Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

Regardless statistically it is insignificant. Yes incidents like this are ghastly, but it is far from the problem the sensationalists make it out to be.

To talk of it statistically is callous. Fact is, it is unnecessary death caused by an ancient law which could never have predicted it's abuse in the present day.
 
Morbidity and Mortality
In 2007, diabetes was listed as the underlying cause on 71,382 death certificates and was listed as a contributing factor on an additional 160,022 death certificates. This means that diabetes contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths.
http://http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/

Should fatty foods be banned?

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To talk of it statistically is callous. Fact is, it is unnecessary death caused by an ancient law which could never have predicted it's abuse in the present day.

It isn't callous, it is the responsible thing to do. Emotions lead to harmful decisions that feel good.
 
It isn't callous, it is the responsible thing to do. Emotions lead to harmful decisions that feel good.

Yes it is. It your sort of misguided intransigence to the issue of gun ownership in the United States that enables the next thread here on the same subject. Give it another 6 months for the next one.
 
Yes it is. It your sort of misguided intransigence to the issue of gun ownership in the United States that enables the next thread here on the same subject. Give it another 6 months for the next one.

Phrasing it like it is an epidemic doesn't make it one.
 
I've already had this argument today on facebook so I will repost my reason as to why I support the legality of firearms:

The main purpose of government is to protect its peoples' natural rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When it ceases to do so it must be overthrown for one that will.

An armed populace has a much easier time at doing this than one which is not. I do not believe the U.S. government needs to be overthrown as it does do a reasonable job of this at the moment. However every government will at some point deteriorate into something that does not. When the time comes I want there to be firearms ready.

I am for the most part a pacifist, but when it comes to protecting one's natural rights I concede the use of arms.
 
What if they do it with a dump truck? What about an IED? What about a modified BB or paintball gun (throw some napalm into paintballs instead of gel as an example). Flamethrowers are also legal pretty much everywhere and are insanely easy to make (hell there are videos of people using super soakers as them). This is all not mentioning the crazy guy who went on a rampage in a tank a number of years ago.

This is all stuff I literally came up with in about 20 seconds and I'm normal....

This is the mindset I was referring to earlier: If a solution does not solve every problem imaginable, it is immediately discarded. In my mind, that's a fallacy.
 
I've already had this argument today on facebook so I will repost my reason as to why I support the legality of firearms:

The main purpose of government is to protect its peoples' natural rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When it ceases to do so it must be overthrown for one that will.

An armed populace has a much easier time at doing this than one which is not. I do not believe the U.S. government needs to be overthrown as it does do a reasonable job of this at the moment. However every government will at some point deteriorate into something that does not. When the time comes I want there to be firearms ready.

I am for the most part a pacifist, but when it comes to protecting one's natural rights I concede the use of arms.

Maybe you really have to be grown up outside of the USA to realize, how unbelievably ridiculous that sounds to foreign ears.

I agree, though, that the USA have entered a downward spiral of violence, where the only solution to protect yourself from people with guns, is having your own gun. That's why there are 200,000,000 guns in private ownership in the USA. In words: Two hundred million. And that is only the official number. I'm sure the number of unknown, illegally owned weapons is even higher. Does anybody seriously believe it takes 200 million weapons for Americans to be able to defend themselves against their own government?

That number alone is also making complete nonsense of any already existing regulation or restriction people usually refer to, when more gun control is discussed (again).

By the logic of the weapons industry - that only arming yourself protects you from other armed people - the next logical step would be: "Well, let's give guns to school children, so they can defend themselves against an amok runner". Ridiculous.

And no, I don't think that banning firearms from private property is the solution to everything. Besides, I would really like to see the result of policemen trying to take away firearms from rednecks...

But there is one undeniable truth: An amok run is much more difficult, when you only have a knife or a baseball bat.

And I tell you another truth: More guns don't mean more safety. More guns only lead to more people being shot. In fact, each year much more people are being shot inside the USA, than US soldiers are being shot abroad in countries like Afghanistan or Iraq.

Which means, it's probably not more dangerous to serve in the army abroad, than living as a school teacher in an American suburb...
 
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[...]Which means, it's probably not more dangerous to serve in the army abroad, than living as a school teacher in an American suburb...
<_< oh, come on, 2000 american soliders (and civil personal) died in afghanistan alone in 11 years. Not counting Irak, not all the other places the US send their troops these days. This is a bad comparrison ...

Not saying that I would feel especially safe being a teacher in the US, nor that I think the "US-way" of private gun-ownership is right - but it?s a bad comparrison no less.
 
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And how many troops are there compared to the US population? Bad comparison...
 
Unfortunately, you can't outlaw crazy. There will always be lunatics and they will always exploit whatever lax laws, aka freedoms, they can to do what they want. The whole gun control "debate" that erupts every time there is a shooting is pointless, it's never going to happen. Even if guns were banned, there is no way to track them all down. It would be like making knives illegal.

And besides that, I have no respect for people who make knee-jerk reactions that have serious consequences for other peoples' freedoms. And to think they actually expect people to think highly of them, to respect and honor them, for wanting to strip away freedoms that millions of people enjoy every day without ever impeding the rights of others, for some delusional false perception of safety. And if you don't agree with them, they call you names and try to insult you, hoping that will "persuade" you. The sheer amount of pretentious arrogance makes my head hurt.

I really wish there was a good way to prevent these sorts of things from happening, but I can't think of it, and nothing anyone else has said gives me much hope. We've tried banning guns in certain areas, but that's just where all the lunatics go to find defenseless victims to harm. Laws concerning who buys guns are great, but that won't stop people stealing them. And laws forcing people to lock them up, with ammunition to be stored out and away from the gun, can severely or entirely negate owning a gun for defensive purposes.
 
<_< oh, come on, 2000 american soliders (and civil personal) died in afghanistan alone in 11 years. Not counting Irak, not all the other places the US send their troops these days. This is a bad comparrison ...

Not saying that I would feel especially safe being a teacher in the US, nor that I think the "US-way" of private gun-ownership is right - but it?s a bad comparrison no less.

And how many troops are there compared to the US population? Bad comparison...

I agree the comparison was a bit weak. But if I remember correctly, 30,000 people died of gunfire last year. How many Americans died in Vietnam all in all? 40,000?
 
I agree, though, that the USA have entered a downward spiral of violence

Except it hasn't... Unless you meant downward spiral of reduced violence? According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics Violent Crime is at its lowest rate since the 70's.

Year Violent Crime Rate
1971 396
1972 401
1973 417.4
1974 461.1
1975 487.8
1976 467.8
1977 475.9
1978 497.8
1979 548.9
1980 596.6
1981 593.5
1982 570.8
1983 538.1
1984 539.9
1985 558.1
1986 620.1
1987 612.5
1988 640.6
1989 666.9
1990 729.6
1991 758.2
1992 757.7
1993 747.1
1994 713.6
1995 684.5
1996 636.6
1997 611
1998 567.6
1999 523
2000 506.5
2001 504.5
2002 494.4
2003 475.8
2004 463.2
2005 469
2006 473.6
2007 466.9
2008 457.5
2009 431.9
2010 403.6
2011 386.3
 
Should fatty foods be banned?
In the US, number of deaths due to firearm homicide: 12,632.
Number of deaths due to heart disease: 599,413.
That's a factor of 47.


Maybe you really have to be grown up outside of the USA to realize, how unbelievably ridiculous that sounds to foreign ears.
Maybe you really have to grow up inside the USA to realize that you shouldn't count on anyone but yourself for protection. Before you mention the police, google Warren vs DC.


By the logic of the weapons industry - that only arming yourself protects you from other armed people - the next logical step would be: "Well, let's give guns to school children, so they can defend themselves against an amok runner". Ridiculous.
That's like saying that since mobility is important, kindergartners should be able to drive cars. You're making a ridiculous exaggeration that doesn't strengthen your argument.


But there is one undeniable truth: An amok run is much more difficult, when you only have a knife or a baseball bat.
How about when you have a Molotov Cocktail?


And I tell you another truth: More guns don't mean more safety. More guns only lead to more people being shot.
Orly? You sure about that? I'm not so sure... Hmm... Want me to keep digging up more stories? Stories that mass media never talks about because the general public seems less interested in lives saved than lives taken?


Which means, it's probably not more dangerous to serve in the army abroad, than living as a school teacher in an American suburb...
:rolleyes:
 
I agree the comparison was a bit weak. But if I remember correctly, 30,000 people died of gunfire last year. How many Americans died in Vietnam all in all? 40,000?

58,282 KIA in Vietnam of only American Recognized Military

Of the average 30,000 people who die from gunfire approximately 21,225 are self-inflicted
 
Just for a comparison the UK (From Wiki)

Rampage killings

Britain has had few firearms rampage incidents in modern times. During the latter half of the 20th century there were only two incidents in which people holding licensed firearms went on shooting sprees and killed on a large scale, the Hungerford massacre of 1987 and the Dunblane school massacre of 1996; each led to strong public and political demands to restrict firearm use, and tightening of laws. The result has been among the strictest firearms laws in the world.[SUP][11][/SUP] After Hungerford, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 criminalised most semi-automatic long-barrelled weapons; it was generally supported by the Labour opposition although some Labour backbenchers thought it inadequate.[SUP][12][/SUP] After the second incident, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 criminalised private possession of most handguns having a calibre over .22; the Snowdrop Campaigncontinued to press for a wider ban, and in 1997 the incoming Labour government introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, which extended this to most handguns with a calibre of .22 (there are exceptions for some antique handguns and black-powder revolvers.)

BUT. ...

In the United Kingdom firearms are tightly controlled by law, and while there is opposition to existing legislation from shooting organisations[SUP][citation needed][/SUP], there is little wider political debate, and public opinion favours stronger control. [SUP][1][/SUP] The British Shooting Sports Council now believes that the law needs to be consolidated but it does not call for a review. [SUP][2][/SUP] The United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world with 0.07 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants in 2009 compared to the United States' 3.0 and to Germany's 0.21.[SUP][3][/SUP]
With the exception of Northern Ireland, most police personnel in the United Kingdom do not routinely carry firearms. [SUP][4][/SUP][SUP][5][/SUP] Despite police being unarmed, shooting fatalities of members of the police are extremely rare; there were three in England in Wales in the eleven-year period from 2000/01 to 2010/11. [SUP][6][/SUP] About 7,000 police personnel have received firearms training [SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP]. Standard police firearms include semi-automatic carbines, and pistols, such as the Heckler & Koch MP5SF, andGlock 17. [SUP][8][/SUP]

So it does seem to depend upon law, and enforcement of said law. I accept that the situation in the US is different, and perhaps we have gone a bit too far but it does seem to work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom
 
I'm beginning to think that the problem lies with the concept of rights and the public misunderstanding of the term. A lot of people are talking about "taking my rights" and that "rights exist."

Neither of these two phrases is objectively true. Rights are rhetorical. They are not ontological. You are not born with them built into your body or brain, nor are they set in stone. You were not born with the idea that you must buy a gun to protect yourself, you were taught to think so. Same story with driving. Having a license is not a right and you can't abuse it driving under the influencing claiming that it is your right to drive a car. It is a privilege.

Rights are ideological constructs relying on public understanding, compromise and cohabitation.

Some of that got lost along the way in the US public mind. Compromise is not a term we understand. We are either democrats or republicans. Either pro-gun or anti-gun. Pro-life or pro-choice. The middle ground has ceased to exist, and with that the concepts of community, cohabitation or collaboration become endangered.

Tragedies like the Sandy Hook shooting are an indirect result of our inability to settle our differences, meet eye-to-eye and try to work together. Like it or not, the reality is that we live on the same planet, close to other people - you can't live like a hermit in a bunker with all your guns, home-schooling your kids and protecting them from the world around them. I feel like that's how a lot of people are acting recently in response to such tragedies - buy more guns and dig a deeper hole to hide in. Sorry to break this to you, but if you do so you run into the risk of your own kids becoming violent anti-social sociopaths.

My heart is heavy.

My hope is that if a hair metal band can understand the value of a child's life, it shouldn't be that difficult for us to understand it too.

 
Tragedies like the Sandy Hook shooting are an indirect result of our inability to settle our differences, meet eye-to-eye and try to work together. Like it or not, the reality is that we live on the same planet, close to other people - you can't live like a hermit in a bunker with all your guns, home-schooling your kids and protecting them from the world around them. I feel like that's how a lot of people are acting recently in response to such tragedies - buy more guns and dig a deeper hole to hide in.

It's not necessarily the gun nuts doing that though. If anything, it seems like the gun nuts are arguing that we shouldn't let tragedies like this scare us into hiding, but rather we should continue to live our lives to the fullest. I personally would rather live a full happy life and die at 40, than live in a padded cell to see 100.

As far as owning a gun being a "right" or not, the way I see it, what set our species apart from common animals was becoming tool users. We started with sticks and clubs, moved on to spears and arrows, and eventually to guns. They're a tool, the type of tool that we used to survive and evolve. Condemning and demonizing such tools now seems rather ungracious.
 
It's not necessarily the gun nuts doing that though. If anything, it seems like the gun nuts are arguing that we shouldn't let tragedies like this scare us into hiding, but rather we should continue to live our lives to the fullest. I personally would rather live a full happy life and die at 40, than live in a padded cell to see 100.

As far as owning a gun being a "right" or not, the way I see it, what set our species apart from common animals was becoming tool users. We started with sticks and clubs, moved on to spears and arrows, and eventually to guns. They're a tool, the type of tool that we used to survive and evolve. Condemning and demonizing such tools now seems rather ungracious.

Yes, a gun is a tool, but one that has only one purpose. It's purpose it to kill.

I'd like to think that we've most past the cave man/Iron Age type person who's basic response to anything dangerous is to just kill it.


And _HighVoltage_ hit it on the head (no pun intended)...

Instead of my side versus your side...we need to just start acting like rational adults.

Right now, we're a group of whiny 'entitled' people clinging to a 200 year old loophole in a documents that's already been modified many many time that lets them own weapons designed only to kill, just because it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside....
 
Yes, a gun is a tool, but one that has only one purpose. It's purpose it to kill.
I beg to differ. Have you ever been to a range to see just how much fun it is to compete against your friends in target shooting?
 
Yes, a gun is a tool, but one that has only one purpose. It's purpose it to kill.
What about squirt guns? Different guns were designed with different purposes. Many can be used to kill, but that quality is hardly limited to guns. If that's a good enough reason to justify banning them, then any other object that can be used to kill should also be banned. Of course, trying to ban sticks and stones doesn't seem very realistic. Neither does registering them and locking them up in safes.

I'd like to think that we've most past the cave man/Iron Age type person who's basic response to anything dangerous is to just kill it.
When we've most past the stage when evil people do evil things to innocent people, then we'll have moved past the stage where private gun ownership is no longer justifiable.
 
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