chess online
| |||||||
| From | Message | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 School ShootingsFirst, Zorroloco tries to develop the entire argument against arming civilians stacked up against school shootings, both recent and not so recent. I do not recall any attempt by the gun rights side of trying to hide the fact that some of the people that took action were former law officers or security personnel. The principal of the one school was not either. If he had not confronted and defeated the shooter in the parking lot, and that lunatic came back in the school after rearming, would that be a better scenario for the Gun Grab Lobby? Probably, but it wouldn't be for the people inside the school. So, score that one for the gun rights group. Second, the right of people to be armed was never intended to deter school shootings. If we cannot provide environments that do not inspire this craziness, why aren't we looking at what changes have been made in our society instead of looking instead to change something else? Some have even asked why God would allow this to happen. I would respond that we threw God out of school a long time ago. Some ask why our system of education has not succeeded in supporting everyone's sense of self esteem. I would answer that educating in such a manner has led to multitudes that know less than students of 50 years ago. What sense of self esteem are you trying to address with that? Some think that maybe our society is just going off the deep end. I would answer, what did you expect when killers are back out of jail after 6-10 years? You can get that much for selling marihuana. Lastly, because this is not difficult in defeating this view, our new age has sought "enlightenment" by casting God away and embracing phony self esteem measures. Our vast and largely useless legal system has burdened us with rapists, narcotics pushers and killers, free to roam our streets after just a brief encounter with the law. However, those attempting to defend their rights against government, whether taxes, or property rights or gun ownership, come up against a beast that is practically invincible. The many generalisations in Zorroloco's remarks about police being against this and that, lack of evidence of this and that and so on and so forth, is undermined to no small degree by the fact that this piece is mostly dragged from the belly of the Huffington Post and Mother Jones publications. And I am supposed to accept this as a rational, unbiased assessment of what they call, and Zorroloco happily repeats, the unvarnished facts of the matter? I think not. The real issue, I believe, is the complete lack of attention to mental disorder in this country. That is not being talked about because the gun grab lobby is too busy salivating over this latest horror. I wonder when we will ever man up about this. If it's to be left to the Huffington Post and the Mother Jones papers, I would say never. Here's some facts of my own: 1. There is no debate concerning those areas with armed citizens and those with none. The latter has a higher crime rate. Period. 2. As previously stated, armed citizens are a political construct based on the Rights of Man. If you cannot be armed, who said you have the right to say anything? 3. There is no evidence that the Police "absolutely hate the idea of armed citizens." If there is, I would like that cited. Something other than a Mother Jones or Huff Post survey, please. 4. If that principal had been armed in Sandy Hook those children would be alive. I don't mean having a gun in the trunk of her car, I mean really armed. 5. This argument is not about safety. This argument is about control. Anyone willing to turn their decision making over to Mother Jones and the Huffington Post are welcome to their own poison. But here's a little history to go with your morning edition: 1911 – Turkey disarmed its citizens and between 1915 – 1917 they murdered 1.5 million Armenians. 1935 – China disarmed its citizens and between 1948 – 1952 they murdered 20 million Chinese ***NOTE: I think it is closer to 50. 1938 – Germany disarmed its citizens and between 1939 – 1945 they murdered 12 million Jews and non jews. *** NOTE: I have read some debunking attempts on the German event. I am ready to debate that whenever anyone is ready. 1956 – Cambodia disarmed its citizens and between 1975 – 1977 they murdered 1 million. ***NOTE: The Cambodian law is actually a descendant of French colonial law. But...who cares? A rose by any other name is still...a rose. 1964 – Guatemala disarmed its citizens and between 1964 – 1981 they murdered 100,000 Mayan Indians. 1970 – Uganda disarmed its citizens and between 1971 – 1979 they murdered 300,000 Christians. If being armed is so irrelevant, if the whole idea of personal firearms ownership is such a fairy tale, I would ask Zorroloco why it always precedes a mass killing? I would also ask Zorroloco, and anyone in agreement with him, if they would be willing to put a sign on their front door saying "this house is not armed" ? As for me I'll try to learn from History...so I don't have to watch my children having to fight to do the same. |
||||||
|
mmshort Read your first amendment, then look up what was actually taken out of your schools. 'God' wasn't! "...our new age has sought "enlightenment" by casting God away and embracing phony self esteem measures..." I would hazard a guess that there are more 'god' adherents in the world today than there was fifty years ago (even in the US). |
||||||
|
atheism.about.com |
||||||
|
Gun law, any law. However do remember you do not have to have an armed populace for this to be true, there are many cases of laws dying a slow death because enough people failed to respect them. As to the world massacres quoted above, do you really think that these could be stopped by an armed populace?? The succeeded because a majority of the populace agreed with them!!! |
||||||
|
School Shootings responses I realize that atheism is important to you. But I must insist that the subject is gun control. My reference to God was a remark defining current attitudes in many who are also whining for more control of this sort. I don't care what the atheists claim are the world numbers for belief in a deity. That also, is irrelevant. And certainly, I am not about to soak up my free time reading an atheist website. Really, open up a new thread, and start lobbying Australia to get a 1st amendment. Thubery, I agree with your post, except I am not following the last paragraph: "...As to the world massacres quoted above, do you really think that these could be stopped by an armed populace?? The succeeded because a majority of the populace agreed with them!!! " I am in agreement that an armed populace most likely cannot stop massacres of the sort that occurred in Connecticut or Norway. But the world is, generally, a gun control zone. So, I would counter that your statement acknowledges that the populace agreed to NO guns. And so I am left at a dead end in the point you are making. I believe this is a crime issue, and/or a terrorist or mental health issue. In the case of terrorism, that would also make it a political issue. In that event, I am personally fearful of the application of Hegelian's Principle, which governments have used extensively in the past. Courts let criminals out, crime goes up, people start shooting, media fans the flames of outrage over every mishap and so the solution is volunteered to "get rid of the guns." As noted above, that would not stop Connecticut or Norway. It would stop me from defending myself in my home from thugs, especially the governmental ones. The 2nd amendment was not put in place to prevent shootings in schools, ( though it can help. Were that Principal armed, the outcome would have been different.) it was put in place to counter government. However, I may have simply missed your point. Would you clarify? |
||||||
|
mmshort 05-Jan-13, 06:37 My comment was about the examples of massacres in history, where you apparently related them to the introduction of gun controls. I don't believe this stands up to scrutiny. Politically inspired massacres seem mostly to have occurred when a powerful majority feels something to fear from a large but weaker minority, the majority must at least politically allow the massacre to occur if not actively condone it. The presence or absence of guns is irrelevant. By the way, although I say I cannot comment, I do find the discussion deeply fascinating, and absorbing. |
||||||
|
mmshort "...Some have even asked why God would allow this to happen. I would respond that we threw God out of school a long time ago..." My comments were not about belief versus non belief. It was simply to inform. God has not been taken out of your schools. Students are free to worship, hold meetings, Read the bible, the Talmud, the Q'uran, or whatever. What has changed is that public schools cannot force/favour any one religion over another, or force any particular religion onto those who do not adhere to a particular one, or none at all. From your later comments I guess you didn't bother to read the link simply because of where it is from (atheism.about.com) because it is a waste of your time? Perhaps you could take the time to read it, very informative. The comments (not within these threads but elsewhere) of late blaming that god being taken out of schools being the reason for the particular atrocity in Connecticut is obscene. Whether one is a believer or not. Then you also post this: "...I don't care what the atheists claim are the world numbers for belief in a deity. That also, is irrelevant. And certainly, I am not about to soak up my free time reading an atheist website. Really, open up a new thread, and start lobbying Australia to get a 1st amendment..." I'm guessing in answer to this: "...our new age has sought "enlightenment" by casting God away and embracing phony self esteem measures..." I would hazard a guess that there are more 'god' adherents in the world today than there was fifty years ago (even in the US). Atheists claims? World numbers? Lobbying for a 1st amendment in Australia? Huh? |
||||||
|
Australian Constitution - Section 116 - Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. Pretty much the same as the US one in regards to religion. |
||||||
|
ace_kyi 05-Jan-13, 10:04 |
God has nothing to do with school shootings ! |
||||||
|
hennybogan1953 05-Jan-13, 11:03 |
www.watchcartoononline.com |
||||||
|
Thubery Jan 5 Thanks for writing. Since England has strict gun control ( or is it a flat out gun ban? ) I would think you could appreciate the effects of that on a society. What I would call a political massacre, those that measure in extremely large numbers such as the Soviet, Chinese or Nazi massacres that more resembled exterminations, are absolutely related to gun control. I see no mystery or room for much of a debate on that point. The presence or absence of guns is absolutely a relevant concern. Pol Pot faced no armed resistance. Mao faced no armed resistance in his purges. Neither did Stalin and neither did Hitler, except in some very instructive isolated examples, such as the Warsaw ghetto uprising. That uprising stopped, at least temporarily, the deportation of Jews and ended up tying down a division or two of German soldiers. That uprising was not fueled by speeches on the radio. It was fueled by arms. Every rebellion against tyranny, every struggle against slaughter has arms as the tap root of its resistance. Period. I am sorry but I must absolutely reject any counter to this claim and I believe that history bears me out. But I repeat, that my argument is based on a political resistance, not a prevention to even extreme crime such as the Connecticut horror or the other one in Norway. America and Norway have vastly dissimilar systems of law in place, especially where guns are concerned. Yet both nations suffered these atrocities. That's why I made my best attempt to state that the 2nd amendment to our constitution was not to stop crime primarily. It was to stop tyranny. Gun control, in its inevitable nature and logic, is not to keep anyone safe...except those in power. I was stationed at the West Raynham RAF base near Fakenham. I was a frequent visitor to the Kestrel Club while there. Had a great time. Are you from around there? |
||||||
|
dmaestro 05-Jan-13, 16:27 |
|
||||||
|
Maestro |
||||||
|
dmaestro And put the cannabis away. |
||||||
|
www.patheos.com |
||||||
|
do armed civilians stop rampages? Does the free availability of rapid firing assault rifles make civilian massacres more or less likely?And if more likely, will a law restricting them have any effect? In the UK with a population of 60 million, I have noted four of theses massacres in the last 40 years, one of which was a machete attack, in total about fifty deaths. We have very restrictive gun and knife laws. Gun laws are obviously not a panacea, but how do those figures compare? |
||||||
|
United States: 2.97 England & Wales: 0.07 Puerto Rico: 18.3 (Country with the highest rate) Data up until July 2102 (The Guardian) |
||||||
|
Thubery I believe that, as a rule, armed civilians with any type of weapon, will not stop every isolated attempt at a mass shooting. However, they will stop some. There was a shooting at a McDonalds over here a few years back. A woman had decided at the last minute to leave her weapon in the car. Unfortunately, some lunatic came in after they sat down and started shooting. I believe her parents, who were accompanying her, were killed. I am drawing from memory but I believe those are the facts. There are some, like Piers Morgan, and others on this site that are trying to make a case for a gun ban by citing the violence stats of Spain, Germany, England and France. But that doesn't hold water either, in my view. England has, as you said in your post, 60 million people. The States has over three hundred million. Total cases AND percentage of cases to population of violence in smaller populations are always going to be smaller than one with a much larger population. Besides, the crime stats for England and Australia spiked right after their gun bans and there are people from those countries writing over here and warning us not to let it happen here. So I discard the claim that those stats are telling. Where does that leave us? I can only say this: when this country was founded there was a rifle in every house. No shootings. That lasted for a couple hundred years. Then we became liberated from social mores and traditional values and started taking seriously the blow from the Four Winds of the New Age; Spock, Darwin, Kinsey and Freud. Much of society changed. Now we have these events and people, mostly on the left, want to blame the rifles and handguns ( there is no such thing as an "Assault Rifle". That is a term that popped up some time ago when the media started going to work on the 2nd Amendment. I like your term better; rapid firing. As long as everyone knows that you have to pull the trigger every time to make it fire. There is no automatic firing going on. ) I was in the service and we were never instructed on the use of our assault weapon. It was an M-16. Lastly, I believe that if that Principal in Connecticut was armed those children would be alive today. The media would have ignored the story as it always does when people defend themselves and we would not be having this conversation. But that's another story. |
||||||
| |||||||
Log in 
