When?

[AuntShecky]

We didn't do after Columbine.

We didn't do it after Virginia Tech.

We didn't do it after Arizona.

We didn't do it after Aurora, Colorado.

We didn't do it earlier this week after the shopping mall in Oregon.

And now -- after today?

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...nnecticut?lite


WHEN

are we going to do something about guns?

[miyako73]

That's sad. I guess it's a sign of troubled times--social stress brought forth by low morals, awful economy, and family breakup.

[Charles Darnay]

Not as long as a vast number of people argue that these situations would be worse (somehow?) if there was heavier gun control.

[AuntShecky]

Thanks for the replies, but --forgive me, try telling this to the parents .

We could come up with all kinds of social theories, motives, reasons, excuses, we can cite the Second Amendment, we can justify having firearms for hunting and for "protection" of one's property, we can talk and argue and quote statistics until we're blue in the face.

Maybe there's little we can do about random violence, but at least we could try to do something about stopping the easy accessibility of assault weapons.

But the fact of the matter is 27 people, including 18 little ones, are dead. We can no longer shake our heads and cry while doing nothing, especially when an innocent kindergartner goes to school in the morning and never comes home.

[Volya]

I would be a fan of stricter regulation of who can buy guns, but not the outright banning of them. What happened in all these cases was a tragedy, but if you take away guns, those people out there will just use knives, or bombs, and they'll still kill people.

[AuntShecky]

In reply to Volya's argument about knives above^^^. Yesterday, the same day as the horrible tragedy in Connecticut, a man in China invaded a school and stabbed 21 children. The difference is that all of the 21 children survived, less likely to have happened had the assailant used a firearm.

Please get the facts about gun violence!:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-united-states

[E.A Rumfield]

See my problem with this is you people could give a **** less about the people and children that are killed in places like Africa or war-torn countries in the Middle East. You simply don't care. People die everyday for nothing, children die everyday for nothing from lack of basic needs, starve everyday but what do you care it is not a good story. But every so often a real life tv drama comes along, a real life law and order episode comes along and for a week or so bored middle aged house wives find something to become emotionally involved in. And you forget about it in a week or a month. It's so hypocritical it makes me sick. I'm not saying that this isn't a tragedy but you can't just pick and choose what tragedies you care about. If you care about one humans suffering you care about every humans suffering and you simply don't, you only care about the most attractive ones, the ones that other people already care about. I said this to my mother and she told me Africa doesn't effect her life, well guess what neither does Connecticut. An answer like that says everything that needs to be said. You want this **** to end well it won't end until we recognize that we are in this together. That what happens in Africa is just as important as what happens in America as what happens in Poland and so on and so forth.

[SilentMute]

See my problem with this is you people could give a **** less about the people and children that are killed in places like Africa or war-torn countries in the Middle East. You simply don't care. People die everyday for nothing, children die everyday for nothing from lack of basic needs, starve everyday but what do you care it is not a good story. But every so often a real life tv drama comes along, a real life law and order episode comes along and for a week or so bored middle aged house wives find something to become emotionally involved in. And you forget about it in a week or a month. It's so hypocritical it makes me sick. I'm not saying that this isn't a tragedy but you can't just pick and choose what tragedies you care about. If you care about one humans suffering you care about every humans suffering and you simply don't, you only care about the most attractive ones, the ones that other people already care about. I said this to my mother and she told me Africa doesn't effect her life, well guess what neither does Connecticut. An answer like that says everything that needs to be said. You want this **** to end well it won't end until we recognize that we are in this together. That what happens in Africa is just as important as what happens in America as what happens in Poland and so on and so forth.

You make a good point. The world would be a better place if we had a larger view of things and recognized the connections. However, this is easier said than done. I think one of our major problems is the inability to connect and recognize other people as fellow human beings. I try to, but I know I fail often. There are just some people I cannot understand at all--and I almost view them as space aliens. I think most people feel isolated. Actually, I did a thread about this once. Most people did say that they felt more alone surrounded by people than when they were actually alone. I find a feeling of isolation leads to anger and dehumanizing others. Put a weapon in someone's hands, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Gun control could reduce violence or at least increase the chances of the victim surviving. However, it wouldn't totally solve the problem. The problem is much deeper.

Some of my ideas that would lead to less violence:
1. Everyone would have to feel safe. Ironically, this would have to happen first before we could get rid of the guns. You would think nobody could feel safe until we got rid of the guns. People have guns because they fear someone will harm them, unless they are hunters. So people would have to get over their fear before they could give up the weapon.
2. We would--as Rumfield mentioned--have to recognize all humans as fellow human beings and care about each and every one. That is also difficult when we have a hard time relating to different cultures, fear them...and keeping a world view when our lives are busy and it is easy to be preoccupied with other things.
3. We need to improve our mental health treatments and improve the ability to recognize mental illness. We would need a good tracking system to make sure that the mentally ill took their medications and were monitored.
4. We would need to figure out ways of helping young people who have difficulties socializing with peers overcome these problems.
5. We would have to figure out how to solve most of our social problems, and everyone would have to make the effort--no matter how busy their lives are--to work at this.

We would have to change our attitudes, each and every one of us, because I'm sure that most of us are guilty of something. When you see the kid with his pants falling down as a fashion statement, do you try to befriend him...or do you shake your head and say the kid is bad news? Do you fear befriending him because you think he is going to rob you? Do you get annoyed with the family down the street, whose children are always prowling the neighborhood at all hours of the night, asking for food? Do you try to help them, or do you complain about the white trash b**** whose recycle bin is full of liquor bottles who is too drunk to see to her own kids? These social problems can and often lead to bigger problems. It may not always be a school shooting or wind up on the news, but it leads to problems nonetheless.

I think humanity has the capacity to be peaceful. I just think that generally it is too much work, and everyone would just rather find easy if ineffective solutions.

[E.A Rumfield]

I think that people have to care all the time. Not just about popular topics for a short period of time. We have a lot of fundamental problems outside of "gun control". That's my point, you can't just care part time. I've had my share trying to talk sense into people, explain to them **** that is going on in the world and people are most apathetic; until a pretty white girl is murdered in another country or some Casey Anthony bull**** then all of a sudden everybody cares. The more I look around I feel that people are indoctrinated. Today everything is second hand experience. It's like life is a spectators sport and nobody cares to take action.

[Dark Star]

Instead of trying to do something about guns, we could try to do something about the gun-free zones that cause these things to happen. It's common sense that when you have an area where people are systematically set up to be helpless that bad things can happen if a psychopath has easy access to that area. There's a reason every single mass shooting occurred in a gun-free zone. There's a reason that when they're occasionally aborted it's caused by someone with a gun arriving early. There's a reason that allowing civilian concealed carry consistently lowers violent crime rates. Allow people to defend themselves and it deters violence from occurring in the first place.

Besides that, what evidence is there that a determined psychopath or criminal would not access a gun illegally the same way people access drugs (and in some cases body armor) illegally? The 'mass killings occur, therefore we should ban guns' argument is about as logical as saying, 'People drive drunk, therefore we should ban alcohol.'

[Delta40]

Laws on alcohol consumption exist and as a result reduce the road toll. Countries have tight gun control which reduces the amounts of massacres.

[E.A Rumfield]

Laws on alcohol consumption exist and as a result reduce the road toll. Countries have tight gun control which reduces the amounts of massacres.

He's saying if one of these teachers had a gun it wouldn't be an issue. It makes sense doesn't it.

[Volya]

Instead of trying to do something about guns, we could try to do something about the gun-free zones that cause these things to happen. It's common sense that when you have an area where people are systematically set up to be helpless that bad things can happen if a psychopath has easy access to that area. There's a reason every single mass shooting occurred in a gun-free zone. There's a reason that when they're occasionally aborted it's caused by someone with a gun arriving early. There's a reason that allowing civilian concealed carry consistently lowers violent crime rates. Allow people to defend themselves and it deters violence from occurring in the first place.

Besides that, what evidence is there that a determined psychopath or criminal would not access a gun illegally the same way people access drugs (and in some cases body armor) illegally? The 'mass killings occur, therefore we should ban guns' argument is about as logical as saying, 'People drive drunk, therefore we should ban alcohol.'

Dark Star, as much as I support your argument, the whole drink-driving analogy isn't really a great one, because when it comes down to it, a gun is designed to kill people, a beer is designed to taste good. Drinking a beer and getting in a car won't result in death 99% of the time, shooting somebody with a gun will.