US Cinema Shootings

[Spiral Out]

Apparently the senate bill has been revised and the number has changed. It is now S. 649 and can be viewed at the link below.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s649/text

Some of the wording opens the possibility of a federal registry of gun owners, which was previously banned by federal law.

(4)

(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this subsection with regulations.

(B) Regulations promulgated under this paragraph—

(i) shall include a provision setting a maximum fee that may be charged by licensees for services provided in accordance with paragraph (1); and

(ii) shall include a provision requiring a record of transaction of any transfer that occurred between an unlicensed transferor and unlicensed transferee accordance with paragraph (1).

The only registry should be that of convicted felons in the NICS.

The point is, a lot of the mass shooting in the past decade have involved assault weapons, and the only reason I can see for allowing them to legally exist here for civilians is the pleasures of target practice.

The real point is, all mass shootings in the past decade have involved mentally-ill people.

Blame the actor, not the object.

And see, I don't vote or have an opinion based strictly on whether it benefits me or not.

Yes you do. Everybody does.

I want the best for my country, and the people in it. So even though I don't worry much about my own safety, I do worry, as any normally empathetic person would, about the wellbeing of the citizenry in general.

As do I, but I'm simply not willing to capitulate to extremely bad ideas such as national DNA registries in order to soothe myself with an ultimately false sense of security.

Seems selfish for someone to not be willing to give up target practice with assault weapons in order to save a certain number of people from mass shootings. Obviously no law is going to prevent all mass murders or terrorist attacks, but the objective is to prevent or limit the fatalities in some of them.

I'll ask you again then, why not just cut to the chase and make everyone submit to being microchipped?

If the chip contained all of their personal info including name, age, address, height, weight, eye color, hair color, criminal history, medical records, location logs, purchase habits, financial records, etc. then you could potentially save even more people, especially children.

Better yet, if scientists could invent an implantable chip that could also monitor blood chemistry, heart rate, electrical impulses, etc. then they could create algorithms that could reveal what activity they might be engaged in at any given time. If they had the physiological data that showed them what patterns criminal activity (and the activity leading up to it) looked like then they could potentially prevent crimes before they even happened.

Would you want to be chipped in such a manner, or would you be too selfish not to be willing to give up, well nothing actually, in order to ensure the wellbeing of the citizenry in general?

Relative to the topic, there would be absolutely no need for bag checks or metal detectors at cinemas if we were all chipped.

[Wilson]

And see, I don't vote or have an opinion based strictly on whether it benefits me or not.

Yes you do. Everybody does.

No, I don't. Actually I vote according to my sense of fairness. To some extent I take into consideration my own interests, but my votes are certainly not strictly on that basis. For instance, I'm in favor of higher taxes to try to balance the budget (along with cutting spending), even though I personally would be better off with lower taxes.

I'll ask you again then, why not just cut to the chase and make everyone submit to being microchipped?

A strange suggestion. I guess you're implying that that would be the ultimate result of taking away our freedoms, but let's deal with the real world.

My question to you is, what is the upside of allowing assault weapons and others that offer little benefit to anyone, while the downside is the likelihood that some crazy person or terrorist will slaughter people with them in numbers they wouldn't be able to achieve otherwise. Again, nobody's saying we'll stop all such deaths, just some of them.

[Spiral Out]

No, I don't. Actually I vote according to my sense of fairness.

Voting to satisfy your sense of fairness is of primary benefit to you. It's a win-win since it benefits you as well as others, but the benefit to others is secondary since if it didn't first feel right to you then you wouldn't do it.

A strange suggestion. I guess you're implying that that would be the ultimate result of taking away our freedoms, but let's deal with the real world.

It's not a strange question at all. The real world requires that we all sacrifice some form and degree of "freedom" for a certain form and degree of "security". Therefore my question is to determine what you yourself would be willing to sacrifice in order to ensure the "wellbeing of the citizenry in general."

My question to you is, what is the upside of allowing assault weapons and others that offer little benefit to anyone, while the downside is the likelihood that some crazy person or terrorist will slaughter people with them in numbers they wouldn't be able to achieve otherwise.

Likelihood? What is the specific percentage of likelihood? What are the specific odds? Do you know exactly how many assault weapons are out there and how many end up being used for mass murders?

You're focusing on worst-case-scenario what-ifs. What if someone decided to take down a plane with a high-power laser pointer? What if someone decided to hack a military communications or weapons system with a computer?

[Empiricist-Bruno]

I find this discussion very interesting. I agree with Spiral Out on many points and perhaps share a bit more of Wilson's vision. I'm from Canada, where we had gun law for a while, as a result of activists working after the Montreal Massacre. Here, the gun issue may have been what gave the Conservatives their parliamentary majority in our last election and they used it to destroy the gun owner registry.

My own views on this issue are too complex to spell out here and so I won't for now.

But I'd like to ask Spiral Out a question or more. How do you identify a mental person? I mean, Corporal Lortie was in the military and yet he went to the Quebec Parliament and shot 3 people dead long ago. I mean, don't they do background check when you join the military? Mark Lepine was a good student in school and never had story of mental illness or history with trouble with the law when he entered La Polytechnic and killed more than 10 female students. He just didn't like women and decided to act. How would a back ground check prevent this? Is it because you use a fire arm in ways that others do not approve of that you are a mental person? I do believe that some people would agree with the misogynistic view of Mark Lepine but not have those same views lead them to do the same actions.

Also, how do we know you, Spiral Out, are not a mental person about to pick up a gun and shoot other people? As a kid, my dad let me do target practice once on some logs in the garage. Cool, I felt lucky then. But then he told me to hold on firing because he wanted to go back to the kitchen and had to walk behind the wall where the target logs were located. I did hold firing. But then I felt troubled by the event. My dad was in my shooting range, in the gun's shooting range... I didn't even want that to ever happen.

Had I shot my dad then while he walked behind the wall, I'm not even sure I would have taken responsibility for whatever injuries he may have sustained. It just isn't me that would have driven a bullet in flesh, it is the gun. In my next post, I may question further your views of the machine as just a tool, (we may be a tool of our tools) but I'll leave it at that for now.

I generally don't take responsibility for what machines do, and this includes transmitting to you this message. (It really isn't me, a human being, putting this up on your screen.) But that's another issue.

Given my extraordinary thinking, do I qualify to you as a criminal mind? I agree with your point that no one should be forced to give DNA sample but I won't make the case in support of your views because I feel this is getting off-topic.

Also, if you are a victim of a gun attack or a knife attack, do you know by how much you are more likely to survive if a knife is used as opposed to a gun? Many (most?) murderous attacks aren't carefully planned and many would be murderer take whatever happens to be available in the moment of their rage...Do you understand what this means?

[Spiral Out]

But I'd like to ask Spiral Out a question or more. How do you identify a mental person?

When they say or do something indicating that they are mentally ill.

Mark Lepine was a good student in school and never had story of mental illness or history with trouble with the law when he entered La Polytechnic and killed more than 10 female students. He just didn't like women and decided to act. How would a back ground check prevent this?

Background checks can only catch incidents that have already occurred. Nobody can foresee the future.

Also, how do we know you, Spiral Out, are not a mental person about to pick up a gun and shoot other people?

Short of erratic behavior, there's no way to tell, and if you don't know me it would be hard to determine what erratic behavior is for me, unless it is extremely erratic by common standards.

Given my extraordinary thinking, do I qualify to you as a criminal mind?

Thoughts don't make someone a criminal, actions do.

Also, if you are a victim of a gun attack or a knife attack, do you know by how much you are more likely to survive if a knife is used as opposed to a gun?

Either may be used lethally or non-lethally. However, it is well known that people are more fearful of being stabbed than being shot.

[Empiricist-Bruno]

Given my extraordinary thinking, do I qualify to you as a criminal mind?

Thoughts don't make someone a criminal, actions do.

Ho yea? I thought that convictions handed out by judges or jury to accused suspects at trials of some recognized justice system of some country or state made criminals.

Good to see that you are a free thinker. Never mind reality too much; and especially that of others.

Love is all you need.

[Supine]

I think there are good enough reasons to be able to own and carry openly or concealed firearms in the USA.

Self protection being high on the list.

[LuckyR]

Impress me by pointing to another country with a >50% drop in murder rate over the same time course.

I'm not sure what your point is, other than catching me red handed with an exaggeration. What do you see as the reason for the dramatic decline in the US murder rate? (All crimes, actually, not just gun homicides.)

My point is refuting the knee jerk assertion that increased gun numbers equates to increased gun violence, since even you agree that there has been a dramatic (>50%) drop in US murder rate at a time of dramatically increased gun sales.

As to my understanding of the drop (which is ongoing BTW) is it like most things in life: complicated. It is likely made up of many small effects aggregating into a dramatic effect. Proponents of various theories trumpet their pet project as the "magic bullet" that solved the problem but I believe they are all exagerating.

[Above us only sky]

Now the question is, if there had to be some security measures introduced at cinemas, like bag checks or metal detectors - similar to what we go through at airport security - would this be an indicator of civil freedom?

The National Rifle Association asserts that free access to weapons is the mark of a free society. But if we do get to the point of having to go through security just to get into cinemas - or face the risk, however slight, of being shot dead in our cinema seats - is this 'the mark of a free society'? Is this what 'civil freedom' or 'civil liberty' looks like?

After all, what is freedom and liberty? When we use the word "free" , we sometimes mean "be free from X". Then what does "free country", and "free society" mean? It means free from foreign oppression? In society even lunches are not free.

[LuckyR]

Now the question is, if there had to be some security measures introduced at cinemas, like bag checks or metal detectors - similar to what we go through at airport security - would this be an indicator of civil freedom?

The National Rifle Association asserts that free access to weapons is the mark of a free society. But if we do get to the point of having to go through security just to get into cinemas - or face the risk, however slight, of being shot dead in our cinema seats - is this 'the mark of a free society'? Is this what 'civil freedom' or 'civil liberty' looks like?

After all, what is freedom and liberty? When we use the word "free" , we sometimes mean "be free from X". Then what does "free country", and "free society" mean? It means free from foreign oppression? In society even lunches are not free.

Good one. You are correct: knee jerk pleas for "freedom" and "liberty" are overly vague pap meant for unsophisticated audiences with little grasp of the relationship between guns themselves, the influence of the gun industry and the need of victims for an impersonal scapegoat.

[Above us only sky]

Now the question is, if there had to be some security measures introduced at cinemas, like bag checks or metal detectors - similar to what we go through at airport security - would this be an indicator of civil freedom?

The National Rifle Association asserts that free access to weapons is the mark of a free society. But if we do get to the point of having to go through security just to get into cinemas - or face the risk, however slight, of being shot dead in our cinema seats - is this 'the mark of a free society'? Is this what 'civil freedom' or 'civil liberty' looks like?

After all, what is freedom and liberty? When we use the word "free" , we sometimes mean "be free from X". Then what does "free country", and "free society" mean? It means free from foreign oppression? In society even lunches are not free.

The National Rifle Association in the USA hijacked the ideological word "free society" and the result is bloodshed.

[LuckyR]

(Nested quote removed.)


After all, what is freedom and liberty? When we use the word "free" , we sometimes mean "be free from X". Then what does "free country", and "free society" mean? It means free from foreign oppression? In society even lunches are not free.

The National Rifle Association in the USA hijacked the ideological word "free society" and the result is bloodshed.

Leave off the words "the result is", replace them with "in addition there is less but more heinous" and your two statements are now true.

[Wilson]

Today another school shooting, this time at a community college in Oregon. Thirteen dead, reportedly, including the shooter, and 20 or so injured. Witnesses said that the shooter asked the students to state their religion, after which he started shooting.

[LuckyR]

Today another school shooting, this time at a community college in Oregon. Thirteen dead, reportedly, including the shooter, and 20 or so injured. Witnesses said that the shooter asked the students to state their religion, after which he started shooting.

Very true, doesn't sound like a gun problem, sounds like a hate problem.

[Above us only sky]

Leave off the words "the result is", replace them with "in addition there is less but more heinous" and your two statements are now true.

You mean The National Rifle Association causes less blood shed? I don't know much about your society.

-- Updated October 2nd, 2015, 8:19 pm to add the following --

Today another school shooting, this time at a community college in Oregon. Thirteen dead, reportedly, including the shooter, and 20 or so injured. Witnesses said that the shooter asked the students to state their religion, after which he started shooting.

Very true, doesn't sound like a gun problem, sounds like a hate problem.

There are hatred in every society. The government's job is to prevent this hatred to be expressed in dangerous ways . By far the most effective ways is the prohibition of guns, therefore a government should totally ban gun ownership.