume us!" hour after hour, day after day, year in
year out, are we just becoming the mindless little
information consumers (and product message consumers)
we're supposed to be? Is that what they want? Think what
we tell you to think,
fight about what we tell you to fight about, but the
underlying message to ALL of this: "Stay Tuned!" |
|
| |
I'm going to Hawaii in a few weeks for a much needed
vacation. Wonder if I can live for a week without
watching the news? Will the world fall apart without my
sage wizened guidance? It most certainly will not. I'm
pointing the finger about media obsession when I'm
just as guilty of it as anybody. Do I ignore the Trump
stuff? Nope, I jump right into the battle, just like the
forces that want to keep us tuned, in, numbed out and
fighting want me to. |
|
| |
From this day on, I'm going to change... (music please) I
will sing, as I did in my youth! I will commune with
nature, I will walk among the trees and splendor of this
beautiful country and sing! SING! SIIING! |
|
| |
Mmmm. Naa, I'll just tune in and see what those crazy
anti Trump commies are up to now. |
|
| |
// sing! SING! SIIING! // |
|
| |
Will you sing "Oh, I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay,
I sleep all night and I work all day ... " ? |
|
| |
He's starting to learn... |
|
| |
//Will you sing "Oh, I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay, I
sleep
all night and I work all day ... " ?// |
|
| |
Busted, yea. That's exactly what I was picturing. |
|
| |
Then when I lost interest the soundtrack would have that
old cliche of the record scratch that stops the music and
I'd say "Naaa!". |
|
| |
How many years after records were not being used any
more did they use that sound effect? How many kids
heard that and said "WTF is that?" |
|
| |
//Starting at points of consensus and moving towards
progressively more contentious issues with each question.// |
|
| |
OK, so how did it work out? |
|
| |
IIII'm a pundit here and I'm OK! |
|
| |
I bitch all night and I whine all day! |
|
| |
(He's a pundit here and he's OK,
bitches all night and he whines all day!) |
|
| |
I write my piece, I skip and jump... |
|
| |
OK, that's enough. (But I am going to do more singing. And
that’s me I’m doing a parody of in the song just to be
clear..) |
|
| |
But seriously, on the issue of what can be done about
school shootings there's been some real headway. The
ideas posed can be broken into three primary categories: |
|
| |
1- Trump is an asshole.
2- Trump is orange, ugly and stupid.
and
3- Trump is an orange, ugly stupid asshole. |
|
| |
Let me go over the meeting minutes here.... ugly....
stupid.... orange, orange and ugly..... yea, that pretty
much covers it. |
|
| |
OK, I'm declaring the problem solved. Good job
everybody, now let's all have pie! |
|
| |
The first step in solving any problem is realizing that the
first step gets you no further ahead than you were before. |
|
| |
Is it cogent to point out at this point that if you're standing on the edge of a cliff or a tall building, the first step may not get you much further forward, but it is extremely likely to kill you, even if you are an experienced* BASE jumper ? |
|
| |
*i.e. you've done it at least once, and you're still alive. |
|
| |
No. "Cogent" means "compelling". Did you mean "relevant", or
perhaps "coherent"? |
|
| |
We definitely mean cogent, as in "compelling the idiot off the edge by a brisk shove in the small of the back". |
|
| |
OK, update, they're posting armed cops at schools in
Florida. Thank God. (see link) |
|
| |
Even for the most anti Trump folks out there, you have to
admit, this is a good thing. Not perfect, but if your kid
was going to that school wouldn't you feel better? |
|
| |
Waiting around to find the perfect fire extinguisher while
the house burns down is a bad thing. Do the best with
what you have available no? |
|
| |
The weirdest thing about that second paragraph? You
know what I mean. |
|
| |
Yeah, the mass shooting problem is a beta male rejection thing, but not just rejection from females. In fact before a certain age it is entirely exclusion by other male peers and authority figures which seeds the mind-set capable of indiscriminately lashing out like that.
Not getting laid just aggravates it after puberty. |
|
| |
I'm looking into this when I get free time. Others can check
out links as I put them up if they're interested. |
|
| |
First one looks pretty fact based and not political. (link) |
|
| |
One interesting point from that last link: |
|
| |
"Additionally, there is not a single mass shooting in
Everytown’s database in which the shooter was stopped by
an armed civilian—even in cases where there were armed
civilians present." |
|
| |
Max, are armed police powerless against an armed gunmen? |
|
| |
And never has a shooting incident been stopped by an
armed civilian? Not once, not ever? Is that what you’re
saying? Not what is the link saying, is that what you’re
saying? |
|
| |
. In Atlanta in 2009, Calvin Lavant and Jamal Hill broke into
an apartment during a party and forced everyone to the
floor. After they gathered various valuables, and separated
the men and the women, and Lavant said to Hill, “we are
about to have sex with these girls, then we are going to kill
them all,” and began “discussing condoms and the number
of bullets in their guns.” At that point, Sean Barner, a
Marine who was attending Georgia State as part of the
Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program,
managed to get to the book bag he brought to the party;
took out his gun; shot and scared away Hill; went into the
neighboring room, where Lavant was about to rape one of
the women; was shot at by Lavant, and shot back and hit
Lavant, who then ran off and later died of his injuries. One
of the women was shot and wounded in the shootout, but
given the circumstances described in the sources I linked
to, it seemed very likely that Lavant and Hill would have
killed (as well as raped) some or all of the partygoers had
they not been stopped. |
|
| |
Hmm. So much for “not a single mass shooting stopped”
Maybe that’s the only one though. Want to go down that
road? I’m very busy today so I’ll just post more of these
incidents as necessary. There are a lot so we could do this
for days. |
|
| |
CNN just got busted handing a script to a student berating
Republicans in a planned televised town hall meeting. He
had wanted to ask the Republicans about armed guards and
they said he could not. |
|
| |
So, no questions we don’t agree with, tell people there’s
never been one time where a civilian has protected
themselves or others with a gun, not even one time, ever
ever ever. |
|
| |
And we’re putting these liars in charge? |
|
| |
Hey, [doc], I was just quoting from your link. But if you're
saying only marines should be allowed to carry firearms,
that would be a start. |
|
| |
Anyway, let's pick this up again after the next mass
shooting. Maybe over the weekend? |
|
| |
There once was a man with a gun in his hand,
Not a an apple or a sword or a big rubberband,
He pointed it here and he pointed it there,
He scratched himself often and wore underwear.
One day on a street, outside a small school
He arrived in a gallop on a busted old mule.
The gun he did wave as he entered the place,
He screamed and he shouted and he pulled a big face!
In the minutes before, the armed children shot,
He managed to mow down quite a few of the lot.
Then expired as expected in a pool of his blood
That sad lot of flesh, a social failure, a dud!
So success was had and the children did cheer,
They waved all their pistols and drank lots of beer!
Then buried their classmates and some teachers (why not)
On top of old smokey, all covered with pot!
|
|
| |
[mylodon] - the Halfbakery's very own William McGonagall. |
|
| |
"In a longer statement, CNN confirmed Haab was invited by the
network to participate but his father decided to withdraw his name
from participation. CNN said Haab wanted to give an extensive
speech and not just ask a question, something the network said the
forum was not designed for. CNN noted the subject Haab wanted to
address, arming teachers, was discussed at length in the 2-hour
long town hall event." |
|
| |
Which contradicts the student’s story. |
|
| |
It occurred to me that is one point of consensus on
this. |
|
| |
Something has to be done. |
|
| |
For this particular issue, maybe that's a
breakthrough in
itself. |
|
| |
I don't think America, as a nation, accepts that point. Despite people like you, and despite people hand-wringing every time, I think America as a whole sees gun deaths the same was as it sees road deaths - we need cars, and deaths are sad but inevitable. |
|
| |
I was trying to get into the American mentality, and I sort of can. If the UK government told me that private cars were going to be outlawed to reduce road deaths, I'd feel the same way that Americans would feel if private guns were outlawed, I think. So, the American attitude is not so unreasonable. Maybe if people thought of school shootings in the same way as they do car crashes, they wouldn't feel bad about them. |
|
| |
Perhaps, to Americans, we English are a bit like the Amish - rejecting certain technologies in a quaint but unreasonable way. |
|
| |
//I think America as a whole sees gun deaths the
same was as it sees road deaths - we need cars,
and deaths are sad but inevitable.// |
|
| |
Maybe, but then we did give the world the life
saving collision airbag didn't we? If the two
choices are get shot or get hanged, we tend to
look for
a third. |
|
| |
If I were president, this is what I'd do today.
I'd federalize the police forces of every city. I don't
care if the president can't do that, I'm not
president either. I would say there has to be two
police officers on duty at each school during
normal school hours. If this requires paying
overtime etc,
that's a
federally funded program. |
|
| |
Even if we have to hire two cops for each
school in the U.S. that's 200,000 officers because
this isn't 24/7 coverage that's needed. You can
have two officers hired for a particular school and
the existing force can cover sick leave, vacations
etc. But I expect you could cover most of these
new posts with existing manpower by adjusting
some priorities. |
|
| |
But if we have to, we can hire 200,000
officers. |
|
| |
The arguments against that are: 1- That costs
money and
2- Two highly trained SWAT officers with AR-15s
and side
arms communicating by radio with access to
cameras and
other various battlefield situation awareness
resources
are no match for a drug addled 17 year old. |
|
| |
I'd add that each officer would man one of two
separate
posts that would vary in location from hour to hour
and
day to day. To keep the officers interested, they
could
even have some teaching duties from time to time.
Self
defense, how to stay away from drugs and booze,
how to
be a good citizen, Boy Scout / Girl Scout kind of
stuff. |
|
| |
I'll throw one last sales pitch in. I also think these
men
and women would provide great roll models and
supply
two messages to the children: 1- Be strong and 2-
You are
very important to us. |
|
| |
I respectfully put that idea up for consideration /
critique. |
|
| |
Well, I think that aligns with my understanding - make the
cars safer (good), but we must have cars. And that's fair
enough. |
|
| |
In leu of outlawing guns: cops. Better than nothing? A
reserved and reluctant half thumbs up from the English
delegate? You don't have to say yes, I'll understand. Just
bring up the weather and that'll signal you don't want to
argue about it any more. |
|
| |
Pretty sunny or cold where you are eh? You know it's the
humidity or frostbite that'll get ya. |
|
| |
Hey, if you have to have open gasoline pools, having a soda
syphon handy is better than nothing. |
|
| |
I am curious to know why Americans feel a need for guns,
but if I were curious enough I guess I'd just Google.
Weather here is dark. |
|
| |
I understand. It does get dark this time of year. |
|
| |
Hooray! A point of consensus! No, wait; here in the Southern
Hemisphere it's really sunny at this time of year. D'oh! |
|
| |
// I am curious to know why Americans feel a need for guns // |
|
| |
Same reason Canadians feel it. It was all frontier no more than a century ago. We had critters that would make a way into your home if they got hungry enough any given season and eat you. Still do in a lot of places.
Add to that one country going to war against itself, and against the other, (don't make us send newfies down there to burn that white house 'o yers down again y'hear?), over a human rights issue nobody wants to see repeated and it feels proper to stay armed against whatever-the-fuck might want to do you in next Tuesday whether it's Billy from down the street or your own government.
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best right? |
|
| |
Our recent ancestors escaped rigid control and then got dragged into a world war to maintain that freedom.
If our governments were doing the jobs we pay them for then these mental health issues would be addressed at a young enough age to prevent these guns from going around killing people all on their own. |
|
| |
The people of North America will not willingly be subjugated again.
So we'll instead be keeping our guns and pressuring our elected officials into paying more attention to the kids before the cries of those with inadequate supervision and direction for attention and help turn deadly. |
|
| |
<does best Forest Gump>
...that's all I have to say 'bout that.
<d.b.F.G> |
|
| |
I actually wouldn't mind talking about the weather, but I enjoy the annual gun-conversation, notwithstanding the usual precursor. |
|
| |
The AR-15 is "America's Gun". Not (just) for the beer swilling, obese, rednecks, but as a representation of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution. |
|
| |
It's actually a terrible choice for a school-shooting. |
|
| |
So, when a school-shooter uses one, that's a statement that the action is taken on behalf of the disenfranchised, who are citizens and people, too. |
|
| |
The obvious foreknowledge that they aren't coming out the other side doesn't help, either. |
|
| |
Ridiculous, of course - the actions may be premeditated, but they aren't organized in the sense of group planning/staging, nor is the target valid, militarily. |
|
| |
But, less ridiculous than anybody's claim that their owning or carrying a firearm - if not viable as a military weapon as part of an organized action - is covered by the second amendment. It isn't. Never was. Ironically, the disincluded would also be comprised of actual military muzzle-loaders from when the Constitution was written. |
|
| |
It's not about the weaponry available when the document was written.
It's about the fact that "that" fork in the road allowed 'all' people to arm themselves.
Take it away from the law abiding citizens and all you've done is shorn the sheep and locked them in a pen with the not-so-law-abiding wolves. |
|
| |
Until the reject-beta-male psychopath syndrome is dealt with then would it be so hard to have locking doors on classrooms, bullet proof desk-tops and a break-in-case-of-emergency firearm with training for teachers? |
|
| |
I mean, think about it seriously for a second. |
|
| |
If you project yourself into the shoes of any one of those teachers having to deal with the responsibility over the lives of an entire class of kids... would a single one of those teachers have not wanted the ability to defend them?
That kid who just got shot five times while pulling the ultimate Hodor... (props m'man), "that" kids teacher wishes that they had been armed. |
|
| |
I'd bet my other nut on that one. |
|
| |
So, there were teachers from that school who have stated
their opinion already on the matter, as have law
enforcement. Both indicated negative. |
|
| |
I think you’ll be safe from Sasquatch with or without the
weapon. |
|
| |
Mm hm, are you really putting yourself in those shoes? or are you just absorbing the 'official' report? |
|
| |
I'm just asking because I'm real sick of hearing the pc answer to all of my questions as though that really obfuscates things in any way. |
|
| |
As a decent human adult with children entrusted to your care you would do as I would do and protect them with your life. |
|
| |
Surely the means to do so would not be rejected by any sane individual... |
|
| |
Surely not even given a glut of propaganda and an overwhelming tide of conditioned peer pressure they wouldn't give up their right to protect their charges?
Surely not even then. |
|
| |
//It's about the fact that "that" fork in the road allowed 'all' people to arm themselves.
Take it away from the law abiding citizens and all you've done is shorn the sheep and locked them in a pen with the not-so-law-abiding wolves.// |
|
| |
There was no fork [edit: in the US], which people had historically always been able to arm themselves, no matter which side of the tracks they're on, towhit your previous point about "frontier". Cities have usually had the option to restrict carrying of weapons in public. Neither of which is relevant to the second amendment. |
|
| |
//People historically have always been able to arm themselves// |
|
| |
A quick reading of, say, Macchiavelli or Burckhardt might suggest
otherwise. |
|
| |
// I wonder if our language is going to evolve into one
where Trump is the subject of each sentence. //
I
dunno how I could have been clearer with the point I
made re the PP of H but at risk of repeating myself, none
of the solutions to the American gun rights death spiral
can be fixed by taking away or altering the characteristics
of guns, nor by changing the law because, as has been
said many times by people looking to ensure that the law
is not changed, laws don't change anything. The issue is
clearly a cultural one but cultural problems are hard and
messy to solve (cf. the Cultural Revolution) and there is,
as far as I can tell, no actual will on the part of people
with power to address the cultural problems. So, what
we need to do is thin down - ultimately to remove - the
pool of potential victims. Currently, the main focus is on
children, though I understand that most people who are
killed by guns in the US aren't children (though they may
have been at some point in their lives). What most of
the victims of gun crime in America have in common is
that they are, at the time they become victims of gun
crime in America, in America. |
|
| |
To recap for those at the back, the victim pool is
comprised of (a) humans who (b) are in America. To
reduce the victim pool, we need to deal with both. We
cannot thin the pool of humans without having regard to
the location of those humans, as that will
disproportionately harm people in other nations, none of
which have in the past 70 years done any meaningful
strategic damage to America. Similarly, addressing the
problem by moving people out of America because, as
stated, the problem is cultural and culture is exportable. |
|
| |
Which leads me to thinking how to ethically reduce the
population of America to zero as quickly as possible,
without significant leakage of Americans to other,
geographies where the cultures, while bad, are not the
unique curate's egg found in the US. A number of morally
reprehensible "solutions" (as the current biz lingo has it)
have been attempted previously, but I am not keen that
we replicate them. Certainly the leakage problem will
necessitate the construction of a linear fortification along
land borders, and a tightening of emigration policy but
these are pretty much already in hand. |
|
| |
Currently, the PP of H model is most attractive as it does
not result in the deaths of those removed from the victim
pool - something I am sure everyone is keen to ensure -
instead they enjoy a socialistic utopia under whatever
continental US mountain is capacious enough to contain
them. Some work will need to be done to assess
capacity, and to create a in-mountain living space that
can be used by the PP of H-analogue that will, if we build
it, come. But that's where the best of the optimistic,
indefatigable, hard-work-begets-success American can-do
spirit will come to the fore and to the rescue of America
as a concept, if not as a viable nation state. |
|
| |
[pert] I referred to US/Canada. edited. |
|
| |
[calum] polypropylene homopolymer ? |
|
| |
What happened to the Halfbakery of wonderful hamster powered custard fountains etc? This is a very tiresome debate over a land of gun obsessed, deeply unhappy and fearful people. It's very boring zzzzzzz. I'm calling out the soup dragon to bring some order. Only Americans find guns so interesting that they have to try and own every one of them in the entire world. Suggestion? Start using large cudgels festooned with rusty nails instead. |
|
| |
Hey, whoever dragged [xen] here against her will, let her go
- she's bored. |
|
| |
//The issue is clearly a cultural one but cultural problems are hard and messy to solve//
This is very true if you attack the problem head on but, I think, in this instance, the Palace of Westminster can teach us a thing or two about strategy. Banning firearms or removing the right to bear arms or restricting sales of firearms or any similar attempt seems bound to end in failure. Instead, you encourage a culture of quality in firearms. This, of course, means rigorous testing & certification fees & very expensive licenses for manufacturers & purveyors of firearms & any number of other bureaucratic hoops to jump through & huge import fees for traders in shoddy, foreign weapons. Thus, whilst guns will still be available & displayed in shop windows like tempting sweeties, they will be, just like good legal representation, mostly only available to the wealthy.
Once that step change has been effected, phase two is to point out the inequality of allowing the rich to carry firearms whilst those without two farthings to rub together have to make do with a pointy stick. At this point, a gun ban becomes a political possibility. |
|
| |
I think some legislation may happen at the edges. The emerging facts (there was an armed cop nearby who did not
enter the school) are very disturbing. |
|
| |
Very few shootings in predominantly minority district schools or inner city schools. Much more robust police
presence, metal detectors all play a role. And of course this is more of a white male disease. |
|
| |
Given the sheer number of guns, the practical impossibility of repealing the 2nd Amendment and of confiscation,
unfortunately this one, while being perhaps improved at the edges will just wait for the AI/Robot overlords to fix it. |
|
| |
All the drunk and dWI driving laws in the world, antitexting laws, and people will keep dying until the cars drive
themselves. Ditto here, robocop will fix it. |
|
| |
//deeply unhappy and fearful people// (on this post) |
|
| |
Projection. I'm guilty of it myself. My weak spot is fear
that I'm not smart enough so tend to insinuate people are
stupid. Despite having been tested as having a high IQ as
a kid, (and there's a story behind that. It wasn't a just
matter of all the kids being handed IQ tests, but I'll leave
it at that,) being raised on the poor side of town and
having had much less formal education than most people,
(I didn't even really go to high school much less college)
it's always in the back of my mind. It's OK, none of us are
perfect but that's my weak spot. |
|
| |
As long as we're exposing personal weakness, thought I'd
join you Xen. Just so you don't feel alone. |
|
| |
As far as being deeply unhappy or fearful, I'm unhappy
when I screw up and happy when I achieve something or
do my job as a husband, father and provider. It changes
depending on the circumstances. |
|
| |
A state of constant happiness is an illusion sold by people
who purport to have the product you need to achieve
that. A drug, a philosophy, a political party, the right
kind of hair conditioner. I personally have no interest in
being what I call "Laughing at my salad happy." (see link) |
|
| |
That having been addressed, can those of us who frankly
just like
to chat go back to doing that Xen? If you don't like the
subject you're welcome to put up one of your own. |
|
| |
//It's OK, none of us are perfect but that's my weak spot.// |
|
| |
Gr.: "none of us IS perfect" (equivalent to "not one of us is
perfect"). |
|
| |
See? Max just made a little booboo and we still
love him. |
|
| |
From the Oxford dictionary (You know a little
about Oxford Max, being that you work there.) |
|
| |
"It is sometimes held that none can only take a
singular verb, never a plural verb: none of them is
coming tonight rather than none of them are
coming tonight. There is little justification,
historical or grammatical, for this view. None is
descended from Old English nān meaning ‘not one’
and has been used for around a thousand years
with both a singular and a plural verb, depending
on the context and the emphasis needed" |
|
| |
Phew! Dogged a bullet there. |
|
| |
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go laugh at my
salad. |
|
| |
Disappointed to read the position adopted by the hitherto entirely doctrinally sound DrBob, failing to support the pied piper approach to the remedying of all American ills. I may need to give some thought as to whether he is fit for his position on my committee of public safety. |
|
| |
//You know a little about Oxford Max, being that you work
there// Oxford? Pah! Grabbed my doctorate and came
back to the relative sanity of Cambridge as soon as they let
me out. Wouldn't trust Oxford punctuate a roadsign. |
|
| |
Hmm. I'm going to pretend I knew that Oxford and
Cambridge are two different places. |
|
| |
Wait, did I type that or just think it? |
|
| |
I've decided to weigh in to this debate with a post in two parts. Please note that any snark you may find in this post is restricted to the first part. |
|
| |
Why the fuck are people spoiling what could be a perfectly good religious war - sorry, progressive online debate - about american gun issues with constant and irrelevant references to Donald Trump?
By analogy with Godwin's law (formally : "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1"), this issue needs mitigating. Just as in many debating circles appropriately citing Godwin is considered to end the debate (the person who referenced Hitler is considered to have lost), we could have a similar rule on the halfbakery.
The recommended standard form for a closing post can be discussed, but I suggest : "Unnecessary POTUS reference - you lose." |
|
| |
Note that I have no skin in this game, and this is all absolutely earnest. |
|
| |
As several people have noted, regardless of whether it's the guns or the people who kill people, if there were no guns it would be much harder for one person to kill a large number of people. Yes it's certainly possible to kill few with a knife or a vehicle, but it's somewhat less likely to get to very high body-counts. |
|
| |
One thing to bear in mind is that american gun murders are a relatively small problem. There are other areas where, if you've got money to spend on public safety, money could be spent more productively.
I say this not to disturb, but to infer that any solution should not cost a great deal of money. This makes some proposed solutions (metal detectors, armed guards) rather difficult. |
|
| |
One thing that strikes me about the 'pools of gasoline' analogy above is the analogy to fire. As I'm sure we have all been taught regularly, at legally mandated intervals, fire needs three things : fuel, heat and an oxidising agent (which is air in most cases). If you can exclude one of these components, fire will not occur. |
|
| |
Following the analogy, having more guns around is essentially trying to fight fire with fire. This is absolutely useful in certain situations - wildfires can be 'back burned' to create firebreaks and so on. But I think it's important to recognise that this is a dangerous last resort used by exclusively by trained professionals. I think it's fair to say that having more guns around increases the risk that one will fall into the wrong hands. I also think the potential for accidents and "blue-on-blue" incidents (possibly even maliciously contrived) would be increased. Essentially the firefighting strategy is equivalent to armed police arriving quickly at the scene - which is the current situation. |
|
| |
For a gun homicide to occur, you obviously need a gun (+associated items), and targets, and also a person with the inclination to use the gun.
If we assume (for the sake of argument) that removing guns from America is not an acceptable solution, and removing targets is a degenerate, undesirable solution, then we are left with removing the inclination to use the gun. |
|
| |
One reasonably well-accepted idea is that mass-murderers do it for the notoriety. |
|
| |
I've seen it suggested that the name of the killer not be announced to try to reduce this.
This is a good solution in the sense that it's very cheap and easy, but I don't think that goes anywhere near far enough. |
|
| |
There should be a code of conduct of the press which should be widely adhered to. |
|
| |
I think it's likely that these individuals see the kill-count as a score. Therefore, I suggest not revealing the number of victims more than necessary. Local news will probably have to go into this, but national news should not.
Details of the killer and weapons used should never be described. |
|
| |
Finally, the killer's name should never be mentioned. Instead, a governmental agency would issue identifiers for them, similar to how storms are named. Furthermore, these IDs would be disparaging, referencing bodily secretions, foul smells and the like. |
|
| |
I think this would have massive success - few people would want to go down in history as the ass-faced killer, the poo-smear murderer, the fart-breath attacker or similar. |
|
| |
I don't agree with name or detail suppression or telling news agencies what to do. I think that's a slippery slope with more downsides then upsides. |
|
| |
What if nobody knew nothing about all these murderers. Everyone would cast them as their enemy. There would be myths and legends and they would become gods. |
|
| |
It could be ass-faced god. Arguably, Set was an ass-faced god. |
|
| |
You could suppress everything. Burn the videos. A school disappears off the map - nobody knows why, nobody cares. Nobody can copycat because nobody knows what happened. |
|
| |
Is that good? Right now there is intense debate about why certain people do things. Is that not a good debate? |
|
| |
Anyways, this argument has reached peak blockchain. Any conversation or discussion of improvement of the human species, once it mentions blockchain, is then over. Blockchain is the end of this progression, because obviously, blockchain's consensus mechanisms can easily validate truth and track perfect history of any argument. |
|
| |
Well, this week's shooting came up on The News Quiz this
evening. There was much laughter regarding the proposal
to give guns to teachers. |
|
| |
I made the same argument about terrorism back in
2001. |
|
| |
//I don't agree with name or detail suppression or telling news agencies what to do. I think that's a slippery slope with more downsides then upsides.// |
|
| |
That's not an unreasonable concern, given the limited description I gave of of how it would work. But handled in the right way, I don't think it needs to be particularly oppressive. |
|
| |
In the UK, we have a code of practice for reporting of suicides. They're recognised to be 'infectious' just like gun rampages in the USA.
I think it's widely recognised as a good thing (link). Think something along those lines. |
|
| |
I get that this idea visited lots of places, but how did it get
to Bitcoin and blockchain? |
|
| |
// Apparently all so called block-chain incarnations are
complete BS, and appeal more to the business types who
can game the energy use. Crypto-
currencies with a flat transaction fee and no make-work
may not even survive after the Bitcoin et al fiasco. // |
|
| |
Debatable certainly (to the extent this idea is about
debates) but what does this have to do with the price of
tulips or large gun clips? It's not really even an American
phenomenon, largely. |
|
| |
//One reasonably well-accepted idea is that mass-murderers do it
for the notoriety.// |
|
| |
I'm sceptical about that. I mean, what would be the evidence for
it? Interviews with the shooters after they're dead? |
|
| |
//Its just school shootings on a bigger scale.// |
|
| |
Oh dear. This is not a point of consensus. One of the biggest
mistakes in political thinking is to assume that human societies
work in the same way at different scales. On the contrary, once a
society is bigger than someone's immediate social circle, you're
in a whole different game. |
|
| |
[bigsleep] Taking that to extremes. I hope surviving, in prisoned, school shooters are checked and tracked? The military could co-opting new killers for redacted operations by swapping them out. |
|
| |
[+] Palestine, Israeli debate, You love your children. You don't want to see them horribly maimed, You want to live free with possible economic prosperity .... |
|
| |
//Disappointed to read the position adopted by...DrBob//
Well I'm always willing to double-check the figures/review the findings/point the finger at a junior member of staff if the right fiscal incentive is waved temptingly under my nostrils. |
|
| |
[bigsleep] if the fervor with which millennials embraced
altcoin speculation does not prove that the more things
change, the more they remain the same, I don't know what
does. To every beginning, there's an end -- the cycle just
speeds up in accordance with Moore's Law. |
|
| |
As to the military industrial complex, the entry point is
drones, not guns. Sure, eventually drones with guns. But
first drones. |
|
| |
//I'm sceptical about that. I mean, what would be the evidence for it?
Interviews with the shooters after they're dead?// |
|
| |
I'm linking one article for you - but if that's not enough, there's about
747,999 more for you if you care to google "mass-murderer notoriety".
Directly relevant quote : "Shooters also compete for the most
attention by killing the most people, Lankford said. In a 2016 study in the
journal Aggression and Violent Behavior, he found that mass killers who
expressed a celebrity-seeking motive killed twice as many people as those
who did not." |
|
| |
On an unrelated point :
//I'm willing to put those on the table if your side puts the psycho drugs on the table. Drugs and guns together? No way. We can
start with a list of all these events with the drugs these monsters were on. Just to jump ahead, if in defending these drugs
someone tells me that millions of people use these every day without murdering anybody I'm obviously going to say "Are we
talking about the AR- 15s now?"//
...
//I'll summarize, 4 out of 6 of the listed shooters were known to be on psychoactive drugs but I had cut and pasted all sorts of
interesting (to me at least) corroborating facts on the individual cases.// |
|
| |
To be honest I'm not sure what your exact point is here, but I think essentially you are proposing "don't sell guns to people on
selected psychoactive medications".
Skipping over other people's concerns about what drugs this would constitute (I assume that could be reasonably decided) - on the
face of it this seems like a reasonable idea.
No-one here seems to have complained that this would be a slippery slope to denying anyone weaponry. My mental model of the
NRA is that they oppose essentially anything which restricts the right to bear arms.
As an alternate note of caution, I think you'd need to be careful about exactly what the qualifications were. You certainly don't
want a perverse incentive where people who might go 'crazy' decide against seeking help or taking their medication because they
might lose their weaponry. |
|
| |
There's another unrelated point I'd like to talk about, but that will have to wait for next time. |
|
| |
Which opens the ugly possibiity that we might have
to stop glamorizing these mass murders. |
|
| |
I could have sworn I read that they did this
someplace for some crime and saw a sharp
reduction, but I think nobody can deny, this
sensationalized story is priming the next group of
killers out there right now. (link) |
|
| |
I believe media has in the past not posted names
and pictures of perpetrators. We have a right to
know, but perhaps the "instant superstar status"
incentive could be removed. After all, do we all
need to be involved in the particulars of the
investigation? |
|
| |
Slippery slope? At this point it seems like that
might be something to address. |
|
| |
I had posted an idea once to give mass murders
insulting names. "The Ugly Loser" killer, "The
Frightened Little Bitch" killer. What about derisive
sarcasm? "The Ladies Man" for a particularly un-
attractive guy? If somebody is driven
by being an outcast and made fun of, seems like
this might not be as attractive an outcome, being
forever immortalized as "The Tiny Balls" killer. |
|
| |
Psychological warfare against the enemy? Why not?
If the next psycho was left saying "Boy, I'd hate to
be that guy." instead of "Boy, he sure showed
them!" it might deter these guys at the very core
of why they're doing it. |
|
| |
Thank you for the link, [Loris]. I think we may have been at cross
purposes, because I was thinking specifically of school
shootings, whereas the linked article is about mass shootings in
general. In so far as it refers specifically to school shootings, it
states that they are *less* likely than other mass shootings to
"cluster" and, to the extent that school shootings do cluster, the
conclusion that such clustering is caused by fame-seeking is not
linked to any data. |
|
| |
I'm not saying there's no data out there, but I suspect that a lot of
the hundreds of thousands of hits you mention represent
thousands of non-expert bloggers (like us) quoting hundreds of
journalists quoting a handful of experts quoting each other. |
|
| |
I'm not insisting that those experts are wrong. I'm just curious
about their data as it pertains specifically to school shootings,
bearing in mind the low survival rates of shooters in those cases
and bearing in mind that the numbers quoted in your link show
that school shootings are *not* just like other mass shootings. |
|
| |
What if anyone who sought a weapon were required to pass
a psych evaluation first? |
|
| |
Great idea, wish I’d thought of that. |
|
| |
It's an appealing idea but, as they used to say about Northern
Ireland, there's a problem for every solution. In this case, the
problem lies in a phenomenon called "nosological drift". I read
about this a few years ago in a paper journal which I am now too
lazy to go and look up. |
|
| |
Basically, psychiatric diagnosis, even when carried out in good
faith, has an unavoidable political aspect. The boundaries of
Crazy shift over time with changes in the dominant culture. |
|
| |
What will you do in a future where your own world view is
included in the DSM, and your creepy neighbour's is not? |
|
| |
Could a random 100 question test be built to filter the extreme end of the spectrum? Even people forced to learn the test to beat it will make a slight change. |
|
| |
Ask the police how they do it. Police aren't perfect,
but they're not shooting up schools. |
|
| |
Good point about how the diagnosis would turn
political though. I'm bit nervous about giving
Democrats the power to declare people insane,
something their heroes in the Soviet Union used
throw lock up their political enemies. |
|
| |
They've dropped the ruse now but for a couple of
months there were a few psychiatrists appearing on
the brainwashing networks that through careful
observation of Donald Trump declared him clinically
insane. Many Democrats in Congress wanted to use
this bullshit to remove him from office. These guys
are not fans of democracy when it doesn't go their
way. I don't think that's something that should be
forgotten. |
|
| |
So limit it to people who want to carry guns and let
the have the police force do it. Although there are
probably some, the police force doesn't attract a lot
of communists. Most of them are pretty brave for one
thing and many are former military. |
|
| |
If you only see this behavior coming from the left
then you are much more radically biased than you
would have us believe, Mr. "Non-tribalist." |
|
| |
The behaviour comes from both sides, but it's much more
irritating when it comes from the other side. |
|
| |
[Ray], the main reason Fox News was so successful is that the
perceived need was building up from the Nixon years, a voice
for the silent majority. So whatever else you believe, the
game didn't start on this side of the court. |
|
| |
And now the game's been ruined -- this is why we can't have
nice things. |
|
| |
//If you only see this behavior coming from
the left then you are much more radically biased
than you would have us believe, Mr. "Non-
tribalist."// |
|
| |
Whenever an argument of yours is about to melt
down you always resort to insults. Calling names
doesn't make you look clever, or right, it just
makes you look childish and not in charge of your
emotions so as I've said before, if you're going to
get nasty because your arguments can't hold water,
I
won't talk to you. |
|
| |
1- Where do you get the idea that bad behavior on
one side is somehow cancels out by bad behavior
on the other? |
|
| |
2- As you know, the Democrats tried to declare
Trump insane and invoke the 25th amendment. |
|
| |
3- You said "If you only see this behavior coming
from the left then you are much more radically
biased than you would have us believe, Mr. "Non-
tribalist." |
|
| |
4- When have the Republicans tried to invoke the
25th ammendment to declare a Democrat
president insane? |
|
| |
5- In your world, there are only Democrats and
Republicans. I'm not a Republican, but you have a
simplified, easy do deal with world view that's
comforting. |
|
| |
But it's not real. I can despise the Democrat party
without
loving the Republican party and I can criticize
them without checking to make sure they don't
have a "commit one free crime card" because the
Republicans did something wrong at some point. |
|
| |
During the presidential campaign, there were lots of fake
videos in circulation claiming to show Hilary Clinton having
some sort of epileptic fit. To be fair, though, they probably
came from Russia. |
|
| |
Childish true, but a far cry from trying to declare
somebody insane. How many Republican senators
got on board the plan to declare her unfit because
of that silly shaking her head trying to be funny
video? This
was a internet meme and it never went beyond
that. |
|
| |
These fascists floated the idea of overturning a
democratic election on falsified allegations of
the duly elected winner being insane citing
compelling medically sound
evidence like "He uses Twitter and says things we
disagree with." (see link) The shown link is one of
many idiots floating their stupid idea for a coup
d'etat against the American people, in this case a
George Bush linked attorney. a) He's an attorney,
b) He was hired by George Bush at one time. Bush
is
the reason I changed my voter registration from
Republican back to Libertarian. At least he started
the ball rolling then McCain was the last straw. |
|
| |
But that's just my point, no matter how many
times I say "Fuck the Republicans too." I hear "Ah
ha! That's just what a dirty Republican lover would
say to cover his slimy, evil, diabolical plan to run
amok as a covert Republican!" |
|
| |
And what the hell do the Republicans stand for
these days anyway? What the hell would I be
supporting? Slogan: "We're like the Democrats too!
Why not consider voting for us if you're not doing
anything that day?" What an exciting platform! Sign
me up! |
|
| |
And news flash: Donald Trump is not a real
Republican. Republicans are politicians.
He's a businessman turned reality show star that
thought it would be fun to run for president to
turn some of his ideas into reality by trading
endorsements of winning candidates in exchange
for them enacting some of his ideas. When you
realize that's the truth, this all makes sense. He
accidentally won. One reason was he came off as
not really caring (which looks like confidence)
is because he DIDN'T care. He came off very un-
politician like. |
|
| |
And voting for him was a protest vote against the
Republicans as much as the Democrats. Remember
"Boaty Mc Boatface"? He's the Boaty Mc Boatface of
politics. |
|
| |
But the main reason he won wasn't because he
was so great, it's because HIllary and the
Democrats were so god aweful. |
|
| |
The problem I'm having, [doc], is that you know a lot more
about this than I do, which puts me at a disadvantage when
it comes to rebutting, refuting or even repudiating your
arguments. |
|
| |
Howevertheless, wasn't there a recent official finding that
Russia had indeed taken actions to influence the election in
Trump's favour, and that since he was elected they have
flipped to trying to discredit him, in order to cause further
disruption? |
|
| |
//the main reason he won// Was because it suited Putin, who used Russian disruptive social media tactics to run rings around the chaotic system of voting in the USA, that sees a president elected with 5 million less votes than that of his rival. So most people didn't want the Idiot, but there he is blubbering away, and Putin must be laughing up and down the corridors of the Kremlin. Russia's greatest rival country is now headed up by the local village idiot. |
|
| |
//The problem I'm having, [doc], is that you know a
lot more about this than I do// |
|
| |
And you know a lot about other subjects that I am not as
familiar with, so it's our job to share facts as best as we
can gather them
so intelligent folks like yourself and I can process them,
possibly from a different perspective and throw in an
angle that we previously didn't see. Debates are a
marketplace, not a
wrestling arena. |
|
| |
The official report has come out from the investigation
into "collusion" that the Democrats are backing, and it
says this: |
|
| |
It's not that the Russians have suddenly flipped, it's that
they were spending a few thousand dollars on social
media to sew unrest and possibly sell advertising on these
sites that are both pro and anti Trump. It looks like the
whole thing is a low budget Kremlin (or whatever they
call it now) experiment to see if any of this social media
stuff works for any cause. (It doesn't, social media power
to get stuff done is the biggest marketing scam since
sugary breakfasts cereal.) They put together anti Trump
rallies as well as pro Trump websites. This has all come
out now. The Democrats selectively picked up on the
"pro" Trump stuff in an attempt to try to paint the lie that
Trump colluded with the Russians. Notice how you don't
hear the term collusion any more, and certainly not
"Trump collusion"? It's been downgraded to "Whitehouse
collusion" and now tax evasion of a former Whitehouse
staffer. There's a reason for that. |
|
| |
The Russians had absolutely nothing to do with getting
Trump elected, the only collusion with the Russians to
affect the outcome of an American election was between
the Democrats and the Russians. |
|
| |
None of this is really even being debated at this point.
The Democrats are trying to throw enough former
Whitehouse staffers in jail for parking violations that the
Americans forget that the original investigation was into
Trump colluding with the Russians to get elected, and
that he did it by the Russians spending about four
thousand dollars on social media advertising. Boy, that's
quite a bit of bang for you buck isn't it? So if I spend
$5,000, I could pick the next president of the United
States? Hey, that's within my budget! I'm the most
powerful man on planet Earth! |
|
| |
Something that they don't even bothering alleging any
more, hoping that the term "Trump collusion" just sort of
hangs in the air like a ghost enough to taint his
presidency as much as possible without being held up to
any scrutiny at all. |
|
| |
See, I tolja you knew more than I did. |
|
| |
<hmmm. Perhaps he knows too much...> |
|
| |
You SAY you're English but that's just what a KGB agent
WOULD say isn't it? Or a bot. |
|
| |
For future debates I'm going to require not only captchas,
but we'll have to chat about the Beatles White Album
extensively. "So, Please Please Me, was that the third or
fourth track on that album? You have one second to reply.
Fourth? That was on Meet The Beatles! COMRADE!" |
|
| |
"Please, please me" - was that one written by Lenin? Or was
it McCarthy? |
|
| |
So if you're interested in following this whole
Russia
thing, some pretty big news just came out. It gets
a little
involved so I'll do my best to simplify it for the
level of
audience interest, which I imagine is probably
about a 2
on a 1/10 scale which I feel is pretty fair for the
circumstances. |
|
| |
1- The Russian collusion investigation against
Trump
began with a warrant against a Whitehouse guy,
Carter
Page. |
|
| |
2- Memo used to obtain warrant was paid for by
Hillary
and the Democrats. Warrant was denied until the
addition
of this Democrat funded lie sheet. |
|
| |
3- Court was not made aware that the Democrats
paid for
this. |
|
| |
4- Republicans released a statement pointing this
out and
here's the kicker... |
|
| |
5- Democrats counter statement didn't deny this.
Their
only counter is saying that they stated in the
application
that somebody might have created this dossier to
have a
negative effect on Trump's campaign, but they
didn't say
who. As far as the court knew, it could have been
Russians setting up a blackmail scenario against
their
puppet Trump, something that would have made
that
dossier, made up or not, very material to this
investigation. |
|
| |
6- The dem counter memo also says that there
were other
factors considered, like he made a speech at
Moscow
University. In other words, "I didn't eat the cookies,
and if
I did, I didn't know they were yours." By the way,
did that
investigation ever come up with any collusion? No. |
|
| |
So to make clear, the court was not told the
Democrats
paid for that dossier, they were told that Steele
“was
likely looking for information that could be used to
discredit” the Trump campaign but they didn't say
by
whom. Providing evidence without citing your
source
why? To save time? |
|
| |
No, because it most likely would have been denied
if it
came from Hillary who nobody trusts. |
|
| |
They're also saying this guy was "On the Radar
screen" due
to trips to Russia, but we're talking about a FISA
warrant,
not being on a radar screen, whatever that means. |
|
| |
Any piece of evidence created or submitted under
false
pretenses taints the case and indicts those
prosecuting
that case and it only takes one instance of
falsification or
hiding of facts to do so. |
|
| |
Plus the guy didn't do anything, there's that. |
|
| |
I know that was more of a lullaby than a political
diatribe but, there it is. |
|
| |
Just gotta add this, (I know nobody's reading this
at this
point but that's ok) the Democrat memo says the
"investigation" into Carter Page started in April
2016, 7
weeks before the Democrat funded dossier was
even
submitted in July. (The FISA warrant was granted
in
October.) |
|
| |
See what they did here? They're trying to confuse
the
American people by conflating "investigation" and
"granting of the FISA warrant". The allegation (now
proven) is that they used a lie to get this warrant
and left
out who paid for it is to. To counter this they're
saying "It wasn't
used to start the investigation." which started
months
before the FISA warrant was granted. |
|
| |
Nobody said it was used to start "the
investigation", it was
used to get the FISA warrant which was granted
the
month after this bogus dossier was submitted to
the
court. |
|
| |
See why we should abolish lawyers from holding
office in
the Legislative and Executive branches of
government?
Once you've learned to twist the truth as a way to
make a
living, you never stop. |
|
| |
Let the lawyers sit in the Judicial branch, I'm sure
they'll
do plenty of damage there without infecting the
other
two branches of government. Let congressmen and
presidents be doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs
and
scientists. They don't twist the truth for a living. |
|
| |
//Most of them are pretty brave for one thing and many are
former military.// |
|
| |
Historical note: In the early 20th Century, there were many brave
Communists. Those in the West were the ones brave enough to
admit they'd been wrong (which they did en masse in the 1950s).
Those in the East were the ones brave enough to say "Comrade
Commissar, now we are a classless society, please explain that
limousine." We know what happened to them; we know them
through Solzhenitsyn. |
|
| |
The point is, don't assume that people who are wrong are also
cowards. |
|
| |
//doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs and scientists [...] don't twist
the truth for a living// |
|
| |
The most successful entrepreneur I've known personally did have
a tendency to twist the truth a bit. So did the second most
successful. I admit that's a small sample, but I'm not sure that
"Trust me, I'm an entrepreneur!" would be entirely convincing as a
slogan. |
|
| |
//there were many brave Communists// |
|
| |
// don't assume that people who are wrong are
also cowards// |
|
| |
I should have been more specific, I'm talking about
soft society, "life owes me something" and "I should
be running everybody's lives because I'm so clever"
modern communists. |
|
| |
Old school communists faught against the Nazis
and there was a big difference between buying
into communism because your family was starving
and because you adopted the philosophy when
your rich family sent you to an ivy league school to
learn this era's newest version of "people need to
put other people in their proper place and we're
the only ones smart enough to do it." |
|
| |
Modern "progressives" are very brave when it
comes to marching down the safe streets of
America protected by the police while they make
noise and call for violent revolution, but deep
down most of them are pussies. |
|
| |
//I'm not sure that "Trust me, I'm an
entrepreneur!" would be entirely convincing as a
slogan.// |
|
| |
Maybe not, but you know what you can be sure of?
"Trust me, I'm a lawyer." would be a lot worse. OK,
I have a lawyer friend who's a very good
person. I gotta knock off all this anti lawyer crap.
Never mind, lawyers are awesome. |
|
| |
And you're absolutely right, just because somebody
got somebody to give them money for something
via a business deal doesn't mean "Well, there's no
way anybody who got lots of money in business
could have done it
dishonestly." |
|
| |
I'd narrow it to doctors and scientists but they're
all for sale too. Engineers? Can we agree on
engineers? Naa, you put them in un-restrained
power
suddenly there's an "engineering surcharge" placed
on anything engineered ever and starting wage for
engineers right out of college is $500 an hour. |
|
| |
Not that they don't deserve it. |
|
| |
God, I just looked at all this stuff I wrote. Been
sick as a dog for 3 days, watching videos, tv shows,
surfing the web, texting back and forth about
stupid stuff and writing here. I need to do us all a
favor and get out of this damn house. |
|
| |
You managed to ignore my actual argument, doc. |
|
| |
It would be quite difficult to label any recent
Democrat President insane, as there is no case to be
had for the few that have been in office. |
|
| |
However, one merely needs to point to the
Republican fixation on Obama as either a Muslim or
a non-American or a terrorist and therefore
somehow unqualified to hold the office he had. |
|
| |
Selective memory much? Did you forget so quickly
how he was treated? I saw no one rise to defend
him.
And furthermore, it doesn't matter one
hill of beans whether Trump is a real Republican or
not.
Despite your desperate attempts to 2-dimensionalize
my world, I am not as simple as you like to think. You
singled out Democrats as viciously attacking Trump
and his sanity. That rankled me. To be frank,
Republicans have their doubts, too, about that. |
|
| |
Painter has Bell’s Palsy, that’s why he looks that way. |
|
| |
//You managed to ignore my actual argument, doc. It would be quite difficult to label any recent Democrat President insane, as there is no case to be had for the few that have been in office.// |
|
| |
So your argument is that Trump IS insane and should be removed from office? |
|
| |
What's your psychiatric background? Where did you go to school? What books have you read? |
|
| |
Or is your diagnosis solely based on: "Some Republicans might have thought this is a possibility maybe, kind of." I understand that for the left just pointing and yelling "J'accuse!!" is all the due process that's needed but that doesn't mean it's true. |
|
| |
And is this the best you can come up with after a full day? You'd be great in a real debate. I'd answer the question and you'd be standing there at your podium long after the lights went out and everybody went home (including me) scribbling your response notes. |
|
| |
His behavior invites that kind of question. Not a good
quality to entrust the security of the world. |
|
| |
You were all up in arms about how Democrats tried to
remove him from office by targeting his sanity. I’m merely
pointing out that |
|
| |
1. Republicans are guilty of the same behavior if not
exactly the same narrative,
2. Trump’s sanity is questionable by non-partisan and
partisan types,
3. Your harping on the one side reveals a perceived bias. |
|
| |
Frankly I don’t care to spend my entire day thinking about
debating you. You might have nothing better to do, but
here there’s work to be done, and an entirely disorganized
sock drawer that’s become more exciting. This is not a
debate site, and my give a damn broke about 2 weeks ago
for this thread. |
|
| |
So yes. Please get out of the house for awhile. |
|
| |
Perceived bias? Are you kidding me? I can't stand the fascist Democrats, have you heard a word I've said? |
|
| |
What I'll stop trying to assert, because you'll never understand, is that hating what the modern Democrat has become is in no way linked to a love of Republicans. I'll support the lesser of two evils but that's about it. Churchill teamed up with Stalin. |
|
| |
You think there are two kinds of people: good Democrats and bad Republicans. The Democrats are incapable of doing evil because they've accrued so many evil Republican wrongdoings points that they can cash in these chips to do wrongdoings of their own any time they want. |
|
| |
Two wrongs don't make a right. |
|
| |
But my main beef is with people who believe in any stupid party, group or other "we're always right, screw those other guys" club. The names of these groups have been interchangeable through history but they share one philosophy: control other people's lives, tell them what to do and take their stuff. |
|
| |
Hey, maybe it's just jealousy since I don't belong to one. Naa, don't wanna join. I'll think for myself. |
|
| |
Yes. Perceived bias. Perceived by the eye of the beholder.
And for the last time, I do not see the world in black and
white, nor do I expect that you do, either. I don’t belong
to a party either, dipshit. |
|
| |
Why did you target the Democrats for the question on
Trump’s sanity? Why not the Republicans as well? Answer
me this and you’ll come to the end of it. |
|
| |
Because fuck the DNC. Not the Democrat voters, I understand where they're coming from, and there are plenty of good Democrat voters, but their leadership is mostly evil at this point. They're the ones who committed the crime of accusing an innocent man of collusion, being insane or whatever they need to do regain power. Although I don't believe they ever thought he was guilty of collusion, they just wanted to frame him. |
|
| |
Somebody pointing out that Obama had some Muslim history in his family because his father was born a Muslim and he went to a school in Indonesia that "taught some Muslim studies" (I got that from a couple of liberal, pro Obama sites) doesn't justify this. Nor would somebody saying he was born on Jupiter. |
|
| |
A crime is a crime, and accusing a man of treason or being insane when he's neither guilty or afflicted is evil. Simple as that. |
|
| |
Try to understand this: you are not a Republican but are
pissed at the Democrats. I am not a Democrat but am
pissed at the Republicans. Have been since 2010. I might
flip back when they have paid for what they did back then.
If they have someone I can respect. But they’re moving far
far away from that and have been ever since. |
|
| |
Fuck the RNC and their lamebrained attacks on the trust of
our most critical agencies. |
|
| |
OK, I figured out how to break out of this mobius loop argument. |
|
| |
If I have to defend the Republican party, you need to defend the American Falangist Party. I'm not sure what they do but they're a thing. |
|
| |
I will say this, the link (unrelated to Democrat/Repubican thing, thank god) is fascinating. It's time to start researching these guys like you would any problem. It really is beta male syndrome. Nature takes young boys and grinds them into men, at least where I grew up. |
|
| |
Sometimes the process, which can be EXTREMELY cruel, doesn't work out. |
|
| |
A: Is this the right room for an argument?
B: No |
|
| |
As far as the whole Obama having a Muslim
background thing? Well I'll be damned. He was my
president for 8 years and I just wasn't interested in
this made up controversy, but since I'm home sick
for day 4 and doing stuff like looking up if Obama
is a Muslim, this is from
the very left wing Politifact that rates the question
"Did he go to a radical Muslim school" as a kid as
"Pants Of Fire". Just cutting and pasting here. Got
a problem with this take it up with them, not me. |
|
| |
"PolitiFact found no on-the-record sources able to
substantiate a claim that the school taught
Wahabism or any other form of austere Islam. The
great preponderance of substantiated evidence
indicates Obama attended a public school that
taught a small amount of mainstream Islam. The
news reports say that Obama's registration form
indicates his religion was Muslim, but there are
errors on the forms and it seems reasonable to
assume that he was registered as Muslim simply
because his stepfather was Muslim." |
|
| |
OK, so the totally crazy idea that he has any
Muslim background whatsoever is madness because
only a fool would trust any official government
document regarding his childhood? |
|
| |
I'm not touching that one. |
|
| |
This is one trick the left uses, they pick the
wording of the question. Instead of "Did Obama
have some connection to Islam, such as his father
being born Muslim as well as his stepfather as well
as being registered as Muslim on school admission
papers?" They change the question to "Did Obama
burn the American flag and vow death to America
every day as a child?" |
|
| |
It's fine if he was a Muslim, I went to catholic
school for part of my childhood. I'm an atheist
now, but if somebody asked if I had a Catholic
background, the answer is yes and I wouldn't hide
it. |
|
| |
Probably should have just let that one go. I
wouldn't have ever looked it up. The bad thing
here isn't him being
Muslim, it's everybody not just being honest and
saying "He had some Muslim background but he
converted to Christianity." and villifying anybody
who would question the "Never had anything to do
with Islam ever." assertion. |
|
| |
Even at that I don't care. "Waiter, this controversy
isn't very good. Do you have any more of the beta-
male -apocalypse? That's interesting and poses an
actual problem to be solved." |
|
| |
// it seems reasonable to assume that he was registered
as Muslim simply because his stepfather was Muslim// |
|
| |
More than reasonable. A child born into, or adopted by, a
muslim family is muslim, period. Islam does not allow
muslims to convert out of islam, nor to renounce their
religion - once you're in, you're in. In practice, in the
civilised world nobody takes any notice of this; but in
muslim-ruled countries, trying to drop out of islam can
get you imprisoned, corporally punished, or endeaded.
Google 'apostasy in islam'. |
|
| |
Oh good, I'm not the only one who noticed that little footnote about the religion of peace. |
|
| |
Eternal life, a bunch of virgins, everlasting bliss. Just remember, the large print giveth and the small print taketh away. |
|
| |
Although I don't think they really bother to hide the "this is a one way ticket" stipulation. |
|
| |
I'm sorry, are you trying to get me to argue that
Obama is currently a Muslim? Did you read
anything I
said? |
|
| |
If you want me to venture a guess I'd say he's a
fake christian for political purposes like Bill and
Hillary with their big oversized bibles that the
cameras can't miss when they go to church on
camera op Sundays, but he's
actually an atheist like me. |
|
| |
But I don't really care. I judge a person by what
the bottom line is. Do they want anything from me
and do they hurt other people? If the answer is no,
they're as close to godlike as you can get in my
book. |
|
| |
//did you read anything I said?// |
|
| |
At this point, I mostly skim through it. If it is longer
than a phone screen, probably not. |
|
| |
Personally, I think that if Obama was registered as a muslim
as a child, it's fair to assume that he didn't have any choice
in the matter. |
|
| |
//Do you have any more of the beta- male -apocalypse?// |
|
| |
I can give you a lot of its cultural history, if that helps. |
|
| |
Back in the 1920s, a number of important progressive authors
(including D H Lawrence, Henry Miller and Somerset Maugham)
made it OK for alpha males to marginalise, exploit and in some
cases destroy beta males, just because that's better than
cramping the alpha's style. |
|
| |
By about 1950, that view in a politer version was being written
into the post-war consensus by Abraham Maslow and David
Riesman. The Beatniks always needed a population of uncoool
suckers to rob and otherwise exploit (I could quote examples
from Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs) and in 1958, in Brave
New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley offers (with approval) a
particularly telling quote from Erich Fromm; they envisage a
social change which would, intentionally and by design, render
maladjusted a large number of people who had, up to that time,
been functioning adequately. |
|
| |
Then the 60s happened, that change took place (driven in part by
dumbed-down versions of those 1920s ideas), and here we are.
I'm simplifying slightly. |
|
| |
//I think that if Obama was registered as a muslim as a child, it's fair to assume that he didn't have any choice in the matter.// |
|
| |
That's the case with most Muslims. That's the "secret ingredient" that's made Islam the fastest growing religion in the world. |
|
| |
//I can give you a lot of its cultural history, if that
helps.// |
|
| |
You've got stiff competition Pertinax, but that
might be the single most interesting post I've ever
read on the Halfbakery. At least to me. |
|
| |
I've been obsessed with studying engineered social
weakness for years. Dumbing down and weakening
of the population, the re-wiring of the human mind
through drugs and propaganda, the quest to create
the perfect man: malleable, childish, easy to
control, emotionally stunted, self centered and
stupid. All traits that counter what you don't want
if you're building an empire of morons: strong
independent, even rebellious men who think for
themselves. |
|
| |
Can you steer me towards some literature on this?
Sounds like you know your stuff. Or maybe you
should write a book. If you haven't already. I'd buy
it. |
|
| |
And the idea that there may be a sort of
"pendulum effect" where we move from strong to
weak? Sounds very in keeping of the cyclic ways
societies operate. Swords and shields to togas in a
few generations. Hey, that's catchy. |
|
| |
So yes, not only does that help, I've got a couple of
hundred of hours of research to do on these guys. |
|
| |
I'm flattered by your interest. However, beware of certain pitfalls,
especially this; a coalescence of bad ideas is not a conspiracy,
and I'm quite sure none of the people I named was deliberately
trying to create an empire of morons. Except D H Lawrence. He
was. But probably not the others. History is largely the history of
unintended consequences. |
|
| |
My book on this subject is still in the form of 100s of pages of
notes, but I'll be sure to let you know if that changes. |
|
| |
Not suggesting a cohesive plan between these un-related
players, but more of a general mindset. Think "How the
west was won." One person didn't say "Hey, everybody
follow me, we're going out west to create the western
states." but momentum gets generated for people to go in
a particular direction. |
|
| |
You can even have a situation like you had with the
development of the jet engine. Different, un-related
parties doing the same thing. |
|
| |
Might want to think about doing a book and self publishing. Everybody
has media availability today. If it strikes a chord with
people, you might be able to get some interesting angles
on the subject out there. |
|
| |
If you can do radio or podcast guest appearances and
promote (which would be necessary) you might even
make a couple of bucks and have some fun with it. |
|
| |
Keep me posted. Fascinating subject. |
|
| |
A variation of this idea might be the a "Progressive Ballot" where a list of various solutions might be proposed that graduate from common sense that most would agree on to the more controversial ones that wouldn't just be used as a debate template, but as a feature on election ballots to get the voters involved in enacting a solution. |
|
| |
You might say "I'm at a 7 on this 1 to 10 solution scale" meaning you agree with the first 7 solutions. So for this controversy about the school shootings you'd rank the solutions from 1) Posting police officers at school to 10) Banning all firearms for people who aren't politicians. (Sorry, had to add that. No politician who supports gun control wants it for themselves. OK, back to the idea, I'll be good.) |
|
| |
Solution Scaled Ballot For School Shootings (Please mark one.) |
|
| |
0) Enact no new laws or regulations at this time.
1) Post police officers at all schools.
2) Allow teachers to conceal carry should they wish.
3) Must be 21 to buy an AR-15.
4) Citizens must pass existing standard police administered psychological hiring profile to own firearms. (My idea)
5) Reporting on school shootings is done in such a way to attempt to reduce copy cat killers.
a. Pictures of the suspect not shown. b. Name redacted. c. Information available to the public via freedom of information act.
6) Ban all firearms. |
|
| |
I'll throw another idea that just occurred to me in the pot. If there are any incidents where a school shooting is thwarted, be it by police, armed teacher, students overpowering the attacker or whatever, THAT incident receives 24 seven coverage in glowing detail for weeks. The people who thwarted the attack are celebrated as the heroes they are, the successful counter attack is analyzed and scrutinized, studied so it can be repeated. Victory is celebrated, the attacker looks weak, impotent and failed. He went from loser to loser with a police administered bullet in his head. |
|
| |
Not a good advertisement for joining his ranks. |
|
| |
Not sure where that idea would be on the controversy scale. The idea of the media twisting a story to
suit their perspective is of course unprecedented. (ahem) |
|
| |
So in closing, if this were on the ballot, I'd vote 5, Max might vote a 6. I'll add that unless specified, the number you choose automatically supposes agreement with all numbers before that but you can redact any that you disagree with. So I might vote 5 -4, they agree with changing reporting standards but don't want the strenuous background profile part. |
|
| |
I like 5, but I think 6 might be harder than first seems,
due to potential for sloppy police work, and the
existence of things like YouTube in which fake news
currently runs rife. I had a very similar idea following
9/11. |
|
| |
There were police on the scene close by but they
were either ineffective, inept, unaware, or simply
lazy. |
|
| |
The age limit on the AR-15 is a bit sketchy, in that
they would still filter down, and the military recruits
at 18 anyway, so that could get strange in people's
heads. |
|
| |
I'm thinking of patenting this thing. What was your similar idea? |
|
| |
And why are you only saying this now, two weeks after the idea came out and after hours of your posting and debating on it? |
|
| |
As far as your ballot, you'd fill out (5) -(3) |
|
| |
I don't think I posted it here as a separate idea, I
think it was on an annotation somewhere sometime
in 2002. Probably one of UnaBubba's parody song
ideas in which we were discussing terrorism. The
gist was to miminize or deny coverage of the
terrorist's
name, life, and background, and even keep the
reporting of the attack itself to a minimum in order
to deny the terrorist his weapon of choice: public
fear. |
|
| |
Yes, that aspect has actually been tried from time to time I believe. |
|
| |
There's historical precedent for this as well. The Japanese incendiary balloon attacks on the U.S. mainland west coast during WW2. They floated firebombs from Japan along the jet stream that dropped into American forests to set them on fire. The news of their effectiveness was kept secret so the Japanese were unable to assess their effectiveness and I believe that's why they ended the campaign. |
|
| |
Either that or they stopped because we dropped atom bombs on them. |
|
| |
Yea, this can't be discounted as a possible approach. The public wants to know, but an adjustment to the way the information is presented is something the public would surely approve of. They don't to know so badly that it gets them killed. And I don't think anybody is suggesting it's kept secret, but for it to become the centerpiece of our lives for days, weeks and months? |
|
| |
Put yourself in the killers mindset. If he cured cancer how much attention would he get? Second story of the night? Third? How long would the story run? Two days? Three? He clearly wants the entire nation to pay attention to him. He knows he has this weird "nuclear option" to go out with the biggest bang society has to offer. |
|
| |
And as you suggested, with terrorists it's the same thing. |
|
| |
I wonder if referring to these guys as domestic terrorists might be an easy good start? |
|
| |
I'll tell you one thing, every time I hear of some loser mass murderer terrorist being referred to as a "lone wolf" I cringe. Can we at least stop making them heroes with that title? |
|
| |
Some standard issue embarrassingly pink fluffy-
bunny overlay suit anytime their visage was shown
would be a nice start. |
|
| |
Maybe some pictures of them in the bathtub at age
4, broadcast. |
|
| |
I don't have a problem with that. |
|
| |
Ever seen a vintage Soviet Union news broadcast?
They most definitely aren't concerned with being
"fair and balanced". |
|
| |
"Running dog capitalists today stooped to new low
in their quest to suck the blood of the proletariat
by giving corporation Boeing money sucked from
the poor worker to create weapons of war to be
used to murder the poor oppressed countries of
the world!" (Translation Boeing awarded contract
for a new bomber.) |
|
| |
I'm not criticizing that, this is really good. This
should be the template for reporting these school
shootings. Start with never, ever calling them "lone
wolves" which really has been the first name given
these turds. |
|
| |
(News reporter) "Do we know if there were
multiple shooters or is this a lone wolf attack? Was
it several assailants or one man, strong and
independent, misunderstood but virile and
powerful like a beautiful wild animal that's been
pushed too far? Striking out in glorious rage like an
avenging angel, showing the world that he is not a
loser, not an outcast but... |
|
| |
I guess that needed a question mark. Run on
sentences tend to hypnotize me. I get caught up in
the moment forget what the hell I was saying. |
|
| |
But yea, no. Please, "lone wolf" designation never
again. We can all start by agreeing on that one and
that is really not open for debate at all. |
|
| |
To go all Pravda on them you might try: |
|
| |
"The cowardly child killer, a pathetic loser outcast
with whom women were disgusted, managed to
figure out how to use an adult weapon that real
men use to protect their families, beautiful wives
and beloved children, something this slithering
intestinal parasite knew he had no chance of ever
experiencing due to his being only slightly less
worthless than freshly laid dog shit" |
|
| |
(News caster #2) "Now let's not get carried away
Bob, dog shit does have its place in the world. It
goes back into the ground and is used as fertilizer
for the plants that grown and provide oxygen so to
compare this puss filled walking pimple to dog shit
is really insulting to dog shit." |
|
| |
Damn, that's pretty nasty. Feel a little
uncomfortable even writing it, but keep in mind,
this is about psychological warfare deterrent to
the next murderer. |
|
| |
I have old issues of 'Pravda' from my Russian
language college class. |
|
| |
They're still on line. Guess what, they still hate America. |
|
| |
(your post did that double up thing, I erased the second one for you) |
|
| |
They used to be more obviously blatant. Now they
just read like bigsleep on Ritalin. |
|
| |
Of course the downside to any weapon is that bad
guys can start using it against innocent people. |
|
| |
Cyber stalking is a real problem among youth. I
hate the idea that somebody would follow this
"destroy a person's image" outline as a template to
do this to some poor innocent teenager. |
|
| |
Except not calling them "lone wolves". That's easy. |
|
| |
Lone wolves are pathetic creatures expelled by the pack and doomed to live short unfulfilling non-reproductive lives... and they know it.
Seems apt to me. I don't know what image "lone wolf" conjures up for you but I picture a mangy tormented desperate creature unable to hunt effectively and dying alone and diseased, not a beacon of misunderstood masculinity and something to strive for. |
|
| |
It's like; Yay! More ridicule... |
|
| |
You can't ridicule someone into changing their mind-set when ridicule is what fosters it.
Why the fuck should the little budding psychopaths care about more ridicule or lack of fame?
That's where they come from. |
|
| |
Here's the thing. It's only about mind-set.
Nothing else.
There is a large difference between mass murderers, mass murdering terrorists, mass shooters, and school shooters. |
|
| |
-Mass murderers are usually outwardly nice and nondescript. They do it for the feeling of power and aloofness at how stupid everybody else is since they leave clues specifically designed as a signature and as a taunt to see how far they can go before getting caught. They all 'want' to get caught to clue everybody else in to what creates them.
-Mass murdering terrorists are sadly brainwashed individuals who were warped as children and are as much victims as the people they take with them, again to clue everybody else into what they've gone through.
-Mass shooters are generally previously decent folks who snap one day when pressure becomes too much to bear and want to go out with a bang, so that others will understand whet they've gone through.
-School shooters are a new breed though.
They don't want fame, it's just icing on the ultimate pity-cake.
They 'want' to make others know that they exist, not what they've gone through, but to prove that they are not nothing... because if they are nothing then how can they be able to detonate and leave a big gaping hole in so many other lives?
They are not born this way, they are created. |
|
| |
I know this for a fact.
God help me but I was a whisker or two away from being one more than once. |
|
| |
When all of life rejects you at a young enough age... you... daydream about hurting others, because it's what you know.
Hurt.
So it becomes a balancing act between the good in people you've witnessed weighed against the badness you've witnessed. It takes... more willpower than I think you realize to channel such thoughts away from the draw of the illusory power felt during these forays into the initially harmless carnage fantasies and back into something productive.
It's all hormones and emotions at that age with no hindsight to draw courses of action from. |
|
| |
So listen up. This is serious shit. |
|
| |
I'm almost certain that, if profiled, I'd set off so many red-flags as the quintessential Unabomber it's not even funny... yet I have both a restricted and non-restricted firearms license. Never shot a critter in my life. |
|
| |
See if you can jump into my shoes? |
|
| |
-Post traumatic military induced stress disorder in dad. He fucks off at age seven to keep from slaughtering everybody when he looses his shit.
-Mom looses her shit instead. Begins bouncing sons across Canada. Went to nine schools in one year once.
-Puberty delayed until 20. Smallest male in every grade I ever made it through. Last kid picked for anything... always. I failed my first year of grade nine on purpose to try to catch up. (I won gold medal for Alberta wrestling championships one year because there was nobody else in the entire province in my weight class... true story)... and was subjected to communal shower rooms for entire academic career.
-The step dad/con-man my mom falls for is a tattooed 6'2" twice over hard time ex-con who does his level best to murder mother and get away with it while Stockholm-ing the two of us to be his little cronie retirement package. Oh the stories I could tell... you can find several of them in the newspapers from there and then.
(I'll give you a quick couple of examples; |
|
| |
Ex girlfriend hitchhikes from Edmonton to Leduc. Steals loaded 22 pistol from under seat of mans truck and shoots his wife while he takes his step-sons to the drive-in theater for the first time so that the mom can pamper herself at home for the evening.
Or, Bedroom closet fire at Camelot court last evening as step-dad sleeps on cot in living room to alleviate back pain, etc. |
|
| |
Most times though it was just the conditioning... before receiving our beatings for any given infraction, such as daring to swat at swarms of bugs with our rakes when we were to be working, or drinking a slushie on the way home from school when we'd been told that there was no eating before supper, etc., my brother and I would have to remove every dish from the cupboards, even the fancy dishes and wash them by hand before our beating. My little brother and I would then get the, if we were lucky, hour-or-so long lecture before the actual beating about the buttocks and lower legs with a paddle.
One day I was to be beaten alone and it angered me, (I think it might have been the slushie incident, (Slushies Are Not Food Damnit! They're drink I don't care what anybody says, they're fucking drink), where it only took me like twenty minutes to do all of the dishes and then I marched into the living room and I handed him the his paddle.
He stared at me for a bit and said, "Well, I guess that's not going to work anymore." he breaks it over his knee... and then he let me go without the beating.
...and I thought; That's It? He just wanted me to grow a pair?
I won??? |
|
| |
The next time it was just with a length of belt with one end folded back on itself for a handle and electrical taped to hold it all together. |
|
| |
-I was given my first 22 at fourteen, told to go play with it.
-Little brother goes schizophrenic at seventeen, have to punch his teeth through his lips before he stops attacking mom.
-Step-sisters' baby kidnapped from West Edmonton Mall Christmas eve, found dead in wood pile boxing day.
-Whole bunch of other shit... like a whole bunch... |
|
| |
-and then there was school.
I'll spare you most of the details, it went like this;
No sports, no male adult influence, no dates, no friends, no parties, no graduation, no prom, no mechanics, no... group.
...and the reward for this abuse?... why it was to be flung into the adult world as fodder for their cash-cannons. |
|
| |
I wonder sometimes, if I hadn't been bounced around so many times while enduring all of that shit... if I hadn't been able to reinvent myself over and over again trying out new scenarios with each new town and being able to taunt or cower from the bullies any way I chose, since I likely wouldn't know any of them in a few months anyway?... |
|
| |
If I had had no way to recreate myself because of the internet, and no way to experiment and to learn to become "ME" and what that is and isn't...
...without the shadow of that last 'Me' following the next me... |
|
| |
...would I have become this "ME", or would I have become one of them? |
|
| |
I like to think I would have become me out of shear stubbornness... but I am far from sure... and then again... how many people are as stubborn as me though?
I haven't met many. |
|
| |
.. part of me bleeds along with the poor little beta male bastards that got so squashed at such a young age to implode like they do. |
|
| |
Fix the mind-set, you fix the problem.
Use it as a means to disarm a population, and... yeah that's going to explode in all of our faces.
Mark my words. |
|
| |
You can't sweep this problem under the rug and hope it will go away.
Under the rug is where it came from. |
|
| |
2 Frys, you think you had a tough life, my brand
new BMW turns out to be the one without the seat
warmers. |
|
| |
That my friend, is a joke. I don't own a BMW, I'm
not rich, and I'd like you to take that as me
grabbing your shoulder and making the kind of
dumb joke a buddy would to make you feel better
because if you'll accept me as such, I am your
buddy. |
|
| |
Thank you for sharing this incredible story. I'll go
out on a limb and say everybody is pretty
impressed that you got through all that shit and
still came out the very creative and cool person
you are today. |
|
| |
For whatever it's worth, you're one of my favorite
people here and you should be really proud that
you still function as you do after going through
that meat grinder of an childhood like you did. |
|
| |
You're a very strong man to have survived all that
brother. Respect. |
|
| |
"Shots were fired today at Dalton High School in
Dalton, Georgia. No one was hurt, and the school
was evacuated. The suspect barricaded himself in a
room before being arrested. He was a teacher." |
|
| |
Could be a teacher going nuts at the exact perfect time or be a political statement against arming teachers. Nobody shot? One bullet fired at nothing? Guy barricaded in a room? Democrats foaming at the mouth with glee? |
|
| |
This obviously wasn't about actually shooting anybody. |
|
| |
Could be wrong, but if this wasn't a false flag, the first teacher initiated shooting (that I know of) sure came at the right time. |
|
| |
I don't buy most false flag narratives, especially not
this one. The guy obviously knew he was going to
be
arrested and jailed. Very few people, let alone
teachers, are willing to do that just to make a
statement about guns. This guy's career is done
and his life will be behind bars for awhile.
He'll be lucky to be washing dishes after this. |
|
| |
The threatening note the previous day detail is
interesting. I wonder if it was left by him or by a
student, and he decided to bring his gun in to
push back? |
|
| |
Where do you stand on Trump's statement that
the guns should be taken away by the police
'whether they have the right to or not?' |
|
| |
Personally I think he's right. A gun owner's rights
end at my nose, and with potentially crazy in the
mix, I can't wait for the system to decide
beforehand if the owner is on the up-and-up.
Nobody is that aggrieved by having their weapons
unavailable to them for a few days/weeks while a
security check followup is carried out. |
|
| |
Well, one person at the scene said "It certainly
didn't seem like he had any intention to harm
anyone," |
|
| |
Sombody knocked on the door and he fired a shot
out a window, such that they think he was
purposefully trying to not hit anybody. A warning
shot perhaps. |
|
| |
Except for laws against discharging a firearm on
school grounds, I'm not sure he did anything he
could even go to prison for. Not that he shouldn't.
Hard to charge him with attempted murder when
he didn't even point the gun at anybody. |
|
| |
Sounds like a crazy person but other than that kind
of a non-event. |
|
| |
//Where do you stand on Trump's statement
that the guns should be taken away by the police
'whether they have the right to or not?'// |
|
| |
I've always said let's start enforcing existing laws
first. We already take people's guns away.
Somebody gets a
restraining order against them they're supposed to
surrender their guns. Presumably the police come
by and get them. I hope it's not voluntary. |
|
| |
I have absolutely no problem with due process
taking people's rights away, including the right to
arm themselves. I support the court's ability to put
people in a cage in certain cases as long as they've
had their day in
court. |
|
| |
A judge should have been able to review this guy's
behavior and put, for the lack of a better term, a
restraining order keeping him from hurting the
public in effect. He shouldn't have been able to
buy firearms and if he had them the police should
have gone and confiscated them. |
|
| |
I'm talking about the mass murderer now, not the
guy who
threw a tantrum and locked himself in the room.
Although I'd take his guns away too. |
|
| |
I'm not just being adorable and clever with this
"Let's start with consensus" idea. With endless
debate nothing gets done, not even the stuff we
agree on. If a house is burning down, and we're
both standing there with a fire hose aimed at the
house and before turning on the water I say "We
need to bring in a borate bomber!" and you say "We
need a tanker truck full of halon!", while we're
arguing about it, can we at least turn the water on
and hit the house with the hose? The tragedy is if
we both walk away, let the house burn and say
"Don't blame me, blame Mr "We need borate!/We
need halon!" over there." |
|
| |
I'm not sure of any more of the details at the
moment involving the teacher. Sounds like a
depressive, not a loon. |
|
| |
At what point would a judge be able to get
involved with the crazy boy? |
|
| |
Well, let's look at what Nikolas Cruz actually did
and
what current laws could have been invoked to put
him in jail, preventing the deaths of 17 innocent
people. |
|
| |
Assault on other students. |
|
| |
Threatened to kill other students. |
|
| |
Any one of these should have resulted in his arrest,
him being barred from purchasing a firearm and
these lives have beeing saved. Maybe before we
start creating new laws to solve a problem, we
look at if the old ones would have worked had they
been enforced. |
|
| |
The Nikioas Cruz massacre was a result of policies
to stop the so called "school to prison pipeline".
From an article on the subject: |
|
| |
"Just a few months ago, the superintendent of
Broward County Public Schools, Robert W. Runcie,
was actually bragging about how student arrests
had plummeted under his bold leadership. When
he took over in 2011, the district had "the highest
number of school-related arrests in the state." But
today, he boasted, Broward has "one of the lowest
rates of arrest in the state." By the simple
expedient of ignoring criminal behavior, student
arrests had declined by a whopping 78 percent." |
|
| |
So there you have it. That's why everybody knew
this guy was a ticking time bomb but couldn't do
anything about it. Can we at least re-open part of
the shool to prison pipeline? The "psychopathic
mass murderer to prison pipeline"? Let's start
enforcing existing laws first before we enact a
bunch of other laws we aren't going to enforce.
Death threats are already against the law.
Somebody makes them, don't bother with the
restraining order. Arrest them and take their guns
away.
If somebody starts torturing animals or cutting
themselves, deem them in need of evaluation,
take their guns away and watch them. |
|
| |
Be aware though that some Democrat is going to
come along and say that voting Republican or
disagreeing with them in any way is a mental
disorder to twist these laws that are designed to
protect the public. That's the downside to doing
this. We'll just have to all get on the same side for
this and agree that it's OK for all of us to come to
consensus as to what constitutes a danger to
society. What can a judge come and take your guns
away for? 90% of us will have to agree. I believe
this guy would have easily passed the 90%
consensus mark. The NRA could have written the
arrest outline. |
|
| |
We'll need everybody to agree on this one, but
before preparing for a debate on it, I think we are
all in agreement that this guy not only shouldn't
have had a gun, he should not have been out
walking free. |
|
| |
This guy is what we have jails for. Death threats
alone, 5 years in prison. |
|
| |
Oh yea, and if a school where somebody is actively
shooting students is surrounded by cops, can we, I
don't know, actually send the cops in to stop him?
There's
that. |
|
| |
//Let's start enforcing existing laws first before we enact a bunch of other laws we aren't going to enforce//
Indeed.
I understand that President Trump said he would have gone into the school whether he was armed or not. So I suggest that you put him on patrol outside the nations schools. It would seem like a far more useful use of his time than his current schedule. |
|
| |
It was a genuine question. I don’t have enough of the case
details to say when there was opportunity. |
|
| |
Let’s say that cuts 70% of the problem. Is the remaining 30
where no prior indicator could be found still actionable or
no? |
|
| |
Trump proposing gun control? That’s like a Nixon goes to
China moment. |
|
| |
Not clear on the question, you mean the person
hasn't done anything? |
|
| |
Apt analogy. This really does turn the political game
on its head. |
|
| |
Yes. Just picking your brain. Full on assault weapons ban,
just like bombs are illegal, and rare, would be the other 30
I guess. At some nonzero number there is no longer a need
or want for more restrictive law. But where is that
acceptable limit? |
|
| |
What constitutes an assault weapon? |
|
| |
Keep in mind, when you ban folding stocks, pistol
grips or other scary features, the idea that somebody
is going to look at a legal semi auto handgun with
multiple mags which is just as capable of mass
murders (more so since you can conceal them) and
say "Naaaa." when deciding to murder people is a bit
far fetched. |
|
| |
Capable of being fired faster than x, perhaps some
control over ammo types, and no handguns under
age x or for people unable to pass a certain profile
test? |
|
| |
Similar reloading speed characteristics in a semi-auto rifle
or handgun.
I'm fine with bumpstocks
being outlawed, they turn rifles into machine guns. No
controversy there. |
|
| |
I'm also fine with age limitations. And of course, I'm the first
to have proposed the standard police psych profile test be
passed before being able to own a firearm. |
|
| |
//What constitutes an assault weapon?// |
|
| |
It's a special-interest group - gun control - term. Basically they got tired of being told off for calling every portable firearm an "assault rifle" - a very specific military term - and decided to pollute the English language out of spite. |
|
| |
Arguably, the firearms to which the term is applied by the wilfully ignorant are marketed as weapons or at least as intimidating fashion accessories. Fair enough, though there's plenty of people whose purchase of (specifically) an AR-15 is predicated on its usefulness as a general-purpose firearm, due to commonality of ammunition, parts and repair expertise. |
|
| |
However "assault" is outright libel, since it presupposes a criminal action on the part of the owner/operator. |
|
| |
I'd argue a more proper term would be "selfie gun". |
|
| |
Why don't they call them "defence rifles"? |
|
| |
That could work. Doubtful the gun-control crowd would take it up though. |
|
| |
The story behind the name "assault rifle" comes from the
first such weapon, the German Sturmgewehr 44, (assault
rifle 44) which coupled the previously very in-accurate
sub machinegun with a longer barrel and single shot
selection for more accuracy. |
|
| |
Now in my opinion, this was already done with the BAR,
Browning Automatic Rifle that was around in WW1
(Although I believe it didn't see action because they didn't
want the design stolen.) |
|
| |
If you look up the Sturmgewehr, you'll laugh the next
time you hear Russian weapon designer Kalashnikov being
fawned over as being such a great visionary having
"created" the most used killing device since the sword,
the AK-47. (That is if you laugh at weapons history
stories.) |
|
| |
So the term "assault rifle" is not as specific as terms like
"fully automatic" or "revolver" which refer to specific
mechanical features of the weapon. This has led to
controversy over what constitutes an assault rifle. Not
just a case of semantics, what is it you're going to outlaw?
Pistol grip? Detachable magazine? Folding stock? What
happens if you just take an AR-15, remove the grip,
replace the folding stock and require that the rifle be
broken down to remove the magazine? Is it an assault
weapon then? |
|
| |
It still has the same velocity /range potential, so yes.
My approach would be to strike right at the heart of
what attracts people to the weapon, in order to make
them less of a cool, masculine power trip purchase,
to dry up the culture. If that be a combination of
range and trigger throw, and a smaller magazine,
then okay. Maybe even go so far as to have a white
list. |
|
| |
I don't think these guys thought about the characteristics
of these weapons, it's just monkey see monkey do. |
|
| |
I think if people were using the official "My Little Pony
Pink Cutie" rifle to do these killings that's what the
copycats would use. |
|
| |
That being said I once suggested giving pink guns to girls
in 3rd world countries to defend themselves against the
backwards men there, the idea being that men wouldn't
want to be seen with them because they were girly
looking leaving the women relatively well armed. I was
called Hitler so much for that
idea I think I
might have actually physically transformed into Hitler for
a brief moment. Harmonic resonance of all those
people typing the same thing at once causing a warp in
the fabric
of
space time or something. |
|
| |
Reducing the "macho image" might go aways towards reducing shooting injuries in general. |
|
| |
I think the gun-control crowd's metric is "guns that look scary to us". |
|
| |
That's actually very accurate. I've see politicians hold these
up saying "Just look at this! We do not need these to be
legal!". |
|
| |
Meanwhile, 771 murders in Chicago in 2016, 3,550 shooting
incidents and 4,349 shooting victims. (Chicago has some
pretty tough gun laws.) However these are almost all hand
guns so, eh. No biggie. Guess the guns that actually do all
the killing aren't scary, they just kill people. |
|
| |
"the macho image" doesn't kill.
Inanimate objects don't kill.
Mind-set kills. Only mind-set kills. |
|
| |
Anything else is treating symptom rather than disease. |
|
| |
If that were the entire story then you’d see more killings
with rope, rocks, axes, knives, crossbows, and battery acid
here than you do. |
|
| |
The presence of the gun is clearly a factor. |
|
| |
We’ve discussed Chicago already. |
|
| |
It’s not the image I’m targeting, it’s the culture. Our
culture doesn’t spend a lot of time oogling over stoves,
toasters ovens, lawnmowers, chainsaws, recycling trucks,
or hvac units. I want guns to shrink down to that level. |
|
| |
Well, I'm discussing it again. |
|
| |
Government has proven itself incapable of
stopping crime, even when they visit the criminal
dozens of times after everybody has warned them.
Then they want to take my rights away so they can
get back on their beurocratic butts hammering a
paycheck and benefits while doing absolutely
nothing. |
|
| |
But the problem is the folding stock feature on a
particular firearm. |
|
| |
The problem is multiple. Going after the low-hanging fruit
isn’t a bad idea, and doesn’t prevent a multi-faceted
solution. |
|
| |
Regarding government stopping crime, there’s an airport in
LA that wants to have a word with you. |
|
| |
We can't move on from guns to tariffs and world wars yet? |
|
| |
//there’s an airport in LA that wants to have a word with you.// |
|
| |
You hear those voices too? Thank god it's not only me! |
|
| |
That bus stop in Des Moines won't stop sending me messages either. Driving me nuts! |
|
| |
//We can't move on from guns to tariffs and world wars
yet?// |
|
| |
No. This is “progressive.” Moving on is not what we do
here. |
|
| |
Back to politics for a sec (did we ever leave?) see attached
cartoon that sums up the way I see things. |
|
| |
Why have laws against guns when criminals don’t follow the
law? |
|
| |
Well, why have laws against murder when murderers don’t
follow the law? |
|
| |
Why have speed limit laws when everyone breaks them? |
|
| |
In the year after national speed limits were implemented,
road deaths dropped 17%, one of the largest single year
decreases ever. |
|
| |
As a result of tougher DUI laws in 1980, the number of DUI
deaths dropped by half. |
|
| |
Seat belt laws save lives as well, even though many people
break them. |
|
| |
//Seat belt laws save lives as well, even though
many people break them.// |
|
| |
It should also be pointed out that prohibition was
very successful in many respects. |
|
| |
"Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per
100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to
state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis
declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in
1928.Arrests for public drunkenness and disorderly
conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and
1922." |
|
| |
I'm the one here that's pushing for more
regulation, but it's towards getting a higher quality
of armed citizen, not just taking guns away. |
|
| |
There's another problem with outlawing guns in
the United States. England and Australia are
islands, much easier to patrol those borders. Our
border with Mexico is 2,000 miles long. You know
Mexico right? The country with only one legal gun
store run by the military that has among the
highest murder rate in the world? |
|
| |
So the old axiom of "Let's outlaw guns with the
same laws we use to keep drugs off the streets."
really does apply here. You'll simply disarm
the law abiding citizen and arm the enemy, the
criminal in
the street. |
|
| |
So let's start with something we all can agree on.
Extend the current restraining order process,
which I think takes a couple of hours, to
protect the public. Death threats against ANYBODY
should be grounds to have your weapons taken
away and be locked up. |
|
| |
Additionally, ever consider that these nuts might
actually be wanting help? They're telling everybody
they can in no uncertain terms that they're
dangerous. Ever consider that they may WANT to
be taken off the street? Let's help them out. |
|
| |
I think I'll open a kiosk halfway down this idea, selling coffee and
pastries to passers-by whose scrolling fingers need to stop for a
rest. Then I'll encourage [Vernon] to annotate. |
|
| |
Bigs, there's a joke I saw the other day: Ayn Rand,
Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into a bar. The
bartender serves them tainted alcohol because there
are no regulations. They die. |
|
| |
Regarding the cartoon, I see it all a bit differently. |
|
| |
Team A fights for 45% of what you want, 30% of
what you don't, and 25% of what you don't give a shit
about. They have been known to pay off the refs. |
|
| |
Team B fights for 30% of what you want, 30% of
what you don't want, and 40% of what you don't care
about. They use dirty tactics. |
|
| |
Team C fights for 70% of what you want, 10% of
what you don't want, and 20% other. But they also
have no coaching staff, their quarterback was
drafted from a middle school, and they have never
won a game. |
|
| |
Team D fights for 60% of what you want, 30% of
what you're radically opposed to, wants to rewrite
the rules of the game, has never actually practiced
together, and fights internally over offensive
strategy. |
|
| |
If the sport affects your life, do you root for any of
them? |
|
| |
//Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into a bar.
The bartender serves them tainted alcohol because there
are no regulations. They die// |
|
| |
Do any of these people believe corporations should be
able to commit murder? Please cite your references. |
|
| |
Nice little trick of the left. Want to win every argument?
Speak for both sides. Make up some lie like "The
opposition favors taking anybody who makes less than
$100,000 a year and rendering down into industrial
lubricant!" and stand up to them. Voila! You're a hero. |
|
| |
Libertarianism isn't anarchy. |
|
| |
Do you not think that there are parts of the world
where people die due to a lack of enforceable
regulation? Have you been to India or China or Haiti
anytime in the last 40 years? Were there no
industrial groups capable of setting their own
standards then? |
|
| |
Libertarianism is effectively governance by the
monied interests with even less oversight than we
have now. By some magic it pretends to have
everyone play fair when imperfect information is all
that's available, but should be m-f-d'd for magic. |
|
| |
Anarchy doesn't really exist. Even in the wild, there
are always rules and rulers. |
|
| |
//Do you not think that there are parts of the world
where people die due to a lack of enforceable
regulation?// |
|
| |
I guess if you can't answer one question, raise another
one to take attention away from the first. |
|
| |
Hey, how's that great communist industrial regulation
working out in China? Their coal miner's lives are
considered expendable while here in capitalist
America, we spend a lot of money doing things like
equipping the coal shafts with massive (and expensive)
ventilation systems to keep explosive coal dust from
accumulating. There are sensors everywhere to detect
methane, another cause of explosions. Each man has an
escape kit that gives them an hour of air to get out should
there be an accident. |
|
| |
None of this stuff is done in communist China because it's
just cheaper to let people die. |
|
| |
And all these safety devices were invented and
manufactured by evil corporations by the way. |
|
| |
//Libertarianism is effectively governance by the
monied interests with even less oversight than we have
now.// No, that's the simplistic image created by the
fascists who purport to be worthy of controlling every
aspect of your life, industry, media, scientific research,
even entertainment. |
|
| |
Want an abortion? Get one. |
|
| |
Are you sane and honest and want a gun? Get one. |
|
| |
Do you want to believe in god or not believe in god?
Your choice. |
|
| |
Do you want to take drugs? As long as you don't drive, go
for it. |
|
| |
Do you want to start a business? As long as it doesn't hurt
anybody, you can do whatever you want. |
|
| |
That's Libertarianism. The state exists to serve the
individual, not the other way around. |
|
| |
In your communist countries, the individual is worthless. |
|
| |
Want a product that is safe, effective, not
environmentally terribly hazardous and somehow
not tainted by the monied interests that sell them?
Get one. Want a unicorn? Get one... |
|
| |
Without those "monied interests" name one product. |
|
| |
Evil greedy people wanting to make money created the
modern world. Want to start with clean drinking water?
Then we can get to food, shelter, clothing, medicine and
civilization itself. |
|
| |
The idea that this whole system, the culmination of
billions of man hours of innovation and hard work is
completely broken and some foaming at the mouth moron
like Bernie Sanders waving his "Losers! Your day has
come!" banner can set things to right is absurd. This
idiot who's never run a business in his life. I believe he
printed a hand out commie propaganda leaflet in his
youth, but that's about it. |
|
| |
If I've got a task, any task, I'm hiring Elon Musk to get it
done, not Bernie Sanders. |
|
| |
And if you're being honest and you really cared about the
outcome, you would too. |
|
| |
... As long as it doesn't end up requiring a massive
beaurocrasy to manage all the clauses that keep
libertarianism from eating itself. |
|
| |
Sitting here in the comfortable armchair that is England, it's
strange but interesting to see how polarized politics is in
the US. |
|
| |
Over here, we tend to think politicians of all flavours are a
bit rubbish; I might prefer one flavour while my neighbour
prefers the other, but we both know there's not much in it
and that it's probably not worth arguing over. |
|
| |
I'm not sure you can have any group that doesn't start
down the path of doing groupist stuff. |
|
| |
If we started a group dedicated to the prevention of
groups, our first order of business would be to solidify and
grow the group. |
|
| |
Lenin's first order of business when the communist party
rose to power was to change the whole point of
communism, to turn the means of production over to the
people. Rather than giving up this power he just gained,
he decided to give that means of production to the
"vanguard of the proletariat". (him) |
|
| |
The Libertarian party in its current form is really being
infiltrated by socialists, just like the Republicans. The
socialist flag should be a virus injecting its RNA into a
host cell. |
|
| |
//we both know there's not much in it and that it's
probably not worth arguing over.// |
|
| |
Maybe in your neck of the woods, but I followed that
revolution you guys just fought to free yourself from the
crown, I mean, EU. Although tea and crumpets may have
been consumed at a higher rate during this revolution
than here in the states during our civil wars, it was as
contentious as any political battle I've ever seen. |
|
| |
Congrats on the victory by the way. Well played. |
|
| |
And in other European news, I understand Poland just
decided to charge Germany 850 billion in war reparations.
(Takes Poland aside with his arm around its shoulder.)
"Poland, buddy, let it go. We already tried the whole "Hey
Germany, you lost the war so you're our slave now bitch!"
thing before. It didn't turn out well." |
|
| |
//The socialist flag should be a virus// You see, that's
sort of the point I was making. We have socialists over
here, and some of their ideas are a bit screwy - like some
of everybody's ideas are a bit screwy. But, bless 'em,
they mean well and they're not such a bad lot. And their
kind of thinking gave us the NHS (which, whatever you
may hear, is actually pretty brilliant). They also paid for
me to go to Cambridge (and gave me money to live on
while I was studying). So, I might not agree with
everything they say, but they're sort of OK. |
|
| |
I guess the philosophy here is politicians are all
incompetent, but in various directions. So, we let them
all have a turn and they sort of all cancel out. |
|
| |
Well, the best way to get rid of pesky socialists is to
provide free market incentive based versions of
everything they offer but do it better. |
|
| |
We do try to do that, we have free healthcare, but it's
needs based. You make a million a year you're paying to
fix that ingrown toenail yourself. Likewise if you're poor
and you want an education, that's available as well. Much
of the funding for scholarships come from private grants
but there's also government funding available. |
|
| |
We could do better though and the way to do it is to flip
through the socialist sales brochure and provide what
they offer better than they do. Hate Bernie like I do?
Offer twice what he does, only
actually deliver. |
|
| |
Unfortunately, most Republicans are dumb as a box of
mud. If you ask them why they hate socialism they say
"Could be.. bad, maybe... uh... better... there's uh...
ways to... that uh..." In fact that's the official Republican
party statement on
socialism. I actually cut and pasted that quote from their
website. |
|
| |
Libertarians aren't much smarter. "Vote for us and we'll
take all your government programs away and pass out
drugs to elementary school kids." That's why democracy,
where eventually the ideas that
work, wherever they come from, get to stick around is
the best way to do things. Multiple political parties with
various approaches fighting all the time so no one group
gets in charge for too long. It's a beautiful thing. It's
whenever any one group takes over and gets everybody
marching in the same direction that you should say "Uh
oh." |
|
| |
Lest you forget, I work in a primary industry that makes
those products. And a large part of my job is knowing how
that industry operates up to the edge of the regulation,
and maximizing the available advantages. |
|
| |
With the industry in charge of regulation you’d still have
1950’s gas mileage and 1960’s safety, and leaded gasoline
with all the consequences therein. |
|
| |
This is the downfall of libertarianism, in that the monied
self-interests are in charge of the limiting factors that keep
them in check. It becomes rule by a mafia that bleeds
everyone dry and proclaims what should be purchased,
explored, advertised, and sold off as “the facts,” without
regard for vital nonmonetary interests. When I have a
keyboard handy I’ll describe further. |
|
| |
//I guess the philosophy here is politicians are all
incompetent, but in various directions. So, we let them all
have a turn and they sort of all cancel out.// |
|
| |
Precisely. The dynamic of change is what keeps the rust
off. |
|
| |
//most Republicans are dumb as a box of
mud....Libertarians aren't much smarter...// |
|
| |
Aha! [doc], I think I've found the problem. All your
people are dumb! Over here, whilst all our politicians
may be incompetent, they are also all at least moderately
competent. Labour, Conservative, the Greens, and
whatever the Liberals are calling themselves at present...
they're none of them quite as dumb as you're claiming all
Americans to be. So, when we flip the coin at election
time, the worst that can happen isn't really so terrible. |
|
| |
I think the only solution I can see to your problem is to
contract out your government. |
|
| |
We tried that. We had a king that was basically retarded. |
|
| |
I'm glad your people are so smart though. Maybe in 200
years
your country's head imam will dedicate a day to their
memory. |
|
| |
//Maybe in 200 years your country's head imam will
dedicate a day to their memory.// Are you suggesting that
we have a muslim problem, at 4% of the UK population?
There's a precedent for dealing with "problems", and it's not
necessarily the model we want to follow. |
|
| |
America, however, has even larger ethnic minorities, and
yet doesn't always maintain harmony. |
|
| |
But we maintain our culture. People of all races and
nationalities come her and adopt the way we do things
which is great. For one thing, a popular name for a
Chinese immigrant couple's child here might be "Mike", or
"Cathy". It's not just the name, it's a declaration of "You're
an American now." I know, I live in a area that's very
heavy with new immigrants, but they're all Americans.
Some more than the ones already here. |
|
| |
On the other hand, remember those non existent sharia
law councils in the UK? I checked. They're not. Why would
somebody move to a country and declare their existing
legal system inferior? Because they consider the culture
inferior. |
|
| |
I believe in accepting all races, creeds and colors into this
wonderful, successful culture that's created the most
productive and powerful nation the world has ever seen
but I want them to love it as much as I do. Our court
system is just fine. If they don't like that women have
equal rights that's too bad. They don't get to make up
their own rules. |
|
| |
Well, I don't disagree with your general concept. But to
clarify: sharia "courts" in the UK have no legal powers,
and generally make decisions on religious matters; I'm
sure catholic and jewish religions also make decisions on
religious matters, but they also have no force under UK
law. |
|
| |
Don't get me wrong - I find the notion of islam as
distasteful as I find any religion, including christianity;
but there's a lot of bollocks talked about the supposed
power of sharia "courts" in the UK. |
|
| |
//Are you suggesting that we have a muslim problem, at
4% of the UK population? There's a precedent for dealing
with "problems", and it's not necessarily the model we
want to follow.// |
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So anybody who in any way disagrees with sharia law is
Hitler? OK. Sorry you feel that way. Obviously I disagree. |
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Here's a link to an Englishman I have great respect for. I
think you might watch a couple of his videos. If you
disagree, that's fine, we have freedom of speech and
freedom of dissent. For now at least. |
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When do I know we've got a problem? When we can't
discuss these things. When we can't criticize institutions.
That's not a "Muslim problem", as you so loaded the
phrase, that's a freedom problem. |
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Remember Max, we were given these freedoms to speak
our minds by people who died defending them. Are we
going to lose them just because we're afraid somebody
might call us a nasty name? If that's the case then
freedom really is something we do not deserve. |
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No, [doc], my point was that it's not right to point a finger
at the UK and suggest that we're being overrun by islam,
any more than the US is being overrun by its (numerically
far larger) minorities. Nor is it correct to suggest that there
is sharia law in the UK. I'm somewhat familiar with the UK,
less so with the US. |
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The problem of integration is a real one, at least in the UK if not also in the US. It isn't
solved by suggesting, even in jest, that we are being overrun by muslims or any other ethnic
group. In the UK, we have a printed thing (I hesitate to call it a newspaper) called the Daily
Mail, which makes its money by telling Outraged of Tunbridge Wells that all fish will
henceforth have to be killed without stunning to comply with halal requirements, or that
politically-correct councils are refusing to allow nativity plays. The Daily Mail does rather
well, because people enjoy being outraged by straw men. Don't be another Daily Mail,
[doc]. |
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//generally make decisions on religious matters// |
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Could you give an example, [MB], of something which a sharia
court would consider "not a religious matter", and would therefore
not rule on? |
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See link. It's a picture of marchers holding signs that say
"Slay those who insult Islam, Butcher those who mock
Islam, Behead those who mock Islam, Europe you will
pay, your
extermination is on its way." |
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Are these fake Daily Mail pictures? Why would you defend
these people, are you afraid of getting called Hitler? I get
called Hitler ten times before I have my first cup of
coffee in the morning. After the first hundred thousand
times it loses its sting, believe me. Don't be afraid to
speak out against evil. |
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So forget the Daily Mail, check out the guy I posted
another
link to. Hear him out, that's all I ask. In this one he's
being very critical of those who won't criticize the guys in
the picture. If he's stupid and
totally wrong, fine, but decide for yourself after giving
his point of view its day in court. I think he's spot on and
on at least a few points,
I think you will too. Even if you'd rather not admit it. |
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//something which a sharia court would consider "not a
religious matter", and would therefore not rule on?// A
sharia court can say whatever it likes, but the point is
that its decisions have no force in law. In the UK, English
law takes precedence over any religious law. |
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There is one thing that I object to, and that is the
legalization of halal slaughter. In both the UK and the
US, livestock is allowed to be slaughtered without
humane killing, in accordance with islamic beliefs. This is
a "concession" to religious beliefs. I think this is utterly
wrong, and should be outlawed immediately in both
countries. The halal meat industry is valued at $20bn in
the US, and $4.5bn in the UK (ie, about the same,
relative to total population sizes). |
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And, [doc], sure there are religious nuts of all flavour in
the UK. You're lucky that you don't have, say, Christian
fundamentalists in the US calling for creationism to be
taught in schools. My point, again, was that religious
"laws" do not take precedence over English law - they can
call for whatever they want, but that doesn't make it
legal. I presume the same is true in the States, and that
schools there (for example) are all required to teach
science rather than myth. |
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Basically, [doc], all I'm saying is that the UK is not in any
danger of being overrun by any particular minority. If
you'd like to disagree with me, please feel free to come
and live here for a few years so that you can form an
opinion. |
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//you don't have, say, Christian fundamentalists in the US
calling for creationism to be taught in schools// |
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They don't teach creationism in public schools, but even
if they did, that's a little different than preaching cutting
off heads. |
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Christians keep to themselves. As an atheist I like that.
They also don't blow themselves up in public places, plow
into people on crowded sidewalks and preach death to all
other religions. |
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Other than that they're exactly the same. |
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Hopefully coming to Europe next year. Haven't been to
England in 25 years, I'll have a sniff around and give you a
full report. I do love it there, that's why I don't want to
see it go to hell. |
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Well, it's lucky that the US doesn't have any muslims or
other religions advocating violence. I assume that the
image in my link wasn't taken in the US. Anyway, time for
bed here in the UK, as we're somewhat ahead of you people
over there. |
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//In the UK, English law takes precedence over any religious
law//
In England & Wales, you mean. |
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Oh good, so when a woman goes to a sharia "council" and ask
for terms of divorce from her husband she'll be treated fairly
and in full accordance with English law? |
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Then what service is the sharia council providing that they
can't
just get going to a non sharia court? |
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I'm not a legal expert. However, my understanding is that if either side
(husband or wife) is unhappy with the decision of the Sharia court, they can go
to a real court to get a real and legally-binding decision. |
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Look, if you go to a catholic confessional and tell the priest you've stolen a
car, he might tell you to say ten hail Mary's and make a donation to church
funds, or whatever. If you don't like his decision, you can walk away. The
priest might say "well, if you don't do that, you'll be excommunicated" - it's his
right to throw you out of his little club, but that's it. And, in any case, if the
police catch you they'll impose whatever penalty is appropriate. |
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//what service is the sharia council providing// As far as I understand it,
they're providing instructions on how to remain in good standing within their
religion, just as a catholic priest might tell you what to do to remain a good
catholic. |
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Like I said, I'm no legal expert. But my understanding is that, under English
law, it's up to you whether to abide by any decision of a religious "court" of
any flavour whatsoever. They have no legal authority. |
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As I also said, I don't like any religions. And I don't like non-integrated
communities. But running around saying "Oh my word, we're being ruled by
Shariah courts! The sky is falling!" really doesn't help. |
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The purpose of a justice system is to protect the weak. You
telling me a woman who goes in there getting unfair
treatment in a case involving a husband, adjudicated by
men, is just going to walk out and go to the non-sharia court
next door? |
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Got news for you. For that poor woman, the sky is falling. |
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[doc], you're missing my point. |
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Your original contention (or maybe implication - it was a
while ago) was that the UK is somehow being overtaken
by sharia law. |
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My rebuttal was that sharia "law" has no legal force or
authority within the UK, where UK law (English, Welsh or
Scots as appropriate) applies. |
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UK law allows that woman to go to a UK court and get a
legally-binding settlement, which can be enforced by,
guess what, UK law. If the Muslim community has
problems with this and seeks to enforce a sharia-decided
settlement against the woman's will, then they are
breaking the law and can be prosecuted. |
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Does that solve all the problems? No, of course not. No
more than the law in the US solves all the problems of,
say, drugs gangs trying to enforce their own "law" on
people. |
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But your original implication was that sharia law somehow
has legal authority in the UK. It doesn't, and I resent the
suggestion that it does. You would probably argue with
me if I said that, say, the Mormon "law" has legal
authority in the US (I presume it doesn't; but I presume
the Mormons try to enforce their own rules on members
of their community nevertheless). |
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//But your original implication was that sharia law
somehow has legal authority in the UK. It doesn't, and I
resent the suggestion that it does.// |
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It's not a suggestion, for that woman, it's a fact. |
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For the weak and oppressed in that community, the
women, the idea that there is help for her outside with
the infidels is simply a salve to help people look the other
way. |
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Technically, she can go against her religion and seek
justice someplace else, all she has to do is accept
alienation from her community and family,
excommunication and eternal damnation. The oppressed
continue to be oppressed but since we're basically telling
a drowning person: "We put a brochure on learning how to
swim on the shore for you." we can feel good about
ourselves. |
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Make it clear to these courts there can be no deviation
from the law of with regard to women in cases involving
divorce, child custody, inheritance, and sexual matters
such as rape, a woman's right to say no and I'm fine with
these. Are you going to attest to that being the case? If
so, I'll ask again: if they rule the same as the British legal
system, why do they even exist? |
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At the very least, tell them that since they are
calling themselves a legal authority, they need to supply
detailed transcripts of their rulings to be approved by the
court. Without that, they ARE a legal authority unto their
own, and a justice system that doesn't supply equal
justice for all is not a justice system, it's a system of
oppression. If your official justice system allows that,
well then it's not a justice system either. |
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All cases need approval by the nation's court system.
That's what I would do if I were you guys. |
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That being said, I think you let your anger get the best of
you and you missed your shot. There is precedent for a
private court proceeding allowed under the law, it's
called "binding arbitration". But arbitration has to be
freely entered into by both parties. I would argue that
women under the sharia system have no such latitude. |
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Well, OK - I can save time here by not restating what I've
already said. I think we actually agree, and I admire the
fact that you enjoy arguing as much as I do. If the US has
no instances of local communities - religious or otherwise -
trying to enforce behaviour on their members in a way
contrary to national law, then that is very commendable
and to the credit of the US. |
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If there are such cases I'll give you three guesses which
group is doing it. |
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And it ain't the Mormons. |
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Well, I'd have guessed muslims if you hadn't said they're
even less of a problem than they are in the UK. So, I'll
struggle with only three guesses. Amish? Branch
Davidians?
Masons? Ku Klux Klan? Sovereign Citizen Extremists? Anti-
abortionists? White supremacists? Army of God? Eastern
Lightning? The Phineas Priesthood? The Covenant, the
Sword
and the Arm of the Lord? Or maybe the Mouseketeers. |
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Wait a minute. That makes sense - Disney has the largest
navy in the world. |
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I believe you're saying "Let he who doesn't have any nut-
jobs in
their country cast the first stone." I've got plenty of
stones to go
around. There's only one thing worse than sharia law
being
practiced over there, it's sharia law being practiced over
here. |
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I'll close with one last post from the incredibly brave Pat
Condell and let him act as my proxy for this debate. He's
much more of an expert than me on what's going on over
there and he's also got that great smart-ass, machine gun
delivery. |
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We have plenty of Pat Condells here, and I presume you do
too. There's about three per pub, and 0.7 per London taxi. |
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Anyway, we've reached the point where we're arguing for
the sake of arguing, which is a fine point at which to go and
do something more useful, such as drinking. |
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"This is better than banning assault rifles?! |
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Today in school we practiced our active shooter lockdown.
One of my first graders was scared and I had to hold him.
Today is his birthday. He kept whispering "When will it be
over?" into my ear. I kept responding "Soon" as I rocked him
and tried to keep his birthday crown from stabbing me. |
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I had a mix of 1-5 graders in my classroom because we have
a million tests that need to be taken. My fifth grader
patted the back of the 2nd grader huddled next to him
under a table. A 3rd grade girl cried silently and clutched
the hand of her friend. The rest of the kids sat quietly
(casket quiet) and stared aimlessly in the dark. |
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As the"intruder" tried to break into our room twice, several
of them jumped, but remained silently. The 1st grader in
my lap began to pant and his heart was beating out of his
chest, but he didn't make a peep. Eventually, the principal
announced the lockdown was lifted. |
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I turned on the lights, removed the table from in front of
the door, opened the blinds and announced "Let's get back
to work. " I was greeted with blank faces... petrified
faces.... tear stained faces... confused faces... elated
faces...and one "bitch REALLY?" face. |
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This is teaching in 2018. And no... I don't want a gun.
#teacherlife |
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Will banning assault rifles keep these shootings from
happening? |
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//banning assault rifles// I'm unaware of any civilian mass shooting which employed an assault rifle. Are you referring to international arms sales ? |
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//active shooter// is an alarmist term, purposeful of avoiding due process and oversight. |
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And, as long as I have the floor, terrorizing children for some aggressive-passive PC brownie points is immoral, an abuse of the principal of in loco parentis, and should be illegal. |
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Thinking of changing my nick' to [Captain Obvious] |
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They're essentially banning "assault rifles" in
California by phasing them out. |
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However, you can still own an AR-15 (which stands
for Armalite, not assault rifle) by making some
changes to it. |
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1- Secure the magazine such that the rifle needs to
be broken down to remove it. |
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2- Replace the pistol grip with a non-pistol grip. |
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3- Remove the flash suppressor. |
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4- Remove the grenade launcher if it has one. (I'm
not the one writing these laws) |
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5- Replace the folding stock with a non-folding
stock. |
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So now it's not an "assault rifle". Anybody satisfied?
It looks slightly less scary I guess. However there
are rifles that have the same ability to kill that
have nice wooden stocks and no pistol grip that
look like something you'd see on a duck hunting
trip that fire the same bullets, have the same rate
of fire and are exactly as lethal as the Armalite
design. |
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But I'm even open to making them look less scary. I
think it's dumb, but maybe we get the stupid ideas
out of the way so we can do some real testing of
people to make sure they're not insane. |
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Raising the age you can buy a gun is being done,
that's good. Tougher pre-conditions are being
looked at, that's good, but let's not ignore the
school shootings that weren't done with ARs when
looking for solutions. |
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Face it, the first time somebody comes into a
school with a bolt action rifle and that gets all
over the news, there you go. The next mass
murderer weapon of choice. These guys are all
copycat killers. |
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Which is why adjusted coverage of these events
needs to be looked at as well. |
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My god my head is spinning reading this absolutely beautiful, interesting, civilized debate thread about an extremely contentious subject that lasted almost a month from back before the Halfbakery was turned into the Hatebakery it is now. |
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No name calling, no insults, got a bit heated at times but holy moly was it a bunch of civilized humans dealing with about the most contentious issues you could think of in a textbook civil manner. Mentions of Trump were attached to a point, not just random cultist blathering where his name was chanted like a mantra or incantation. They were specific and actually meant something. From either side. |
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Max, 8th, Ray and myself among others actually disagreeing, discussing and at times reaching consensus. Not always, but occasionally. And there's someone glaringly missing from this that would explain everything. |
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This was the HB of old. God I miss it so. |
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Honestly it went on too long though. It was (and still is) infuriating to come on to an invention site to see people in a debate that was perpetually at the top for a month or longer. And people get tired of trying to make others at least acknowledge the points they're trying to make 3 or 4 times. I know Max got tired of making the same point over and over. He emailed me as much about how frustrated he got with 2 fries and yourself. I was his pressure-relief sounding board for awhile during this period. That's why I tended to be a bit more blunt with you at times. While he was a bit more playful and circumspect I had no problem after awhile telling you to shove it after you'd tried both our patience for too long. |
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For instance, it was frustrating when you didn't acknowledge that the stress of active shooter situations make for fog-of-war that makes it less than easy for some cop who is arriving on-scene to assess who is the perp, and that this would be more difficult if there were multiple guns on-scene. |
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I miss the non-debate bakery, where we would invent goofy ways to advance clocks, homes with film noir narration, and song parodies about events. |
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So what do you think of my proposed solution of having citizens requesting a firearm going through the exact same background checks and training as police officers in keeping with the idea of a "well regulated militia"? They wouldn't be trained to give speeding tickets etc, only the use of their weapon to defend the life, property and liberty of the citizens they live with. |
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You don't even know my views. That's the hive mind at work. |
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"Assume or assign, then go asinine." |
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And this whole ganging up "Max agreed with me." bully crap really does show weakness. You say "We don't like you." I'm gonna say "What? You got a turd in your pocket?" |
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I'm speaking for myself. Right or wrong, these are my views that come from my evaluation of the situation. |
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And know what? I can be wrong. Can you? You're a smart guy Ray, we just disagree on some stuff. And that's perfectly okay. With me anyway. |
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I think it couldn't hurt. But in general, I think we need to drain the supply as much as we can get away with. |
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