Gun Control and Mass Murder

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Sy Borg
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Sy Borg »

Londoner wrote:That is America's choice. The only mystery is why they seem so reluctant to accept the consequences. Every time somebody shoots a politician, or some shopkeeper, or their wife, or a load of small children, they go on as if it was some awful tragedy and we should be sad about it!
Yes, there is much hypocrisy but America is too pluralist to refer to "they". A lot of the people "going on as if it's an awful tragedy" would love to see more regulation. They tend not to be the ones who are "reluctant to accept the consequences" because if they had their chance they'd try to reduce those consequences.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

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Londoner wrote:That is America's choice. The only mystery is why they seem so reluctant to accept the consequences. Every time somebody shoots a politician, or some shopkeeper, or their wife, or a load of small children, they go on as if it was some awful tragedy and we should be sad about it!
Worry not, for Donald Trump is going to solve this by giving every American their own nuclear missile. Personally I intend to use mine to start a war with Putin, which I guarantee will solve all of our problems within about 30 minutes. By the way, have you noticed how much a nuclear missile resembles my penis?
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Supine »

Greta wrote:
Supine wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Yeah, that's why the American police shot this dude, because American police "lack training." :lol:
Isolated anecdotes don't constitute an argument.

Psychopathy and a tendency towards violence are also factors taken into account in workplace safety assessments.
I recall back in year 2011 when I was shot by a police officer. Online a young woman from the projects (public housing) of England swore I was lying. Here reasoning? How could a former US Marine be hooked on crack, get shot by police, have a father that was an Federal Agent that had road rage so severe he would chase people in cars, get out his car and threaten them in the window? :lol: This all seemed too fantastical to her. Which was kind of illuminating to me. My life is regarded as rather tame by the standards of many (not all) people in the American "hoods." But apparently, to some from the ghettos of Europe this life is rather movie-like.

Now, after Michael Brown was shot (justifiably I believe) in Fergunson it makes news a lot about American police shooting black males. Though, albeit, most of them are not former Marines. But being a black military veteran may not sociologically be like being a black military veteran in say... England or the UK. Possibly not. So, if it is "fantastical" that you can have British Royal Marine veterans living in the "hoods" of England hooked on crack, if it is (I don't know that it is or isn't I'm not from England or the UK), it certainly is not in the USA.

I only bring up the drug thing because drugs like gun violence are sociological in nature too.

But everyone from white suburbanites in the USA to foreign Europeans think they know what it takes to sociologically change the gun violence--predominately in Black-America. The white suburbanites think it only requires increased prison time and more violent and aggressive policing. The European thinks it's simply an issue of making legal purchase of guns far more difficult for those that shy away from crime and violence.

I don't think either one of you grasp the familial and sociological problems going on at root.

You see... I lived in inner-city USA back in the 1970s and early 1980s when gun violence in Black-America was rare. Yet, guns were just as legal. What really changed the fabric of society was the 1980s crack cocaine wars in which foreigners as well as white Americans began flying kilos of cocaine into the USA and selling them or "fronting" them to Black-American gangs like the Crips and Vice Lords. That radically altered the sociology of violence in the USA to which Black-America is still reeling from. There were other factors too like the anti-male AFDC welfare policies which helped destroy black families.

The only thing "fiction" is in the minds of you Europeans and the young generation of Americans born in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which all of you assume the gun violence in the USA was the same in the 1970s and earlier, and that life in the USA has simply "gotten better." It has in many respects gotten worse, not better.

Brazil found itself in a similar situation in which it traces its rise in gun violence to the early crack wars of the 1980s. And contrary to what Black-Americans might like to think (in their sense of superiority via a "superior British colonial cultural connection") the dark skinned gangs, controlling prisons, in Brazil are more akin to the the USA sociology of gangs and prisons than the English gangs and prisons.

I say that because Brazil offers a look at what the USA may well look like if it took Brazil's path to strict gun control laws, taking neighborhood policing out, using military style raids as the primary function of the police in the "hoods"/favelas.

Notice in the video the two young children feel trapped between the violence of the police and the violence of the gangsters.
Brazil is considering attacking its astronomical gun violence problem by relaxing gun laws to reflect more of the USA gun laws. Assault rifles in Brazil are illegal to possess except in the hands of the military, by the way. However, assault weapons are quite common in Brazilian favelas, in the hands of gang members. I'd wager more people are shoot in Brazil annually with assault rifles than they are in the USA. So, what good did Brazil do banning them?

Between the Democrats and Republicans both parties are head strong intent on turning the USA into Brazil. The Republicans have already been initiating housing, gentrification, economic policies to mimick Latin America's "doughnut style" urban planning in which the rich take over the center, the middle-class surround them, and the poor encircle them on the outer edge of city. In contrast to the poor in the center "inner-city" traditional model of the USA. Almost every major American city is undergoing this. And like poor Brazilians of dark hue the Republicans want the "blacks" to have no jobs and no money. Especially the black men. But the Democrats are getting their rise in dark skinned transsexuals like Brazil. I guess the Republicans throw them that bone. And celebrating sodomy like Brazil long has. I like sodomy like anyone... but you can't feed a family off of that (outside the sex trades).

npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/03/28/4 ... x-gun-laws

Radio interview/story in link above.
Politics & Policy
Brazil Has Nearly 60,000 Murders, And It May Relax Gun Laws
4:55

March 28, 20161:16 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Most were shot with guns that were not legally owned, he says.

Almost 60,000 people were murdered in Brazil in 2014, most with guns. While some Latin American countries have higher per capita murder rates, in absolute numbers, Brazil is the deadliest place in the world outside Syria.

Brazilians are far more likely to be shot to death than Americans, a more populous country where there are about 8,000 to 9,000 gun homicides each year.

Still, a group of Brazilian congressmen wants to make guns easier to obtain, modeling their proposal on U.S. legislation.

Right now, Brazil actually has tough gun laws. If you want to own a gun legally these are the requirements:

— a fixed address

— proof of legitimate income

— no criminal record

— a mental health test

— proof you know how to handle a gun and shoot it

— evidence of why you need a gun. For example, a police report of an attack against you.

Even if a prospective gun owner supplies all this information, the police can arbitrarily deny a request for a gun permit.
To get a gun permit in Brazil it also costs $1,000 Reals or roughly that would be $305 US dollars. That is a lot of money for poor Americans let alone for poor Brazilians in favelas working low paid jobs (not unusually for the girls as domestic servants) in the un-taxed, underground economy.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Sy Borg »

Having been lucky enough to have two eyes, two ears and the semblance of a brain I am quite aware that the US's situation is unusual due to the hangover tensions of slavery. However, a little more caution is regulating and licensing dangerous machinery isn't any kind of serious imposition, just maybe alleviate things. Why not issue licenses, including testing, as we do with other dangerous machinery like cars?
Between the Democrats and Republicans both parties are head strong intent on turning the USA into Brazil. The Republicans have already been initiating housing, gentrification, economic policies to mimick Latin America's "doughnut style" urban planning in which the rich take over the center, the middle-class surround them, and the poor encircle them on the outer edge of city.
That's not just Brazil. The "doughnut style" plan is present in numerous major western cities, including my own, Sydney. It stands to reason that people want to be close to the city and rail stations for convenience, so housing prices are most expensive in the inner city and east (by the water) and the prices remain high along the coast and radiate outwards as you head west.

In Sydney we are watching the dynamic in action because we are being flooded with record numbers of Chinese migrants who have been busy buying out most property near rail stations - starting with Central and gradually radiating out, rail station by rail station. Again, it's logical and stands to reason.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Supine »

A man in the video below apparently says 5 of his drug addicted sons were murdered by drug dealers, in one of Brazil's most dangerous cities (not Rio--which has a homicide rate lower than Detroit or Milwaukee now), all for owing less than $25 worth of drugs. Crack I believe. :lol: It's not funny accept for the fact it's so stupid. Sounds like many young Black-American drug dealers in character trait of not valuing human life but for the fact they know they'll likely to get caught and sentenced to 30 or more years in prison in the USA. Police investigations are far better financed and that includes scientific laboratory work here in the USA.

But... the current Pope visiting Brazil visited addicts, condemned drug dealers, but called for the state to maintain a war on drugs. Imagine if a war on homosexuality caused 5 sons in one family to be murdered by gay porn peddlers of the Crips organized crime outfit :lol: . The current Pope would be on international news tearing his vestments and decrying the inhumanity of it all and need to legalize homosexuality and embrace the HIV porn star.

Yet, with a war on drugs resulting in the massive murders of so many young dark skinned males from the USA to Mexico to Brazil no one gives a flying F. They dismiss it with their self righteous moralizing.

But hey! It's only the "guns" fault. I mean... it's not the Klansman's hatred nor the homophobic guy's hatred and lack of valuing a gay man's life and humanity. It's only an issue of the gun.
Black-America would do better to kick the Democrats and black liberals to the curb. The Republicans too. Go for legalizing or at minimum decriminalizing drugs, give public esteem to black police officers of both sexes, encourage black military veterans to legally buy arms, de-glamorize gangsters and drug dealers which black Democrats have glamorized to the point of being Jesus Christ, and promote policies that stabilize black families once more. This means media campaigns esteeming black males for the sake of being black males (like the media does for girls of all races) and job/industry creations in black cities.

Prisons are needed but long prison sentences (while a deterrent)--just like the death penalty--are not by themselves solutions. Especially if you throw people in violent prisons. The prisons in Brazil are even far worse than those in the USA. Brazil's modern day prisons are so filthy, rat infested, apocalyptic that they make the prisons of the European Inquisition of centuries ago look like 5 star hotels. Then you let the violent gangs run them. Meaning de facto that their gang members on the outside are not so frightened of being sentenced to prison, which means de facto they are not so frightened of killing 5 drug addicted brothers of chump change they feel "owed to them."

Here in the USA a drug addict might in self defense put 5 bullets in his butt and not be charged by the DA, whilst the drug dealer that pulled his gun and got shot is now paralyzed and being charged by the DA and going to prison on attempted murder charges. And that possibility acts as cultural deterrent as much as a gay man with a pistol capping a homophobic man acts as a cultural deterrent.

-- Updated July 22nd, 2016, 8:57 am to add the following --

Video link^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9NZ3wAPWUk
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Doesn't one drug leads to wanting/needing another one?

Given my view of firearms as a drug, the whole issue of gun control has to be just a side issue of drug control, in my opinion. Since we're on the topic of drugs, I think some basic questions about them have to be asked: Can you control a drug? Can you control a drug without it controlling you back? Are drugs meant to be controlled or are they more like people and are meant to be set free.

It seems to me that the dangers of drugs are not entirely a bad thing. When a person wins a battle against addiction, that person has become wiser, I would think. Now the question is how can we make people wiser without causing so much grief to so many in the process. Or is the grief part of the path to becoming wiser?

Also I think we need to learn to identify addicts and drugs better. Young students need to be thought in school what a drug is and what makes a drug a drug. But this train of thoughts leads me back to animal rights. People are hooked on eating meat and I can't see how we can begin to care about learning about drugs when we are hooked on killing others. Who needs to learn about drugs if it may end up meaning that we can't do anything we want to some others? Often, drugs are doing anything they want to their users, and this just reflects the essence of what humans are doing to animals. Boy, that's a great segue, isn't it?
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

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It's one thing passing a law, but that's useless without enforcing it.

-- Updated July 22nd, 2016, 6:41 pm to add the following --

It's one thing passing a law, but that's useless without enforcing it.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by LuckyR »

Supine wrote:
LuckyR wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Very curious. Essentially no one who is serious about this issue either wants disarmament or expects it to happen. Why jump to that unrealistic extreme? (As opposed to more reasonable, yet similarly not voted upon ones like: no gun purchases by folks on the No Fly List, or no > 30 bullet magazines, or no easily semi-auto to full-auto conversions?)
Just as an FYI. One of the most sane, tolerant, intelligent American I know (he's also an Army war vet of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) was placed on the "No Fly List." He only found out when he went to the airport to buy a ticket. He surmises it must have been due to his unorthodox American political views. He's non-religious and morally liberal. He's big into philosophy and has some of his own self described socio-political beliefs. He's more or less a left-wing libertarian.

But he offers criticisms of both the Democratic Party and Republican Party and some of the things the US Government has been involved in. Apparently, this is enough to get an intelligent, young, white, American male put on the No Fly List. :lol: America is no land of the free, that is for sure, and under Democrats and Republicans they'd both love to march America more and more into a model of Nazi Germany. But with their respective ideologies.

You can turn any semi-auto weapon into a fully automatic weapon. It is illegal but anyone of them can be done. Apparently, people can make their own home made bombs too.

The magazine thing is mostly an emotionally charged issue. I mean really, all you have to do is carry more magazines on you and you become just as lethal. :roll:
I know you aren't trying to say that our collective experience is that only legislative ideas without exceptions or controversy ever make it to the Congressional floor. We aren't talking about PASSING this stuff, we're talking about the extremely unusual tactics where even official discussion, study or record-keeping on this subject are either illegal or never happen officially.

Let's face it, even abortion can be discussed, studied and legislated upon, one way or the other. What is so special about gun violence? Oh yeah... it has a well connected, well funded and powerful industry that has legislators by the short hairs.

From a practical standpoint this isn't even about guns, it is about influence.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

LuckyR wrote:
Supine wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Just as an FYI. One of the most sane, tolerant, intelligent American I know (he's also an Army war vet of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) was placed on the "No Fly List." He only found out when he went to the airport to buy a ticket. He surmises it must have been due to his unorthodox American political views. He's non-religious and morally liberal. He's big into philosophy and has some of his own self described socio-political beliefs. He's more or less a left-wing libertarian.

But he offers criticisms of both the Democratic Party and Republican Party and some of the things the US Government has been involved in. Apparently, this is enough to get an intelligent, young, white, American male put on the No Fly List. :lol: America is no land of the free, that is for sure, and under Democrats and Republicans they'd both love to march America more and more into a model of Nazi Germany. But with their respective ideologies.

You can turn any semi-auto weapon into a fully automatic weapon. It is illegal but anyone of them can be done. Apparently, people can make their own home made bombs too.

The magazine thing is mostly an emotionally charged issue. I mean really, all you have to do is carry more magazines on you and you become just as lethal. :roll:
I know you aren't trying to say that our collective experience is that only legislative ideas without exceptions or controversy ever make it to the Congressional floor. We aren't talking about PASSING this stuff, we're talking about the extremely unusual tactics where even official discussion, study or record-keeping on this subject are either illegal or never happen officially.

Let's face it, even abortion can be discussed, studied and legislated upon, one way or the other. What is so special about gun violence? Oh yeah... it has a well connected, well funded and powerful industry that has legislators by the short hairs.

From a practical standpoint this isn't even about guns, it is about influence.
As so often is the case, Lucky R jumps in and nails the gist of the issue. Being under the influence is the issue, I agree with you. However, aren't guns able to influence you? So, it isn't all that clear, at least to me, that it isn't about guns also.

-- Updated July 22nd, 2016, 10:28 pm to add the following --

The latest mass killer still used a gun, not a truck. Either mass killers don't learn too quickly or they really mean to hit a specific crowd not reachable by truck, such as a mall crowd?

-- Updated July 23rd, 2016, 11:13 pm to add the following --

Right, a mass killer isn't generally targeting any random group is people and guns do provide the benefit of being able to get a target just about anywhere.

And on top of that, a gun is easier to turn on one's self than a truck and mass killers do appear to appreciate that benefit. An easy and sure way out matters to them. Even in the Nice attack a fire arm was used by the killer. Maybe, if he hadn't been able to get his hands on a gun, he wouldn't have dared to deliver his ice cream?

But still, unwilling mass killers such as those who kill others accidentally on the roads (with a drug that simply gives them a bad trip) are by far the greatest mass killers. But since the use of drugs is ingrained in our culture their staggering kills are minimized with heavy regulations or control to the apparent satisfaction of the majority of users. Control may give the illusion that the problem is being delt with when it really isn't and therefore control as a solution should be considered as part of the problem.

-- Updated July 23rd, 2016, 11:20 pm to add the following --

Sorry , I meant to say "any group of people" in my first sentence above. I am just discovering that you cannot edit your post when it is being added to your previous post.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Supine »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote:Doesn't one drug leads to wanting/needing another one?

Given my view of firearms as a drug, the whole issue of gun control has to be just a side issue of drug control, in my opinion. Since we're on the topic of drugs, I think some basic questions about them have to be asked: Can you control a drug? Can you control a drug without it controlling you back? Are drugs meant to be controlled or are they more like people and are meant to be set free.

It seems to me that the dangers of drugs are not entirely a bad thing. When a person wins a battle against addiction, that person has become wiser, I would think. Now the question is how can we make people wiser without causing so much grief to so many in the process. Or is the grief part of the path to becoming wiser?

Also I think we need to learn to identify addicts and drugs better. Young students need to be thought in school what a drug is and what makes a drug a drug. But this train of thoughts leads me back to animal rights. People are hooked on eating meat and I can't see how we can begin to care about learning about drugs when we are hooked on killing others. Who needs to learn about drugs if it may end up meaning that we can't do anything we want to some others? Often, drugs are doing anything they want to their users, and this just reflects the essence of what humans are doing to animals. Boy, that's a great segue, isn't it?
Guns aren't pharmaceutical products manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. They certainly aren't prescription drugs that require a doctor or nurse practitioner to prescribe to a patient.

But I get your point, you are trying to make an emotionally persuasive argument to encourage the War on Drugs which has claimed possibly millions of lives throughout Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and the USA. Principally the lives of young black men and boys. So, I'm intelligent enough to know that gun control advocates--such as yourself--are not motivated out altruistic goals to protect all human life, but rather it's motivated out of two major things: 1) a personal "phobia" one has developed watching TV, fearing they or a loved one might end up a victim in a mass shooting. 2) A desire to see more vulnerable people you regard as "different" from yourselves being murdered--quickly or slow and brutally.

LuckyR wrote:
Supine wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Just as an FYI. One of the most sane, tolerant, intelligent American I know (he's also an Army war vet of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) was placed on the "No Fly List." He only found out when he went to the airport to buy a ticket. He surmises it must have been due to his unorthodox American political views. He's non-religious and morally liberal. He's big into philosophy and has some of his own self described socio-political beliefs. He's more or less a left-wing libertarian.

But he offers criticisms of both the Democratic Party and Republican Party and some of the things the US Government has been involved in. Apparently, this is enough to get an intelligent, young, white, American male put on the No Fly List. :lol: America is no land of the free, that is for sure, and under Democrats and Republicans they'd both love to march America more and more into a model of Nazi Germany. But with their respective ideologies.

You can turn any semi-auto weapon into a fully automatic weapon. It is illegal but anyone of them can be done. Apparently, people can make their own home made bombs too.

The magazine thing is mostly an emotionally charged issue. I mean really, all you have to do is carry more magazines on you and you become just as lethal. :roll:
I know you aren't trying to say that our collective experience is that only legislative ideas without exceptions or controversy ever make it to the Congressional floor. We aren't talking about PASSING this stuff, we're talking about the extremely unusual tactics where even official discussion, study or record-keeping on this subject are either illegal or never happen officially.

Let's face it, even abortion can be discussed, studied and legislated upon, one way or the other. What is so special about gun violence? Oh yeah... it has a well connected, well funded and powerful industry that has legislators by the short hairs.

From a practical standpoint this isn't even about guns, it is about influence.
The NRA certainly is a powerful lobbying group. But that's how so-called "democracy" works in the USA. :lol:

Only interest groups that have powerful, well financed, lobbying influence get a chair at the table in the USA. That's how it works and presumably that is how it will work forever. Who do you think the 3 branches of Federal Government are going to listen to, the feminist and the NRA on one side with monetary might, or the American homeless and the impoverished black and poor whites that are drug addicts on the other side?

So, some homeless white hillbilly dude in Alabama has to buy his own condoms, but employers must pay for the condoms of some female Harvard graduate earning $160,000 a year, and the NRA gets to disallow certain studies conducted on gun related violence.

The gun related violence in Mexico and Brazil, driven by gangs and cartels, will becoming to an end in the next 10 to 20 years. Why? Because white Americans in the upper-middle-class have been getting hooked heroin and other prescription opiates that eventually lead them to the easier street accessible heroin. And they are humans like homosexuals. They have been given "human stories" in the newspapers. And being soccer moms, businessmen, and teen kids of the well-to-do they have the financial backed voices to influence the 3 branches of US Government. And when the US Government says the War on Drugs must end then Latin American Governments will follow suit. Legitimate businesses will move in and the gangs and cartels will be pushed out the drug business. The murder rates in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil will dramatically fall.

That's how the world works. You think anyone gives two squats what some black kid in the slums of Venezuela or Brazil has to say? :lol:

So, the NRA is All American. Just like the bankers influencing Hilary Clinton.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Grunth »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote:

But still, unwilling mass killers such as those who kill others accidentally on the roads (with a drug that simply gives them a bad trip) are by far the greatest mass killers. But since the use of drugs is ingrained in our culture their staggering kills are minimized with heavy regulations or control to the apparent satisfaction of the majority of users. Control may give the illusion that the problem is being dealt with when it really isn't and therefore control as a solution should be considered as part of the problem.
By 'drugs' I am supposing you mean the alcohol drug mainly.
However, the biggest influence on people who become 'mass' killers is their beliefs, and there actual killing is the practice of these beliefs. The latest Germany mass shooting appears to have it's roots in Islam within which there is particular beliefs about the features of an 'afterlife' and martyrdom.

On drunk drivers killing people: These are drivers who somehow believe they will live forever. Not an uncommon belief for many of us, particularly youth. So dangerous pursuits is the practicing of a belief. Suicide by cop or bomb, in the action of killing others, is also, for someone who is Koranic inspired, a practicing of one's beliefs.
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Grunth wrote:
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:

But still, unwilling mass killers such as those who kill others accidentally on the roads (with a drug that simply gives them a bad trip) are by far the greatest mass killers. But since the use of drugs is ingrained in our culture their staggering kills are minimized with heavy regulations or control to the apparent satisfaction of the majority of users. Control may give the illusion that the problem is being dealt with when it really isn't and therefore control as a solution should be considered as part of the problem.
By 'drugs' I am supposing you mean the alcohol drug mainly.
However, the biggest influence on people who become 'mass' killers is their beliefs, and there actual killing is the practice of these beliefs. The latest Germany mass shooting appears to have it's roots in Islam within which there is particular beliefs about the features of an 'afterlife' and martyrdom.

On drunk drivers killing people: These are drivers who somehow believe they will live forever. Not an uncommon belief for many of us, particularly youth. So dangerous pursuits is the practicing of a belief. Suicide by cop or bomb, in the action of killing others, is also, for someone who is Koranic inspired, a practicing of one's beliefs.
Grunth,

Thank your comments.

By 'drugs' I really mean a very wide concept that does include alcohol. Alcohol drugs your reflex (it slows them) it drugs your judgement (it becomes poorer) it drugs (changes) your personality in ways that vary from individual to individual. If what you plan on doing is to kill lots of people, alcohol may not be the best drug to do in my opinion. Neither is doing acid. The product you need to consume and which will make you feel a lot faster is called gasoline or petrol in some countries. And the pipe you need to consume this product so that it affects you is called a motorized vehicle. It's the speed of the mass that kills and gasoline is your drug to achieve your real dangerous high. That's the 'drug' I had in mind when I wrote the above post.

Thank you for thinking about that other drug. It had really never crossed my mind. This leads to my next beef: if the main drug directly involved in a deadly process (gasoline) is not considered a sinful drug then why is a side drug involved in the deadly process of the main drug considered a criminal drug? I think I know the answer to that question. It's because targeting the least powerful drug is easier when you are yourself under the influence of the more powerful drug. Also, by regulating one drug involved in the process, it appears that you are doing something about the problem. It looks like the problem is dealt with and the left over deaths are simply the inevitable evil that was minimized by the idiotic but well intended regulation. This is why I wrote that regulation can and should be considered as part of the problem.

Yes, beliefs are involved in mass murder but since we're on the topic of control here, how do you suggest we control beliefs, if that will impact mass murder? I don't think this is the solution because you will then need a narcissist guy like Trump to ban Islam. And then you realize that narcissism is also a belief that's pretty dangerous especially when the masses of people fail to pick up on that.

Another belief involved with mass murders (but which is in fact a delusion) is that some 'tools' are generally used to achieve them. In fact, drugs are what's most needed. Yes, there is a sword guy in Japan who has just proven me wrong here, yesterday. He powered the weapon himself, and so he used a tool, not a drug. But I have to say that I'd rather have to run from a mad sword man than to run from a mad gunman, or truck driver...
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Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Supine »

Grunth wrote:
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:

But still, unwilling mass killers such as those who kill others accidentally on the roads (with a drug that simply gives them a bad trip) are by far the greatest mass killers. But since the use of drugs is ingrained in our culture their staggering kills are minimized with heavy regulations or control to the apparent satisfaction of the majority of users. Control may give the illusion that the problem is being dealt with when it really isn't and therefore control as a solution should be considered as part of the problem.
By 'drugs' I am supposing you mean the alcohol drug mainly.
However, the biggest influence on people who become 'mass' killers is their beliefs, and there actual killing is the practice of these beliefs. The latest Germany mass shooting appears to have it's roots in Islam within which there is particular beliefs about the features of an 'afterlife' and martyrdom.

On drunk drivers killing people: These are drivers who somehow believe they will live forever. Not an uncommon belief for many of us, particularly youth. So dangerous pursuits is the practicing of a belief. Suicide by cop or bomb, in the action of killing others, is also, for someone who is Koranic inspired, a practicing of one's beliefs.
Empiricist does not like that I pointed out in the past--pertaining to the US War on Drugs--that no crackhead (to my knowledge) has carried out a mass shooting in the USA or what some term "terrorist" acts, whereas a number of Muslims have, and in the case of the Florida gay club, the guy was simultaneously Muslim and (it would appear from trying to pick up women online, too, as well as having male lovers and a female wife) a bisexual that other LGBTQ people in gay clubs seemed to embrace. So, a member of the LGBTQ community carried out a mass shooting in a gay club and not a crackhead. I doubt a heroin addict has either. Most drug addicts commit petty crimes like stealing a 12 pack of beer out of a store or stealing someone lawnmower. Bad things of course. But quite different than intentionally detonating explosives at a Boston Marathon and maiming people you never met.

My point being, most (not all) addicts harm (unless they have kids) is inflicted on themselves. Kind of like a "cutter" that cuts their own arm. They injure themselves mainly--albeit their families may be emotionally injured by the behaviors and loss--but those "cutters" aren't going around cutting, slicing, stabbing other people randomly on the street. So, why waste billions of dollars a year waging a war on those injuring themselves, so you can inflict even greater suffering on them, but act rather "meekly" against those that are actually mass killing people in gay clubs or French national holidays? (I'm not saying outlaw Islam, Muslims, or LGBTQ people but I am saying the crackhead is the least of your concern in this area--that being mass shootings, bombings and so forth.)

So, rather than face life on life terms, and accept the facts bare bones, he does what "drug addicts" are accused of doing all the time: being a bald face liar that rejects life on life terms.

He wants to try and make Americans think (like a pimp convinces a prostitute to think its beneficial for her to whore for him giving him her money) that all mass shooters are drug addicts. At least Adolf Hitler when blaming the Jews for society's woes was correct in that the Jews in Germany disproportionately held German wealth. So, I'd say Empiricists blaming drug addicts for the recent mass killings in France and Florida is worst than the blaming of Jews by Adolf Hitler. I've little doubt since the War on Drugs, from Brazil through Mexico to the USA, more than 6 million drug addicts have been murdered.
Grunth
Posts: 793
Joined: February 3rd, 2016, 9:48 pm

Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Grunth »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote:

Yes, beliefs are involved in mass murder but since we're on the topic of control here, how do you suggest we control beliefs, if that will impact mass murder? I don't think this is the solution because you will then need a narcissist guy like Trump to ban Islam. And then you realize that narcissism is also a belief that's pretty dangerous especially when the masses of people fail to pick up on that.
Firstly, drug control. Make them all legal to undermine the cartels. These includes beer barons, wine merchants and the pharmaceutical industry, along with the ones we normally think of as gangs. Then the most commonly used drug, and least toxic, will be the type you can grow in your greenhouse or back garden.

Secondly, belief control. No tax breaks or charity status for religious organizations. They should be made to compete fairly in the market place within which every other business relies. Churches should completely self fund (maybe they could grow dope for those without a greenhouse or back garden).
Nick_A
Posts: 3364
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:45 pm

Re: Gun Control and Mass Murder

Post by Nick_A »

UniversalAlien wrote:First the Second:
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
I could not watch the news this morning save for only one story: 27 people, 20 of which were children between 5-10 years old were gunned down by a lone gunman who also killed his mother who was teaching the children at the time. Gun control advocates can now celebrate {cynicism intentional}. Again they will start to call for more draconian anti-gun laws to protect the public - But will this really protect the public? Australia after a similar incident some years ago outlawed all guns. And then the crime rate went up so high they had to rescind the law. In the USA with many millions of guns already in the hands of the public a gun ban would cause, to use an old saying: "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns".



So how can 'we the people' be protected from the lone mad gunman determined to kill? We can not be protected completely, both guns and for that matter life itself is dangerous. Recently a lone swordsman dispatched a bunch of people in Japan and don't forget terrorist bombers who kill many more with no guns at all. So what do we do? If we took the Second Amendment literally and allowed the the right of the people to bear arms, this mass murder scenario would end. If enough of the 'well armed militia' was in fact armed the public would no longer be subjected to mass murderers; they could be stopped before their carnage was complete. To quote a somewhat controversial politician of years past" "A well armed society is a polite society" -G. Gordon Liddy

IMO doing justice to the question requires two basic considertions.

1) First do I believe in the value of a free society and the necessity of adopting of personal and voluntary obligations in order to sustain it? I believe it..

2) Do I believe that society is in constant change so the idea of "solutions" to the problem of murder, either on a large or small scale, is naive. Yes I believe this is so. Guns are not the problem. The problem is the collective attitude in America that no longer appreciates freedom to the extent of adopting the personal voluntary obligations necessary to sustain it. It becomes more satisfying to shoot first and ask questions later.

So the bottom line is if you are in favor of America's transformation into statist slavery, then take the guns away. If you value freedom the question becomes how American citizens could remember and value what is necessary to sustain freedom. Then guns won't be a problem.
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
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