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Another Mass Shooting

Started by Recusant, October 02, 2017, 06:58:25 PM

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Recusant

 It's not a Muslim? Ah well then, nothing to do but buy more guns and ammunition, I guess.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Tank

My son's brother-in-law works in Vegas. We haven't heard from his ATM but he's not in that particular hotel and not a fan of country music so we're not that worried.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Davin

Damn it, it was almost a good time to talk about doing something about all these mass shootings. I guess we have to wait for a longer break in mass shootings before we can talk about what to do about all these mass shootings.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Biggus Dickus

You should sticky this thread Recusant, that way when the next mass shooting occurs here in a week or so we don't have to keep starting a new one...after the horror of Sandy Hook, and the mass shooting of children which occurred there we here in the good ole US of A decided that we didn't want or need to discuss or resolve this issue of mass shootings, that we were fine living with this type of horror in our lives, that children being massacred in safety of their school room was bearable.

So we did nothing.

And we won't do anything now either.





"Some people just need a high-five. In the face. With a chair."

joeactor

Quote from: Father Bruno on October 02, 2017, 07:50:58 PM
So we did nothing.

And we won't do anything now either.

I posted much the same on FB... Pathetic that nothing gets done.

Dave

Trump called it evil, I don't accept the concept of evil, I do however accept the concept of the sick mind. Trump, your citizens are in as much danger from home grown nutjobs as they are from immigrant nutjobs.

So, here was another sick mind in a society that seems to suffer a kind of mass mind sickness in too many of its members.

The argument, "The only way to defend against the bad person with a gun is to have lots of good people with guns." Onky trouble is it is aldo a society that seems to suffer greatly from mental illness, stress induced or otherwise. The sane gun owner if today might well be the insane one of tomorrow.

Then add in the whatever percentage of less than disciplined gun owners who kerp their guns in a handbag or unlocked bedside draw for any kid or visitor to find . . . Wiuld not be so badbifbprodoective gun purchasers hadvto attend evening school, twice a week for six months (including range work with street situations) , for instruction on safe ownership and use before being issued a permit to buy and own. At their own cost of course.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Sandra Craft

Quote from: Recusant on October 02, 2017, 06:58:25 PM
It's not a Muslim? Ah well then, nothing to do but buy more guns and ammunition, I guess.

Gun and ammo buying has already spiked.  Apparently the only thing appropriate to do after a shooting is to gear up for the next one.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Recusant

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on October 03, 2017, 05:02:34 AMGun and ammo buying has already spiked.  Apparently the only thing appropriate to do after a shooting is to gear up for the next one.

Well there's that, and blaming the shooting on antifa and/or Muslims. If you're really with the program you know that it was scripted by the Democratic party.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Sandra Craft

#8
Quote from: Recusant on October 03, 2017, 06:15:37 AM
Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on October 03, 2017, 05:02:34 AMGun and ammo buying has already spiked.  Apparently the only thing appropriate to do after a shooting is to gear up for the next one.

Well there's that, and blaming the shooting on antifa and/or Muslims. If you're really with the program you know that it was scripted by the Democratic party.

You know, the minute I heard the shooting was at a country music concert I knew the shooter would be tagged as a leftist.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Recusant

I'm not going to sticky this thread until the next one. And there will be a next one.  :-\

"It Doesn't Matter Why ******* ***** ******* Did It" | New York Magazine

QuoteThe only hope for preventing mass shootings is to treat guns like any other public-health threat and build a strong body of research — but the Republican Party has seriously hamstrung any efforts to do that.

Because we can't predict who will commit a mass shooting, our only real hope of reducing the number and deadliness of such shootings is to better understand how guns "work" at a public-health level, and finding out policies that will reduce the odds of dangerous people getting guns, or at least getting the most deadly types of guns.

This is exactly the sort of task the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be well-suited for in any other situation. After all, it has a $7 billion annual budget and its entire mandate is to study threats to Americans' health and well-being. And the CDC did, for a while, study gun violence. That changed abruptly in 1996, when the National Rifle Association, as part of its remarkably successful decades-long effort to keep just about any meaningful national-level gun control off the table, successfully pressured congressional Republicans to strip the CDC of its gun-research funding and to effectively ban the agency from studying gun violence, or disbursing funds to researchers who want to do so.

Since its passage, the ban has led to tens of millions of dollars of lost research funding for one of the biggest public-health threats to American lives.

[. . .]

Naturally, this has had a stunting trickle-down effect on the national conversation about gun violence. "Because we don't know what works, we as a country are left in a shouting match," Dr. Mark Rosenberg, the president and CEO of the Task Force for Global Help and a former gun-violence researcher at the CDC, told me for a story I did on the ban in December of 2015. "We get into these totally nonproductive shouting matches because nobody has the evidence ... and that's where we stand right now."

We know many of the key public-health questions about how gun violence works in the U.S.: What differentiates the sorts of people who are and aren't able to acquire weapons illegally? What sorts of temporary bans on gun ownership for people in states of severe psychological distress would, and wouldn't, help prevent deadly violence? And so on. But we are years, if not decades, behind on answering these questions because our own lawmakers have decided that the government should sweep them under the rug, rather than aggressively try to research answers to them — largely because the NRA is worried that the answer to some of these questions will be that tightening certain gun laws would make us all safer (a reasonable assumption in light of evidence from countries like Australia).

Again: It will be interesting, and useful in a certain, narrow sense, to find out why [shitbag's name] committed his heinous crime. But to focus too narrowly on the details is to miss the much more important, broader point: The U.S. is soaked in a great deal of what is likely unnecessary bloodshed because it refuses to do anything about its gun-violence epidemic. There's no cute or subtle way out of that fact, no insight waiting to be uncovered from poring over mass shooters' Facebook profiles or their texts with family members. We're stuck where we are, because of political choices we have made, and there doesn't appear to be any escape. Just more and more horror.

[Link to full article.]

"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Sandra Craft

^^^ Well, that was depressing -- the one thing that might help is the one thing we're unwilling to do.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Davin

The majority of American is willing to allow common sense gun regulations. But politicians bribed by the NRA are against it. And the NRA misleads many people as well. And they have plenty of money to keep on doing it.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Biggus Dickus

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on October 05, 2017, 08:57:47 AM
^^^ Well, that was depressing -- the one thing that might help is the one thing we're unwilling to do.

Yes I agree, it is horribly depressing, and we won't do anything because guns are such an interwoven part of the fabric of our culture. It's all about Guns, God, and Country, and I believe that order of relevance is correct...Guns are at the top of the USA's unfortunate and misguided Patriotism which is currently being fueled by the populace ideology that got Trump elected. However, it existed long before Trump, and it will sadly exists long after he's gone because it will alway's go hand in hand with the misguided and ridiculous Christian ideology this country runs on.


Gun shares this week are on the rise in the stock exchange, and the sale of the so called Bump-stock's are surging.
Bump-stock sales are surging after being used in the Las Vegas massacre

QuoteThe Las Vegas shooting that left 58 people dead and more than 500 injured has placed new attention on the "bump-stock" device that Stephen Paddock had 12 of in order to enhance his semi-automatic rifle arsenal at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. In the wake of the massacre, sales of the modification that allows these weapons to fire like fully-automatic rifles have spiked—and in some cases bump-stocks are selling out.

This is what happens after everyone of these gun massacres as gun and ammunition sales go way up. This lines the pockets of not only the Gun Manufacturers, but the NRA as well as the elected officials who back and support them.


People like this Republican from South Dakota, Senator John Thune who blamed victims in Las Vegas for not taking better precautions.

QuoteThune shied away from the topic of gun control, arguing, "t's an open society and it's hard to prevent anything."

Instead, the Republican senator offered advice to potential victims.

"I think people are going to have to take steps in their own lives to take precautions," he opined. "To protect themselves. And in situations like that, you know, try to stay safe. As somebody said — get small."

He is of course a very religious man, a Protestant, who backed the "Religious Freedom Act", which allows Christians to openly discriminate against others...

What I know is this. Those here in America who espouse gun rights the most, who can look the other way when massacres such as this one occur are overwhelmingly Christian...they've got their stupid bible in one hand, and their killing machines in the other.
They care more about restricting access to birth control for woman and healthcare for everyone  than they do about tightening gun control laws that can save lives.

As Christian commentator Bill O'Reilly said.

QuoteThe Las Vegas massacre that left at least 58 dead is the price of freedom and gunmen who commit mass shootings have right to arm themselves"


Hell, Pat Robertson more or less said that God did it.

QuoteWHY IS IT HAPPENING?" HE ASKED. "THE FACT THAT WE HAVE DISRESPECT FOR AUTHORITY; THERE IS PROFOUND DISRESPECT FOR OUR PRESIDENT, ALL ACROSS THIS NATION THEY SAY TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT HIM. IT'S IN THE NEWS, IT'S IN OTHER PLACES. THERE IS DISRESPECT NOW FOR OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM, DISRESPECT FOR OUR VETERANS, DISRESPECT FOR THE INSTITUTIONS OF OUR GOVERNMENT, DISRESPECT FOR THE COURT SYSTEM. ALL THE WAY UP AND DOWN THE LINE, DISRESPECT."

"UNTIL THERE IS BIBLICAL AUTHORITY," ROBERTSON CONTINUED, "THERE HAS TO BE SOME CONTROLLING AUTHORITY IN OUR SOCIETY AND THERE IS NONE. AND WHEN THERE IS NO VISION OF GOD, THE PEOPLE RUN AMOK ... AND WE HAVE TAKEN FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE VISION OF GOD,

We're a sick and fucked up country. A people who don't understand at all what the word "Freedom" really means.




Earlier this year I travelled with my wife to Honduras to visit her family and our friends who live there, and most folks here who when they heard I was about to travel there or had already visited ask, "Aren't you afraid to go there, it's such a dangerous country"?, and I respond back to them,..."And the USA isn't dangerous, are you kidding me"?


Modified 1x to add this, cuz' we're number 1!




"Some people just need a high-five. In the face. With a chair."

Icarus

^ That graph makes me ashamed of a significant part of my society.  Say it ain't so........please.

If I use those numbers I get that  (3.6/0.04 = 90) we are ninety times less civilized than the citizens of the UK. and (3.6/0.01) =  360 times more irrational than the Japanese. 

Dragonia

Here's my 2 cents worth (ok, maybe 15 cents) on this issue:
I feel like I don't fit in anywhere on the issue of guns. It seems like such an all-or-nothing issue.  I am not a member of the NRA, but I do believe that responsible, sane Americans should be allowed to own weapons.
Especially growing up in Alaska, and spending many years of my adult life there, a weapon equals food for your family, and protection for yourself and your family. We would have never gone on our trips into the woods without a gun. We never had to use ours, for protection or signalling, but we knew plenty of people who would have been dead without one.
I also support owning a weapon for self-or home-defense. Again, I have known a woman whose shotgun saved her life/health/property (she wasn't sure what the intruder was after,  only that he turned and ran when he saw the gun aimed at his head.)
These beliefs have gotten me sneered at and verbally jumped all over.
Now, I think it's wise and prudent to outlaw modifications on weapons, silencers, bum stocks (whatever it's called), among other stuff. I don't mind a limit on the number of weapons a person can own. I don't mind a mandatory waiting period before someone can purchase a gun. I support thorough background checks.
These beliefs have gotten me sneered at and verbally jumped all over.
Some new laws would be a logistical nightmare / witch hunt, trying to enforce the newly passed law, ie. limiting the number of weapons you can own. I have no idea how this would be accomplished and it could be that lawmakers are afraid of the uprising that instituting these laws would cause.
I feel like these issues are more complicated and possibly riotous than at first thought. Not saying we shouldn't try. Just saying I don't envy the enforcers.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~ Plato (?)