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I noticed that a lot of misunderstandings happen on the net. Perhaps it's because we miss so many non-verbal cues that would normally be caught in person.
Also, I never really said the global warming wasn't happening, only that I questioned how much we contributed, which is an amount that is very difficult to calculate, particularly when we have no way of knowing what should be happening without our influence. All we can do is try to make the best guess we can.
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I don't believe in treating science like it's infallible, the majority of it is completely theoretical and unprovable and even Einstein was shown to be wrong. Take it all as additional info to be salted before adding to the pot.
Even things we took for granted about light have recently been shown to be wrong. If you heard of the test about having slits in a board and how waves vs particles hit the board behind it, light acts like a wave unless measured at the slits which changes it behaviour to act like particles. This is a major change in science on a topic that has been relied on. Science is theoretical, all about "most probables" and "educated guesses".
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Oh yeah, there is a difference between fatalities and casualties, is it really better to skyrocket the casualties to reduce the fatalities? That is debatable but that's what bear spray would do, it might reduce fatalities, but with so many casualties, is it really worth it?
And yes, some people believe in things worse then death, while others don't.
DLH you just proved that you have no idea how science works.
The whole point behind science is that it is fallible and self correcting.
What science is the simplest answer to the question based on the evidence provided.
What scientists do is test the hypotheses (their idea about something) to prove it wrong if all of the testing done can't prove the hypotheses wrong then the hypotheses becomes a theory. Like gravity it's just a theory.
What scientists do love to do is to prove other scientists wrong. It is a blood sport and earns the scientist a lot of acclaim if they can disprove a long held theory.
So there is no science conspiracy. what is frightening is that time vast majority of scientist are agreeing with each other even when they are trying so hard to disprove the science.
A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant.
— Manfred Eigen
I think the bigger issue to take from that mall closing is that it was closed for several days until it was cleaned. Given that people think it is not all that harmful, accidents would occur due to carelessness and then the school is closed for a week. If you care about education, you wouldn't support something that is likely to close the school for a week due to an accident (that includes having firearms present).
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@The 8th Dwarf
What makes you think I believe in some sort of conspiracy?
Science is simple, you make an observation, develop an idea of why that occurs or is that way, then try to make observation that contradict your idea of how/why.
Nothing in science is ever proven, sometimes we just haven't found out the truth.
@pres man
An accident with a gun wouldn't need to close the entire school, just the room or area where it occured. The gun isn't going to spread out, the mace will.
Note that it is not promoting guns in schools, just saying that particular issue is mace only, or similar.
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Example of how science can be wrong until new methods of obtaining info arise.
Imagine a pendulum with a cup underneath. Every five seconds a penny falls into the cup. A scientist can observe that the pendulum is slowing down and observe the pennies in the cup underneath it. It wouls be simple to chart the correlation between the speed of the pendulum and the number of pennies underneath it, giving the appearence that the pennies are slowing down the pendulum, after all they corrolate perfectly. But we can't prove otherwise until we figure out a way to observe the pendulum without the pennies.
An accident with a gun wouldn't need to close the entire school, just the room or area where it occured.
Erm what?
An accident with a gun wouldn't need to close the entire school, just the room or area where it occured.Erm what?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if a firearm is discharged on a school campus, the entire school will be evacuated, accident or not. We don't take chances with that sort of thing.
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Evacuated yes, but not for a week.
Sorry for not being clear enough, I was responding to the comment that the bear mace would close down the school for a week, they also indicated that the same would happen for a gun.
I was simply stating that the gun wouldn't close the /entire/ school for a /whole/ week.
Edit; or at least it wouldn't be necessary the way it would be for bear mace.
Evacuated yes, but not for a week.
Sorry for not being clear enough, I was responding to the comment that the bear mace would close down the school for a week, they also indicated that the same would happen for a gun.
Ah, I see. Yes, that may be the case, depending on the school. Many schools (at least, here in California) are spread out on fairly large campuses with multiple buildings; it's likely that nothing beyond the affected building would need to be closed for cleaning in the event of a bear mace discharge. That could mean the entire school, or it could mean just the sixth grade class.
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So schools in california are spread out? That's weird, the only schools I've ever seen that were like that were colleges.
Well, north elementary had a few trailers, but that was temporary while they added more space to the main building.
How do they keep kids from dissappearing or getting lost on an entire campus?
So schools in california are spread out? That's weird, the only schools I've ever seen that were like that were colleges.
Well, north elementary had a few trailers, but that was temporary while they added more space to the main building.
How do they keep kids from dissappearing or getting lost on an entire campus?
The campuses are often enclosed, but the buildings I'm referring to are relatively small (and when I say "fairly large campuses" I don't mean on the scale of a college campus, but rather a collection of small buildings located on the same premises). California also suffers from some pretty severe school overcrowding issues in urban areas, along with an extremely tight budget. A lot of schools use trailer classrooms as a not-so-temporary extra space to fit classes they can't afford to build real rooms for.
Really, as long as we are talking about handguns, you are not going to see very accurate hit numbers. It is one thing to fire in a target range, with no distractions, clear sight, firing every shot into an unmoving target a certain fixed distance away, and quite another in a real situation. A handgun really isn't a precision instrument. Once you fire it, you can hit something with any kind of certainty only at very short range. Otherwise put, since the barrel is so short, the bullet deviates within a pretty wide cone. The corresponding precision instrument is a rifle. A good one can make a very narrow cone, allowing for bizarre stunts like hitting a target a kilometer away. Even so, and even though every hunter I ever discussed this with claims that they would never fire unless they were certain to hit, and kill, the target, there is no shortage of reports of wounded animals.
Handguns are used because the typical range where they are used is pretty short, because they are light and easily concealable. But putting them in classrooms expecting teachers to take down school shooters with them, without killing kids themselves? That's absurd.
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DLH you just proved that you have no idea how science works.
The whole point behind science is that it is fallible and self correcting.
What science is the simplest answer to the question based on the evidence provided.
What scientists do is test the hypotheses (their idea about something) to prove it wrong if all of the testing done can't prove the hypotheses wrong then the hypotheses becomes a theory. Like gravity it's just a theory.
What scientists do love to do is to prove other scientists wrong. It is a blood sport and earns the scientist a lot of acclaim if they can disprove a long held theory.
So there is no science conspiracy. what is frightening is that time vast majority of scientist are agreeing with each other even when they are trying so hard to disprove the science.
I'm not sure which post you are refering to so I'll take a stab in the dark and guess you are refering to the one where I said "I don't believe in treating science like it's infallible"
That comment was made because some individuals here cite one statistic or another like it's word from god and irrefutable and then they boggle when we question it like any good scientist would.
The majority of people associate information together, if I say "it's as easy as A" most would instantly realize that " B C" should also be included. This effect and preconceptions, and other tricks of the mind, make it difficult for even scientists to understand things clearly. Because they are effects that are so hard to define, are subconcious, and are like the lens of a camara, you can take photos all day long but you will never get a picture of the lens in the camara you're useing.
Scientists constantly have to try to avoid this, hence peer review, but even peer review will miss things because we are all human and have similar lens issues.
That auto correcting feature of science takes time, thought, intelligence, and requires thinking outside of the box that everyone lives in and most importantly, a shift in one's perspective.
I am also angry because we just had a police shooting a man through both shoulders with one bullet get away with it. The victim was sitting in a car three meters from the cop, and raised a can of red bull to his mouth to drink. The cop shot him immediately, claiming that he thought he recognized the man from some list or other, and thought the man was raising a weapon. The courts just decided that the cop did nothing wrong, leaving the victim without any form of compensation for his health, being afraid to go outside, for the wrecked car... About as pretty as when a group of policemen saw a man who had just had an epileptic seizure walk funny, thought he was under influence and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him...
That comment was made because some individuals here cite one statistic or another like it's word from god and irrefutable and then they boggle when we question it like any good scientist would.
The way scientists question statistics is very different from the way you have been questioning statistics.
A scientist might question a statistic by saying, "This datum doesn't fall within the range we would expect based on Prior Study X, and further investigation should be done to determine the cause of the outlier."
You question a statistic by saying, "Statistics can be wrong, therefore I don't have to accept it if I don't want to."
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I am also angry because we just had a police shooting a man through both shoulders with one bullet get away with it. The victim was sitting in a car three meters from the cop, and raised a can of red bull to his mouth to drink. The cop shot him immediately, claiming that he thought he recognized the man from some list or other, and thought the man was raising a weapon. The courts just decided that the cop did nothing wrong, leaving the victim without any form of compensation for his health, being afraid to go outside, for the wrecked car... About as pretty as when a group of policemen saw a man who had just had an epileptic seizure walk funny, thought he was under influence and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him...
And people wonder why I hate the idea of letting others take responsibility for my safety.
I am also angry because we just had a police shooting a man through both shoulders with one bullet get away with it. The victim was sitting in a car three meters from the cop, and raised a can of red bull to his mouth to drink. The cop shot him immediately, claiming that he thought he recognized the man from some list or other, and thought the man was raising a weapon. The courts just decided that the cop did nothing wrong, leaving the victim without any form of compensation for his health, being afraid to go outside, for the wrecked car... About as pretty as when a group of policemen saw a man who had just had an epileptic seizure walk funny, thought he was under influence and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him...
While detestable, let's not use a single event to draw conclusions or color our perceptions of a truly massive profession. Law enforcement officers are, by and large, stand-up people. People make mistakes on rare occasion, and stress makes things worse.
I am also angry because we just had a police shooting a man through both shoulders with one bullet get away with it. The victim was sitting in a car three meters from the cop, and raised a can of red bull to his mouth to drink. The cop shot him immediately, claiming that he thought he recognized the man from some list or other, and thought the man was raising a weapon. The courts just decided that the cop did nothing wrong, leaving the victim without any form of compensation for his health, being afraid to go outside, for the wrecked car... About as pretty as when a group of policemen saw a man who had just had an epileptic seizure walk funny, thought he was under influence and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him...And people wonder why I hate the idea of letting others take responsibility for my safety.
I don't think anyone wonders that. It's perfectly natural to be made anxious by the thought that you have no influence over your own well-being. But we need to recognize that as an irrational fear fueled by reports of extremely rare events, and that (for the most part) the normal situations in which we entrust our care to others (surgeons, police, airline pilots, elevator safety inspectors, etc.) are generally just fine and should not be avoided over fears of losing control.
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That comment was made because some individuals here cite one statistic or another like it's word from god and irrefutable and then they boggle when we question it like any good scientist would.The way scientists question statistics is very different from the way you have been questioning statistics.
A scientist might question a statistic by saying, "This datum doesn't fall within the range we would expect based on Prior Study X, and further investigation should be done to determine the cause of the outlier."
You question a statistic by saying, "Statistics can be wrong, therefore I don't have to accept it if I don't want to."
False, I question the statistics because the ones being cited so far are usually not inside the scope of the disscussion, they do not account for all the factors that affect the situation, and people here quote them and say the one factor is the only factor worth looking at and that is what's wrong.
You need to realize that x number of factors have an effect on the outcome. A report will go out saying X people died in Z country because of V wounds. Then people here use these stats and say "see gun laws make a difference" when the gun laws are one of multiple factors and the stats listed aren't even making a comparison and weren't made with this arguement in mind and as such haven't taken other factors into account.
What people here don't realize is that statistics is extremely context sensative, dropping stats into a different context will give vastly inaccurate results, the numbers stay the same but it's all about the relationships between numbers, and those relationships are hard to catch when you don't know what to look for or when you don't have the context. And then try to put those numbers against a different arguement just messes things up more.
I have never said that the numbers were wrong, only that people here aren't useing them right. They are making amatuer analysis with flawed techniques and ignoring the concept of accounting for all variables.
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Like my pendulum and pennies example, numbers could show that every penny in the cup equals a 1% slowdown of pendulum. But to say that it would be the same for another pendulum is foolish, as the distance from cup to pendulum is a factor which may not be the same at the other pendulum, or then depth of the cup, or the rate at which pennies drop, or how heavy the other pendulum is, etc, etc, etc.
There are plenty of factors that need to be considered, and it's funny because for all that statistics show the relationship between the pendulum and the pennies, they actually have no effect on each other, the pendulum slows without regard to the pennies, which means that the mere concept of slowing another penedulum with pennies is based entirely on a false assumption that appears to be true statistically.
False, I question the statistics because the ones being cited so far are usually not inside the scope of the disscussion, they do not account for all the factors that affect the situation, and people here quote them and say the one factor is the only factor worth looking at and that is what's wrong.
You need to realize that x number of factors have an effect on the outcome. A report will go out saying X people died in Z country because of V wounds. Then people here use these stats and say "see gun laws make a difference" when the gun laws are one of multiple factors and the stats listed aren't even making a comparison and weren't made with this arguement in mind and as such haven't taken other factors into account.
So dispute those statistics with contrary statistics. Otherwise, accept that the evidence we have points to the conclusion we are drawing, and that further evidence in support of that conclusion (which continues to accumulate) makes that conclusion more likely.
What people here don't realize is that statistics is extremely context sensative,
No, we realize that. In fact, based on what I've read, more than one of us has a solid background in stats and research.
If you believe that the analysis we're presenting is flawed, you need to present an alternative analysis that better fits the data. But you need to bear in mind that you are not arguing against us. You are arguing against the analyses of groups like the Violence Policy Center and the Bureau of Justice Statistics - we're just repeating their conclusions. So your counter-analysis is going to have to be very rigorous - more rigorous than you have the expertise for, I'd wager.
I'd like to weigh in on this topic but before I do I would like to make a couple of points.
I'm a police officer.
I live in Canada where obviously our laws and societal view of guns and gun ownership are different.
There, now that that's out of the way.
The idea of arming teachers with bear spray is, as many have pointed out already, problematic. Of course, it's effective in what it does. It's a great intervention tool in 'modifying' someone's behaviour but it certainly is not effective at all times. We have done a lot of studies and tests on the use of pepper spray against people who are goal oriented and the numbers do not weigh in the user's favour. Someone with the intent to commit an act will most often commit it successfully even when targeted by pepper spray. In a school setting the issue of cross contamination is to everyone involved would be the main problem. Not only is the attacker effected, so are the kids and the teachers. And it doesn't take long for the effects to take effect throughout the school. I had to respond to a call where pepper spray was deployed outside of a school. It was a small amount and many of the kids playing outside had to go home or be checked by EMS. This was an outside environment and it caused some panic.
Move this to an interior area and the problem is compounded. Panic would be widespread enough with a guy toting an assault rifle. I think that the use of bear spray would not solve the problem here, only exasperate it. So the question is, what can be done. Well, I can only speculate as I live in a country where guns are strictly regulated, where hand guns are prohibited weapons and assault rifles are rare. To solve this issue, would require some deep societal change, and I don't really see that happening anytime soon.
I'd like to weigh in on this topic but before I do I would like to make a couple of points.
I'm a police officer.
I live in Canada where obviously our laws and societal view of guns and gun ownership are different.
Out of curiosity, do you view the Canadian take on firearm ownership to be preferable to the American take? (Bearing in mind that I don't mean to imply that either country is uniform in its views, but rather that there seems to be a societal undercurrent favoring and praising gun ownership in America, while in Canada there does not)
Out of curiosity, do you view the Canadian take on firearm ownership to be preferable to the American take? (Bearing in mind that I don't mean to imply that either country is uniform in its views, but rather that there seems to be a societal undercurrent favoring and praising gun ownership in America, while in Canada there does not)
Well, the comparison is hard because we do have some favoritism toward gun ownership, only for different reasons than in the US. In Canada, people in most cities don't own guns (unless they're criminals). But in the country, gun ownership becomes much more common. The idea that guns are used more for hunting and killing small game to protect livestock is our undercurrent while it seems that in the US, to me anyway, gun ownership is a right, one that is vigorously defended as there seems to be a need to protect oneself whether it be from the Government or from criminals. If I were to choose, I would probably pick what I know. Canada is by no means a country without gun violence. In most cases its gangs killing gangs. Rarely do we have mass shootings but they do happen.
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There has only been one report here that even looked at cause of gun violence, and gunlaws were not the highest factors, I'll link when I find it again.
I agree that major social change will be needed for any decent solution, however, if you are going that far, then gun laws are not as important, since the social climate elements are the primary factors.
There has only been one report here that even looked at cause of gun violence, and gunlaws were not the highest factors, I'll link when I find it again.
I agree that major social change will be needed for any decent solution, however, if you are going that far, then gun laws are not as important, since the social climate elements are the primary factors.
And you have a point there. Gun laws are a result of that societal change and no amount of regulation, no matter how stringent will protect people. It will only categorize more people as law breakers. Another element to all of this of course is mental health and how society approaches it as a real problem. Mental health is a huge yet largely forgotten component of crime yet we approach it as though it's not. Now, again, I can only speak from my limited Canadian view but from where I sit it's time that Governments sit up and take notice and start addressing that as an issue.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia
This link was pposted by Mead earlier, but it is a city with mandatory gun laws and low crime rates. Effectivily proof that gun laws are not the only way to reduce gun related crime, by demonstrating that other factors, while still undefined, clearly play a bigger role then gun laws in the safety of the people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia
This link was pposted by Mead earlier, but it is a city with mandatory gun laws and low crime rates. Effectivily proof that gun laws are not the only way to reduce gun related crime, by demonstrating that other factors, while still undefined, clearly play a bigger role then gun laws in the safety of the people.
I just read that link. I think what needs to be stressed is that, in Canada anyway, crime across the board is dropping. Our stats here show that violent crimes including those with firearms and edge weapons are less and are hitting all time lows. I don't know if it's the same for the US. As a police officer, I would have a real concern with nearly everyone having a firearm (our training tells us to assume that every home has one). I wish I could comment more on it but again, my societal view is somewhat skewed.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-de aths/69354/
Gun laws are about the middle of the pack in terms of factors that were measured.
The largest factors factors are cultural/political views except the entry with "guns in high schools" which doesn't clarify why those guns are there. Are they gang members bringing them to school or armed officers? Don't know, but either way it has an effect, but still not even the top five.
And to prevent a second round of weird assumtions and flawed analysis.
The less blue you see the less of a correlation something has with gun deaths (which includes all gun deaths not just crime related gun deaths btw) so having a large blue bar means a high correlation, whether it points left or right merely indicates whether the correlation is positive or negative.
Having a negative or positive impact doesn't change the strength of that impact.
So the top four factors, actually have nothing to do with left or right bars, but the top four positive factors does matter which direction the bars point.
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From that report,
While the causes of individual acts of mass violence always differ,
our analysis shows fatal gun violence is less likely to occur in richer
states with more post-industrial knowledge economies, higher levels of
college graduates, and tighter gun laws. Factors like drug use, stress
levels, and mental illness are much less significant than might be
assumed.
Interestingly enough, looking at the data, says the gun laws are the least of the factors presented as having an effect. Nevada is actually right behind luisiana and DC for deaths and Nevada is one of the states with guns laws to protect kids. So while they have an effect, richer economies, and more education seem the bigger factors to look at at by a significant margin.
So, revamp the education system, and kick out presidents that collapse the economy. Sounds like a much more effective plan and more likely to pass, if we can get the press on board.
Edit; whatever we do, I suggest we start with the larger impact factors and work our way down, then whenever we actually get to gun laws, maybe we will only need the laws us progun people have been saying were alright from the beginning.
There's absolutely no doubt that the issue is complex and will remain so. You can never go wrong with education. It's one of the larger aspects that needs to take center stage in creating a turn around. I find it interesting that the report you cited showed statistically mental health was not really a significant factor. From my own experiences, the opposite is true. Of course, I'm viewing this from the town I'm in and my specific patrol area but I know that mental health has been seen as having an impact. Not sure if you recall the beheading in Manitoba on the Grey Hound Bus in 2008. That was because of mental health.
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I just read that link. I think what needs to be stressed is that, in Canada anyway, crime across the board is dropping. Our stats here show that violent crimes including those with firearms and edge weapons are less and are hitting all time lows. I don't know if it's the same for the US. As a police officer, I would have a real concern with nearly everyone having a firearm (our training tells us to assume that every home has one). I wish I could comment more on it but again, my societal view is somewhat skewed.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia
This link was pposted by Mead earlier, but it is a city with mandatory gun laws and low crime rates. Effectivily proof that gun laws are not the only way to reduce gun related crime, by demonstrating that other factors, while still undefined, clearly play a bigger role then gun laws in the safety of the people.
One thing that needs to be considered is that the gun deaths in the deadliest states are less then 0.025% and that's all gun deaths not just crimes.
Additionally, people will always see bad stuff as too often, no matter how rare it becomes.
The social trend in America is the desire to be taken care of, rather then taking responsibility for oneself.
I support keeping guns free, because there are other ways to solve the problems, because I want to take responsibility for my own life and not be forced into relying on other people who are just people and fallible, and because this country is built on the authority of the people over the government and taking away our guns undercuts that authority.
Voting doesn't give us authority, the government only has to care about our votes so long as the government has to worry about what we would do if it ignored us. Take away our guns and in 20 years the government would immune to the people.
The people at the top care about us only as long as we give them reason to care, and not enough exceptions exist to protect us if those reasons to care go away. Guns may not be the only reason to care but they are the largest.
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I don't think anyone wonders that. It's perfectly natural to be made anxious by the thought that you have no influence over your own well-being. But we need to recognize that as an irrational fear fueled by reports of extremely rare events, and that (for the most part) the normal situations in which we entrust our care to others (surgeons, police, airline pilots, elevator safety inspectors, etc.) are generally just fine and should not be avoided over fears of losing control.
You do, I hope, appreciate the irony of this post given the call for more gun laws due to an extremely rare event.
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I think mental health isn't as big a thing, because it's looking by state, state laws vs state averages. Also because the focus is only guns, and menta health may be refering only to official diagnosed syndroms and disorders.
As a beat cop I would expect you notice how often the mental health thing is officially diagnosed syndroms and disorders. I would expect a lot of the stuff you see to be smaller things like depression, or a skewed world view. Would I be correct in this?
There has only been one report here that even looked at cause of gun violence, and gunlaws were not the highest factors, I'll link when I find it again.
I agree that major social change will be needed for any decent solution, however, if you are going that far, then gun laws are not as important, since the social climate elements are the primary factors.
It's a good thing then that no one is insisting that gun laws are the only, or even the strongest, factor in eliminating or reducing gun deaths in America. Because that would be a dumb thing to say.
But, given all the nebulous factors you mention, gun laws are something we have the power to change relatively easily. Broad-sweeping changes in societal mores (regardless of what you believe those would need to be to facilitate less gun deaths) is not something that we can snap our fingers and have happen, though I could tentatively agree they would have a greater impact.
Legislation is the one tool that we have, as a society, to collectively decide to change things.
Edit; whatever we do, I suggest we start with the larger impact factors and work our way down, then whenever we actually get to gun laws, maybe we will only need the laws us progun people have been saying were alright from the beginning.
This actually makes very little sense. We should start with the factors that we have the power to change. I can't wave a magic wand and undo NCLB and make people more educated, or undo idiotic market speculation trends over the last 30 years and make the economy sustainable.
With a pen stroke we could change the gun laws and establish a registry of some sort for mentally ill and potentially dangerous gun-havers.
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I don't think anyone wonders that. It's perfectly natural to be made anxious by the thought that you have no influence over your own well-being. But we need to recognize that as an irrational fear fueled by reports of extremely rare events, and that (for the most part) the normal situations in which we entrust our care to others (surgeons, police, airline pilots, elevator safety inspectors, etc.) are generally just fine and should not be avoided over fears of losing control.I am also angry because we just had a police shooting a man through both shoulders with one bullet get away with it. The victim was sitting in a car three meters from the cop, and raised a can of red bull to his mouth to drink. The cop shot him immediately, claiming that he thought he recognized the man from some list or other, and thought the man was raising a weapon. The courts just decided that the cop did nothing wrong, leaving the victim without any form of compensation for his health, being afraid to go outside, for the wrecked car... About as pretty as when a group of policemen saw a man who had just had an epileptic seizure walk funny, thought he was under influence and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him...And people wonder why I hate the idea of letting others take responsibility for my safety.
Now that I'm done being side tracked,
I don't see it as irrational to want as much control over one's life as possible. It is only irrational when one expects complete control.
I don't expect complete control, but one difference between having a weapon for self defense and your examples, is that in those examples, there is nothing, or not much, I can do anyway, whatever laws may or may not be in effect.
Weapons for self defence, on the other hand, is a situation where control can be mine but the law is the only thing limiting that control. It's the idea of "if only I had the tools I needed and wanted, I could have survived or even stopped it", that if should come from my own stupidity or inability, rather then a law.
I know it's a spurious argument, but what do the gun-havers in this thread think about the 2nd amendment being applied to other weapons. Let's say, since I'm teh nerdzorz, a razor-sharp katana. Why shouldn't I be able to carry that anywhere I like--for self defense!--open or concealed?
Why shouldn't schoolteachers be taught ninjutsu?
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Edit; whatever we do, I suggest we start with the larger impact factors and work our way down, then whenever we actually get to gun laws, maybe we will only need the laws us progun people have been saying were alright from the beginning.This actually makes very little sense. We should start with the factors that we have the power to change. I can't wave a magic wand and undo NCLB and make people more educated, or undo idiotic market speculation trends over the last 30 years and make the economy sustainable.
With a pen stroke we could change the gun laws and establish a registry of some sort for mentally ill and potentially dangerous gun-havers.
Changing the education system would be no more difficult then gun laws, however you also sound more like a reasonable sort who want only simple laws.
I wouldn't mind a few simple laws either, however, it is more profitable, in this capitalist run country, to keep people stupid, and reduce their ability to fight back.
The problem with capitalism, is that people with more money can more easily gain more money, laws are the only thing in their way (in the past, time, distance, and slow communications were barriars as well, but no more) but the rich have the ability to sway politicians, directly, or indirectly. And in a capitalist society, the gaining of money is the primary prestige element, but gaining money has no cap, no limit, so those with the ability to do so, will continue to try and accumulate as much wealth as possile, and other people are the only place to get it, and the obvious result of them getting our money, is us having less of it.
I don't think it's a conspiricy, but rather, a succesion of individuals who each say "well I'll nudge things in my favor just a little", and that little bit adds up.
Take Obama's bailouts, that is theft. He may not be part of some big conspiricy, but he still gave money to his buddies who will repay him in non-monetary ways. It's theft because the value of our economy is divided equally among all dollars in circulation, add dollars and the value has to be spread out amongst more dollars reducing the value of each dollar.
They could only do this because they were confident that they would get away with it (because people are poorly educated, and they could to some extent control the media). How far do you think they could go if they had literally nothing to fear from the people?
They have already started cheating at the elections, how long till our votes will be worthless? what will you do about it? What are your options? They know what your options are and will try to keep you from doing any harm to their empire.
The solution lies in cultural reform, education, and instatement of a new economic system (not marxist either) and we need prestige to come from something other then money, something with a cap or that is less defined, so people do not find themselves adding up every drop of prestige and not constantly looking to add more, one drop at a time.
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I know it's a spurious argument, but what do the gun-havers in this thread think about the 2nd amendment being applied to other weapons. Let's say, since I'm teh nerdzorz, a razor-sharp katana. Why shouldn't I be able to carry that anywhere I like--for self defense!--open or concealed?
Why shouldn't schoolteachers be taught ninjutsu?
Ninjutsu would be good, it is a form of martial art, which has applications well beyond combat.
Other weapons should be even less restricted then guns and explosives, as they are much less dangerous to a group, and require much more training to use effectively. And people with training can usually take care of novices who would use such weapons, or for buying time for the group when facing a trained opponant.
Edit; as for such weapons against guns, well there is a reason soldiers don't carry swords anymore.