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milosz wrote:What can be done that's meaningful in stopping the handful of mass killings that occur without being horribly invasive to vast, law-abiding portions of the citizenry?

Well, let's start brain storming.

This is exactly what I mean (and the sentiment that I believe Fat Cat is talking about):

The idea that there is no perfect solution, so the only answer must be "do nothing".

Dr. Agkistrodon wrote:If this asshole wanted to kill people bad enough and didn't have access to guns, he would have found other ways to do it.

You could realistically use this sense of thinking to make the argument against nearly any law that exists in our country.

Fat Cat wrote:Perhaps, but he wouldn't necessarily have been able to come up with a way that would allow him to hurt so many people so severely.

Allegedly he was a PhD student in neuroscience. If true, he was more than capable of doing something on a much bigger scale.

You must not know anything about neuroscience.

I know next to nothing.

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system.[1] Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, medicine and allied disciplines, philosophy, physics, and psychology. The term neurobiology is usually used interchangeably with the term neuroscience, although the former refers specifically to the biology of the nervous system, whereas the latter refers to the entire science of the nervous system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience

Does seem to be enough that a focused psychotic could use to do some serious damage though.

Turdacious wrote:

Fat Cat wrote:Perhaps, but he wouldn't necessarily have been able to come up with a way that would allow him to hurt so many people so severely.

Allegedly he was a PhD student in neuroscience. If true, he was more than capable of doing something on a much bigger scale.

Again, though, what does this mean?

Smart people exist, and if they wanted to they could surely figure out ways to hurt people...therefore there should be no discussion on the prominence of firearms in the US?

Or are you implying something else here?

Testiclaw wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Fat Cat wrote:Perhaps, but he wouldn't necessarily have been able to come up with a way that would allow him to hurt so many people so severely.

Allegedly he was a PhD student in neuroscience. If true, he was more than capable of doing something on a much bigger scale.

Again, though, what does this mean?

Smart people exist, and if they wanted to they could surely figure out ways to hurt people...therefore there should be no discussion on the prominence of firearms in the US?

Or are you implying something else here?

Psycho with a medical research background?

Eh, who knows?

milosz wrote:What can be done that's meaningful in stopping the handful of mass killings

Stop raising psychopaths. Teach kids at an early age their responsibilities in the world. Don't just plop them down in front of a TV and rush out to buy them the newest iPhone when it comes out. Family dysfunction is present in 99% of these kinds of cases. All the more reason to support a proper family atmosphere as opposed to making a mockery of it all by letting queers wed queers.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:Stop raising psychopaths.

Yep.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:Teach kids at an early age their responsibilities in the world. Don't just plop them down in front of a TV and rush out to buy them the newest iPhone when it comes out.

Like it.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:Family dysfunction is present in 99% of these kinds of cases.

Not sure about the number, but sentiment I agree with.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:All the more reason to support a proper family atmosphere...

A what? Maybe you could-

Kraj 2.0 wrote:...as opposed to making a mockery of it all by letting queers wed queers.

Fat Cat wrote:Perhaps, but he wouldn't necessarily have been able to come up with a way that would allow him to hurt so many people so severely.

Well there's that... But still, too many people focus on the guns. Not enough attention is paid to the perpetrator in the sense that, why, where when and how do individuals occasionally crop up around us?

Personally, I think the "Everybody is special and they should all get a trophy" mentality has a lot to do with it.

Fucking shame. If the Feinstein ban were still in place he would have had no access to fresh Hi-Cap mags. There were plenty in circulation. The Feinstein ban allowed for AR-15s without bayonet lugs and flash suppressors. Even if all semi-autos were banned there are millions of them in circulation. They're not terribly hard to make either.

The perp rigged his apartment with "explosive devices". Good thing that he didn't tote a few to the movie theater, put 'em near the doors then go people stampeding. He could have killed dozens and dozens of people.

Gav wrote:WTF is wrong with America. That shit just doesn't happen over here.

Aside Roosevelt's Concentration camps for Nisei we never had Gulags, Stalags or those places where Brits "concentrated" Boer women and children where they died of typhus. The Government couldn't risk locking up Italians and Germans because they feared getting shot by civilians.

At the current US murder rate it'll be decades before we "catch up" to just the Jews that Hitler killed. It'll be generations before we catch up to the numbers killed in Gulags.


How many died in the Balkans while Brussels sat around on their asses and how many more died when NATO bombed the Serbs? A lot more than we lose over here I bet.

what's the history of these incidents?

used to be a guy might go "postal," so named because several early examples were post-office workers for some reason. aggrieved, they shoot the boss and do a few co-workers for bonus points.

then came columbine, i think. aggrieved students mowed down tormentors, plus a few more. other unhappy souls followed this example.

and now if you're disaffected, seems like one of the "accepted" paths to personal power is to blow away a bunch of people. how did this become a commonplace way settle scores? is this the flip side of harassed kids who commit suicide?

have you read we need to talk about kevin? or seen the movie? creepy but good novel about one of these kids.

Testiclaw wrote:

Kraj 2.0 wrote:Stop raising psychopaths.

Yep.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:Teach kids at an early age their responsibilities in the world. Don't just plop them down in front of a TV and rush out to buy them the newest iPhone when it comes out.

Like it.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:Family dysfunction is present in 99% of these kinds of cases.

Not sure about the number, but sentiment I agree with.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:All the more reason to support a proper family atmosphere...

A what? Maybe you could-

Kraj 2.0 wrote:...as opposed to making a mockery of it all by letting queers wed queers.

This mirrors my thought process while reading it to a fuckin T.

Kraj 2.0 wrote:

milosz wrote:What can be done that's meaningful in stopping the handful of mass killings

Stop raising psychopaths. Teach kids at an early age their responsibilities in the world. Don't just plop them down in front of a TV and rush out to buy them the newest iPhone when it comes out. Family dysfunction is present in 99% of these kinds of cases. All the more reason to support a proper family atmosphere as opposed to making a mockery of it all by letting queers wed queers.

I take it you feel humans are born a blank slate. Good parenting and clean social environment would stop brutal, senseless acts of violence. I used to think like that. I don't anymore. Statistically, our societies today are orders of magnitude less brutal than ancient civilizations. I would recommend you stop blaming TV, iPhones and gays and just blame the individual for committing these horrific acts. Instead, a more practical solution would be to decide what policy and controls might make someone not willing to do something like this.

Gene wrote:

Gav wrote:WTF is wrong with America. That shit just doesn't happen over here.

Aside Roosevelt's Concentration camps for Nisei we never had Gulags, Stalags or those places where Brits "concentrated" Boer women and children where they died of typhus. The Government couldn't risk locking up Italians and Germans because they feared getting shot by civilians.

At the current US murder rate it'll be decades before we "catch up" to just the Jews that Hitler killed. It'll be generations before we catch up to the numbers killed in Gulags.


How many died in the Balkans while Brussels sat around on their asses and how many more died when NATO bombed the Serbs? A lot more than we lose over here I bet.

A fair few died- 250,000 roughly - at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Almost all innocent. It's best to keep scthum on figures at times like these, no.....?

Guns don't do anything on their own, they are just pieces of metal. What needs to be done is figure out why society is producing more and more of these nutjobs and then set ourselves back on a healthier mental path.

Personally, it is nice to be back to good old fashioned shootings instead of the eating the face off of people that has been happening recently.

A dialogue of some kind needs to occur - some good comments in this thread - though I don't think that anything will actually happen. A year ago a US representative was shot at point blank range, along with a judge, little girl and entire host of other people. Obama spoke of having a national dialogue and then, like most things he says, nothing came from it. In the current situation, you can already hear people feeling out public opinion and staking out positions......gun control vs guns don't kill people is a fairly worthless argument if either side refuses to admit the element of truth the people they are arguing with have.

Gav wrote:Guns don't do anything on their own, they are just pieces of metal.

While this is certainly true, firearms were made with the express purpose of firing projectiles at targets. Outside of traditional hunting rifles and shotguns, a lot of the "assault"-ish weapons stemmed from creations that were intended to kill and maim. It's not a hammer that can bludgeon someone to death, but was designed for sheet-rocking or hammering down deck nails.

Cars kill thousands of people in this country every year. It wouldn't make sense to call for a ban of cars, however, being that their intended purpose is not to kill. The same cannot be said for a large portion of firearms available today.

Gav wrote:What needs to be done is figure out why society is producing more and more of these nutjobs and then set ourselves back on a healthier mental path.

I completely agree that this is something that needs to be addressed, strongly, and quickly.

I think it really requires a multi-pronged approach; addressing violence in culture (wars, death penalties, history/social education), violence in media (coverage, romanticism, music, games, tv, movies), morals (albeit religion or what have you), and family structure, etc., etc.

Terry B. wrote:A dialogue of some kind needs to occur - some good comments in this thread - though I don't think that anything will actually happen.

Agreed. It's used as a wedge issue, but the actual discussion (like, well, most of the shit that ends up making it to Washington) ends up turning into one side screaming about freedoms and Obambi stealing ur gunz, and the other side rudely declaring that nobody should have any kind of firearm or dangerous weapon ever.

I think it's the inability to actually discuss options, give things a shot to see how they'd work and taking steps from there.

Testiclaw wrote:While this is certainly true, firearms were made with the express purpose of firing projectiles at targets. Outside of traditional hunting rifles and shotguns, a lot of the "assault"-ish weapons stemmed from creations that were intended to kill and maim. It's not a hammer that can bludgeon someone to death, but was designed for sheet-rocking or hammering down deck nails.

Cars kill thousands of people in this country every year. It wouldn't make sense to call for a ban of cars, however, being that their intended purpose is not to kill.

Do people really need a sports car that can go 120 miles an hour? How about a "sport bike" that can reach speeds of 140 miles an hour? Do such "racing vehicles" belong on the roads with distracted drivers or old people? If a "pretend race car" isn't a problem then why is a pretend machinegun a problem?

Testiclaw wrote:The same cannot be said for a large portion of firearms available today.

Every commonly used firearm in the US - except maybe break open firearms - has been used in war to kill people. Bolt actions, lever actions, semi-autos. The US Marine Corps used a modified Remington 700 for sniping. That makes it a "weapon of war". Yet it's used for hunting. Sporting purpose or killing machine?

The most lethal close quarter firearm is a shotgun. Each pellet in a 000 buckshot can deliver the same energy as a 38 special revolver. Nine shots per trigger pull.

You can make a "cut shell" that is almost the same as a Glaser Safety slug. A knife and a few moments and your Squirrel hunting shotgun round is going to mess someone up like a Glaser Slug. You can purchase shotguns even in Great Britain because they're for "sporting purposes".

Hunting ammunition is banned in warfare because it's "inhumane" but it's OK for civilians to use because it's for sporting purposes?

Handguns? Which kind? We saw that 71 year old guy in a video shooting two kids with a 380. They RAN AWAY. A 44 magnum with a six inch barrel is a huge handgun, only a big person could conceal it. Which needs banned? The one that is easy to conceal but doesn't kill too well or the one that kills well but is hard to conceal?

The shooter in Aurora had a Remington 870 shotgun. Very common sporting shotgun. How many folks did he kill with it?


It's not the firearm but the intent of the user. As Gav said.

When are the forces of gun control going to be happy? When a break open shotgun requires a $200 transfer tax, six month wait and fingerprints? Is that where we're heading? A little bit at a time?

In 1937 the US Congress outlawed Marijuana. Eighty five years, hundreds of thousands of people in prison and Civil Forfeiture laws later school kids can still buy it.

Testiclaw wrote:

Terry B. wrote:A dialogue of some kind needs to occur - some good comments in this thread - though I don't think that anything will actually happen.

Agreed. It's used as a wedge issue, but the actual discussion (like, well, most of the shit that ends up making it to Washington) ends up turning into one side screaming about freedoms and Obambi stealing ur gunz, and the other side rudely declaring that nobody should have any kind of firearm or dangerous weapon ever.

I think it's the inability to actually discuss options, give things a shot to see how they'd work and taking steps from there.

Maybe this is a problem that Washington can't solve?


There will be some sort of symbolic action. The UN ATT treaty will be signed. It'll be like it was with the three UN treaties meant to "stop traffic in illicit drugs". If the US Government could confiscate every firearm in private hands how long could they stop people from replacing them?

These people make firearms with hand tools.



In the US there are thousands of Machine Centers, manual lathes and milling machines. How the hell can the US Government stop people from getting guns? Stop ammunition manufacture? Primers and powder can be smuggled. Complete rounds can also be smuggled.

Most folks don't want machineguns or chemical weapons. They're easy to ban. AR-15 rifles are growing more popular. Tough to ban.

I like being on the right side of the law. Pisses me off when people move the goal posts for symbolic reasons. That's my motivation - I hate the thought of being an outlaw for stupid reasons or toeing the line so a vocal minority can "feel safe".

In case anyone cares - the largest mass murder in US History by one person. He used a can of gasoline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Gonz ... rsonist%29

Gav wrote:Guns don't do anything on their own, they are just pieces of metal. What needs to be done is figure out why society is producing more and more of these nutjobs and then set ourselves back on a healthier mental path.

Is it just a numbers game?

If some small figure of all people, like 1/10th of 1% or whatever, are psychokiller nutjobs; and if our population keeps growing every year; then won't we automatically produce more and more of these nutjobs? Just like we're producing more and more of every other kind of people, from black politicians to Michelle Jenneke?