Another nut goes on a rampage

There is an example going on right now of what happens at the end of their rainbow, when all the little people are totally disarmed, government controls all those horrible things, and takes care of everything...

http://news.yahoo.com/doubts-cast-chinas-counter-terrorism-abilities-095429084.html

Even in totalitarianism, extreme killers find more explosive ways to kill - 43 dead in an IED attack in a vegetable market. Streams of heavily armed paramilitary cops in armored vehicles clamp down...leftist paradise, reminds them of the Boston Lockdown and they get misty eyed for the tyranny of it all.:mad:

Drugs may be at the root of it, I don't doubt it one bit, but the killer responsible is the thing left dead with a self inflicted hole in his head. Nobody but that twisted mind is actually responsible for the mayhem, pain and death.
 
Between NY, CT, and CA the arms race to disarmament is their goal. They all want to be the most stringent but they know they can't just ban everything because the SCotUS would have their way with them -- assuming a Constitution exists by that time.
 
Rather than "tagging" people why not simply start a program wherein every newborn is lobotomized and we would have a docile, manageable, contrite society in a single generation. Utopia could be ours in our lifetime. I mean -- if it would save but a single life ...
 
So many things to consider...

Here another one, that applies to all the bleatings about "slipped through the cracks" and "all the signs were there, but nobody did anything.."

Say you are given a 1,500 piece jigsaw puzzle (anyone NOT remember what those are?)...

Each piece has a code on the back. One of them is that there is a bomb. Another one tells you where it is. Another one tells you when it goes off. Another one is the disarm code for that bomb.

When complete, the picture on the other side of the puzzle tells you which code is which.

You have all the information. Now you have 5 minutes to stop the bomb. GO!

When the bomb goes off, all the armchair quarterbacks are going to point to "you had all the information in your possession" and say you failed. And while they are correct, they are not right.

No amount of screening or testing can catch all the "bombs" before they go off. It is simply not possible. Some can be, and that is a good thing, but thinking all can be is simply not realistic.

Assesments of how "dangerous" a person is can only rely on what the person says and does. Testing Dr Jekyll tells you nothing about Mr Hyde.

This guy said a bunch of bad things. One does have that right, to say things. Even bad things. Police checked him out, and he didn't trip their "must take action" trigger. Maybe they were talking to Henry Jekyll that day.....

a month, a week, a day later, Mr Hyde gets loose, and does what he does....

Are the police to blame? Our "system"? Parents? Neighbors? You choose what you think best, but remember that the one really responsible isn't the good doctor....
 
Glenn E. Meyer: I agree with all your points. Working with dementia patients, we typically ask if there are unlocked guns in the house. If so, we can say "you might want to think about limiting his/her access to guns." Even if the patient has accidentally burned down the house, been sexually appropriate, shoplifted for no reason, you name it, due to their dementia---we don't dare suggest taking guns away from someone, for fear of lawsuits by the NRA and other parties.
 
Personally, I'm more comfortable in a nation where individual nuts sometimes run amok than I am in a nation where organized groups set off bombs in public places on a regular basis.

But, that's just me.
 
Sierra280, you make a good point regarding the use of diagnostic neuroimaging. But that will likely have the opposite effect, as defense lawyers will use brain scans to show that people aren't responsible for their actions.

Also, I don't want to live in a world where someone can imprison me based on a brain scan. Most people with abnormal white or grey matter volumes or cortical thicknesses are no different from anyone else, and most murderers have normal (looking) brains.
 
CT scans, fMRIs - etc. are great research and diagnostic tools. They are expensive.

So let's give the 40% of the population that own guns one of these (if it would work). Talk about expense - oh, let's make the gun owner pay for it!

What would be the false positive rate? Having a personality disorder is not predictive of violence in any useful manner.

Take a look at the rate for mammograms - http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/10/10778/high-rate-false-positives-annual-mammogram

Think we would do better for something as ill defined as going to be a rampager?

Let's have a scan for bigotry to see if you can have certain jobs. We are discovering active areas for prejudice.

Here's the bottom line:

If we accept that easy gun ownership is a consequence of the 2nd Amendment, then these sort of people will fly under any proactive detection scheme that can be thought of. So we decide to accept it or not.

Perhaps we can mitigate the effect through reasonable carry laws and training.

Or - we ban guns and launch totalitarian confiscation regimes.

The English have done such as have the Australians and their massacres have diminished. Yes, gun crime and violent crime have gone up supposedly. But little rampages have been seen. So do we want to do that?

Totalitarian imposition of media censorship to reduce the violence that might trigger those who are already mentally ill. Totalitarian forced religion or abolition of religion (I can argue either as a violence reducer).

Freedom has negative consequences at times. Half-baked ideas flow freely after a critical incident.
 
Joe the Plumber checks in

Ugh. "Your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights." True, but maybe tone it down a little? These people have lost their children, through no fault of their own.

Also, a good satirical headline:
'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/

As with the best Onion (and there are many), it's very funny and thought-provoking.

Discuss!
 
Glenn, you left out one very realistic solution: everyone must open carry, at all times. No training, no permits, no government tracking (except for ticketing/jailing those who refuse to carry a gun), no limits on ammo: no gun control, at all, no exceptions, for any reason, including children of a reasonable age (say, 5 or 6---the same age I was introduced to guns, and I never had any problems). We already know that when more people carry guns, crime rates plummet. It follows, then, that everyone carrying guns will lead to zero crime (see link below, where that very thing happened). Also, children would be very comfortable shooting in self-defense (and possibly having to kill) at a young age, decreasing the risk they will turn out to be antis and helping them deal with any future shootings they have the duty to commit. I have a feeling that an armed class of 5th graders wouldn't have much trouble dealing with another school killer. :cool:


It sounds extreme, but I do recall some towns voting on very similar measures.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1818862/posts

Actually, we could probably do without the ticketing/jailing of non-carriers---another side benefit is that they wouldn't last long in a society like this---unless they were very quiet and very polite. :D As one of my wife uncle's like to say: My second amendment rights will silence your first amendment rights every time. :o
 
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Yes, but the satirical point they're making is that we claim this can't be stopped but everybody else has stopped it. That simply is not true.

Consider this...

We should be glad that they choose firearms. Sounds pretty awful to say, doesn't it? Think about it though. Look at mass casualty events where something besides firearms were used. Fires, bombs, aircraft, etc.... They tend to be MUCH worse.

Obviously, every normal person, ever, in the history of history, would rather it didn't happen at all but it's going to happen, everywhere there are people and it always has.

Firearms are among the LEAST destructive means that can be chosen.
 
Stayingsafe - satirical but not really helpful. BTW, the dropping in crime rates across the country is not a simple relationship to gun ownership.

While satirical - I do not support the state telling me to carry or not.
 
The worst mass murder in American history happened in 2001 -- using box cutters. No firearms involved.

The second-worst mass murder in American history happened in 1995 and used a fertilizer bomb. No guns involved.

The worst school-based mass murder in American history happened in 1927 -- using improvised bombs. No firearms involved, unless you count one rifle shot that the killer used to set off the last of the bombs, the one that killed him.

According to Grant Duwe's fascinating book, Mass Murder in the United States,

  • when a gun is used in a mass killing the average death toll is 4.92.
  • when a killer goes 'hands on' (contact weapons or bare hands), the average death toll is 4.52.
  • when a killer uses fire, the average death toll is 6.82.
  • and when a bomb or explosives are used, the average death toll goes all the way up to 20.32.*

So, yeah. Thank God that killers are more likely to use guns rather than arson or explosives. It gives good people more time to react and helps bring down the number of dead bodies.

pax


* These numbers reflect mass murders that happened from 1900-1999. If the WTC box cutter/airliner murders were included, the average death toll from explosives would necessarily be much, much higher.
 
As for the idea that all other countries have stopped mass killings of innocent people -- hm. Tell that to the skulls on the ground in Cambodia or Rwanda or Zimbabwe. If their deaths don't count, why not?

pax
 
Glenn---people on this site maintain that gun ownership decreases crime constantly! I even posted a study showing that this is true.

In any case, my logic stands: if anyone, even children, could carry any kind of armament they like, anywhere they like (as God intended for this country), crime would likely disappear in this country. We could probably do away with the court system as well as public education.

Who would shoot up a playground when all the kids are trained and quite willing to kill if need be?
 
Moderator Note

stayingsafe,

Reductio ad absurdum is fun for those who enjoy trolling someone else's website, but it's no good for creating a useful and engaging dialog among people who respect each other. Knock it off.

pax
 
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