Concealed Carry on Schools

In the face of the latest Slaughter of the Innocents by a gun-wielding detestable object, America faces again the question of our romance with potential gun violence and the NRA's well funded urges to arm everyone of us, regardless of age and regardless of where we are while toting our guns.

Don't you feel so much safer, all you lucky folks (like me) who live in a concealed carry state?

Even at the height of our gun carrying history as epitomized by the Old West, most communities required everyone to check in their weapons with local law enforcement upon arriving. Were we saner then?

Give your opinion on concealed carry legislation. Please cite credible sources for facts and statistics to support your p.o.v., if need be.

13 dead and counting as of this post. Flying Spaghetti Monster, help us all.

These people seem to be on top of the issue. (In a way.)

Oh, the irony. I imagine most of those self-declared "no compromise" gun-sucking nuts have no trouble with. . .

Ban gay marriage!

Ban freedom of access for women to health care!

Ban Mexican "murderers and rapists"!

Ban medical marijuana!

Ban birth control!

Ban government!

But ban unregulated sales and possession of guns whose only purpose is killing people, preferably en masse? That "God and Jesus given right" can not be altered.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/09/idaho_this_year_became_the_sev.html

It doesn't work anyway. Only a flaming idiot would think that adding more problematic objects, to the problem one is having with problematic objects, is the answer.

Not everyone wants to "pack" a weapon. These individuals have rights too...although those rights have been trumped, stamped on and completely disregarded by those who feel a need to have their finger ever close to a trigger.

It is insane.

Shut down government over unborn, nonviable life and do NOTHING about the living people who are killed every single day by a fellow American with a gun.

Wonder what would happen if primarily women carried guns.....and men found no interest in the damn things.

If only women could make that happen...Say, FIB, I think we found a focus for your concerns. Start with the WWA, the Wisconsin Women's Army...

>5 RickHarsch:
Thanks but I have no desire to carry or use a gun. Or march against a supposed enemy either.

I've tried shooting (on a range) and I suppose it could be considered a sport but if my desire to continue enjoying a sport was causing so much havoc to so many people, I would find a different sport. Rather simple really. Everything else about why it is some of think they need to be armed is drafted and promoted by those whose financial interest is protected by bamboozling reactionary nonthinkers. Unfortunately a lot of these individuals are pro gun advocates.

>6 faceinbook:

I know I'm quibbling, but the NRA as an organization and the rabid "from my cold dead hands" crowd aren't "advocates." They're way beyond advocacy into strident, shrill, hysterical fanaticism. The most extreme of them, currently posting on various social media sites praising and celebrating the mass murderer have created an identity for their like-minded white-supremacist, gun-sucking, low self-esteem brethren who post under the umbrella term "beta uprising."

Having said that, it's hard to know if this "beta uprising" is more than one person sock puppeting their eyes out.

https://thebetauprising.wordpress.com/

Those who don't despise women, high functioning self-actuated people, minorities, and folks who don't worship gun-totin', they call "normies."

Pure speculation, but this appears to be the Twitter account of the "betauprising" blogger. If not a hoax, it's an extensive record of a disturbed and very angry young white male who heavily decorates his web presence with the image meme, "That Feel Guy." Possibly, it's one of the "inadequate male" image memes popular among self-identified betas.

https://twitter.com/r9k_txt

We all know the US is gun-insane, but the knee-jerk reactions to these shootings obscure the more important question regarding why they happen so often, oftener and oftener.

>8 RickHarsch:

That's a much better question. Guns have been owned by citizens before the United States existed; fully automatic weapons since the early 1920s. But mass school shootings simply didn't happen until comparatively recently. The capability existed; people with psychological problems existed; so what has changed in motivations to make such actions occur?

>8 RickHarsch:
"We all know the US is gun-insane, but the knee-jerk reactions to these shootings obscure the more important question regarding why they happen so often, oftener and oftener."

You are SO not going to like my response but it is my firm belief that this is happening because oftener and oftener people are not responsible for their own actions or their feelings. Always someone else's fault. Always a scape goat as to why we do the things we do or who made us feel bad today.

This young man had issues....he was protected by his mother. I hate to lay it all on her cause the father should have equal responsibility but very often this is not the case. In order for him to get any help what so ever the mom would need help as well. They acted together......he had odd behaviors and she enabled him to live the way he did. Adam Lanza was much the same way. Father's tend to walk away and when confronted with any mental health care they want little of nothing to do with it.

Even those who are screwed up to the max, need to be held responsible for how they act and treat others. OR they decide that today is a good day to take out a few types of people who piss me off. Those who are making me feel this bad. BS...........a giant BS !

I know you don't like this and I know I sound like a broken record by our much of our society is willing to say or do what ever they want to others and then blame someone else for "making" them do it. It is a form of insanity in and of itself. I believe that to some extent it is human nature to be this way but our parents', teachers, our legal system have roles in teaching us that what we do affects others and we are not the center of the universe. Parent's seem to have fallen short on this lesson, they have also hamstrung teachers and other authority figures. Everyone knows how I feel about a legal system that cares nothing about whether or not one committed a crime but is structured on the premise that perhaps we can prove you didn't do a thing. More loads of BS.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-accused-drunkenly-vaping-flight-b...

Extreme ? Not really. Her response was pretty much the norm. If the airline pressed charges some lawyer would take the case, some judge would listen to her whining and it is just possible that she was somehow harmed by someone trying to make her behave herself. BS is everywhere.

>9 BruceCoulson:
"That's a much better question. Guns have been owned by citizens before the United States existed; "

Because in the past, guns had a purpose. Gun's were to protect people in the boonies. Guns were used to put food on the table. Gun's were also not the military grade toys we see today. Early guns were cumbersome.

Today guns are toys. There is really no reason for most people to own one. They have become somewhat purposeless. On the other hand, I don't think any one buys a gun, any kind of gun, without wanting to use it. On what ? Where ? So ...... they get used. The right to do this is superseding the rights of those who see a society that really has little use for guns and would prefer not getting shot.

>9 BruceCoulson: he capability existed; people with psychological problems existed; so what has changed in motivations to make such actions occur

Maybe it's a tipping point thing? People are prone to imitate others, and the ease and speed with which news and information of such attacks makes its way through our culture now almost ensures that once one person does it, others will follow suit.

There might also be something in how displaced and therefore disassociated people are these days. They move around and it becomes harder and harder to form ties to one's community. Clearly a sense of isolation is toxic to us.

FIB, you're sort of right. I couldn't really read your response closely because I know what the next phrase, the next sentence will be. You are no longer exploring. And your personal responsibility thing is a granny response. The other night I told a friend I could sympathise with an 80 year old who has trouble accepting gay marriage if the reason is really that so much change has occurred that it seems the world is simply going off the rails. It IS going off the rails, and who really has the wherewithall to figure it out. At some point many elderly people just make their decisions and stop thinking. Better not to, but understandable to some degree if they do. You're too young to turn into a granny and stop thinking. You use anecdotal evidence to make sociological generalizations that are essentially vapid, I am sorry to say. Your thoughts on this issue add nothing to the understanding of the phenomenon of school shootings. What you describe is in no way unique to our time and place. Want to see the coddled middle and upper class male? Go to India. Go...well, pretty much anywhere.

FIB, see #12. That's at least a thoughtful start, a beginning of exploration.

You will notice I can locate the useless explanations but offer none of my own. I think primarily in economic terms when it comes to social ills. This requires a broadening of my primary instinctual thinking. Otherwise I begin with the economic and am led by it and perhaps pass right by some key problems. For instance, I wonder about the uselessness of most work vis a vis individual sense of worth. The emptiness of the human who makes enough money doing absolutely nothing that salves the being. Am I getting anywhere?

I await Hollywood's response. Not some low key after school sombre special, but the extravaganza, the Jaws-like flick that preys on our fears. I can only guess given the chores required around the house that prevent me from doing the math, but a person in the US is about 11,000 times more likely to die in a school shooting than to be killed by a shark. My odds would be significantly lower if I had the same situation in the US that I have here, as I do not attend many school functions nor walk my kids to school. Still, that brings the odds down to 89 times more likely to be killed in a school shooting than to be killed by a shark EVEN THOUGH I LIVE ON THE SEA.

The movie...Two schools, states unnamed. In one their is great fear of a shooting, for whatever reason. In the other, great fear of a shooting, for whatever reason. In one, a shooting will occur. In the other, only the fear. That's mixing Hitchcock with whoever made Jaws--but both have to present apprehension, denial, preventive actions, ramped up fear as preventive actions alarm more people. We see a couple arguing about whether to let their kid walk home--after all, her odds are the same, but their odds increase significantly if they go to pick her up. Why add to the risk? School shootings don't happen on the walk home. Both films focus on some loners, one being a kid who draws cats hung from trees. One shows a popular guy who gradually is shown to display odder and odder behaviour. In each, parents buy guns, teachers buy guns, students get guns. SWAT teams MUST be used in both films. The classic scene when all is obvious and the SWAT team gets there just in time to find that the locker is filled with harmless school objects, the other in which the SWAT team arrives with the shooter still roaming the halls. In both fims, a man of some importance says, 'I don't know, I just have a bad feeling about this.' Lots of lines like, 'You're making way to much of this.' Cut out the affairs, this is rated G or PG or whatever blood and guts are now rated when there is no sex. Many boys are spurned by girls. Many girls are insulted by the in-girls. In each film a likable guy/gal survives: in one, perhaps he faces down the killer, saves his class/her class, gets shot, last seen smiling in ambulance. In the other: he/she hugs son/daughter upon realizing it was a squirt gun or a painted bar of soap to be used in the school play. Final scene: husband and wife in the town where there was no killing hear of the killing on the radio, look meaningfully at each other, cut to couple at gun shop.

Yes, what changed? A LOT! Here are some factors that may be contributing conditions. I leave it to the reader to judge.

Guns were expensive, clumsy, extremely dangerous, and difficult to acquire, therefore rarely was there more than one per household. Also they were seldom carried or used by others than adult males. Normally they were not concealed. Now guns are literally fashion accessories, designed to look harmless, miniaturized, relatively cheap and low-tech, and carried by everyone regardless of age. Now a powerful, over-funded organization exists to do nothing other than promote their sales.

Once upon a time in America, people understood the actual meanings of the words "freedom," "liberty," and "rights." Now people believe freedom means to do whatever they want, rather than to be able to choose how they will make their livings (not be serfs and slaves, and villeins), and to be free from persecution for their professions (actors) and beliefs (atheism).

Now people believe liberty means the individual can do anything he wants and laws he disagrees with or dislikes can be flouted. Regarding liberty, even Catherine the Great, a Russian empress who had studied her Montesquieu and Voltaire understood that "Liberty is the right to do anything not forbidden by law." -- from her Nakaz of 1767.

As for rights, the 18th C. understanding derived from Rousseau's "The Social Contract," which lays out the individual natural freedoms men give up in order to enjoy the greater protections and services of the state when they live in a civil (governed) society. They do so in order that all are equal within that society. He also emphasized that civil societies must construct laws that represent the general will of all of the people in them. Today, segments of society whose numbers have warped views and who have probably never read, or even heard of Montesquieu and Rousseau believe all their rights to their interpretation of liberty and freedom are inalienable to them because they want it that way. They are, in short, at war with civil society. To be perfectly clear, they prefer being barbarians with the perks and privileges of being citizens of a civil society they don't support. They are convinced it is the general will of the people that they can own as many guns as they want, put them in the hands of the mentally unfit, in children's hands, and the idiots who want them without any restrictions whatsoever.

What has happened is that the barbarians reject civil society on the grounds that of all the Bill of Rights, ONLY the second amendment and their strident mis-definition of it is absolute. In the 18th C. everyone understood that a regulated militia was only formed by the state as a result of the expression of the general will of all the people. It was never a club of misfits armed beyond reason.

Combine a loud and aggressive minority segment of the population who have twisted the actual meanings of vocabulary to suit their twisted attitudes about a government that doesn't allow them to have their own way once the rights of others begin, which is propped up, propagandized, and well funded by the NRA and your result is an uncivil society in which the general will of the people is effectively cowed by their juggernaut.

Hence, those who believe the Almighty Gun is their Savior in any circumstance become a dominant force within civilized countries, projecting and forcing their views on the general public through violence and the threat of it. Mass killings and wacko stand-offs are just exercises of their "rights" to "freedom and liberty."

The solution? Look no further than countries with strict gun control and hardly any or zero violent incidents like those that now occur twice a month in the US, on average. When they do, they rightly call it terrorism and deploy their version of "Homeland Security" to interdict it. We don't.

Of course, all of the above is only worth $0.02.

The only practical conclusion I can draw from this latest incident of barbarism, and the predictable reaction to it, is that Americans (#notallAmericans) prefer to expose themselves and their fellow citizens to the real risk of death posed by gun violence than the hypothetical risk of death posed by "tyranny."

From a more general standpoint, if civilization is measured by the absence of gun violence, then the US is one of the most uncivilized places on earth. From the National Rifle Manufacturers Association and its paid politicians to the yokel libertarian sheriff in Oregon, the bulwark of barbarism is immense and apparently impenetrable by the forces of reason.

>14 RickHarsch:
"FIB, see #12. That's at least a thoughtful start, a beginning of exploration."

I agree with #12 . I do think it is a big aspect of some of our issues. However, I am still not clear as to why you don't think the parents of the last shooter may have made some mistakes that had they been handled differently and yesterday's shooting could have been avoided.

It is a granny's response in some respects. However, it doesn't change the fact that teachers are now far more beholding to the demands of parents than ever before. (a fact that has not raised the education levels of our children) Fights at little league games between parents is a new issue and has a good deal to do with the fact that one's child has to be in the "right"......there is little compromise or room for "fun" in the games children are playing. Perhaps I should say the planned, scripted games that parents expect their kids to play.

It is different than when I grew up....different even more from when my parents grew up but doesn't it figure that if it is different than the problems that arise will also be different. As it should be. This time it is most deadly to those around us.

We are also experiencing the first generations of young people whose parents, some whose grandparents, never fought in a war. Never experienced the horror of seeing friends and comrades after they've become the target of a weapon of any sort. Nor have these young people had to shoot any living thing so as to feed themselves. To them a gun is on a screen....TV, computer, phone....what ever. So are the blood and body tissue.

I have a daughter and a son......my daughter's husband hunts. He has hunting rifles in his home. He taught his boys to hunt. My son never owned a gun....never shot anything. My daughter's boys never played with guns, ever. My son's boys have toy guns.....his youngest has already been in trouble for his actions with a toy gun. He has no clue what he is doing.....my son, nor the boy. It is a toy.
Granted we grew up with cowboy and indian shoot em ups but my dad would always remind us that what we saw on TV was not what one saw when using a real gun on a real person. He knew, he was there. How many young parents do that now ? Most I see in my area are people buying their kids real guns and looking for family friendly shooting ranges. To play.....with the gun.

Actually >17 theoria: said it in a nutshell without using the word responsibility. At times, freedom isn't free.....a civilized society calls for sacrificing one's own will to protect the majority of those who live within that society . Doesn't seem a popular attitude right now. Limelite is spot on........without the grannyisms that seem to upset you so much.

>17 theoria:
"From the National Rifle Manufacturers Association and its paid politicians to the yokel libertarian sheriff in Oregon, the bulwark of barbarism is immense and apparently impenetrable by the forces of reason."

Why do you suppose this is the case ?

>9 BruceCoulson:

Any chance you'd like to take a stab at answering that?

>19 faceinbook: A partial answer: American political culture bears the seeds of moral degeneracy (the Second Amendment); the fruit of these seeds is rampant gun violence.

>21 theoria: Agree......
The Second Amendment was appropriate at the time it was written. So was the importance of owning a decent plow horse or a quality milking cow. The inability to move on based on what is good for the culture of a country breeds moral degeneracy.

Murder increase comes from the persistent attack on retributive justice from the same pinkos who wrings their hands over someone having a modicum of defense against their darling criminals.

I think the idea that people want guns for self defense is a total lie. They want guns because they like guns and they like shooting them.

I want a gun for self-defense. More importantly (because these things don't work at the individual level) I want a critical number of people around me to have guns for self-defense so violent crime is no longer a risk-free activity.

If self defense was so important people would be spending more money on their home security systems and building panic rooms than they would on their Cable Network ESPN packages. They just like the idea of walking around with the power to blow someone's head off and not be arrested for it.

>25 Kuiperdolin:
"I want a gun for self-defense. More importantly (because these things don't work at the individual level) I want a critical number of people around me to have guns for self-defense so violent crime is no longer a risk-free activity."

Are we striving for "One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all" ? Or are we much like the Middle East where we are going to be fighting our fellow countrymen at all times. I was raised under the premise that we were all of one nation.

>24 southernbooklady:
"I think the idea that people want guns for self defense is a total lie. They want guns because they like guns and they like shooting them."
>26 southernbooklady:
"If self defense was so important people would be spending more money on their home security systems and building panic rooms than they would on their Cable Network ESPN packages. They just like the idea of walking around with the power to blow someone's head off and not be arrested for it."

THANK YOU !

http://www.inquisitr.com/2468623/oregon-shooting-chris-harper-mercer/

It is impossible to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill when loved one's are handing them guns.

Nothing will work except the truth........the truth, as I see it, is that guns have little or no purpose in society today except as a hobby, a play thing. The truth also includes the fact that people will use and abuse talking points (every single BS point, repeated over and over by the NRA, is an insult to the intelligence of thinking individuals) AND an amendment written in the 1700's, to support their right to obtain, keep and play with their toys. The most horrible and heartbreaking truth is this : The desire of gun owners to have and keep what they want for themselves trumps human life. Life simply comes in second when confronted with the idea of a gun free society. (even a common sense gun law society....nothing changes.....kids die)

"Are we striving for "One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all" ? Or are we much like the Middle East where we are going to be fighting our fellow countrymen at all times. I was raised under the premise that we were all of one nation."

The fight is ongoing (although saying it involves only "one nation" is quite the strectch). You are arguing for leaving one and only one of the parties defenseless.

Kuiperdolin--they have armies in most countries--surely you could sign up. You'll get a gun and be surrounded by people with guns.

Way too old for that.

You are arguing for leaving one and only one of the parties defenseless.

In the U.S., states that have more gun regulations also have fewer instances of gun-related death. The idea that more guns somehow deters crime is a myth not supported by evidence.

Get a promotional job, anything. From what you write here I think you badly need to be in the military in some capacity. Or a cartel.

For people who make the old "if only MORE people had guns, we'd all be safer" argument, I look at the incidents that occur and wonder if they see how untrue that is. If many of the people in the movie theater/classroom/grocery store/whatever were armed when someone came in and started shooting, would the tragedy be averted? Not likely, because the perpetrator has the element of surprise on their side. Even armed-to-the-teeth people who are trying to watch a movie/shop/learn/go about their day are going to need some time to react, identify the perpetrator, get out their weapon, etc. and a roomful of people can be killed in that time. Everyone seems to think they are John Wayne and going to stop a bad guy with a bullet between the eyes before they fire a single shot, but in reality, trying to take aim at a shooter in a room full of screaming people isn't a simple task.

Imagine if that cameraman and reporter that were shot recently while trying to do their jobs had been armed. Would they be alive today? Doubtful. Besides a gun, they'd have to have eyes on the back of their head and superhuman speed and eyesight.

>25 Kuiperdolin:

In the interests of full disclosure, how many "a gun" for self defense do you own? And what kind is it?

(Oops! I hit post instead of preview)

Also, in your opinion, was the Wyoming rancher who grazed his cattle on land my and your tax dollars make possible, and who refused to pay his "rent" to the Federal gov't for the privilege of putting them on public land acting in "self defense" when he presented armed resistance to Federal Officers who rightly came to repo his beeves for money owed and violation of Federal law? And were the trigger-eager militia and survivalist types who "rallied to his cause" a well ordered malitia, or just an ordinary band of outlaws?

I can answer that, L: Kuiperdole, go and be amongst them!

For the gun-lovers who try to hide their armament amour behind the skirts of self defense. Here's some interesting statistics from The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. . .

In 2010, unintentional firearm injuries caused the deaths of 606 people.

From 2005-2010, almost 3,800 people in the U.S. died from unintentional shootings.

Over 1,300 victims of unintentional shootings for the period 2005–2010 were under 25 years of age.

People of all age groups are significantly more likely to die from unintentional firearm injuries when they live in states with more guns, relative to states with fewer guns. On average, states with the highest gun levels had nine times the rate of unintentional firearms deaths compared to states with the lowest gun levels.

A federal government study of unintentional shootings found that 8% of such shooting deaths resulted from shots fired by children under the age of six.

Gee, doesn't look like that so-called motive for packing heat has much validity at the rate fools with hand guns are shooting themselves "for protection." Then there's this ugly truth about gun-lovers who keep their weapons in their homes, again for self defense. Also from the Law Center, in a May 2015 article titled, Statistics on the Dangers of Gun Use for Self-Defense. . .

Guns kept in the home are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal unintentional shooting, criminal assault or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense. That is, a gun is more likely to be used to kill or injure an innocent person in the home than a threatening intruder. . .

. . . Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that living in a home where guns are kept increased an individual’s risk of death by homicide by between 40 and 170%. Another study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology similarly found that “persons with guns in the home were at greater risk of dying from a homicide in the home than those without guns in the home.” This study determined that the presence of guns in the home increased an individual’s risk of death by homicide by 90%. . .

. . .Claims that guns are used defensively millions times every year have been widely discredited. . .At least one study has found that carrying a firearm significantly increases a person’s risk of being shot in an assault; research published in the American Journal of Public Health reported that, even after adjusting for confounding factors, individuals who were in possession of a gun were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. . .

. . .the federal Bureau of Justice found that defensive gun use occurs at a dramatically lower rate, about 98.5% lower than the gun lobby has claimed. . .

. . . a majority of self-reported defensive gun uses may also have been illegal and against the interests of society.

I've learned that reason has absolutely no impact on unreasonable people brainwashed by received knowledge. In this case, "The NRA says blah, blah, blah. You'll get my gun from my cold dead hands." Chances are that's the only factual statement the self defense arguers will ever make on the subject. The facts also prove my claim that gun lobbied fanatics are making war on civil society and are the true barbarians at the gates.

>36 Limelite: 'how many "a gun" for self defense do you own? And what kind is it?'

None. It's not legal here which is why crime is rampant (Leftie "statistics" notwithstanding).

I don't know what you think my tax money is doing in Wyoming but that bloke is certainly less of a strain on it than, well, more or less everything.

We've had this conversation before, regarding the last cinema shooting. If a couple of attendees had been armed and shot back, the death count would likely have been higher, with ordinary cinema-goers caught in the crossfire, and police unable to tell who was the original shooter and who were just good-hearted vigilantes.

With the exception of few very remote area's of the United States, there is absolutely no defense for gun ownership other than pure selfishness. Selfishness that supersedes the rights of many to remain living. If that selfishness is not addressed when 20 grade school kids are blown to pieces then shame on us. I don't care what words are written on a paper that is hundreds of years old, or how "scared" some people seem to be of each other.......no classroom full of second graders should be shot up without the adults of society making some sort of change. It shouldn't happen.

Did you know that we are the only country to loosen gun laws every time their is a mass shooting ?

Insane.......keep doing the same old same old and think it will be different. Worse yet ? Not care about a school child whose body has been torn to bits by bullets. Who are these selfish AHoles ? I can not wrap my head around that level of noncaring and disregard for our youth. Breaks my heart.

My Facebook page has been riddled with pro gun people the past few days....touting their stupidity on a public forum. GOOD guy....bad guy...SELF defense...MY rights...RESPONSIBLE.....all of it is bull shit. ALL of it. Guns are weapons of mass destruction.

Kuiperdolin has been gone for some time, like maybe suspended, oddly he disappeared when lots of sockpuppets were going apeshit and got caught for their hateful fervor. I don't think he rates a response anywhere. That is of course circumstantial, so let me supply another reason: he has never written anything that deserves a response.

I'm always sort of nonplussed by the argument that if you pulled a gun in a firefight you would somehow be defusing the situation. Far from making you safer, you'd just become a target. And far from making anyone else safer, you'd just be trying to figure out who the target was.

I was never suspended. If I were I would not slink back like a dog to the man who kicked him.

>43 southernbooklady: here's the take from someone who was carrying and on campus during the Oregon shooting. It also knocks down the BS about it being a "Gun Free" zone. It was more a "guns discouraged" zone.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/armed-vet-destroys-gun-nuts-argument-on-mass-sho...

(Leftie "statistics" notwithstanding).

The fact that reality doesn't match your gun-nut proclivities doesn't mean you can simply dismiss it.

What is a leftie (sic?) statistic, anyway?

>46 StormRaven: I think that those such as Kuiperdolin have proven they CAN dismiss anything, regardless of the truth--in fact choose their narrow needs over truth.

>44 Kuiperdolin: That's probably what I would write if I had been suspended.

I don't doubt it.

>36 Limelite:

Nevada.

>51 cpg: I thought of that dark clown asshole in Nevada as well, but in the US you can pick a state out of your hat or ass and write the same thing and you will likely find a case just like it on some scale.

>52 RickHarsch:

Okay, let's hear about the case just like it on some scale in Wyoming.

First, my good friend CPG, let's start with a little frontier justice.

This is from a TRUE STORY, told me by my father, one of the people involved being a relative, one of my ancestrals, that was so good I inserted it into my recently finished novel (so it is altered at some edges, and the names mostly changed, but the essentials are there, including Wyoming--my great grandmother was the first woman in that state to own and operate a cab company--in Cheyenne):

"Campfire talk overheard, voice of one Pete Dodger



…took place in Van Tassel, Wyoming, right round cheer, ranch some 300 thousand or so acres, strickly a cattle operation. Ross’s half brother was—not Ross, Pete, Burt—Louisville—Ross—Burt! Lewelville, a crustit sunburnt foreman a the ranch.

So the ranch owner’s daughter come pregnant, and said it must a happened when she was sleep. All a the ranch hands was called into the ranch house and Rossburt he got him the dubbleass task of determint the crimnal. After a lot of questions, one guy stood out, dumbass galoot name a Willy Westlake. He kep on stumblin ansers wrong to question misturd and is on verge to git assrun out thar, when miss Bonnie Sue, hired girl, speaks up: “Twernt Willy–twouda woke her.”

Why, don’t ya git it?"

some of the vernacular was supplied by my pa, some by me

I'm always sort of nonplussed by the argument that if you pulled a gun in a firefight you would somehow be defusing the situation. Far from making you safer, you'd just become a target. And far from making anyone else safer, you'd just be trying to figure out who the target was.

I'm nonplussed by the dogmatism of these assertions. If we were in a classroom together, and there was a shooter in the next room, and he was coming over, well, I'd want you to have a gun. Are you honestly saying you wouldn't? That you'd throw it out the window, figuring using a gun against a mass murderer with a gun could only do more harm that good? Would you give me your guns, please?

Look, I think there are VERY compelling reasons not to allow guns on campuses, open carry and etc. But they don't rely on the notion that guns do no good in specific circumstances. Obviously guns can prevent tragedies. The argument is, rather, on the statistics and side-effects—that having those guns is worse the rest of the time.

I'm non-plussed that someone could both conceive this scenario and seriously present it--let's say there's a gun nut in the next room, see, and we have a gun, see...It's an example of allowing the utter insanity of the overall problem to draw you into its insanity. There is nowhere to go from your example than everyone gets a gun. Nowhere. The problem clearly needs to be addressed at a pre-lunacy point.

There is nowhere to go from your example than everyone gets a gun.

Yes there is, as I laid out. Although in individual cases, having a gun in a classroom is a good idea, in aggregate it is very much not. That's a reasonable argument. That guns are never good is not a good argument. It's a religious statement.

>55 timspalding: This sounds to me like one of the hypothetical questions in ethics discussions. You can either divert a train and kill one man or let it roll on and kill 20. Etc. So sure if there is a mass murderer on his way into the classroom I'd want you to shoot him. But what if you ain't sure and the guy trying to open the door is another guy trying to flee the murderer. Or if there is no murderer but just a loud movie about school shootings being shown in the room next to the classroom etc. I'm really at a loss trying to contruct a real life situation where I'd want you to have a gun. >57 timspalding: So count me in with the religious statement guys.

>58 bnielsen: I can think of situations, school shootings included, where a well-trained armed individual would be welcome. Unfortunately, there aren't training requirements for carrying a firearm, and that guy with a gun that you're depending on to protect you may have no training beyond a little fun with things set on fenceposts. And a scared and amped-up person who has only action movies as his mentor is not who you want armed in your vicinity.

>47 RickHarsch: Well a histogram of blood pressure measurements from a group of patients suffering from high blood pressure would have their main peak to the right but it would be an asymmetric distribution with a heavy skew to the left so I guess that is one possibility.

>59 RidgewayGirl: Exactly. I was in Copenhagen in February, where one guy upset most of the city by shooting a guard near the synagoge after trying to kill Lars VIlks. Having lots of police with automatic weapons on the ready didn't make me feel secure. I'm okay with having well-trained armed individuals (preferably police) shoot a bad guy but I just don't want to be anywhere near the place. Even police bullets can hit innocent people.

>60 alco261: Thanks. I'm rather relieved.

>57 timspalding: Not for the first time I see that we inhabit different universes much of the time. In this case it's because bnielsen is right in 58 to be reminded of a purely incorporeal hypothetical. It's also because you tend to, in your posts, come off as immune to feeling. After yet another school mass murder you basically come down on those who are emotionally repulsed and terribly upset. One guesses you take pride in your ability to be remote from the human, thinking, sometimes quite mistakenly, that your are being objective, and that, even more often a mistake, that such is a good thing to be. (I am of the 20th century, which, to my mind obliterated the concept of objectivity--there are times, of course, that I strive to be 'objective', but I don't make a religion of it as you seem to have.)

>55 timspalding: there was a shooter in the next room, and he was coming over, well, I'd want you to have a gun. Are you honestly saying you wouldn't?

I absolutely wouldn't. I wouldn't want one, because I have no training, not the slightest idea of how to react in a crisis (past experience suggests I'm one of those people who would freeze in a crisis), no idea if I could actually shoot someone, no confidence that I could make an appropriate assessment of a situation much less take an appropriate action. I would make the situation more dangerous just by being armed and not knowing what to do with it.

And I absolutely wouldn't want you to have a gun either, because for all I know, you could be just like me. Worse, you could be just like me but with more testosterone and more denial about your abilities and limitations. What possible reason would I have to trust your judgement given that you've apparently also brought a gun into a school?

So no. A gun would make everything worse. I would much much rather step in front of a bullet than be responsible for firing one.

I would much much rather step in front of a bullet than be responsible for firing one.

In a crisis, you'd get your wish. And so would everyone else you could have protected but didn't.

Again, I don't think guns in school is a good idea. The aggregate effect would be worse, probably. But the dogmatism here—that guns are ALWAYS worse, that someone having a gun in an situation to prevent mass murder even—is appalling. Guns are NEVER better? No civilians is EVER able to stop a murderer? EVERY situation is made worse with a gun?

Having lots of police with automatic weapons on the ready didn't make me feel secure.

But the fact is that the police do make you more secure. That police don't "make you feel secure" is exactly like the notion that vaccines "don't make you feel healthy"—a false feeling, a local illusion held by people who live in well-vaccinated countries, with no exposure to what the world would be like without them.

You can be assured that someone who has lived in a country without police is glad to have them.

This sounds to me like one of the hypothetical questions in ethics discussions. You can either divert a train and kill one man or let it roll on and kill 20.

It's not a hypothetical. There are many occasions when a trained person with a gun stops a crime that could have been far worse. If you are unaware of them, I can only assume you have blinded yourself to them. That's fair enough in this day and age. That you can't imaging it speaks to something rather stranger--the inability to have your overall policy opinion (one I agree with, by the way) be wrong in any particular instance. I find such surety rather scary, frankly. I find it the definition of a religious policy opinion.

It's also because you tend to, in your posts, come off as immune to feeling.

I'm sorry you think so.

>64 southernbooklady:: Judging from the ugly post #65 you are a bad person who cares more about yourself than others even when you would rather die than kill. No, Timmy, you can't get the Gandhi of the week award yet again this week.

I means for fuck's sake, to read something lovely these days, much less on pro and con: ' I would much much rather step in front of a bullet than be responsible for firing one.' And we all know SBL and that she is not speaking for her ego's sake...To read something so nice and then see it shat upon immediately by an educated man....

Thank fucking god it's bed-time on the Adriatic.

>65 timspalding: The person who bears the responsibility of casualties in a gun fight is always the person who fires the gun. I'm not about to condemn civilians for whatever they didn't do when someone was shooting at them.

The person who bears the responsibility of casualties in a gun fight is always the person who fires the gun. I'm not about to condemn civilians for whatever they didn't do when someone was shooting at them.

I'm not going to condemn someone for being afraid. But I think we should all praise the soldier who charged the shooter in a failed attempt to stop him, and got seven bullets for his efforts. And while I don't think guns in schools are a good thing in the aggregate, I think the situation might have been improved by that guy having a gun.

Wow, #65 went on a high fat spree!

ETA: would it kill you, Spalding, to stop, think, understand, and say, yes, sorry SBL, didn't realize how that came off? would it fucking kill you to admit you're wrong?

make that one or two questions. Here's a third; or second: would it kill ya, man?

>69 RickHarsch:

I'm sorry that you think I've offended SBL. I shall restrain myself from discussing how you "come off."

Even kids are getting in on the act.

"An 11-year-old boy faces a murder charge after witnesses say he killed his eight-year-old neighbour because she would not let him see her puppy.

Latasha Dyer told WATE-TV her daughter was playing outside when the next-door neighbour asked to see the puppy. She said the girl, McKayla, told the boy “no” and the boy then shot her.

Sheriff Bud McCoig of Jefferson County said the boy used his father’s 12-gauge shotgun to kill McKayla from inside his home.

Deputies called to the scene on Saturday in White Pine found McKayla on the ground with a chest wound. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/05/tennessee-boy-shooting-girl-neigh...

>68 timspalding: I'm not going to condemn someone for being afraid.

Of course not. So the observation that I could have protected people if I'd been armed even in the face of my admission that I'm not good in a crisis is ...what?

I think the situation might have been improved by that guy having a gun.

A soldier, by definition, is someone trained for a crisis. He's also someone who could conceivably have a legitimate reason to carry a gun. Your average PTA member? Not so much. So really the implication is that we need armed trained security in every classroom.

There was at least one armed vet on the campus that day -- he says he was ready to defend the classroom he was put in when the campus went into lockdown. But he didn't go looking for the shooter, despite being armed and possessed of the kind of training that might have allowed him to deal with the situation.

Here's a standard list of mass murder events stopped by an armed civilian, in the Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/03/do-civilians...

Now, if you want to argue that these events are swamped by the many other bad effects of having guns everywhere, fine. I agree with you! But "guns never solve anything" and "guns always make things worse" is neither factually defensible nor, I think, even rational. The same applies to "household guns never make you safer." It is a religious opinion.

Of course not. So the observation that I could have protected people if I'd been armed even in the face of my admission that I'm not good in a crisis is ...what?

Well, I think you having a gun in a situation where your gun was the only thing between others and death is better than you not having a gun. Obviously, if we're dolling out guns, some people are going to be better with them than others. And, again, I don't think should have one. Or indeed anyone at a school, apart from those specifically trained.

So really the implication is that we need armed trained security in every classroom.

I'm not sure why you're not following me here. There is no such implication. I don't think we need guns in schools, period. The aggregate effect is probably far worse.

But he didn't go looking for the shooter, despite being armed and possessed of the kind of training that might have allowed him to deal with the situation.

Fine. Was the room he was defending worse off for having him there, with a gun?

>73 timspalding: But "guns never solve anything" and "guns always make things worse" is neither factually defensible nor, I think, even rational. The same applies to "household guns never make you safer."

So it's like the correlation between smoking and lung cancer? Enough statistical evidence to suggest causation, but hey, not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer, so never say never?

>65 timspalding: You misrepresent what I was saying. Lots of (Danish) police = ok. Lots of (Danish) police with 9 mm guns = mostly ok. Lots of police with automatic weapons ready = not ok.
Also putting me in a box with the no-vaccination people is a straw man. And I also didn't claim that I'd like the police to go away. Please go find some better arguments.

Actually the automatic weapon the Copenhagen shooter used, was stolen from a member of the home guard (Hjemmeværnet). So instead of "Lets arm the police more", the discussion "Lets arm the home guard less" came up.

To have weapons around that can easily be reached and used to stop dangerous persons is a dangerous thing. That you think that you can easily identify a situation where it would be an advantage to have a gun is appalling, scary and sounds like a religious policy opinion.

But then, we don't have to agree on this. Danes and Americans seldom agree on this issue, so let's just go on thinking the other guy is crazy :-)

>70 timspalding: An inelegant way of saying 'Yes, it would kill me.' Well, after all, we are discussing guns.

>73 timspalding:

We can start with comparing them to seat belts. In very many cases, seat belts save lives. In a few cases, they kill someone by trapping them in a vehicle from which they might otherwise have been thrown clear, etc. The aggregate numbers are clear: seat belts save lives. As a matter of law, we should require or at least encourage them. But it is factually incorrect and rather strangely dogmatic to say that seat belts always help.

But seat belts aren't something one can be trained for, evaluated for, or prepared for. The chances are all about the same with seat belt. The same is not true with guns. We know it's a bad idea for certain people to have guns in school. But it might be a good idea for some people in a school to have a gun—a principal who was trained as a cop, for example. Or it might not. I wouldn't be surprised if adding a gun to a school, even if you could be sure of the person who held it, adds an unacceptable risk of the gun being swiped by someone else. You'd have to run the numbers, or, more probably, guess. But it's certainly true that in some circumstances, a civilian gun helps, not hurts.

>77 timspalding: But it might be a good idea for some people in a school to have a gun—a principal who was trained as a cop, for example.

If it is part of a person's job description to act as an armed defense in the event of an emergency, they are not exactly "a civilian" are they?

To have weapons around that can easily be reached and used to stop dangerous persons is a dangerous thing. That you think that you can easily identify a situation where it would be an advantage to have a gun is appalling, scary and sounds like a religious policy opinion.

Wait, so, that I can think of a situation where having a gun is an advantage is scary?

If it is part of a person's job description to act as an armed defense in the event of an emergency, they are not exactly "a civilian" are they?

Well, the example I gave—itself from the WashPost article—was of someone trained some time ago but formally a civilian and with nothing in their job description.

>80 timspalding: Yes, but you are suggesting that a policy of having people trained in armed defense in certain positions might be a good thing. In the same way, maybe, that airline ... I was going to say stewardesses but there must be a more PC term by now ... are expected to take charge in a crisis and even sacrifice themselves for the safety of the passengers.

>79 timspalding: Yes.

Incidentally, if we're talking about school shootings and Denmark, I'd like to point out, since 1980 the US has had 137 school shootings, resulting in 297 dead. See http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/12/sandy_ho... (but notice how it's getting more common).

The US has a population of about 300 million, so about one per million dead since 1980. Denmark has a population of about 5.5 million. Leaving the Copenhagen event to the side—adult terrorism is different—you'd expect Denmark to have had about 5.5 deaths in school shootings since 1980. Counting them up you have the Aarhus University shooting, with 3 dead. So, below average, I guess. But then you have Anders Brevik killing 77 people, mostly at a youth camp. At a US population-size that would be 4,200 dead. That must have been horrible. 9/11 is the only thing that comes close for us.

So while I get the idea that Danes feel safe, and we may be dealing with a one-in-a-thousand outlier event in Brevik, you aren't in an excellent position to claim that Denmark is far better at ensuring children don't get shot.

>55 timspalding: I'm nonplussed by the dogmatism of these assertions.

You're referring here to >43 southernbooklady: where SBL said

I'm always sort of nonplussed by the argument that if you pulled a gun in a firefight you would somehow be defusing the situation. Far from making you safer, you'd just become a target. And far from making anyone else safer, you'd just be trying to figure out who the target was.

I don't see any indication that SBL is being dogmatic, just terse. She doesn't say that there is no situation in which a gun would help, but she may have left our some weasel words that would have made you feel better, but are not generally necessary in casual conversation.

>81 southernbooklady:

Well, as I say, I don't actually think it's a good idea. My gut feeling is that you can't pick the right people, and that guns are going to go missing, fall out of pockets and go off, and so forth. Some are going to go home and be used against spouses or by suicidal children.

Horrible as these school shootings are, we have to remember that, in a nation of 300 million, 297 deaths since 1980 is 297 deaths. Meanwhile, there are almost 100,000 schools in the US, not counting colleges. My guess is that, if half the school principles had guns, far more people would end up dead from domestic violence, stolen firearms, accidents and so forth, and only a handful of school shootings would be stopped.

Nevertheless, the policy is something that can be evaluated, and a policy decision made. The policy decision is not self-evident, or its truth made sure by the ideology that guns never help.

>83 timspalding: Yes, statistics with small numbers are not convincing, so in the long run we may be worse off. A Danish Breivik could ruin the statistics for us for years. (But he was Norwegian, so if you count him in, I'll go mix in some Mexicans in your numbers.) BTW I was at campus during the Aarhus University shooting, so I'm quite familiar with that.

I don't think we have had any firearm incidents in elementary school or high school, but I recall at least one fatal knife stabbing in high school in recent years. So yes, Danes kill each other too, but we don't often use guns for it and quite often the medics save the day. The yearly death toll due to murders is normally fifty something. Traffic kills about two hundred each year (and that is declining rapidly as cars get smarter and speed limits are enforced).
But anyway school shootings are not IMHO a large problem in either Denmark or the US. But seen from here you have a surreal number of guns and people with guns. Actually we are more surprised that any of you are alive than that some of you get shot once in a while :-)

The numbers lead to a further point. There is every reason to do something about guns in this country. Gun crimes kill average over 30,000 deaths per year. I don't have retrospective data, but that's got to be something like a million people since 1980. That's huge, and horrible.

School shootings, however, are not the place to start. School shootings, again, have killed only 297 people since 1980. That's terrible, but it's not the thing to focus on when thinking about how to change gun laws.

I'll go mix in some Mexicans in your numbers.

Don't go all Donald Trump on me!

The yearly death toll due to murders is normally fifty something.

And HERE is the good argument. The overall numbers are very different. But it's not about school shootings.

But seen from here you have a surreal number of guns and people with guns.

I understand where you're coming from, but I also think the numbers issue confuses people—both here and in Europe. We are a nation of 319 million people. While America seems like one big cultural blob from Denmark, we are in fact highly diverse within our states.

Maine, for example, is twice the size of Denmark, has a population of a little over a million, and a HUGE gun culture. (My best friend here recently took up duck hunting, and while I was a little shocked, well, he's a Mainer and I'm a blow-in.) With all that we're officially the second safest state to live in, with a murder rate of 1.8 per 100k. That's twice Denmark's rate, but it's lower than many countries you probably think of as reasonably safe, like Latvia (4.7), Lithuania (6.7), Estonia (5.0), Georgia (4.3), Malta (2.8), Cyprus (2.0), etc(1). That sort of thing doesn't comport with the notion that America is awash in guns and murder.

Yes, other places are different. I suspect there are more guns in Chicago than in Maine, and no moose to hunt. But the proper comparandum for us isn't any one country but most of Europe put together. If I'm going to be blamed for the mayhem that goes on in Louisiana, you can be blamed for the murder rate in Russia.

Also, again, these numbers are hardly about school shootings, which kill 1/16 as many people as lightning strikes. The real horror of guns is more mundane—boyfriend shooting girlfriends, stick-ups and drug deals gone bad, suicides, etc. If you think we should do something about that, well, I agree.

---

1. I originally used Norway, but my data was, again, distorted by Brevik's massacre. Overall, Norway is safe. But, man, Greenland has a murder rate more than four times the USA's? You should do something about that.

>87 timspalding: School shootings, however, are not the place to start.

School shootings, however, are a sign post. But really, I think we're talking about mass shootings here -- schools, theaters, spree killings, attacks on church congregations, the guy who gunned down his ex coworkers at that news station in Virginia. What seems to fuel all these instances is rage. Rage, coupled with a complete disassociation from the community.

So I find myself wondering, how much does rage factor in all the gun deaths in the US? Why is it that when we as a culture get bitter and angry, we reach for a gun? Why is it so easy for us to reach for a gun when we are angry? When people talk about America's gun culture, that is what I get stuck on. This idea we have that it is better to kill a problem than fix it.

>87 timspalding:. 30,000 deaths a year is something like 10 times the corresponding total number of killed in Denmark (adjusted for population size). Yes, you should probably do something about that.

>89 southernbooklady:

I agree. But see >87 timspalding: edits.

>88 timspalding: Yes, the suicide statistics must reflect this. Eating your gun is more final than eating some pills. (Just cutting down the numer of headache pills in a normal box from 20 to 10 has reduced the number of suicides and suicide attempts among teenage girls here, so easy access to medicine/guns is definitely not a good thing.)

Also yes, we do know that America is a large country and Americans are not all alike. But where in the US should we look for low numbers of gunshot killings? (Canada doesn't count :-) (Ah, just saw the >87 timspalding: edits. I'll go read them.)

>88 timspalding: Point taken about Louisiana versus Russia. Greenland is only about 60.000 people and a lot of the numbers are crazy. Alcohol consumption, child abuse, lots of hunting weapons and people who know how to use them. The suicide rate is also very high and most of the suicides are by hanging or gunshot. Large country, few people, not much to do, ...

ETA a report on suicides in Greenland. A suicide rate of 120 / 100000. That's about five times what you find elsewhere.

http://en.mipi.nanoq.gl/Emner/~/media/mipi/MIPI_Viden_om_boern_og_unge/Projekter...

Suggesting here that it's dangerous and useless to hypothesize "what if" statements in trying to make points for or against having more armed civilians wandering around the scenery.

We can not possibly extrapolate, much less know, if you had a gun as a teacher (or any armed individual) in school that you could save your classroom from slaughter.

It is best to argue from factual information and knowledge. Yet, I haven't heard any facts or seen any statistics that demonstrate that an armed conceal-carrying public does little else than endanger its home environment as well as the public space.

Comparing the number of violent crimes successfully interdicted by those civilian packers to the number of accidental and unintentional deaths by (mostly) handguns that can be laid at their feet shockingly affirms that guns are not the answer to increased personsal safety, either in the home or in the agora.

It is only the removal of arms in the arms of the private citizen that lowers deaths by guns. And probably the removal of deadly weapons from city police forces, too, judging by the preferential lethal targeting of people of color by those sworn to "serve and protect." Not to mention the stunning frequency that these supposedly trained professionals shoot themselves, so often when cleaning cops best friend.

>94 Limelite:

Look, I'll go farther than you guys. Not only do I not think guns in schools are a good idea, I don't think metal detectors and other high security measures are a good idea either.

The problem, as with teachers with guns, is that stuff you do has unintended effects. In the case of teachers with guns, the unintended effects are all the unintended uses those gun could be put to. In the case of metal detectors, it's the subtle ways they change the atmosphere at school. I suspect that the militarization doesn't work—you can still sneak a knife or gun into a school, if you want to. And the negative effects, in cost, delay and the general malaise that affects an institution that now feels like an armed camp, produce negative effects at least as great. Of course, this might require putting a "value" on death, as against other evils.

>94 Limelite:

I have to disagree about arming police. Criminals in this country are simply too well armed to have them going up against British bobbies. The police might well not get shot if you took their guns away. But that's because they'd completely "de-police"—stop enforcing laws against individuals, such as young men, who are like as not packing.

guns are not the answer to increased personsal safety

Well, you know, I think your opinion might change if you were a young woman living in a dangerous neighborhood, where there were frequent home invasions. Aggregate statistics are aggregate statistics. But there are always exceptions.

>95 timspalding: I think your opinion might change if you were a young woman living in a dangerous neighborhood, where there were frequent home invasions.

If you are a young woman with a boyfriend it's questionable whether the gun in your house or the gun in the hands of the home invader that's more likely to kill you.

>96 southernbooklady:

Well, statistics aren't always applicable on a personal level. It's possible to pick boyfriends who aren't homicidal. (If someone finds they're not a good judge of character, they might want to avoid having a gun in the house, and dating.) And it's possible to lack a boyfriend, or to have a girlfriend, with the added fear of personal violence on that account.

>97 timspalding: It's possible to pick boyfriends who aren't homicidal. (If someone finds they're not a good judge of character, they might want to avoid having a gun in the house, and dating.)

You miss the point. That such a significant number of assaults and violent confrontations occur within the circle of friends and family -- between people who know each other -- is because a) we have much more exposure to friends and family than we do to strangers who might be breaking into our house, and b) we become acclimated to living in a situation with a high potential for violence. We don't wake up every morning wondering "is this the day my boyfriend/girlfriend tries to kill me?" In effect, we let our guard down. But the presence of a gun in the house increases the likelihood that if there is a dispute and it does turn violent, it will be lethal.

>98 southernbooklady:

There's surely much to what you say. But if you're going to be aware to the dangers of guns, you might as well be aware of the factors that are in play.

Again, we're coming apart over aggregates and individuals. In real life, crime and danger and almost every other interesting social variable are not evenly spread across everyone who might conceivably be affected. They're concentrated strongly according to risk factors.

Take sexual abuse. If you have a young child, your partner is always a potential abuser. But there is an enormous statistical difference between leaving a long-time lesbian partner alone with your young son, and leaving a recent boyfriend with boundary issues, an alcohol problem and history of childhood sexual abuse with your twelve year-old daughter. The average is only the average. It doesn't tell you the real danger.

Similarly, some environments are much safer for a gun, some much less safe. So if you or your family has a history of mental illness, mental disorders or substance abuse, don't have a gun. If you lack training and confidence in using a gun properly, don't have a gun. If you have young children, think hard about it, and if you do, and you're not responsible and absolutely committed to gun safety, don't have one. If your situation is ideal, the risk is far lower than the average. If your situation presents many risk factors, it's far higher than the average.

I don't own a gun. It wouldn't be worth it to me. I'm not trained, have no interest and live in a relatively crime-free area. I also have a young child, etc. That doesn't mean that everyone is like me, or that one can decide an issue like this by blanket pronouncements that guns are always bad.

>97 timspalding: 'It's possible to pick boyfriends who aren't homicidal. (If someone finds they're not a good judge of character, they might want to avoid having a gun in the house, and dating.)'

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-simple-truth-about-gun-control?m...

Shame on us !!!

>20 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

I'm not a psychologist nor sociologist, so I really don't have an answer to the question. The trend for mass shootings seemed to start in the 1980s; shootings happened before then, but they were mostly individual shootings, often with clear reasons. So, around the 1980s, the american zeitgeist changed and disturbed people began shooting up public places, and the trend is seeming to accelerate. And this is important because those sort of people aren't going to vanish, even if draconian laws are introduced making private ownership of firearms illegal. (NB: it's quite possible to have effective gun regulation AND gun ownership; the U.S. has been doing that for over a century.)

>99 timspalding: Again, we're coming apart over aggregates and individuals.

Much of what fuels the gun debate is the conflict between public safety (aggregate) and Constitutional rights (individuals).

The idea that someone in a room with a gun could shoot back at an attacker is an argument on the scale of the individual. In aggregate, however, there is no reason to think such a scenario is at all likely to either deter an attack or stop one. So I remain profoundly skeptical of the value of guns for self defense.

But because the NRA has framed the debate in terms of individual Constitutional rights, and because they have endorsed only one interpretation of the 2nd Amendment -- that anyone can have any gun they want and all attempts to regulate or curtail access to guns is de facto an infringement on a person's Constitutional rights, we are left in the end with the ludicrous scenario where we are forced to sacrifice public safety, people's lives, in the name of someone's right to have a gun. In effect, the right to have a gun is more important that someone else's right not to get killed.

>103 southernbooklady:
" In effect, the right to have a gun is more important that someone else's right not to get killed."

Again.....I thank you. This can not be repeated enough. It SHOULD be hammered on in the media ...over and over.....it is a basic simple truth. Sad, selfish truth.

I packed a Glock in my kid's lunch today.

>99 timspalding:
"I don't own a gun. It wouldn't be worth it to me. I'm not trained, have no interest and live in a relatively crime-free area. I also have a young child, etc. That doesn't mean that everyone is like me, or that one can decide an issue like this by blanket pronouncements that guns are always bad."

BS....they are for some unfortunate life form.

>105 theoria:

The only thing anyone can say to that is, "I hope he/she doesn't eat it."

The Atlantic featured a couple of good articles about the dangers of guns to women in our society and the fallacy that guns for personal protection are efficacious.

Because it has featured so many articles on gun control -- yes, there's at least one place where people are talking about the subject! -- I'll just provide general links.
Gun Control
Personal Protection
Gun Violence Against Women

Some of the links will take you beyond The Atlantic's numerous articles to other sources.

Probably the root of gun violence evil occurred when the gun became glorified, became associated with 'manhood,' later with giving females 'cajones,' and when it became the emblematic token of one's street rep. This warped view transmogrified into gun worship -- the gun as the Great Equalizer and Solution to All Problems. At this point social sanity is lost.

To regain social sanity, obviously those memes will have to be changed. That may mean those opposed to the insanity will have to label it as such while screaming louder against the fanatics who worship their weapons, and cease being the Silent Majority on this issue.

Of all the candidates running for president, only one has dared propose an introductory step to regaining our social sanity. But the real impetus will have to come from electing local candidates who are brave enough to state their opposition and willingness to fight the madness to the House and Senate.

The Myth of the Good Guy With a Gun: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/oregon-shooting-gun-laws-213222.

On the issue of whether it is possible for a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun, sure it's possible, but this article sites many of the claims of that happening and shows that it didn't really. I have no idea if covers every case gun supporters are claiming though.

>108 jjwilson61:
"I have no idea if covers every case gun supporters are claiming though."

Gun supporters are not interested in facts.

>99 timspalding: That doesn't mean that everyone is like me, or that one can decide an issue like this by blanket pronouncements that guns are always bad.

Since the function of a gun is to kill, there's a pretty good argument for the position that guns are always bad. :-)

But actually, what I think this statement is doing is restating the position that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." It assumes a gun is a neutral object -- that it is not provocative in itself. But I don't think anyone can really make that claim. Just the fact of its purpose is provocative. It's specific purpose is to threaten, harm, and kill. So doesn't it follow that the more guns there are in a room, the less stable the situation becomes? Just like the more alcohol in the room, the more likely people will get drunk.

If there was a gunman in the next room.
Here are some things I would like to have:

Law enforcement officers
A Sturdy Lockable Door
An escape route.

A gun? Well I would attempt to use it if there were no other options but realistically escaping or barricading would be my preferred options. In my opinion the American habit of seeing guns as the only option is what causes the problem.

Americans seem at times to know no other way to respond to a threat.

You left out immediately forcing the gunman to take a psychiatric placement test.

>111 SimonW11:
"In my opinion the American habit of seeing guns as the only option is what causes the problem."

If bullets shot out of the tips of my fingers, I might see the gun as less of a problem. I do NOT want to live with a society at war with itself.....that is pretty simple. If there is abuse of an object, that for all intents and purposes has little or no use, other than to play with, being abused enough to cause repeated harm to innocent people, I would rather eliminate the object than play war games to avoid doing so.

But then, perhaps I am the individual who needs a psychiatric placement test.

>111 SimonW11:

"Americans seem at times to know no other way to respond to a threat."

Why should Americans have to be repeatedly threatened when it is possible to remove the threat ? Nothing will happen should that threat be removed.....there may be a few problems but for all intents and purposes threats in general will drop and as time goes on, continue to drop.

Again, that may just be loony me, foiled by our failing mental health system.

Ben Carson, a doctor and presidential candidate: “I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away,” Mr. Carson wrote. Also, he claims that he would rush the gunman and not "let him shoot me." It would be interesting to put this to the test, perhaps as part of the republication primary process?

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/06/ben-carson-says-he-would-...

“I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away,” Mr. Carson wrote. "

Yeah, well, he should have had to clean up Sandy Hook school. Of course, I think we've reached a point where dead bodies are meaningless over the right to bear arms. Including the bodies of children....who gives a shit if they are not our own ? Basically, that is what he is saying.

" It would be interesting to put this to the test, perhaps as part of the republication primary process? '


I agree.....all Republican wanabes must rush firing gunmen and remain standing before the Refpublican primary. AND, they much take their children and grandchildren with them.....Why not ? They do not seem to give a rip about anyone else's. Sounds barbaric but....hey.....pretty barbaric out there right now for most everyone.

>115 sturlington: That comment sort of epitomizes how cynical American politics has become.

Also, he claims that he would rush the gunman and not "let him shoot me."

Carson has taken being an internet tough guy to a new level.

I've studied Tae Kwon Do for years and taught it for almost as long, and even when we are teaching people how to disarm someone who has a gun or knife, the advice we give is always "run when confronted by an armed attacker if you can". That Carson thinks it would be a good idea to try to rush an armed attacker just shows how out of touch with reality he is.

>118 StormRaven:

Doctors to the rear. Even if this one is a loon, he'd know what to do with injured people.

Not if he was one of them.

>119 timspalding: He'd probably refuse to treat those cowards who didn't rush the gunman.

119: Doctors to the rear. Even if this one is a loon, he'd know what to do with injured people.

Well, he does say he would be one of the people in the supposed charge, even saying "He may get me but he won't get us all". I'm pretty sure he's imagining himself heroically leading the way.

I can have nothing but respect for someone who actually does rush the gunman. In this case, it failed—although, miraculously, the guy survived. In the Paris train attack, it worked, averting enormous loss of life. (In both cases, those who rushed were soldiers.) There are other examples. However, having respect for them is not the same as boasting you'd be one of them.

Or requiring that everyone in the room be one of them.

Can we really take Carson seriously, though? When he says he never saw a body more tragic than the loss of gun rights, does anyone think he really means that? If it was his wife's body, his grandchild's body, would he be grandstanding?

Weirdly, the most generous spin I can put on such a statement is that he doesn't really mean it. That he's saying such things to score political points, not because he actually would think such a thing or say such a thing if confronted with the bullet-ridden body of someone he loved in the real world. So the issue for me isn't that he's "looney" (about this anyway, there is still the whole evolution thing) -- it's that he doesn't have any credibility. I don't believe him.

I'm content to wait until the Good Doctor becomes prez. In which event, the next Republican war will involve specified enemy vs. him, unarmed and alone.

And when he goes off to keep his campaign promise, I'll put a yellow magnetic ribbon on my car. A meaningless gesture but one that Republicans really really really like.

Maybe he's telling the truth on a technicality because he's never seen a bullet-riddled body.

I've never seen a bullet-riddled body in person, but thinking about them is more horrifying than not being allowed to have a gun.

Or maybe people should just not let shooters shoot them. Ya know, take charge of the situation, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and dodge those bullets. It's certainly the Republican way of solving the problem.

As far as charging the gunman goes, ole Ben claims to have been in a situation where a gun was pulled on him, but it would seem charging the gunman wasn't on the agenda.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/ben-carson-i-got-held-up-once-at-popeyes-but-i-t...

>128 rastaphrog: I'm enjoying The Nightly Show. It's a serious discussion pretending to be a comedy show. I appreciate that real issues are discussed with respect and civility.

http://www.thetrace.org/2015/10/roseburg-obama-protest-guns/

No respect for death......just "ME" and my "RIGHT". Asshats !

I have these conversations in my own home. With my pastor husband. It has gotten quite heated at times. How does a pastor equate "love thy neighbor, care for the poor, etc." with "I'm a Christian and I want the right to have all the big guns I want" has baffled me for decades. In his defense, the man was a hunter, NRA member for much longer than he has been a pastor. (All we ever had in the house was a hunting rifle which he gave to his brother 10 years ago b/c he no longer goes deer hunting, and hasn't been a member of NRA in years. He gave up hunting for financial reasons--it's expensive to get a deer lease in TX). I suppose old beliefs die hard.

We pretty much disagree on every major issue: gun control, abortion, taxes, homosexual rights, immigration, Wall Street felons vs your average criminal, drug testing for welfare recipients, decriminalizing marijuana and prostitution...the list goes on and on. Yes, I'm a tree-hugging, unabashed and unapologetic liberal. We cancel out each other's votes every time, but it works for us. Probably because when we got married 34 years ago, we were both pretty apolitical.

It's hard to imagine how Ben Carson can top his latest boneheaded comments, but he has doubled down:

Ben Carson says guns may have stopped Holocaust --- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34485358?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns...

>132 sturlington:

I dunno. I think he's an idiot, but there's a point there. Gun ownership is a check on tyranny and an aid to those who might overthrow a government.

The US secession from Britain is one such case—personal firearms were a critical factor early on. Maybe we don't need that anymore. Maybe it's not worth it. I suspect it isn't. But history has more than a few examples of that.

As for Jews, while I think the Nazi state was up to the task of killing its citizens and others' with or without gun rights, it's absolutely incontrovertible that handguns and hunting riffles played a role in anti-Nazi resistance across Europe. The Warsaw Ghetto would probably have turned out the same way if the Jews had had guns, but guns were one of the main things they lacked. Again, maybe we trust our democratic governments enough now. But personal firearms are hardly besides the point in historical efforts to fight dictatorships and occupations.

>133 timspalding: Gun ownership is a check on tyranny and an aid to those who might overthrow a government.

If you really want to overthrow a government you're better off trading in your gun for a computer.

>134 southernbooklady:

I could buy a sweet-ass gun with all the computer equipment I have. The scope would see in the dark underwater. But I think I'll stick with the computer.

You can do a lot more damage learning how to hack than you can learning how to shoot.

Depends on the context. Might be true today. But I think recent years have shown that regimes have learned how to control the online world—Iran and China in particular. It's not a magic bullet, as it were.

Speaking of that, see

ACLU: Orwellian Citizen Score, China's credit score system, is a warning for Americans
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2990203/security/aclu-orwellian-citizen-sco...

All in all, it looks like information technology can give government as many tools to fight dissent as it gives dissenters. Sad.

But gun technology gives the gov't as many tools to fight dissent as it gives dissenters as well, probably more.

>137 timspalding: Couldn't you make the same argument about guns as about computers? The people most in favor of gun ownership, including Dr. Carson, are also the ones making the most hitleresque comments now.

I honestly think all these hypothetical if only they had had guns arguments are extremely disrespectful to the victims of these heinous crimes and a pathetic excuse not to do anything about them

Well, Carson has elaborated on his story about what he would do if a gun were pointed at him. Apparently, he would encourage the shooter to target someone else instead, like any patriotic American.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/10/ben_carson_claims_he_was_once_held_...

>139 sturlington: I honestly think all these hypothetical if only they had had guns arguments are extremely disrespectful to the victims of these heinous crimes and a pathetic excuse not to do anything about them

Yeah, it's playground talk. Which is not encouraging in a group of people vying for becoming the head of State.

But gun technology gives the gov't as many tools to fight dissent as it gives dissenters as well, probably more.

Disarm the state!

Couldn't you make the same argument about guns as about computers? The people most in favor of gun ownership, including Dr. Carson, are also the ones making the most hitleresque comments now.

We need guns to save us from Carson!

Meanwhile there's been yet another multiple shooting on a college campus.

Sorry, make that two on-campus shootings today.

Ugh.

>135 timspalding:

It's a conversation that I don't relish but along with the endless tendentious discussion of the 2nd amendment is the American psychosexual element which people from other places sometimes find baffling. "Sweet-ass gun" indeed. I'm OK with following your bliss, if only we could lower the casuality count.

In my lifetime there's been improved awareness about rape and pedophilia, though obviously there's still a long ways to go. Seems plausible to me that the power play of gun culture is ripe for a similar awakening.

>146 krolik:

Meh. I think this is extra-cultural noodling. It seems to me from all the French films I've seen that French people are basically pedophiles obsessed with the first sexual experiences of girls, and cartoons I like inform me that Germans are obsessed with Scheisse videos and David Hasselhoff. But I recognize this isn't the truth, but a weird filter my culture and its obsessions have thrown over other cultures. The reality is surely more complex.

The same here. Gun owning has deep roots in the United States. While it has negative aspects, and I can't speak for all Americans—America is more than one culture—most of it is ridiculously normally people who hunt or target shoot the way Germans like to drive their cars along highways with no speed limit. It's no more sexual than that, or, say, the German interest in sausages.

An armed citizenry is the antidote to tyranny may have been applicable in the 18th C. but it is twisted thinking for our times.

Our Constitutional democratic republic is formulated to balance powers and thus de-claw the factor that leads to tyranny -- the concentration of power in a single person or select small collection of people.

That modern wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan are pointed to as examples of armed citizenry successfully resisting tyranny is laughable on two faces.

1) The citizenry of what became N. Vietnam was not armed. The North Vietnamese Army was thanks to supplies from then Communist China, for one.

2) Likewise, the citizenry of Afghanistan was not armed. Only certain males belonging to certain insurrectionist political and religious factions were. And they were supplied by Pakistan and other Mid-Eastern countries

In both cases the so-called armed citizenry fought in disciplined units. It was Guerrilla tactics and asymmetric warfare that made it impossible for either super power to tell who was a "good" guy and who was not that defeated the Super Powers. Not an armed citizenry resisting tyranny from its own government.

And in most recent history where armed conflict overthrows tyranny, oddly it's not the citizenry but the national armies that do, installing military juntas or puppets to govern. A whole lot less tyrannical. . .not!

An armed citizenry is far more likely to overthrow a Constitutional democracy behaving legally because it is really an armed mob dissatisfied with the will of the people and eager to establish their will in its place. The consequence is domestic terrorism, civil war, and anarchy.

A well-regulated militia is hardly needed in the age of law enforcement, a condition that did not exist when our founding fathers attempted to govern a people at constant war with Native Americans, or who lived in cities and communities in a time when police did not exist.

>147 timspalding:
"most of it is ridiculously normally people who hunt or target shoot" (Neither of these activities are necessary to sustain a human life....not needed for survival

Most people do not get into their cars and drive around drunk. However, when the situation became dangerous, enough accidents occurred involving alcohol....we drafted law and we ALL have to follow the law. Which means for someone my size, I can not enjoy a single beer while out for dinner, without having someone else drive. I may test positive.

We all pay for other people's bad habits....in numerous ways. Why should a gun be any different ? Too many loony people are killing others with guns....end of story. New restrictions need to be in place...for everyone. Sorry......just the way it is.

I used to enjoy having a couple glasses of wine or a beer or two while out with my friends. I don't do it any more cause too many idiots did not know their limits. Payment for living within a free society, unfortunately means giving up some freedoms for the good of the whole. I am attempting to save someone's life by following a law I find restrictive to my freedom......so......

Far fewer Americans own guns than those who don't. A minority of Americans is immersed in the gun culture that is ridiculously normally people who hunt or target shoot, and a small minority of that minority hold the rest of the US hostage to their weird gun fetish and need to amass arsenals in case of the unlikely fantasy event of tyranny.

Most of the gun owners I know (which is more than a few. SC, y'all) are fully in favor of more gun safety laws and at least one of them has an impressive rant on how it is much, much too easy to get a concealed carry permit (because he has one).

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/one-three-americans-own-guns-culture-factor-...

I believe that in some respects we've moved beyond the point of who has them or how they use them. The rhetoric has been so damaging to our culture as a whole.
Read an article this morning (tried to find it but could not) about three recent incidents where the shooters were children 8th grade or under, shooting other children. Over a puppy, a dispute...what ever. Guns are in the home, kids know where they are and they use them as they see adults use them on the news media. To settle scores. AND there is nothing wrong with this....it is a right granted by the constitution of a free country. Many of these kids are too young to understand why this is horribly wrong. They just are growing up in a country where shootings are daily events and mass shooting are a price we pay so that dad or mom can have their gun.

I did not grow up this way. I don't think anyone had a gun in my neighbor hood. We lived in the city....nobody I knew hunted except for my uncle. If adults I grew up with did have guns, I was unaware that they had them or where they might have kept them.....which was a good thing. We didn't think about guns. We certainly didn't visit family friendly gun ranges or brag about our 12 yr old daughter's first new gun, which she named after the butler in Downton Abby (overheard this at a local art fair). Good lord......

My youngest son is going to teach his boys gun safety as soon as he can, not because he wants guns around but he knows that they will come into contact with them. He would rather they not.....but then his rights are be superseded by those who feel we all need to learn how to lock and load.

The same here. Gun owning has deep roots in the United States. While it has negative aspects, and I can't speak for all Americans—America is more than one culture—most of it is ridiculously normally people who hunt or target shoot the way Germans like to drive their cars along highways with no speed limit. It's no more sexual than that, or, say, the German interest in sausages.



Proof of Your Manhood

Snakes don't have arms.

Far fewer Americans own guns than those who don't.

We're at about 1/3 of households now. The nuts are a subset of that—a very motivated and dangerous subset, for sure—not its center, as you say.

>152 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

If I showed you car ads that were similarly about testosterone, would you agree that car owners are basically all compensating for low testosterone?

I used to enjoy having a couple glasses of wine or a beer or two while out with my friends. I don't do it any more cause too many idiots did not know their limits.

Wait, what? Because some people drink too much you no longer drink? How is this helping them?

If you don't think that ads for pickup trucks and "rugged" offroad vehicles don't play on a narrow view of gender and sexuality, I don't know what the fuck to tell you.

If I recall correctly, there was an older poster that's no longer around that used to use the word "effete" like a machete... I wonder what he thought of Prius drivers?

It would be interesting to figure out what the overlap between the gun culture and pickup culture might be.

>154 timspalding:
"Because some people drink too much you no longer drink? How is this helping them?"

I don't drink when I have to drive......not even one beer. I am small and if I had a drink, was pulled over and tested, there is a chance I could test pretty high. I am not trying to help anyone......but keep myself from getting a DUI. I resent this.....I don't drive drunk. I rarely if ever get tipsy.....(sometimes stuff happens) but the minority of drivers who get plastered and then drive, have changed the habits of everyone.

It will be the same with gun control.....

>154 timspalding:
"If I showed you car ads that were similarly about testosterone, would you agree that car owners are basically all compensating for low testosterone?"

In a patriarchal society EVERYTHING is about testosterone.

>155 Jesse_wiedinmyer: It's a truism that if you want to sell something, you don't say how well it works, you say how sexy it makes someone look to have it. I think 99% of retail depends on the fact that we're all woefully insecure and need constant re-affirmation that we're good-looking and desirable.

>159 southernbooklady:

That may overstate the case slightly, but there's definitely a tendency to tie products to a lifestyle/identity that people wish to project to others. I would guess that guns are more often than not (and pickup trucks) marketed as a "manly man's" product.

#notallguns :

If you don't think that ads for pickup trucks and "rugged" offroad vehicles don't play on a narrow view of gender and sexuality, I don't know what the fuck to tell you.

Sure they do. So do ads for electric razors. It doesn't go to show that gun ownership overall is really a sexual thing which we will become "aware of" like "rape and pedophilia."

Look if you want to argue that gun ownership has links to macho culture, fine. It's like cars that way. But even if cars are sometimes advertised like an erectile dysfunction drug, or if the occasional 40-something man has a midlife crisis and either gets a new wife or a convertible, that doesn't mean that cars in general are a malign product of gender pathologies.

It would be interesting to figure out what the overlap between the gun culture and pickup culture might be.

Pickup truck? High correlation.

In a patriarchal society EVERYTHING is about testosterone.

Reductionist and therefore blinding.

there's definitely a tendency to tie products to a lifestyle/identity that people wish to project to others

Books.

there's definitely a tendency to tie products to a lifestyle/identity that people wish to project to others

Books.

I feel like we should now use our time wisely by complaining about book covers. I could go on for days, and best of all, we might actually find common ground.

>162 timspalding:

"Reductionist and therefore blinding."

To who ?

>163 RidgewayGirl:
"I feel like we should now use our time wisely by complaining about book covers. "

We could tie the entire testosterone deal in by starting with romance novels.

>164 faceinbook:

To the person who holds that view. It doesn't matter whether you think everything reduces to Christian belief versus unbelief, or if you think it's all about patriarchy. If you think everything in culture is really about just one thing, you're an ideologue, and will misunderstand thing after thing.

>166 timspalding: If you think everything in culture is really about just one thing, you're an ideologue, and will misunderstand thing after thing

Ahem. *cough. cough* *God's will* *cough.*

Maybe not misunderstand so much as have no useful way forward. It's fine to say we are infected by patriarchy at every level -- even fundamentally true, in the same way that to say American culture is intrinsically racist is fundamentally true. But short of going off to live in a cave in the wilderness somewhere, that doesn't get you very far. You have to be more targeted in your objections if you want to change something--like the sexualization of power. I think the anti-gun lobby could learn from anti-smoking campaigns. Those campaigns didn't just cite facts, they set out to change a culture that regarded smoking as cool and desirable, and turned it into something that was decidedly uncool, ugly and icky.

>167 southernbooklady:

Yeah, but I don't think that.

Obviously I think God is basic to reality, but I don't think politics, culture, gun purchasing or whatever are all an expression of God's will, or a rebellion against God's will, or whatever. This is a temptation which some Christians—particularly evangelicals and fundies—fall victim to. It's why I gave the other example of those who "reduce everything to Christian belief versus unbelief." It's not that those people are wrong, even. (Patriarchy is a powerful and useful tool for understanding the world, for example.) It's that they are reductionists, unable to see through any lens but the one they force upon the world. So too those who see everything in the world through another single lens—gender, colonialism, money, or, worst of all, what benefits them personally.

I think the anti-gun lobby could learn from anti-smoking campaigns. Those campaigns didn't just cite facts, they set out to change a culture that regarded smoking as cool and desirable, and turned it into something that was decidedly uncool, ugly and icky.

Maybe, although much of that cultural work was done with government money.

I don't know about you, but I find government speech against legal activities very problematic. Part of free speech is not having the government in charge of media, crowding out other voices and telling people how to live, whether it's propaganda against gun ownership (liberal) or propaganda in favor of larger families (conservative).

If you disagree, consider how you'd feel if your state started a "don't be so gay" campaign, or "don't tie the knot if it's the same string!" After all, North Carolina is required to accept the Supreme court decision on same-sex marriage, just as DC is required to accept the Court's ruling on gun control, but there's no law against government speech, is there? Obviously you'd disagree with the message, but wouldn't you also feel the government shouldn't be in the business of propagandizing against the exercise of constitutionally protected rights?

Anyway, that's how I feel. If the government got into the business of vilifying gun owners as uncool and "icky," I'd definitely buy a gun.

Anyway, that's how I feel. If the government got into the business of vilifying gun owners as uncool and "icky," I'd definitely buy a gun.

That's the most American thing you have ever said, Mr. Spalding! When my SC city was in a drought, and the local government asked homeowners to water their lawns less, water usage actually rose significantly. We live to defy and to make sure we get ours! (I have quite a streak of this in my own self. It takes conscious will to act for the community (however we define community) instead of only for myself.)

>168 timspalding: Maybe, although much of that cultural work was done with government money.

I don't know about you, but I find government speech against legal activities very problematic. Part of free speech is not having the government in charge of media, crowding out other voices and telling people how to live, whether it's propaganda against gun ownership or propaganda in favor of larger families.

So FDA rules against swearing on prime time television? Against those? I am, not because swearing isn't illegal, but because it is not actually harmful.

In theory, I'm against seat-belt laws. People should be free to make their own choices about how stupid they want to be. In practice, I'm for them, because people are stupid, and such laws save them -- and others -- from the consequences of their stupidity. So yeah, I can't equate public health campaigns like anti-smoking or don't drink and drive campaigns, or safe sex campaigns, (or anti-discrimination campaigns? How about those?) with the big bad evil government telling me how to live. And culturally I'm bombarded with plenty of pressures to be a certain kind of person. To "be all that I can be" for example. My identity manages to survive in the face of it.

>170 southernbooklady:

It's been argued that the government has a special role to play over broadcast, because the bandwidth is limited. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it's a different factor in play.

>170 southernbooklady:

I agree with you about your examples, but it worries me. We can okay propaganda against drinking and driving, because the activity itself is illegal, and for good reason. And seat belts are so obviously beneficial.

But where do you draw the line? As is well known, owning a swimming pool is a far greater danger to your health, your kids' health and the health of your neighbors than owning a gun. Should the government propagandize against swimming pools? Maybe, a la cigarettes in many places, require every swimming pool sold to have a giant picture on the side, of a boy floating face down?

I suspect your answer, and most Americans answer, is "no." And I propose this is for cultural reasons—that gun owning is the thing those other people do—without any basis in public health.

>162 timspalding: You're right--one example is not conclusive proof, but intuition is often required in order to arrive close to the truths of matters. And at the very least it seems obvious that gun ownership, hunting even or especially, is a coccyx of a lapsed age.

>171 timspalding: But where do you draw the line?

Where the risks of people being hurt exceeds the benefits of unfettered/unregulated action. I would make the same case for immunization policies.

Maybe, a la cigarettes in many places, require every swimming pool sold to have a giant picture on the side, of a boy floating face down?

I was under the impression that swimming pools do indeed have regulations, such as being fenced. And, they come with manuals and guidelines about the risks of drowning. If accidental drownings in swimming pools were an epidemic exacerbated by irresponsible behavior, then yes, I could well see some kind of government - sponsored awareness campaign.

that gun owning is the thing those other people do—without any basis in public health.

The mere existence of a gun is a public health issue, because the purpose of a gun is to kill something. Or in this case, someone.

I was under the impression that swimming pools do indeed have regulations, such as being fenced. And, they come with manuals and guidelines about the risks of drowning.

They're a lot less regulated than guns.

If accidental drownings in swimming pools were an epidemic exacerbated by irresponsible behavior, then yes, I could well see some kind of government - sponsored awareness campaign.

But that's exactly what there is.

Besides, "awareness campaign" is very different from the proposal to have government propagandize against guns as "uncool" and "icky."

The mere existence of a gun is a public health issue, because the purpose of a gun is to kill something.

I find this utterly bizarre. 99.9% of legal guns never kill anyone. They're used to kill animals and shoot targets. If the stress is on "something," then clamming shovels are a public health issue.

Anyway, I thought public health was about the impact on, you know, public health. If so, then the fact that personal swimming pools are far more dangerous than guns should matter.

>174 timspalding: They're a lot less regulated than guns.

They are also a lot less portable than guns. Their ability to cause death is much more proscribed.

Besides, "awareness campaign" is very different from the proposal to have government propagandize against guns as "uncool" and "icky."

Is it? The Surgeon General's warnings on cigarettes and the "TRUTH" ads where a woman is talking to us through the hole in her throat are both awareness campaigns. They just have different strategies, different reach, and different measures of what constitutes an effective response.

I find this utterly bizarre. 99.9% of legal guns never kill anyone.

Once again, you are assuming a gun is a neutral object. It isn't. It is provocative by nature. It wouldn't be considered a threat if it wasn't intrisically threatening.

I thought public health was about the impact on, you know, public health. If so, then the fact that personal swimming pools are far more dangerous than guns should matter.

I find the analogy specious and weirdly uncompassionate. Unless you are going to use it to murder someone by drowning them, a swimming pool is a passive danger. The deaths attributed to them are accidental deaths. I assume your comparison between swimming pool deaths and gun deaths comes from someplace like this:

http://www.m1-garand-rifle.com/gun-safety/firearms-versus-swimming-pools.php

But guns are not passive and when they are used in a dispute they are not accidental. A person who shoots their spouse in an argument did not cause an accidental death. A child that shoots another over a puppy or a toy -- an not accidental death. So I'm not about to say that concern over guns is in any way equivalent to the concern over people who don't take care to fence their swimming pools. Guns are symptomatic of a violent society and violence is certainly a public health issue.

They are also a lot less portable than guns. Their ability to cause death is much more proscribed.

Wait, why is THAT important? Most gun violence happens in the home. And you can't decide whether your neighbors get a pool or not.

Once again, you are assuming a gun is a neutral object. It isn't. It is provocative by nature. It wouldn't be considered a threat if it wasn't intrisically threatening.

I'm sorry, I don't see this. It's reasonable to argue that something has health effects, as born out in statistics. It's not reasonable to argue that things have an intrinsic hostility to them. I thought you were a materialist.

I assume your comparison between swimming pool deaths and gun deaths comes from someplace like this:

No, it's coming from Freakonomics and http://freakonomics.com/books/freakonomics/chapter-excerpts/chapter-5/ .

The problem is that they are often scared of the wrong things. It’s not their fault, really. Separating facts from rumors is always hard work, especially for a busy parent. And the white noise generated by the experts — to say nothing of the pressure exerted by fellow parents — is so overwhelming that they can barely think for themselves. The facts they do manage to glean have usually been varnished or exaggerated or otherwise taken out of context to serve an agenda that isn’t their own.

Consider the parents of an eight-year-old girl named, say, Molly. Her two best friends, Amy and Imani, each live nearby. Molly’s parents know that Amy’s parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead, Molly spends a lot of time at Imani’s house, which has a swimming pool in the backyard. Molly’s parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter.

But according to the data, their choice isn’t smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn’t even close: Molly is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani’s house than in gunplay at Amy’s.

>176 timspalding: I'm sorry, I don't see this. It's reasonable to argue that something has health effects, as born out in statistics. It's not reasonable to argue that things have an intrinsic hostility to them. I thought you were a materialist.

Ah, we're back to the old "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Material objects are invested with the value and meaning we place in them. A gun is meant to threaten and to harm. That is its purpose. Why it was made. It's what we want people to understand about it when we are pointing it at them. It has a single message: "I can kill you."

I could, of course, take your family bible, shred it and spit on it and toss it into the garbage because "it is just paper, it is not intrinsically sacred" but I bet you would object. I think it is pointless to act as though the purpose and meaning we give to the objects in our lives does not exist because "stuff is material." Everything can be assessed on some level as either a threat or not a threat. Guns are most certainly a threat. They are designed to be a threat.

>147 timspalding:
most of it is ridiculously normally people who hunt or target shoot the way Germans like to drive their cars along highways with no speed limit. It's no more sexual than that, or, say, the German interest in sausages.

Yes, I get that, as I have roots in gun culture. In my childhood there were shotgun shells under the Christmas tree and we were hunting before we got our driver's license. It was a totally male-coded affair (ridiculously "normal," if you like, or at least locally unquestioned) but it was using a .410 or maybe a 12 gauge shotgun for rabbits and squirrels and quail and pheasants and suchlike. Not the kind of weaponry peddled and vociferously defended now, including by my hometown Facebook friends of the same background, who now embrace much more powerful firepower, not for hunting or target shooting but in the name of self-defense. They vigorously scorn skeptics of this development as lacking in constitutional values, patriotism and manliness--which are supposedly part of the same package.

My own case is anecdotal, to be sure, but it's plausibly fairly representative of a lot of what's happening in so-called flyover territory.

There's so much more fear now, and it seems to me overwhelmingly coming from males, though I'm far from convinced that this is warranted. The sexual (or sex-specific) aspect is hard to ignore.

Another take on this fear, from a Christian perspective, might be interesting to you. Here's a link to a piece by Marilynne Robinson in the latest NYRB: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/sep/24/marilynne-robinson-fear/

Robinson is a bit ponderous to my taste but putting that aside, she makes some good points.

Ah, we're back to the old "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

The problem with "guns don't kill people, people kill people" isn't that guns have an intrinsic hostility to them, it's that that sort of argument should never end a discussion. "Guns don't kill people" isn't false, but it's a sophistic. It doesn't go to the question at all.

It's also true that cars don't kill people. Yet we regulate their production and use, not because they are intrinsically hostile, but because the heath statistics are so clear, and significant gains can be achieved through regulation. So too with guns. But if this is all based on a spook—the notion that guns are hostile irrespective of their health effects—I call bs.

A gun is meant to threaten and to harm. That is its purpose.

Nonsense.

It has a single message: "I can kill you."

You clearly don't have any exposure to normal American gun culture. I'm afraid that, while there are certainly reasonable reasons to regulate guns more—ways I'd agree with—I don't find your arguments much more than parochial essentialism, ungrounded in real life.

>179 timspalding:

normal American gun culture

What is that?

>179 timspalding: It's also true that cars don't kill people. Yet we regulate their production and use

Thankfully cars aren't protected by the Second Amendment

Nonsense.

Back at you. Tell me, what other purpose does a gun have?

You clearly don't have any exposure to normal American gun culture.

Less than many, but more than many others. I do live in the South, after all. My area was until very recently rural South. There are more guns here than swimming pools. (In fact, there are no swimming pools -- partly because I live on the coast, and partly for the same reason there are no basements -- the topography doesn't support much in the way of digging. ) All of my neighbors for the last twenty years -- on all sides of my house and up and down the street -- have had guns. Rifles for sport, handguns for protection. They are all responsible gun owners. All in favor of regulation although they are very divided on what that regulation should be. Some are members of the NRA. Some aren't. We have more gun shows around here than county fairs.

The truth is, I get tired of the complaints of this apparently vast, silent majority of gun owners who say they are in favor of responsible legislation and regulation. Where are they on election day? Why do they allow the NRA to be their spokes vehicle? Why have they let it dictate the conversation on their behalf. If the vociferous gun lobby that is constantly defying regulation and demanding the right to a basement full of assault rifles is really the tiny minority of gun enthusiasts, then how is it we managed to pass legislation in North Carolina that allows guns in bars and schools? How is it that we have more and more conceal and carry laws, more and more "stand your ground" laws. What, are these few ultra-extremists holding the rest of you hostage?

I guess I was too tired to think of this earlier, but how did some carnival barker get away with equating swimming pool deaths with gun deaths? It's an utterly specious comparison. What are the real statistics, swimming pool deaths versus gun deaths? Oh, accidental deaths, I see. So how does anyone accept that garbage? Check out campus swimming pool deaths and the correlation with mental illness. Investigate this: who is bringing these swimming pools to campuses and why.

Argument of the day:

'A gun is meant to threaten and to harm. That is its purpose.'

'Nonsense.'

Back at you. Tell me, what other purpose does a gun have?

Target shooting of various kinds. Hunting. Collecting. You may be unaware of these uses because, surprisingly, they aren't what Democrats use guns for. Democrats' primary use of their guns is for protecting against crime, while Republicans is for target shooting. If things were the other way, wouldn't you say that it shows Republicans are nuts?



See Pew http://www.gallup.com/poll/20098/gun-ownership-use-america.aspx

The truth is, I get tired of the complaints of this apparently vast, silent majority of gun owners who say they are in favor of responsible legislation and regulation. Where are they on election day?

Welcome to American politics, where committed minorities trump apathetic majorities. Let me introduce you to the ARA, AARP, etc.

What are the real statistics, swimming pool deaths versus gun deaths?

This has been policy talk for years, even decades, but was recently dealt with extensively in a bestselling book by a pair of liberal economists.

>183 timspalding: Target shooting of various kinds. Hunting. Collecting. You may be unaware of these uses because, surprisingly, they aren't what Democrats use guns for.

This may come as a surprise to you, but most of the people I know are not Democrats. My neighborhood -- my county, and most of my state is solidly in the red side of the political spectrum. In fact a fair number of them are hunters. My previous landlord shot his deer every season and always gave me venison sausage.

But I note that these "other uses" you cite do not include self-defense, even though this is the over-riding reason everyone gives for why people should be allowed to have guns. You even cited it as the preferred option if you ever found yourself in a school during what I think is now called "an active shooter situation." And while I think hunting causes harm, I'll concede that it is the kind of harm most people find acceptable. But if the main reason that people want to have guns is target practice or collecting, that does rather undercut the Constitutional necessity of them, doesn't it?

But ultimately I think you are side stepping the issue. Guns are not made to be collected. The Franklin Mint doesn't have an armaments division. Guns are made to be shot. At something or someone. You can cite target practice as preferable over killing something that is alive, but the gun was made to be able to kill something alive. Otherwise we'd all be satisfied with paintball.

Let me introduce you to the ARA, AARP, etc.

Ah yes. The NRA. AARP. They are all so alike.

Back at me? Interesting. I have no affiliation that is covered above, my father has a smith&wesson .38 (?) from 1916 that belonged to my great grandfather. I have fired it at hat without a head inside it. I would like to have it some day but it has been promised to a brother already. The original purpose of the gun was to threaten, or harm, or be available for violent use. That old man used to drive a stage coach from Cheyenne to Deadwood and back, so he was part of an active gun-use culture. Now the purpose of that gun would be the same as the guy's Deputy sheriff badge. I would be fine with the curtailing of ammunition sales.

That absurd graphic doesn't include total number of guns, and the percentages are so close as to be meaningless. It also is quite unlikely that those included own a gun for only one thing. My father, a Republican, is too old to hunt but would answer that he has a gun for protection and target shooting and collection.

Swimming pool deaths: swimming pools kill far fewer people than guns, and angry ex-lovers don't reach for the swimming pool in a fit of rage.

Ah yes. The NRA. AARP. They are all so alike.

They're two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, and they both trade on the same basic dynamic—that a highly committed group of older people who vote, and who will support or ditch a candidate based on their organization rating, is very powerful.

But I note that these "other uses" you cite do not include self-defense, even though this is the over-riding reason everyone gives for why people should be allowed to have guns.

I dunno. People give different reasons.

You even cited it as the preferred option if you ever found yourself in a school during what I think is now called "an active shooter situation."

Just because I'd take a gun if by some magical change I were given a gun while awaiting being shot doesn't mean what you think it means. If by some magical chance I could have a cannon, a halberd, a force field or a invisibility cloak, I'd take it too.

But if the main reason that people want to have guns is target practice or collecting, that does rather undercut the Constitutional necessity of them, doesn't it?

Well, the Constitution gives them the right. That most people exercise their free speech rights sending naughty texts to their boyfriend doesn't undercut the necessity of free speech.

That absurd graphic doesn't include total number of guns

Ah, Pew, the absurd polling agency. Well, if you are unaware of the demographics, click the link.

You can cite target practice as preferable over killing something that is alive, but the gun was made to be able to kill something alive.

Am I allowed to go fishing, or are fish hooks just there to kill something alive too?

I would be fine with the curtailing of ammunition sales.

I'd be fine with very strict laws on guns. Training. Licensing. Background checks. Taxes on guns. Whatever. While SBL and I are arguing about principle, I honestly think I'm to the left of most Democratic lawmakers on this issue!

But I can't see anything good in proposals to restrict ammunition sales, or tax them heavily. The stick-up man needs a handful of bullets. He'll get them. The suicide needs only one. The hunter or target shooter, who isn't doing any harm, is the guy who'll use a lot of bullets.

'That absurd graphic doesn't include total number of guns

Ah, Pew, the absurd polling agency. Well, if you are unaware of the demographics, click the link.'

No, Spalding's absurd use of it. You posted what you wanted seen, one would presume.

Ammunition sales: I was referring to a particular instance, and I was referring to that particular gun and my potential ownership of it. In other words, I support very strict gun laws and if I could keep that gun only if it were clear I couldn't fire it, I would be happy to accommodate. But thanks for the extraordinary insight into bullet numbers, their needs. 'The stick-up man.' Hilarious. Hard-boiled: 'He'll get them.' The suicide: 'there was one bullet in the house, carelessly tossed into the bureau drawer: she found it.'
The hunter who isn't doing any harm...you like statistics? Check out hunting accidents. Also get up close to a dead deer sometime. Or watch one die.

I don't understand the swimming pools vs guns argument. As a parent, I can give my child a tool to protect him against swimming pools. I can teach him how to swim. How can I teach him to dodge bullets?

>188 sturlington: You teach him to shoot and help him get his concealed carry license. It's fine if it's a gun and not a clock.

>168 timspalding:
"Anyway, that's how I feel. If the government got into the business of vilifying gun owners as uncool and "icky," I'd definitely buy a gun."

Ha....doesn't matter what the gun may do to whom......I am going to get mine. Selfish ! In reality this is what happens when states loosen gun laws every time there is a mass shooting. Unfeeling and self serving. What the F is the point ? Other than you can not make other peoples misfortunes inconvenience me ?

>186 timspalding: I dunno. People give different reasons.

Ah yes, there's the "protect against the tyrannical government" reason. Barking mad, but a reason nonetheless.

Just because I'd take a gun if by some magical change I were given a gun while awaiting being shot doesn't mean what you think it means.

I don't think magic really enters into it. The rationale was that an armed citizenry would make active shooter events less dangerous, less likely to result in civilian casualties.

Well, the Constitution gives them the right. That most people exercise their free speech rights sending naughty texts to their boyfriend doesn't undercut the necessity of free speech.

Texting your boyfriend isn't likely to end up with a trip to the emergency room. In fact, in cases where it was likely -- like texting while driving -- it's been made illegal. It's been--gasp-- regulated.

Am I allowed to go fishing, or are fish hooks just there to kill something alive too?

You're flailing.

This seems relevant to the discussion: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/12/university-of-texas-students-pr...

>192 Marissa_Doyle:
Reminds me of "Make Love Not War."
I can live with that.

>192 Marissa_Doyle: It's revealing that the person who organized this protest, in exercising her right to free speech, is not only receiving death threats but also plenty of misogynistic hate speech. 98% of mass murderers are male. If we can't talk about guns, then can we talk about why men feel the need to commit these crimes? http://theweek.com/articles/581371/men-mass-murder-what-gender-tells-about-ameri...

The University of Texas, lest we all forget, was the scene of one of the first college mass shootings, the Texas Tower shootings: http://www.texasmonthly.com/category/topics/ut-tower-shooting/ Next year will mark its 50th anniversary.

>178 krolik: Another take on this fear, from a Christian perspective, might be interesting to you. Here's a link to a piece by Marilynne Robinson in the latest NYRB: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/sep/24/marilynne-robinson-fear/

And this is sort of incredible:

President Barack Obama talks to Marilynne Robinson

He is interviewing her about the intersections of faith, Christianity, and democracy:

Robinson: I do. That’s what I do. But it rationalizes my lecturing, too. But fear was very much—is on my mind, because I think that the basis of democracy is the willingness to assume well about other people.

You have to assume that basically people want to do the right thing. I think that you can look around society and see that basically people do the right thing. But when people begin to make these conspiracy theories and so on, that make it seem as if what is apparently good is in fact sinister, they never accept the argument that is made for a position that they don’t agree with—you know?

The President: Yes.

Robinson: Because of the idea of the “sinister other.” And I mean, that’s bad under all circumstances. But when it’s brought home, when it becomes part of our own political conversation about ourselves, I think that that really is about as dangerous a development as there could be in terms of whether we continue to be a democracy.

>192 Marissa_Doyle: In Texas, a gun is the only legal dildo.

>171 timspalding:

To be accurate, this simply is untrue.

As is well known, owning a swimming pool is a far greater danger to your health, your kids' health and the health of your neighbors than owning a gun.

For an excellent analysis of that particular distortion of truth,here is a thorough examination of it, dated 2013, from all sides, using credible sources for facts.

>183 timspalding:
Gun use by party affiliation is meaningless when y9ou don't post gun ownership by same. If 40% of 100 Republicans are gun owners and 80% of 40 Dems are, then there are still more Republicans with guns doing whatever they wish with them.

And the facts are:



The Pew Research Study conducted in July of 2014 found:

And when you leave "households" out of it, something like 3x as many men as women own guns.

Here's an ugly story:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/man-shot-head-tailgate-fight-cowboys-ga...

I wonder if the shooter considered himself a responsible gun owner. I wonder what the people in the crowd see when they look in a mirror now.

You're right, it's a very ugly story.

An abomination. Makes it easy to believe those people on the message board 4chan should be prosecuted for murder, too, since they at least egged him on if not incited him with their posts of, "Do it."

They should at least be banned from future Cowboys games. That might make more of an impression.

Have you ever heard someone say "Me? No, I'm not a responsible gun owner."

I may have said it but I don't have a gun, either.

>203 weener: So I think we have to recognize that incidents like this one at the football game also belong under the heading "gun culture." That the term doesn't stop at people hanging out at a shooting range or stomping out at 4 am some winter morning to bag a deer. "Culture" is a big word, it references everywhere guns have a presence in our lives. Sociopathic disaffected kids who shoot up a school or a church assembly are within its umbrella. To say they aren't a part of our gun culture would be like saying that drug overdoses had nothing to do with hippie culture.

Taking a gun to a football game was never part of my realm of behavioural notions. I did, in high school, often take a bottle of mad dog--I was one of the bad kids.

>207 RickHarsch:
Ditto except for the mad dog......Thunderbird.

>199 southernbooklady:
"I wonder if the shooter considered himself a responsible gun owner. I wonder what the people in the crowd see when they look in a mirror now"

What they see ? American's with "Rights".....after all it wasn't the gun it was "the guy who shouldn't have listened to me"

BS.......guns are not needed in most places in the United States today. Guns are a desired item that just happen to kill people. This goes way beyond "self defense" and "2nd Amendment rights". NOBODY can claim to be responsible 100% of the time, even/especially with a frickin gun....that would not be human.

Toddlers shooting themselves or others on a weekly basis now: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/14/people-are-getting-sho...

Kids today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbumOsLE-FQ

To any commenters who think Ben Carson had a point with his recent remarks about gun control and the holocaust, I invite you to read this op ed from a historian's perspective:

"I can think of no serious work of scholarship on the Nazi dictatorship or on the causes of the Holocaust in which Nazi gun control measures feature as a significant factor."

Ben Carson Is Wrong on Guns and the Holocaust http://nyti.ms/1RIciqm

With infants killing infants with the household "toy" lying in easy reach, I think it's time for the NRA to publicly acknowledge that guns kill people.

As long as Republicans still insist that embryos are fully-fledged citizens, what would stop them from holding infants responsible for their actions when it comes to weapons?

But haven't you heard? Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

I swear to God, I'd like to smack the next person who tells me that.

>215 theretiredlibrarian:
So, if guns don't kill people, why do we issue guns to soldiers?