I just got done watching the NRA conference in CNN.
My stance, this suggestion is a sane one, and in general the sanest suggestion I have ever heard from the NRA.
I am not a gun fanatic, and I am glad to see that this was address separately from all other issues. However the comments made on violence in video-games is saddening, but understanding. I personally stay away from overly realistic and violent games like GTO.
I, too, avoid playing Grand Theft Oliphaunt at all costs.
Also, in what possible way is calling video games a "shadow industry" indicative of a passable level of sanity?
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I don't mean to overstate my case, but: When the CEO of an organization that has done its best to loosen the standards for firearm ownership for the last two decades blames art and fiction for the proliferation of violence in the US, he is, rather obviously, just making excuses.
Speaking as a gun owner, it seems to me that the NRA has become the mouthpiece for irresponsible gun ownership.
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Seriously. I mean, come on. A national organization whose goal is to make firearms more widespread in real life is decrying the fact that firearms are widespread in media?
This isn't even good propaganda. It's just some sad man desperately trying to swat a country full of pointing-fingers out of his face.
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I just got done watching the NRA conference in CNN.
My stance, this suggestion is a sane one, and in general the sanest suggestion I have ever heard from the NRA.
I am not a gun fanatic, and I am glad to see that this was address separately from all other issues. However the comments made on violence in video-games is saddening, but understanding. I personally stay away from overly realistic and violent games like GTO.
So you are willing to raise taxes to have a new employee at each school?
Well that will help fix unemployment.
Also... if one were to decry violent video games, should one not perhaps make sure that one does not sponsor violent video games?
Case in point: go to Amazon.com and search for "NRA-Gun Club ps2"
I'd direct link it, but don't want to overstep any terms of service about linking, etc.
*edit -- apparently the game is technically non-violent... it just makes people want to become violent because it sucks so much. I appologize for the confusion.
What problem cannot be solved by more guns?
Speaking as a gun owner, it seems to me that the NRA has become the mouthpiece for irresponsible gun ownership.
The NRA made itself the lunatic's massacre facilitation service, firearms division, in 1977. It used to take a sensible public safety-minded approach to firearms ownership, focused mostly on hunting and sport shooting. The leadership, in fact, planned to decamp from Washington for Colorado Springs.
A group of nuts led by a convicted murderer staged a coup and took the joint over.
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Since it deserves to be repeated here so that everyone can laugh at it, the organization behind it, and the ideology responsible for telling them it's okay to blame video games and movies for a culture they encourage:
And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.
Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here's one: it's called Kindergarten Killers. It's been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn't or didn't want anyone to know you had found it?
Hilariously, he brings up a ten year-old Flash game made by some British 18 year-old as though it's representative of the video game industry in any way, shape, or form.
If you're reading this thread, you no longer have an excuse. The NRA is sick, and it's full of disingenuous people willing to deceive the American public (poorly, I might add) in order to get what they want.
You have no excuse for supporting them, or the "ideals" that they wobble atop.
Also... if one were to decry violent video games, should one not perhaps make sure that one does not sponsor violent video games?
Case in point: go to Amazon.com and search for "NRA-Gun Club ps2"
I'd direct link it, but don't want to overstep any terms of service about linking, etc.
I've never had a problem linking to other sites, so here's the Amazon page, and here's the Wikipedia page.
Importantly, NRA Gun Club isn't a violent video game. It was specifically created to be non-violent, featuring range-based target shooting. That said, it was apparently a terrible game.
The NRA's problem isn't that they sponsor violent video game. It's that it's made up of awful human beings.
A group of nuts led by a convicted murderer staged a coup and took the joint over.
Half-true; Carter's conviction was overturned on appeal. He did, however, totally shoot and kill a 15 year-old kid who, at the moment of the shooting, likely did not constitute a threat to Carter's life.
So now the NRA's getting in on the blame-the-video-games bandwagon?
Yeah, they just made another enemy. I hope TotalBiscuit covers this.
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If people are going to request that we wait a "respectful period of time" after a tragedy before discussing gun control, I'm going to request that gun owners stop stacking tragedies so close together.
A group of nuts led by a convicted murderer staged a coup and took the joint over.Half-true; Carter's conviction was overturned on appeal. He did, however, totally shoot and kill a 15 year-old kid who, at the moment of the shooting, likely did not constitute a threat to Carter's life.
My link and your link are the same. Carter got off on a technicality, not because the facts of the case fell in his favor. His behavior afterwards (lying flagrantly about the facts) is consistent with a guy who knows he was guilty as hell and wants to conceal it.
My link and your link are the same. Carter got off on a technicality, not because the facts of the case fell in his favor.A group of nuts led by a convicted murderer staged a coup and took the joint over.Half-true; Carter's conviction was overturned on appeal. He did, however, totally shoot and kill a 15 year-old kid who, at the moment of the shooting, likely did not constitute a threat to Carter's life.
Absolutely. His conviction was thrown out due to improper jury instruction. He was probably still guilty of the crime with which he was charged, assuming the facts outlined in that link are accurate. He committed the act that resulted in the victim's death, he had clear intent to kill, and there were no clear mitigating circumstances that might have otherwise justified the act.
In other words, the nation's "responsible gun owner" organization was led by a guy who murdered a kid with a gun.
If people are going to request that we wait a "respectful period of time" after a tragedy before discussing gun control, I'm going to request that gun owners stop stacking tragedies so close together.
You have got to be kidding me.
Absolutely. His conviction was thrown out due to improper jury instruction. He was probably still guilty of the crime with which he was charged, assuming the facts outlined in that link are accurate. He committed the act that resulted in the victim's death, he had clear intent to kill, and there were no clear mitigating circumstances that might have otherwise justified the act.My link and your link are the same. Carter got off on a technicality, not because the facts of the case fell in his favor.A group of nuts led by a convicted murderer staged a coup and took the joint over.Half-true; Carter's conviction was overturned on appeal. He did, however, totally shoot and kill a 15 year-old kid who, at the moment of the shooting, likely did not constitute a threat to Carter's life.
Fortunately he joined the border patrol a few years later and could then shoot Mexicans legally. I'm sure it was a great relief to him.
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Fortunately he joined the border patrol a few years later and could then shoot Mexicans legally. I'm sure it was a great relief to him.Absolutely. His conviction was thrown out due to improper jury instruction. He was probably still guilty of the crime with which he was charged, assuming the facts outlined in that link are accurate. He committed the act that resulted in the victim's death, he had clear intent to kill, and there were no clear mitigating circumstances that might have otherwise justified the act.My link and your link are the same. Carter got off on a technicality, not because the facts of the case fell in his favor.A group of nuts led by a convicted murderer staged a coup and took the joint over.Half-true; Carter's conviction was overturned on appeal. He did, however, totally shoot and kill a 15 year-old kid who, at the moment of the shooting, likely did not constitute a threat to Carter's life.
What is it called when you wince and laugh at the same time and then feel a little guilty about it? Because I just did that.
So now the NRA's getting in on the blame-the-video-games bandwagon?
Yeah, they just made another enemy. I hope TotalBiscuit covers this.
The NRA is getting in on the "Blame-anybody-or-anything-but-guns" bandwagon.
Video games. The mentally ill. Obama. Gun control advocates. Anyone.
Meanwhile of course, gun advertising ramps up the fear and uses the same kind of imagery a lot of the realistic video games do. Pseudo military machismo.
What's hilarious (if you enjoy very black humor) is that he endorsed a national registry of the mentally ill, but not gun owners, because that would be an invasion of privacy.
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You have got to be kidding me.
If only. I'm getting tired of living in a society that has gone so far off the rails that I need to check the banner of every news site that I visit, because headlines for actual news and The Onion have become indistinguishable from one another.
What's hilarious (if you enjoy very black humor) is that he endorsed a national registry of the mentally ill, but not gun owners, because that would be an invasion of privacy.And many of the recent shooters wouldn't have appeared in any such registry anyway. Either never being diagnosed with anything that should have raised flags or only diagnosed after the fact.
Mind you, better mental health screening and treatment would help, but more by treating people than by keeping them from having guns.
I agree, but now you're like some sort of political opportunist who wants to use this an excuse to forward his socialized healthcare agenda.
Look, I know I shouldn't be so flip about this, but the NRA has ruined its own credibility. Derisive laughter is an appropriate reaction.
I've done some random browsing (searching for [nra] in Google Blogs) and found something even more damning.
Nails in the coffin aren't enough, we need to nail them to the casket.
Wow. Just wow.
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Wow. Just wow.
It's like there's a consistent anti-science worldview at work.
Wow. Just wow.It's like there's a consistent anti-science worldview at work.
When did that happen?
When did that happen?Wow. Just wow.It's like there's a consistent anti-science worldview at work.
1790, so far as I can tell. An argument could be made, though, for continuity between that and authoritarian, theological political traditions going back to Sumer. But we could pick any number of waypoints along the way.
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[Randomly shoots up the thread]
[Randomly shoots up the thread]
*failed to deter you with his concealed gun*
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So...the solution to people shooting up schools is to;
1) Blame videogames, moves, books, music, art, breakfast cereals and oxygen rather than considering that maybe, just maybe, people should have to go through as much of a hassle as to get a driving licence before being allowed to buy a weapon that fires super sonic lumps of metal.
2) Place a number of armed individuals in each school. Because at no point will any of those individuals become upset, mentally disturbed or simply feel threatened by some idiot teen trying to show off and getting in his face and therefore be a bigger danger than some idiot white guy who feels his emotional pain is so damned important the whole world must feel it or whatever idiot reason these idiots pick up a gun.
People are dying because guns are not being handled responsibly. Acting irresponsibly, trying to shift the blame away from that because guns are more precious than people's lives apparently, makes the NRA kinda horrifying. And shows exactly the attitude that's caused this mess and these deaths.
Yup.
You have to admit though, its brilliant in a sociopathic sort of way. The solution to your product that is killing people is trained security personel... who will have to buy more of your product
The NRA seems to think that canada australia and england don't get our Video games there.
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No, we're grateful if we're allowed Pacman. With the obesity crisis going on showing us that eating everything in sight is a good thing could lead to a complete collapse of British Society. God help us if those rumoured 'violent' games ever reach us - we'd certainly be stabbing each other with sharp rocks before they'd even hit the midnight release date.
No. the japanese don't play video games.
[Randomly shoots up the thread]*failed to deter you with his concealed gun*
*kills Anklebiter with one bullet to the forehead, Dirty Harry style*
That's cool. If I gotta go out, I'd like to go out Dirty Harry style.
Looks like we need to reset the waiting period clock on talking about it again.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/24/us/new-york-firefighters-shooting/?hpt=us_c1
I think my WTF meter just broke.
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Looks like we need to reset the waiting period clock on talking about it again.
This is...
Look, I just can't understand how this keeps happening. Why can't the majority of Americans see what is happening and force their government to fix this? Is the system so broken that you have to live in a country with the worst violent death rate of any nation that is not currently in a civil war? And how can you continue to claim to be the greatest nation in the world if that is the case?
I love the United States. It is our brother country (I'm Canadian). You can't be so different from us. We have a lot of ethnic diversity, just like you. We speak the same language (most of us anyway). We watch the same movies, tv shows, listen to the same music, play the same games.
We share the same values of democracy, freedom of speech and religion, and basic civil rights. We have crimes like this, but they are far less frequent than just our smaller population would account for. The only real difference that I can see is that we have always had gun control.
When will this stop?
Columbine had an armed guard.
Columbine had an armed guard.
Obviously he needed bigger guns. Hey! we know just the place to get em...
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I think the problem is that people are treating a lobbying organization as some sort of authority.
It doesn't matter what happens, the NRA is going to push for more guns, more access to guns, and bigger guns. That is their purpose for existing. Even if everyone was somehow armed with a mini-gun at all times, the NRA would push for more- it is what they do.
The problem isn't the NRA, the problem is treating lobbying organizations as anything but cheerleaders for the industries they represent.
The problem is not that the NRA is pushing for guns, or that the national corn association is pushing for corn, or that AAA is pushing for cars, the problem is that anyone actually thinks these organizations are credible in the first place.
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Great. The NRA has become the responsible gun owner's Al Sharpton.
Whacked out and hypocritical tends to make for good entertainment