Need more guns. Is it local?

[Beavah]

The kid is so angry she doesn't care about her own life and sees the chance to let the staff do the deed for her so she charges right at the assistant principal. You think this girl deserves to die?

 

Good point, packsaddle. Suicide by cop is common enough. With teens and teen suicide bein' a major concern, suicide by armed teacher might be an attractive option. Just waive your airsoft gun around. Odds are your frightened civilians who are packin' because they're afraid of da invading hordes aren't goin' to recognize the difference.

 

Sailingpj, da question yeh have to face with such a system is what are yeh goin' to do when a gun owner flags in the system? So their doc prescribes antidepressants, do the cops show up at the house to confiscate the firearms? Is that a "taking" so that compensation is due? Who pays for da compensation? Or do yeh limit da response to forbidding sales of (additional) guns and ammunition to the person?

 

Personally, I'm more fond of educational approaches in general, but what we've seen in a lot of comments here is that a large segment of da firearms enthusiast community is so lost in Second Amendment "rights" issues that they seem to have forgotten da responsibility piece. "George, you've been havin' trouble with your teenager lately. Yeh need to store your guns over at my place" is a conversation nobody seems willing to have. Even though they'd be fine tellin' George to give 'em the car keys if he's had one too many. That says a lot, eh?

 

We gun owners should be on da forefront of havin' da public conversation about the responsibilities and ethics of gun owners.

 

Beavah

 

[sailingpj]

Education seems like a good option to me. There would have to be a lot of it though, and it would have to be targeted toward a lot of different audiences.

 

I don't think your comparison with drunk driving works all that well. Despite tons of money spent on education and commercials, there are still tons of people that choose to drive drunk. They are giving out more DUIs every year.

 

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_19621314

http://totaltrafficla.com/2011/12/27/980-christmas-holiday-chp-dui-arrests-across-california/21045

[Beavah]

Despite tons of money spent on education and commercials, there are still tons of people that choose to drive drunk.

 

Yah, good point.

 

All I was tryin' to say is that it is considered socially acceptable (even admirable) to take the keys away from a friend so as to limit da risk of a DUI fatality. But it's not considered socially acceptable to take the guns away from a friend so as to limit da risk of a firearms fatality. In both cases the risk may be small (lots of drunks make it home just fine), but our attitudes about intervening are different. I'd just like to see us change our attitudes a bit.

 

Beavah

 

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

Innumeracy in America is incredibly common; so common, it afflicts hundreds of people!

 

There were no sensational news reports about the hundreds of millions of firearms in the US that were not used in a crime last month. And if there were reports of how the number of children murdered by psychos with guns last year compares to number whose parent strangled or beat them to death (it's how most murdered children are murdered), they apparently haven't made much of an impression.

 

Sometimes people use firearms for bad purposes. The number of such incidents in any given time period may seem large to folks who don't take into account the enormity of the population from which we derive the numbers or who don't compare them to the incidence of any other kinds of things about which we might be concerned. They may also seem large when compared to other places in which these infrequent events happen even less frequently. And they may seem large to folks who are fascinated with news of the bizarre (in other words - pretty much everyone - everyone's ears perk up more for the odd than for the ho-hum routine) if they fail to maintain a sense of proportion as they take it in.

 

The numbers may also seem large to folks who want them to seem large because they don't like guns or because they don't like certain kinds of guns, or because they don't like the idea of folks other than the ones they approve having any degree of self reliance for security. These sorts of persons often use the warm fuzzy language of community, caring, looking out for everyone's best interest, etc... but make no mistake about it... the important part of gun control for them is not the gun... it's the control... for the good of the community, of course.

 

These people would draft us all into their warm, caring, almost family-like, community. In this wonderful caring community of theirs, they want Big Brotherly authority watching over us all - just to keep us safe of course. The Big Brother can be govt appointed or self appointed... but they usually prefer government, usually through a tyranny of the majority or at the least the illusion of a majority.

 

It's love of their fellow man that motivates them; that's why if you disagree with them over matters of fact or preference, they are far to big-hearted to tell you that you're ignorant or evil minded.... no... they will diagnose you as having some sort of illness and tell you something like: "if yeh really believe in da risk of invading hordes then yeh need to run, not walk, to a mental health professional. And yeh definitely should not be allowed to handle a firearm." In some countries where this more community minded mindset reigns, it's a matter of policy, and folks with political or religious views that don't conform to the "correct" views are sent to facilities to get the treatment they need, and sometimes even rehabilitative work retreats.

 

 

 

" We gun owners should be on da forefront of havin' da public conversation about the responsibilities and ethics of gun owners."

 

"forefront" ? huh? Oh...... forefront.... "F:)rward" Of course. How could we miss a reference to Vanguardism? Yes, gun owners might forward their cause more effectively through Vanguardism... particularly if their cause is less about gun ownership and more about achieving the communitarian society of their dreams - dreams that will of course necessitate some important changes in the rights of individuals so that they don't become overly obsessed with nutty things like the 2nd amendment. Vanguardism, for now will work better than a forthright attempt to repeal the amendment.

 

 

(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay!)

[Venividi]

Innumeracy in America is incredibly common...

 

A bit like an airplane crash makes national news, but a traffic death only makes local news. Even though airplane travel is much safer.

 

Difference being that people accept the risk that every time they get in a car they might get hit and killed. Steps have been taken to reduce that risk (DWI laws, etc.). Still, people accept the risk and the collateral damage because of the benefit that driving and flying provides.

 

Parents (and most of society) dont want to accept that the deaths of children to gun violence is acceptable collateral damage in the support of the keeping guns for what appears to have no relationship to the keeping of a well regulated militia.

 

 

 

 

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

"gun violence" - People can engage in violence. Guns have no agency, violent or otherwise.

 

Adapting the construction of the phrase "gun violence" to the method of murder most often employed in the murder of children, it would be "hand violence," sometimes "blunt object violence," usually at the hands of a parent.

 

And yet people accept that this is acceptable collateral damage in support of families keeping government monitoring (which could predict and prevent such incidents) out of their homes for what appears to have no relationship to their right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures (since it's not "unreasonable" to protect children and is not really a threat to the security of their persons, houses, etc... the government monitoring system would be protection of their persons, houses, etc... not a threat).

 

[packsaddle]

Thinking about this thread title. A few years back I was in a hospital for emergency surgery. That experience is why I know what it feels like to be stabbed in the chest multiple times. It actually doesn't hurt as much as you might think, but breathing is kind of hard. The scars are spectacular though...makes for great campfire stories. And...some women think they're sexy. Cool, huh?

 

During the hospital stay, while I was waiting for one of a whole bunch of x-rays, another patient near me told me what had happened to her. She had had an argument with her husband and he tried to hack her to pieces with an ax. Just another Southern marriage with the wife 'submitting' to her husband, lol.

 

Tonight there just was news of one more domestic dispute. The wife is dead. This makes at least six domestic fatalities in just a couple of weeks for this county alone. All of them from gunshot. Only one of the guns (the one tonight) was 'illegal'. It made me think about the contrast of that poor woman whose enraged husband hacked the hell out of her with an ax but she survived anyway...between her and all these people lately who were dispatched quickly and completely with the pull of a trigger. Thing is, punishing the perps is impossible for most of them - murder/suicide. The knowledge of the outcome of suicide hasn't scared people out of doing it as far as I can tell.

 

I wonder if all those people would be dead if there hadn't been a gun in the story, if instead there had been a knife? How many people who would simply pull the trigger to commit suicide could get the courage to do it with a knife? How many of them would find it as easy to slide that blade into the chest of someone they 'love', to see up close their facial contortions, their eyes, tears, the fear, the screams? How many would keep thrusting the blade until the 'love of their life' was dead? To watch the blood and feel its slick warmth and still continue stabbing away? To hear their 'love's' last sounds as they take their last breath? Would all of those people be dead if not for the guns? ...instead of a blade, the simple, clean squeeze of a trigger and a shot spitting a projectile at high velocity from enough distance that eye color isn't noticed and quickly enough that none of those other things matter much because that projectile can't be called back.

The motion of a knife blade is available for recall right up until it slices a filet from some vital organ. That bullet has a life of its own, distributing entropy all the way until it is spent and no way to think twice about what's just been done. We never had this kind of sad news so often about family members killing family members when I was young. Very few people had the kind of fire power that seems to be awash in society today. There were fewer people too so I admit this is unscientific. It's just the way it seems to me. And because there ARE so many guns, we need more of them?

 

Sure, husbands back then beat wives and there were bar fights and such, pretty much par for Southern society back then, maybe now. But brass knucks were a big deal back then. Pulling a knife was well-known and considered the ultimate response in a fight. People just weren't blazing away at each other with guns, at least not around where I lived. THAT kind of thing was reserved for dealing with other races. Guns, in that sense, are a truly cowardly thing.

 

I worked summers with guys who'd spent time on the chain gang for violent crimes. Some had terrible scars on their faces and arms and backs from the knife fights. Only one of them had actually killed someone, or at least admitted it. We'd talk about what they did over lunch break sometimes. They were a rough bunch but I wonder what they could have done if they'd had access to abundant guns and ammo?

 

I'm fairly certain that the woman who'd been hacked to pieces with an ax wouldn't have been alive to tell me her story, if her husband had had a gun.

When people tell me that people kill people, not guns, I have to question if 'guns' are completely 'innocent' of any part of these sad stories. Is it local? My answer is that the gun allows us to do these things in the most 'non-local' way, to spit a bit of high-velocity metal at great distance, to consider that other person merely as a target. It's not 'local' in the sense of having to get right up with the victim with a knife. I think there's quite an important difference. Do we really need more guns? Really?

[Brewmeister]

The security of myself, my family, and my property rely on my freedom to be as well as, or better, armed than those who would threaten it.

 

If someone comes at me with a knife, I want a gun.

 

If someone comes at me with a gun, I want an equal or bigger gun.

 

Gun laws will be ignored by criminals, just like asinine "gun free" zones.

 

Really, is this so hard to understand?

 

Unless you have a solution to fix human nature than I am entitled the freedom to defend myself and accept my responsibility as a member of the well regulated (I.e., properly functioning) citizen militia.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmmm... "communitarian society"? "government monitoring system"? references to gulags?

 

I wonder if yeh are listening to yourself Callooh Callay? I find myself wishin' for a video to see if yeh are actually deliverin' all that with a straight face.

 

Yah, lots of kids are hurt by child abuse by a parent or guardian. But we as a society responded with a whole raft of special legislation, haven't we? Federal law creating monitoring and data sharing and clearinghouses. State laws making child abuse and neglect the only crime where reporting of even suspicion is mandated at least for professionals. Special investigative agencies to look into allegations and determine parental fitness. Government officials empowered to take emergency custody of children or permanently remove 'em from their parents. Civil immunity for folks who report in good faith.

 

Are yeh proposing that sort of legislative response for firearms? Mandatory reporting of suspicions? Special agencies empowered to seize guns and ammo? Seems like your approach would make most of da gun control liberals look pretty timid by comparison.

 

I hate to break this to you, but Scouting from its very beginning to the present has been part of the "more community minded mindset" yeh seem to be referring to so disparagingly. We have taught around the world for generations now that individuals must work hard and sacrifice in service to others and the community. Every patrol outing teaches boys that they have to give some things up to be part of a bigger group - that they might not get their favorite meal every time, that they have to take a turn at doin' things they don't want when the group needs 'em to, that they have to rely on others and be relied upon. Scoutin', like any community, comes with restrictions to liberty and doin' what yeh please.

 

It's called Citizenship.

 

America seeing more of its scout-aged children killed by bullets than any ten other countries outside of a war zone is a tragedy that shouldn't be ignored. Good citizens respond to stuff like that. Responsible gun owners do, too.

 

Beavah

 

[Beavah]

The security of myself, my family, and my property rely on my freedom to be as well as, or better, armed than those who would threaten it.

 

Nah, they really don't. Leastways, not outside of Hollywood films.

 

Da security of your family depends on bein' part of a strong community, not on your firepower. It relies on institutional supports from a strong church community, from alert and caring neighbors, from good schools, from a healthy and free economy supported by appropriate regulation. It relies on da availability of medical care and emergency services and shared infrastructure like potable water and safe food. It relies on faith, and prayer, and da hard daily work of buildin' and maintaining a marriage that lasts.

 

Callooh talks about innumeracy, and if there's one clear example of innumeracy it's da level of fear a mess of suburbanites seem to have over armed folks threatening their family and property. Da real threats to families are very, very different.

 

Beavah

 

[SR540Beaver]

Let's revise the scenario a little.

 

A big student at the middle school is overcome by hormones and anger about something and in the middle of the day, she pulls a knife and starts screaming and making verbal threats at everyone around her. The coach, the custodian, the assistant principal, and one of the nearby teachers surround her at a distance to prevent her from hurting any students before the police can arrive in about 10 minutes. The assistant principal is scared to death to the point of shaking. The kid is so angry she doesn't care about her own life and decides to charge right at the assistant principal with her knife. Having no way to defend himself other than throw his arms up in a defensive move, she stabs him in the neck, severing an artery. As he collapses, she lunges at the students who were standing behind him. How do you stop this girl from injuring or killing someone else?

[Beavah]

Yah, seriously SR540. Are yeh advocating gunning down a 12-year-old girl in a middle school classroom in front of her friends? Yeh really think a competent school teacher is goin' to do that? I reckon every teacher out there would put their life on the line to try to contain a desperate 12 year old girl in a non-fatal way.

 

Not to mention da chain of improbable events you're tryin' to posit. She charges forward but da other adults don't grab her from the side and behind? The adults left all the other kids in the room within easy reach? She manages to hit da carotid artery despite da defensive act? Then, covered in blood and fully engaged with a desperate adult, she manages to pull free, avoid da other adults, outrun and corner another student who for no particular reason is still there, and without other 7th grade boys tacklin' her from behind?

 

Were there space aliens too?

 

Even then, there would be only one or two victims.

 

That same 12 year old with a semi-auto handgun can wreak a heck of a lot more havoc. As has been reported here repeatedly, a firearm is a force multiplier that makes da 12 year old equal to or greater than several adults in a way that a knife cannot. Da same reason it's useful for defense is the reason it's much worse in da wrong hands.

 

Beavah

 

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

I wonder if yeh are listening to yourself Callooh Callay?"

 

Wonder? About me? I'm not interesting. The ideas, information, observations, examples, etc I share are... or not.

 

But listening to the information, ideas, etc, I hear them quote another post in which we were told: "if yeh really believe in da risk of invading hordes then yeh need to run, not walk, to a mental health professional. And yeh definitely should not be allowed to handle a firearm."

 

That's how they roll in the communities that have the "more community minded mindset" that you correctly noted I was "referring to so disparagingly." Nonconformist beliefs are diagnosed as mental illness and their holders denied rights and freedoms in such communities. And yes, they do it for the good of the community; it's what they say, and it's what plenty of them really think.

 

And they do, as you say, believe "that individuals must work hard and sacrifice in service to others and the community." Yes. They "must." It's not voluntary association and cheerful voluntary service (although pretending that it is can be an additional "must"). They "must" work hard and sacrifice for the collective.

 

Very tricky, this stunt with the "believe in da risk of invading hordes" straw man. Naturally when the straw man was introduced we all thought we'd be treated to the spectacle of seeing it set alight. But it was a bait and switch surprise in which the straw man was trotted out and then left, unburnt, dancing around a bonfire of piety about scoutlier-than-thou hard work and sacrifice for the community.

 

So far, on the one hand there is the 2nd Amendment. And "huh?".

On the other hand, there have been innumerate "no true scotsmen" posting hocs and ergo-ing propter hocs of drama and pathos along slippery red herring slopes upon which ad hominem straw men beg questions... or something like that.

 

(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay! - becuz he cudent spel(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay!)

[Beavah]

Nah, you're mistakin' straw men for what is really satire of an absurd position. There's really a big difference, but yeh have to appreciate satire.

 

Nonconformist beliefs are fine, to a point. After a point, they become mental illness. Havin' seen too many dead kids, I think it's appropriate to restrict firearm access for folks who demonstrate signs or symptoms of mental illness. Some point further along than that, mental illness merits involuntary commitment.

 

Close as I can tell, everyone from da NRA spokespeople to moderate liberals is comin' to agreement on this.

 

They "must" work hard and sacrifice for the collective.

 

Yep, as a moral "must".

 

What do yeh think da Scout Oath and Law are? They are promises, bound by honor, to service. If yeh are an honorable man, yes, you "must" do your duty. You "must" strive to live by the Law. You "must" endeavor to help other people at all times.

 

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." - 1 John 3:16-18

 

"The collective?" The "collective" is our family, our community, our nation. Our brother and sister scouts and scouters. We promised them duty and sacrifice and service on our very honor.

 

"Must"? Absolutely. That is the Mission of Scouting. It's what we stand for.

 

Beavah

 

[JoeBob]

Hey Beavah,

 

"Nah, you're mistakin' straw men for what is really satire of an absurd position."

 

What we reject is your assertion that armed citizens can't/don't defend themselves and others with firearms. Here's a link to 5,680 examples of armed self-defense that made the news.

 

http://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/armed-citizen.aspx?pageNum=1

 

Many many other incidents go unreported, so our position is far from absurd.