Results 111 to 120 of 130
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08-28-2008 #111
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- Apr 2005
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- 982
Originally Posted by Tomfurbs
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08-30-2008 #112Originally Posted by InHouston
Welfare in this country has encouraged single mothers to raise many children with no father in the home. Coupled with drugs and the lure of easy money, young people in this country are easily seduced and intoxicated into a lifestyle of gangs, drugs, and crime. .
If it is as simple as divorce and welfare programs, we'd have seen utopias in our urban slums in the eras where divorce was unobtainable for the lower SECs. Crime then, in these areas were no more or less different from today- serial killers, murders, rapes, thefts- violence was a major component in impoverished urban life long before social welfare programs existed.
If anything it was easier for men back then to just disappear and abandon their families, its not like you could easily track someone down and make them pay child support in the 1870s.
Violence and militant radicalism cannot as easily thrive where people feel optimistic about their future IMHO.
Originally Posted by Tomfurbs
I don't care if its a gun, knife, car, or a hammer. More cops here die from car chases than gun violence, but you don't see people (other than Nadar) pushing for a prohibition of automobiles.
I think of gun bans as damage limitation.
1) people just turn to other ways of hurting people (sticks, stones, knives, bats, skateboards, etc)
2) criminals get their hands on firearms anyway.
Originally Posted by Tomfurbs
And maybe its easier to withdraw from life
With all of its misery and wretched lies
If we're dead when tomorrow's gone
The Big Machine will just move on
Still we cling afraid we'll fall
Clinging like the memory which haunts us all
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08-31-2008 #113
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
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- London
- Posts
- 950
Originally Posted by SarahG
The columbine killers where able to continue their spree because they were ar,ed with fireamrs
Shortly after the UK ban was passed the year after Dunblane, a maniac attacked a church with an axe in Surrey (I can't remember his name, I was a teen at the time). The fact that he was armed with an axe and not a gun meant that he was able to inflict a lot less damage, even though, of course, every death is tragic.
Americans always say that their country has such awful social problems, and this is why they have the gun crime they do, as opposed to other gun-owning nations like Canada or France. Firstly, what an embarrasing admission. Secondly, Americans are people just they same as everyone else. No more crazy or violent then the rest of the world. Therefore, when a country with a ban, like the UK, shows such proportionally lower crime stats than the US, it is irresponsible for Americans to say 'Oh, we have more sever social problems...the fact that guns are readily avaiable has nothing to do with it'. It is always easier to blame it on the poor and the blacks, though
Sarah said :
Which is where accountability comes in. If you get reckless with something while you're drunk and kill someone, your ass should be dealt with by the justice system for it.
I don't care if its a gun, knife, car, or a hammer. More cops here die from car chases than gun violence, but you don't see people (other than Nadar) pushing for a prohibition of automobiles.
1) Of course everyone is accountable for their actions. I never said otherwise. Not allowing people access to a simple and easy way of killing someone is a pragmatic social safeguard. In a country with a ban, even owning a gun is a crime and people who do so should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That in itself is a good counter-measure against crime.
2) A car is designed to get people from A to B. A gun is designed to kill people. If someone kills someone with a car, they are misusing it. If someone kills someone with a gun, even if it is an accident, the gun itself has performed the task it has been created for.
That is why there is no place for guns domestically during peace-time.
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08-31-2008 #114
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- Apr 2005
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- 982
Originally Posted by Tomfurbs
http://www.criminalsgonewilddvd.com/...ht-on-tape.htm
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08-31-2008 #115Originally Posted by Tomfurbs
Ok sure, a crazy guy went and shot up a bunch of kids and 16 were dead, I am sure this tragic event was extremely hard on their families, their community, maybe even their country.... but it means nothing if in the grand scheme of things, removing those guns caused a surge in violence where other implements were used (such as knives).
Shortly after the UK ban was passed the year after Dunblane, a maniac attacked a church with an axe in Surrey (I can't remember his name, I was a teen at the time). The fact that he was armed with an axe and not a gun meant that he was able to inflict a lot less damage, even though, of course, every death is tragic.
As you said, it was shortly after the event- even extreme gun regulatory measures aren't going to make an IMMEDIATE change to such a point that someone cannot access a gun when they want to. How do you think the criminals gain access to guns (you've said yourself they can today, and that's years after gun "reforms" were put in place in your country). It is a single event, all we can do is speculate.
Americans always say that their country has such awful social problems, and this is why they have the gun crime they do, as opposed to other gun-owning nations like Canada or France. Firstly, what an embarrasing admission.
Secondly, Americans are people just they same as everyone else. No more crazy or violent then the rest of the world.
Believe it or not violence DOES vary from society to society. So does crime.
It is always easier to blame it on the poor and the blacks, though...
2) A car is designed to get people from A to B. A gun is designed to kill people. If someone kills someone with a car, they are misusing it. If someone kills someone with a gun, even if it is an accident, the gun itself has performed the task it has been created for.
And maybe its easier to withdraw from life
With all of its misery and wretched lies
If we're dead when tomorrow's gone
The Big Machine will just move on
Still we cling afraid we'll fall
Clinging like the memory which haunts us all
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09-01-2008 #116
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
- Location
- London
- Posts
- 950
With all your points taken on board, I still cannot understand the need for such an unnecessary and lethal item being easily accessed by the general public.
Large knives are being phased out in this country, and you have to be over 18 before you can purchase any blade, even a kitchen paring knife.
The difference between knives and guns is that 1) a gun can inflict more damage and 2) it is very difficult to kill someone with a blade, whereas
shooting someone is pretty basic and does not require the same level of emotional envolvement.
Politics is supposed to be one part ideals and one part pragmatism. Just as harmful chemicals and food additives are banned for the good of the nation, it is the same with guns.
I cannot belive you really think that guns make anything safer. A we have heard from other posters, gun-owners are actually attractive targets for criminals, and most home-weopons get turned on their owners.
Guns only escalate the level of violence of a situation, which is one of the reasons Brit cops don't carry them.
TOPICAL ASIDE:
Right now the UK news outlets are full of a story of Millionnaire Chris Foster who has gone missing after (they suspect) he shot his wife and her lover with his legally owned shotgun. This dude owned a gun why? Oh yeah..for self-defence. When was it ever used in anger? By the owner himself against his own wife. Of course he could have killed them with a knife of otgher instrument, but would he have been so successful?
EDIT:
US is averaging about a 'columbine' a year. How many more incidents like that are you as a nation going to accept before you actually take sokme kind of action, rather than just pass the buck and blame the lastest scapegoat?
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09-01-2008 #117Originally Posted by Tomfurbs
I completely understand why kids shoot up schools (understand, that doesn't mean I endorse shooting up schools, encourage shooting up schools, etc etc) having had a bad k-12 experience myself.
I don't see it as being a byproduct of guns, marilyn manson, doom2, rap music or any of that nonesense (hell after Columbine they were even trying to use "what clothes the shooters wore when they were in preschool" to escape goat what caused columbine)- what I believed caused columbine was the tendency of our schools to not give a shit when people repeatedly cross the line in terms of violence, abuse, harassment, and insults. Speaking to my own person experience, it was bad enough that the police had to step in on a regular basis because of the bodily injury I was receiving from bullies. Did the school care, do anything about it, or even pretend to stop it? Fuck no, in some cases the teachers themselves encouraged the behavior simply because I was different. And I'm not even talking about trans issues here, I was a target simply because of how different I looked in early k-12. That got me labeled as a target, and once that happened it stuck, moving, everything short of home schooling failed to make a difference.
I'm sure more students in our country die from suicides than ever have collectively from school shootings, even if the causes are often the same. Instead of trying to fix the problem, people escape goat it on guns thinking "ah, that's the reason why it happens..." That maybe the means in which students decide to react violent, but it isn't why they decide to do so.
Ever think about why people actually consider school shootings? It isn't just because "their family has guns laying around."
And maybe its easier to withdraw from life
With all of its misery and wretched lies
If we're dead when tomorrow's gone
The Big Machine will just move on
Still we cling afraid we'll fall
Clinging like the memory which haunts us all
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09-01-2008 #118
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Posts
- 1,216
Originally Posted by SarahG
Deputies are searching for two gunmen behind a deadly home invasion at a north Harris County mobile home park.
Elvis: I was dreamin'. Dreamin' my dick was out and I was checkin' to see if that infected bump on the head of it had filled with pus again. If it had, I was gonna name it after my ex-wife 'cilla and bust it by jackin' off.
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09-02-2008 #119Originally Posted by muhmuh
And maybe its easier to withdraw from life
With all of its misery and wretched lies
If we're dead when tomorrow's gone
The Big Machine will just move on
Still we cling afraid we'll fall
Clinging like the memory which haunts us all
-
09-02-2008 #120Originally Posted by braveman
And maybe its easier to withdraw from life
With all of its misery and wretched lies
If we're dead when tomorrow's gone
The Big Machine will just move on
Still we cling afraid we'll fall
Clinging like the memory which haunts us all