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#241 |
Village Idiot.
Join Date: Apr 2006
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"Stellafane! My old partner in crime!" - Kelly J |
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#242 |
In the Peanut Gallery
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 52,557
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A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Sir Winston Churchill |
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#243 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 14,040
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The problem is what those Americans would need to do to get guns under control. As shown in other countries, gun control is achieved when only those suitable to have a gun, have one and it is very difficult for those not suitable to get one.
1 - find out who has a gun. That on its own is an impossible task, because so many will not cooperate and the laws required would never pass due to constant legal challenges and opposition. 2 - find out of those who have a gun, what gun or guns they have. Like 1 above, impossible to do due to a lack of cooperation and legal challenges. 3 - once 1 & 2 have been completed, determine who is suitable to keep their guns and who has to hand them over. That is an even harder task than 1 & 2, due to lack of cooperation and legal challenges. 1, 2 & 3 also fly against US culture, whereby the gun has such a huge role in US history and society, that is not found to anything like the same extent, in any other western country. Then the US arms industry is massive and it will not cooperate in much of it going out of business. The majority you speak of, who do nothing, can do nothing. You may as well criticise someone who has lost both their legs for not growing back two new ones. The only way forward is for Americans to learn to cope with mass shootings and reduce their impact. |
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Audiophile/biker/sceptic |
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#244 |
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Out back preparing the bunker for the next Civil War
Posts: 52,864
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But I have little hope that either of these will happen. If Sandy Hook and Parkland didn't change things, nothing will. |
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"Yes, I'll be around for many more centuries. You, meanwhile, will have long ago been turned into value dog food, despite your express wishes to the contrary." -- JihadJane |
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#245 |
In the Peanut Gallery
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 52,557
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A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Sir Winston Churchill |
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#246 |
Adult human female
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 50,355
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#247 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: In the Troll Ignoring Section
Posts: 21,213
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__________________
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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#248 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Colorado
Posts: 5,295
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Nothing will happen, at least not for a generation or two or three.
The thing is that people on both sides of the divide do want change. They just support opposing paths of change. The right will propose: 1: Arming the teachers and other school staff. 2: Bullet/shooter resistant schools. No ground floor windows, no interior windows, no trees or other barriers outside the school that a shooter could use to conceal themselves and fire from cover, interior walls made from bullet resistant standards, auto-locking classroom doors triggered by central alarm system, all that. There are design proposals out there for that. Very expensive design proposals which are used mainly as a distraction because gun lovers tend to lean libertarian and are never going to want to actually pay for these designs they think we need. 3: More church, more God, more Jesus. No psychiatry - God is all we need. 4: Ban abortion - yes, they really will make that connection. They think allowing abortion signals that killing humans is okay and therefore encourages murder of adults. Yes, many conservative Christian movers and shakers really believe or claim to believe that. 5: Just more dumbazz conspiracy theories. That has the beauty of being very profitable. Alex Jones rode the blood of Sandy Hook to fame and fortune, and many other Conspiracy Theorists will do the same with this shooting. See! They totally want things to change! The left will propose a host of gun control laws. Background checks, red flag laws, waiting periods, time/purchase limitations (can only buy one gun a week, something like that), magazine capacity limits. This gets more complicated because they'll focus on magazine-fed semi-auto long guns, which are often used in mass shootings - but mass shootings, no matter how horrific, only make up a small fraction of overall gun deaths in America. |
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#249 |
In the Peanut Gallery
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 52,557
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What I find interesting is that a very conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who I otherwise hated, brought gun control to Australia. He even wore bullet proof vests when standing up to gun owners at rallies.
So called progressive Biden will do nothing. |
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A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Sir Winston Churchill |
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#250 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 6,286
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#251 |
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#252 |
Adult human female
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
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It's the human cost. I remember when news of Dunblane was still coming out, one of my main hopes was that no family had lost an only child, or at least if one had, that they would be able to have more children and become a family again. But of course the worst had happened. A widower whose wife had died of breast cancer a couple of years previously lost their only child, a five-year-old girl. He spoke movingly of exactly that, going from being a family, a father of a child, to the status of single man, cut off from the community of "families" that congregates round school and youth activities and so on. It was devastating to him.
It's inevitable that similar tragic stories are waiting to come out of this one too. They're all tragic stories of course, but some of them get to you more than others. I don't know if it was the shock value, because "these things don't happen here!", but the effect of what happened at Dunblane on people in general has been quite profound. Witness what I said about the emotional reaction of a group of us to the realisation that a particular artwork was actually a memorial to the victims of the massacre, Fifteen years after it happened. Is America too big for people to empathise in the same way? Does empathy only extend to the local area? After being through Dunblane (as a mercifully uninvolved person) I feel the same way about any of these incidents. But did it take one which was local to me to sensitise me to the subject? I don't know. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#253 |
Village Idiot.
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"Stellafane! My old partner in crime!" - Kelly J |
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#254 |
In the Peanut Gallery
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Location: Melbourne
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A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Sir Winston Churchill |
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#255 |
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Those hot dogs won't grill themselves. Put those dead kids on ice and the Dems will get around to it eventually.
Quote:
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#256 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 1,273
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Things in the US will not change while it is loners or others on the fringes of this group or that committing these mass shootings. When teachers, CEOs, doctors, professors, politicians, specialists of all fields start going around shooting people up and dead with the latest high-powered weapons, only then will an actual effort be made to put the brakes on mass shootings.
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#257 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Rochester, NY
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#258 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Olomouc, Czech Republic
Posts: 4,002
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Nothing will happen. And in a sense, why now ?
Gun control is much more important for other reasons, than mass shooting. Sure it's scary. But those are very rare. Cars kill 100 times more people. Suicides by guns kill 100 times more people. Murders by gun kill 50 times more people. Probably more toddlers kill themselves with guns than there is school shootings victims. And don't even compare it to Covid. US clearly doesn't care, and current political system is impotent even if they did care. |
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#259 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: In the Troll Ignoring Section
Posts: 21,213
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I'm sorry to hear that one of those hit close to home.
Yeah, getting rid of the spree kill specialty weapons is my favorite option, along with no carry. Not just 'assault' style, but all mag fed semis. And I like guns, for sport purposes, but I'd like it more if it took a little longer to sport shoot at the expense of not having loser teens arm themselves like freaking soldiers and rack up a pile of bodies. With Australia as a real-time model, I don't see why the States can't collectively get behind something so conceptually simple. |
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"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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#260 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 43,373
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#261 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Aug 2009
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#262 |
Guest
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#263 |
Philosopher
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Location: Colorado
Posts: 6,236
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#264 |
Maledictorian
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 19,344
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There are a ton of things we could TRY, for zorg's sake.
If someone tells you that it's hopeless, they usually have a vested interest in not doing anything. |
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"The only true paradise is paradise lost" Marcel Proust |
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#265 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: In the Troll Ignoring Section
Posts: 21,213
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__________________
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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#266 |
Guest
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#267 |
Philosopher
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Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 7,566
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#268 |
Guest
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#269 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Colorado
Posts: 5,295
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#270 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Sorth Dakonsin
Posts: 27,448
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Just wild speculation (as if we don't get enough of that) -- I wonder if the elementary school was just a target of opportunity? Apparently the high school was nearby. But if he crashed the car and saw the other school was right there... Who knows why this nutjob did what he did.
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Science is self-correcting. Woo is self-contradicting. |
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#271 |
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Out back preparing the bunker for the next Civil War
Posts: 52,864
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__________________
"Yes, I'll be around for many more centuries. You, meanwhile, will have long ago been turned into value dog food, despite your express wishes to the contrary." -- JihadJane |
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#272 |
Adult human female
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 50,355
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__________________
"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#273 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Null
Posts: 15,479
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King Manchin has spoken
Quote:
So that's a wrap. See yall later to do the same dance after the next schoolhouse massacre. |
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#274 |
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Out back preparing the bunker for the next Civil War
Posts: 52,864
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I've seen surveys that suggest that about 40% of U.S. households own at least one gun. Allowing that some percentage of them are not kooks, I'm willing to say that the number of U.S. citizens who are kooks is at least 1 in 4. I refuse to go any lower.
As far as why, my take, in short, is that it's a combination of "frontier spirit," racism, old-time religion, and fear stoked by entities that have political and economic reasons. I'm sure other reasons could be added. A fuller discussion would require its own thread. |
__________________
"Yes, I'll be around for many more centuries. You, meanwhile, will have long ago been turned into value dog food, despite your express wishes to the contrary." -- JihadJane |
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#275 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
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I ask myself a lot these days, because, hyperbolic or not, America really does seem to have lost its collective mind.
There is a large faction that is solidly supporting a would-be dictator in the hopes of securing their rights. I can't explain it. It's madness. I think the core of it is related to our lack of non-partisan news sources. On another note, as it turns out, I'm on my way to a gun shop now. Seriously. I have a couple of old rifles I inherited and I want to see if they are safe to fire, so I planned on going in today, before I saw yesterday's news. I'll let everyone know if it's crowded, and pass on anything I hear that's extra stupid. |
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#276 |
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Out back preparing the bunker for the next Civil War
Posts: 52,864
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__________________
"Yes, I'll be around for many more centuries. You, meanwhile, will have long ago been turned into value dog food, despite your express wishes to the contrary." -- JihadJane |
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#277 |
Scholar
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 102
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And what exactly could you try? As long as there is no strong will to change things in the majority of the population, that's pointless.
People will pray, mourn, and tweet; that's it. They won't do anything, because the majority of them is not ready to sacrifice their private entertainment for the life of others. |
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#278 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 42,380
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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#279 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 6,286
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If the costs of black market guns spirals up, you won't need to imprison them. Using guns for petty crimes will result in the remains of the perpetrator needing to be identified by various complex processes. The same for twitchy, angsty potential purchasers with chips on their shoulders.
Constraining supply has the added benefit of making criminal suppliers who don't want blowback into unwitting enforcers of policy. |
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#280 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Null
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This assumes that a majority held Dem Senate would even pass such laws and not be stymied by conservatives within their own party, which is a recurring problem.
Dems could absolutely make an issue of this. Try to pass a bill and do a roll call vote and get people (Republican and Democrats) on the record. Make a pledge to do something should they ever hit some majority threshold. The party always makes vague statements about what could happen if only the people voted a bit harder, but the lack of specifics and accountability is pretty glaring. |
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