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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 16 2018 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_20ProgramVolunteer 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.htmlFinally. [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.htmlfor pertinax [Loris, Feb 24 2018] Anoter take on the subject. https://psmag.com/n...ause-mass-shootingsI 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_PainterNaa, 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_20terrorism2015 idea. My annotation refers to something earlier but probably gone... [RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018] Another interesting read... https://www.nbcnews...ivations-ncna851701The 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-1.701243Not everybody agrees. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018] A very brave Englishman https://www.youtube...watch?v=a-KHHKuVVRcAtheist, anti Nazi, feminist and all around smart guy. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018] Fake? https://i.pinimg.co...-michael-savage.jpgBecause if not, this is a problem. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018] One point of view. https://www.youtube...watch?v=G4FpTvp0tgsYou might disagree with him but this is not a stupid or evil man. [doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018] Fake? https://cdn.images....-Youtube-291093.jpgBecause 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_iEsI'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...1e8960f8120478e6c53Just one problem among many [RayfordSteele, Mar 14 2018] // But seriously, this might be interesting. //
That's just EXACTLY what Hitler would say ...
[+]-- 8th of 7, Feb 16 2018 That gives me an idea.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 16 2018 Keynes, or Hayek?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 16 2018 Orlando: AR-15 Las Vegas: AR-15 Sandy Hook: AR-15 San Bernardino: AR-15 Texas church: AR-15 Parkland: AR-15
Is it agreeable that we could live without this weapon of mass execution?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 16 2018 A good stress test of the forum could be to put bigs up against doc... or Max... or reality...-- RayfordSteele, Feb 17 2018 //Orlando: AR-15 Las Vegas: AR-15 Sandy Hook: AR-15 San Bernardino: AR-15 Texas church: AR-15 Parkland: AR-15//
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.)-- doctorremulac3, Feb 17 2018 Slow down dude. We went from an easy stage to off-the-wall in 3 seconds.
I never took handguns off the table. Yes they are a larger part of the problem. But one that's more contentious.
I don't think any of the cases I mentioned above involved any serious drugs.
You already know my feeling on your proposal to have volunteer security folk everywhere. Not a good foot to start off on.
Regarding drugs and guns combined, I agree with the proposal. Implementation would be difficult for the same reason gun sale tracking is tough though.
Why didn't they happen in the past?
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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 17 2018 My bad.
I don't know where you define the cutoff for drugs that are compatible. Might be in the prescription or side-effects?
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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 17 2018 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.
And at the risk of sounding very left wing and un- libertarian, in many instances, I don't trust the drug companies.
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!
Can we please request an "Are you sure you want to delete?" button?
Shit!
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.
Shit!-- doctorremulac3, Feb 17 2018 No worries. I read it. Perhaps its still in your back buffer somehow?
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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 17 2018 I understand, very hard to implement, but I don't think making guns less scary looking is going to have any affect.
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?
I just know I'm buying my daughter a bullet proof backpack, and no I'm not kidding.
Very sad. Wish I had the solution.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 17 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 17 2018 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.
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.
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.-- pertinax, Feb 17 2018 //I just read up on those. Won’t stop an AR-15 round, even with a pile of textbooks.//
Yea, I'm not seeing any level IV armor equipped backpacks, guess that's too heavy.
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.
//Godwin's Law situation can be traced back to a comparable attempt.//
That is why I come to this site. Where else can you learn this stuff?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 17 2018 Well ... college ... if you're lucky, and duck at the right time.-- pertinax, Feb 17 2018 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.
That probably accounts for all the childish squabbling, name-calling, and dreadful puns.-- 8th of 7, Feb 17 2018 //Keynes, or Hayek?//
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.-- pertinax, Feb 18 2018 Very good. Great synopsis of the two opposing views and the guys can actually rap.
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?
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?
I'm reading too many cases where these mass murders were absolutely no surprise to some people who knew the perpetrator.
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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2018 Maybe not so much locked up but put into some kind of intervention thing and kept on a list.
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.
It probably already is. I wonder what Langley thinks about this place...-- RayfordSteele, Feb 18 2018 sorry if I'm late to the party.
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.
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.
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.-- theircompetitor, Feb 18 2018 //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.//
Exactly right, we use the same laws we used to get drugs off the streets we'll have the same results.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2018 //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?//
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).
School shootings are now just another thing that can be done, and are a part of American culture.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 18 2018 Yea, copy cat killings and, I hate the use the word, "trendy", but that can't be discounted.
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.
Good luck.
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.
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.
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.
No easy solutions I'm afraid.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2018 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.
*apart from the fact that the POTUS is strongly opposed to other forms of terrorism, but isn't particularly against school shootings.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 18 2018 "I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little chidren running round, screaming and shouting.
Of course, they don't know I'm only using blanks... "-- 8th of 7, Feb 18 2018 //*apart from the fact that the POTUS is strongly opposed to other forms of terrorism, but isn't particularly against school shootings.//
So we just start blaming these things that have been happening since Columbine in 1999 on Trump? That's helpful how?
"OK Team Science, goal is to land on Mars. What's the plan?"
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.
OK, team B, what you got?
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2018 (Misplaced "they're" intentional.)-- doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2018 Blame it on Trump and everyone who preceeded him in the same line of thinking.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 18 2018 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.
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".-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 18 2018 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.
The writers of the U.S. constitution knew and recognized this.
This makes the society immensely robust. In genuine emergencies, the "frontier spirit" of self-help and self-reliance is remarkable.
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.
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.-- 8th of 7, Feb 18 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 18 2018 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.
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?
We'll talk about kids later, these are bags of money.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 18 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 19 2018 Reductio ad absurdum.
Furthermore, any of those mass shootings could have been inturrupted by a "good guy" before they got worse.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 19 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 //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?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 19 2018 //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.-- hippo, Feb 19 2018 //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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 Did you witness him shooting children? Its amazing how much situational clarity comes with this good guy with a gun set.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 //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...-- hippo, Feb 19 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 19 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 Doc, please stop attacking your opponents. See your own idea above.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 Ray, please stop attacking me. You're not even reading my posts at this point.
What I said was:
//In your scenario he's suddenly stopped shooting and he's suddenly sitting at the lunch counter reading?//
to which you replied:
//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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 //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.-- hippo, Feb 19 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 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).-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 See my edit.
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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 19 2018 // 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.-- calum, Feb 19 2018 "establish that both debaters are on the same planet " The earth rotated today.-- beanangel, Feb 19 2018 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.-- pertinax, Feb 20 2018 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.
Calum?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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.-- theircompetitor, Feb 20 2018 Pertinax's theory is as reasonable a hypothesis as I've seen, so much as to warrant serious research I maintain.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2018 // I wonder whether a mass school shooting has ever occurred in an old-fashioned school //
You haven't seen If... then.-- EnochLives, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 "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?"-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2018 So it's those damned anti-communists!
I knew it! Damn their anti-communist anti-communism!-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 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...-- calum, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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."-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 //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].-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2018 //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.
Good times.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2018 //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.
Next.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 //Lately it seems like every two years something gets bombed.// Lately, it seems that every 3.7 days there's a school shooting.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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.
Sorted.
*i.e. the justification adopted by politicians.-- 8th of 7, Feb 20 2018 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!-- calum, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 Well, as I may have mentioned, school shootings in the US no longer make the main headlines, unless they're setting a new record.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 I'm not talking about the children being murdered, I'm asking what you were referring to as "amusing".-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- pertinax, Feb 20 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 [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-- theircompetitor, Feb 20 2018 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.
In my opinion.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 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.-- theircompetitor, Feb 20 2018 //"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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 So, none of the 400 (four hundred, [doc], four hundred) school shooters since 1900 would have met your requirements?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 LL.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 // 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 ?-- 8th of 7, Feb 20 2018 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."-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 Yes, let's.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 Actually, screw that, I'll close with the last (link).-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 [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)-- FlyingToaster, Feb 20 2018 dre3, I like that. Got kind of a hip-hop vibe.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 20 2018 :) 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.-- FlyingToaster, Feb 20 2018 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?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2018 Obama ?-- FlyingToaster, Feb 20 2018 No, sorry, thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 20 2018 "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.-- FlyingToaster, Feb 20 2018 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.-- pertinax, Feb 20 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 21 2018 I'm pretty sure somebody could make a pretty decent living creating "The Church Of Trump Hate".-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 The question is would Trump be making money off of it somehow?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 21 2018 // 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2018 Yea, I got it the 50th time you said you guys are superior.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 See? - it took you 50 times to get it :-)-- hippo, Feb 21 2018 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.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 21 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 Although of course frustrated, rejected young men, violent computer games, dogs and mental illness are not issues which are unique to the USA-- hippo, Feb 21 2018 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.-- calum, Feb 21 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2018 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:
Money.
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.
Never mind.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 // sing! SING! SIIING! //
Will you sing "Oh, I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day ... " ?-- 8th of 7, Feb 21 2018 He's starting to learn...-- RayfordSteele, Feb 21 2018 //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?"-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 //Starting at points of consensus and moving towards progressively more contentious issues with each question.//
OK, so how did it work out?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2018 SIIIIIIING!!
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..)-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 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!-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 Well, it's a good start.
The first step in solving any problem is realizing that the first step gets you no further ahead than you were before.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2018 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.-- 8th of 7, Feb 21 2018 No. "Cogent" means "compelling". Did you mean "relevant", or perhaps "coherent"?-- pertinax, Feb 21 2018 We definitely mean cogent, as in "compelling the idiot off the edge by a brisk shove in the small of the back".-- 8th of 7, Feb 21 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 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.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 21 2018 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)-- doctorremulac3, Feb 21 2018 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."-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 . 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 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?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2018 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, Feb 22 2018 [mylodon] - the Halfbakery's very own William McGonagall.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2018 //CNN yada yad yada...//
"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."-- RayfordSteele, Feb 22 2018 Which contradicts the student’s story.
One is lying.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 Well, I think that aligns with my understanding - make the cars safer (good), but we must have cars. And that's fair enough.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 22 2018 I understand. It does get dark this time of year.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 22 2018 Hooray! A point of consensus! No, wait; here in the Southern Hemisphere it's really sunny at this time of year. D'oh!-- pertinax, Feb 22 2018 // I am curious to know why Americans feel a need for guns //
Ooh ohh I know this one!
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>-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 22 2018 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.-- FlyingToaster, Feb 22 2018 Weather sucks right now.
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.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 22 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 22 2018 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...
Would it?
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.
right?-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 22 2018 //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.-- FlyingToaster, Feb 23 2018 //People historically have always been able to arm themselves//
Are you sure about that?
A quick reading of, say, Macchiavelli or Burckhardt might suggest otherwise.-- pertinax, Feb 23 2018 // 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.-- calum, Feb 23 2018 [pert] I referred to US/Canada. edited.
[calum] polypropylene homopolymer ?-- FlyingToaster, Feb 23 2018 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.-- xenzag, Feb 23 2018 Hey, whoever dragged [xen] here against her will, let her go - she's bored.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2018 //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.-- DrBob, Feb 23 2018 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.-- theircompetitor, Feb 23 2018 //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.
As it should.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2018 //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").-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2018 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"-- doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2018 Excuse, me "being-that".
Phew! Dogged a bullet there.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go laugh at my salad.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2018 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.-- calum, Feb 23 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 23 2018 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.
I
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."
II
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.
So.
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.-- Loris, Feb 23 2018 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.-- mylodon, Feb 23 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2018 I made the same argument about terrorism back in 2001.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 23 2018 //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.-- Loris, Feb 23 2018 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.-- theircompetitor, Feb 23 2018 //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?-- pertinax, Feb 23 2018 //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.-- pertinax, Feb 23 2018 [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 ....-- wjt, Feb 24 2018 //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.-- DrBob, Feb 24 2018 [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.-- theircompetitor, Feb 24 2018 //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.-- Loris, Feb 24 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2018 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.-- pertinax, Feb 24 2018 What if anyone who sought a weapon were required to pass a psych evaluation first?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 24 2018 Great idea, wish I’d thought of that.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 24 2018 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?-- pertinax, Feb 24 2018 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.-- wjt, Feb 25 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 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."-- RayfordSteele, Feb 25 2018 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.-- theircompetitor, Feb 25 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 25 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 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?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 25 2018 //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.-- xenzag, Feb 25 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 See, I tolja you knew more than I did.
<hmmm. Perhaps he knows too much...>-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 25 2018 LL. Uh oh.
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!"-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 "Please, please me" - was that one written by Lenin? Or was it McCarthy?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 25 2018 LL, well played.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 //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.-- pertinax, Feb 25 2018 //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.-- pertinax, Feb 25 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 25 2018 Yes.
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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 25 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 26 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 26 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 26 2018 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 think that's fair.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 A: Is this the right room for an argument? B: No-- calum, Feb 26 2018 Yes it is.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 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."-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 // 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'.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 26 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 //did you read anything I said?//
At this point, I mostly skim through it. If it is longer than a phone screen, probably not.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 26 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 26 2018 //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.-- pertinax, Feb 26 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 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.-- pertinax, Feb 26 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 26 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 27 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018 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)-- doctorremulac3, Feb 27 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018 OK, I misunderstood you.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 27 2018 See link.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Feb 27 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018 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...
a lone wolf!"
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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 27 2018 I have old issues of 'Pravda' from my Russian language college class.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018 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)-- doctorremulac3, Feb 27 2018 They used to be more obviously blatant. Now they just read like bigsleep on Ritalin.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2018 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.
No easy solutions.
Except not calling them "lone wolves". That's easy.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 27 2018 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???
no.
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.
That one didn't break.
-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...
-Still no puberty.
-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 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 27 2018 You're home.-- pertinax, Feb 28 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 28 2018 "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."-- RayfordSteele, Feb 28 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 28 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 28 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Feb 28 2018 //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."-- doctorremulac3, Feb 28 2018 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?-- RayfordSteele, Feb 28 2018 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.
Mutilated small animals.
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.
Any disagreement?
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2018 //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.-- DrBob, Mar 01 2018 Agreed.
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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 01 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2018 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?-- RayfordSteele, Mar 01 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2018 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?-- RayfordSteele, Mar 01 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2018 //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".-- FlyingToaster, Mar 01 2018 Why don't they call them "defence rifles"?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 01 2018 That could work. Doubtful the gun-control crowd would take it up though.-- FlyingToaster, Mar 01 2018 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?-- doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 01 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2018 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".-- FlyingToaster, Mar 01 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 01 2018 "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.
a recurring theme...-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 01 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 02 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2018 The problem is multiple. Going after the low-hanging fruit isn’t a bad idea, and doesn’t prevent a multi-faceted solution.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 02 2018 Regarding government stopping crime, there’s an airport in LA that wants to have a word with you.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 02 2018 We can't move on from guns to tariffs and world wars yet?-- theircompetitor, Mar 02 2018 //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!-- doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2018 //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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 02 2018 Back to politics for a sec (did we ever leave?) see attached cartoon that sums up the way I see things.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 02 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 02 2018 //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."
Sounds pretty good eh?
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018 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.-- pertinax, Mar 03 2018 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?-- RayfordSteele, Mar 03 2018 //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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 03 2018 //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.
Here's Libertarianism:
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018 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...-- RayfordSteele, Mar 03 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018 ... As long as it doesn't end up requiring a massive beaurocrasy to manage all the clauses that keep libertarianism from eating itself.-- mylodon, Mar 03 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 03 2018 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."-- doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 03 2018 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."-- doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018 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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 03 2018 //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.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 03 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 03 2018 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.
I tease.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 03 2018 //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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 04 2018 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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 04 2018 //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.//
So anybody who in any way disagrees with sharia law is Hitler? OK. Sorry you feel that way. Obviously I disagree.
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.
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.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018 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.
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].-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 04 2018 //generally make decisions on religious matters//
Could you give an example, [MB], of something which a sharia court would consider "not a religious matter", and would therefore not rule on?-- pertinax, Mar 04 2018 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."
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.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018 //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.
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).
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.
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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 04 2018 //you don't have, say, Christian fundamentalists in the US calling for creationism to be taught in schools//
They don't teach creationism in public schools, but even if they did, that's a little different than preaching cutting off heads.
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.
Other than that they're exactly the same.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 04 2018 G'night Max.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 04 2018 //In the UK, English law takes precedence over any religious law//In England & Wales, you mean.-- calum, Mar 05 2018 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?
Then what service is the sharia council providing that they can't just get going to a non sharia court?-- doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018 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.
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.
//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.
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.
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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 05 2018 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?
Got news for you. For that poor woman, the sky is falling.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018 [doc], you're missing my point.
Your original contention (or maybe implication - it was a while ago) was that the UK is somehow being overtaken by sharia law.
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.
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.
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.
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).-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 05 2018 //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.//
It's not a suggestion, for that woman, it's a fact.
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.
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.
Is that the main goal?
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?
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.
All cases need approval by the nation's court system. That's what I would do if I were you guys.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018 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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 05 2018 If there are such cases I'll give you three guesses which group is doing it.
And it ain't the Mormons.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018 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.
Wait a minute. That makes sense - Disney has the largest navy in the world.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 05 2018 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.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018 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.
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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 05 2018 Agreed.
Cheers.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 05 2018 From a friend:
THIS IS NO WAY TO LIVE
“Thank you, Mr. NRA...
"This is better than banning assault rifles?!
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is teaching in 2018. And no... I don't want a gun. #teacherlife-- RayfordSteele, Mar 06 2018 Will banning assault rifles keep these shootings from happening?-- doctorremulac3, Mar 06 2018 It’s a good first step.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 06 2018 //banning assault rifles// I'm unaware of any civilian mass shooting which employed an assault rifle. Are you referring to international arms sales ?
//active shooter// is an alarmist term, purposeful of avoiding due process and oversight.
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.
Thinking of changing my nick' to [Captain Obvious]-- FlyingToaster, Mar 06 2018 They're essentially banning "assault rifles" in California by phasing them out.
However, you can still own an AR-15 (which stands for Armalite, not assault rifle) by making some changes to it.
1- Secure the magazine such that the rifle needs to be broken down to remove it.
2- Replace the pistol grip with a non-pistol grip.
3- Remove the flash suppressor.
4- Remove the grenade launcher if it has one. (I'm not the one writing these laws)
5- Replace the folding stock with a non-folding stock.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Which is why adjusted coverage of these events needs to be looked at as well.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 06 2018 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.
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.
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.
This was the HB of old. God I miss it so.-- doctorremulac3, Aug 28 2024 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.
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.
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.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 30 2024 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.
You don't even know my views. That's the hive mind at work.
"Assume or assign, then go asinine."
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?"
I'm speaking for myself. Right or wrong, these are my views that come from my evaluation of the situation.
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.-- doctorremulac3, Aug 30 2024 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.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 30 2024 random, halfbakery