2 U.S. College Shootings in 2 Weeks

[QUOTE]

[b]Donna13 wrote: [/b] The problem with gun laws is that if a person is lawless, then they will easily gain access to illegal guns (assuming we decided to disarm citizens or ban certain types of guns). It's similar to teens getting access to alcohol. Very easy: fake ID, getting another person to buy the alcohol for them, taking the alcohol from the trusting parents that do not lock it up. So, just relying on a law that requires background checks is not going to work.

I think we need more trained citizens to carry guns and have the skill to take down a mass shooter. Remember how airplane pilots requested the right to be armed? Nobody should have to be helpless.

I've heard the argument here before that lots of innocent people would be shot due to lack of skill. But when I imagine myself in a situation such as the Virginia Tech shooting, where locking a door or hiding behind a desk is the only option, I know that in such a situation I would be very grateful if one of my classmates was able to shoot back.[/QUOTE]

The problem is that the USA has significantly more gun deaths than other Western nations with stricter gun control laws.

Making it harder to get a gun will not eliminate shootings - as you say, if someone really wants a gun, they can find a way to get it. But making guns less readily available will make it much more difficult for a gun to fall into the wrong hands.

It's the same with drugs. If cocaine were legalised, it is almost guaranteed that the rate of cocaine abuse will rise. I've never tried cocaine, for two reasons - one, I'm scared of the health consequences, two, it's illegal, so I'd have to break the law and find someone ready to sell it to me (if you have the right contacts, this is of course very easy). But if cocaine were legal, I'd probably have tried it. Same with guns.

You cannot eliminate shootings. You can decrease them. And making it harder for those who are mentally challenged is a no-brainer. Same with purchasing an AK47, or clips that hold 30 rounds.

Seatbelts, slower speed limits, and safety training help decrease traffic deaths, not eliminate. I never felt these steps, along with registering my auto, was an infringement where the government would suddenly take my car. And I never felt the government was going to take away the pistol, shotgun, and rifle that I owned.

I would have just loved to have been in a classroom with 5-10 students with their handguns. Same as a bar. Would have felt totally safe (not).

[QUOTE] [b]*goodco* wrote:[/b]

You cannot eliminate shootings. You can decrease them. And making it harder for those who are mentally challenged is a no-brainer.
[/QUOTE]

Bullshit.

I live in Europe, and in my country we have years without shootings. We have crime and murders, of course, but the ratio is much less than in America. Long live the NRA.

[QUOTE] [b]Doga wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]*goodco* wrote:[/b]

You cannot eliminate shootings. You can decrease them. And making it harder for those who are mentally challenged is a no-brainer.
[/QUOTE]

Bullshit.

I live in Europe, and in my country we have years without shootings. We have crime and murders, of course, but the ratio is much less than in America. Long live the NRA.[/QUOTE]

So then, Spain hasn't entirely eliminated shootings.

I live near Baltimore, and wish the city could go two DAYS without a shooting. My county has 20 a year. I do truly wish we were closer to the numbers where you live. And other civilized nations.

I was speaking of the United States.

[QUOTE] [b]*goodco* wrote:[/b]
So then, Spain hasn't entirely eliminated shootings.
[/QUOTE]

I can tell you we have completely eliminated shootings. Without counting terrorism (ETA, GRAPO, both also eliminated) we probably never had shootings in the first place.

And my country is far to be perfect, in fact is retarded in a lot of ways. But our gun laws are really good on that matter.

The worst we usually have is someone going bananas and killing one, maybe two people, and then is something rare and all the media is over it.

The feeling i have from the outside is you guys in USA take the shootings and the guns for granted.

They all did what their 'god' told them to do...

[QUOTE] [b]mooghead wrote:[/b]

They all did what their 'god' told them to do...[/QUOTE]

Now you're just being foolish.

Actually, he's not being foolish, he's trolling. Sadly, that seems to be the only thing mooghead's been doing on QZ these past months. Anyway, on topic:

What we're seeing with the gun-related-deaths discussion is an example of what I'd like to call "habitual conservatism" - which is completely unrelated to political or philosophical conservatism. It is the tendency of people to consider the circumstances they grew up in as "good" and any change to them as "bad" regardless of the objective (or even subjective) effects of those changes - something closely related to feeling nostalgia for the "good old days" even if you were worse off than you are now.

In America, where guns are such an important part of their culture for many people, it is impossible for most people to objectively consider the topic. Responses are purely emotional and when arguments are proposed, they are rarely more than rationalizations of pre-conceived notions. People who were raised to believe that the Second Amendment is all that stands between them and government oppression have internalized this belief and will not question it. Facts, such as the fact that the Second Amendment EXPLICITLY links the posession of a weapon to serving in the local militia (a form of community control), the fact that the adoption of the Militia Act of 1903 (which abolished militias but did not address the consequences for the Second Amendment) did not result in an examination of its consequences for the constitution and other laws and, in my opinion most crucially, the fact that what was meant by "the right of the people to bear arms" in 1790 is categorically, and not gradually, different from what it means today (because developments in weapons technology have not just improved firearms since then, but fundamentally changed what they were - it would have been practically impossible to kill even a single person with a single musket from the late 18th century unless you were within about ten feet of the victim. Automatic weapons, weapons accurate beyond about 150 yards, magazines and the likes would have been entirely inconceivable to a mind from the 1790s) do not actually influence opinion.

The spine-chilling statistics about firearms deaths don't disturb gun proponents, partly for the above mentioned reason, and partly for a second, in my opinion wholly pernicious reason: they hold a different set of values, wherein the hypothetical possibility of resisting coercion by resorting to armed violence (which is 100% farcical in the modern world) is so valuable that no number of innocent victims will taint this 'right' in the eyes of its proponents.

We have a similar problem in The Netherlands with a less deadly subject. We have an annual festival called Sinterklaas, mostly a children's celebration. It started life as a Catholic holiday in the late middle ages, and, at the very end of the 19th century, started to gradually become adopted as a celebration for children of both Catholic and Protestant background (although before World War II, it was mostly frowned upon and repressed by orthodox Protestants, who held a majority in most of the western part of the country). After World War II, and especially since the 1960s, it became a national thing. The figures from the medieval original, Saint Nicholas and his diverse band of followers, changed dramatically over the years, and at some unlucky point in the 1950s, it became conventional to paint a number of Nicholas' assistants in blackface. The Netherlands, unlike for instance the UK and the US, never had a blackface theatrical tradition, so most people failed to realize its extremely racist associations entirely. It would have disappeared within a few years or decades, as modes of dress and decoration for Saint Nicholas and his followers had always done, but sadly, the introduction of blackface for Nicholas' helper Black Pete (originally a soot-stained chimney-sweep who served as a delivery boy for the presents, a minor character in the story) coincided with the introduction of television in The Netherlands, and for the generations who grew up since the 1950s, Black Pete's blackface look became the standard. However, this blackface makeup is highly offensive to people who DO know of blackface theater. There is growing opposition to it, and for decades, gradual changes in Black Pete's style of makeup have been proposed. Although the changes are superficial, merely removing the racist look of Black Pete and changing nothing about the fundamental nature of his character or the celebration, every proposition of this nature has led to extremely angry, even violent and disturbingly racist, reactions from people who are otherwise fairly reasonable (and a mass of professional far-right scum who aren't reasonable but will jump on any bandwagon that will allow them to spew their gall). They are unable to see the racism of Black Pete's makeup, and therefore refuse to accept that others can be offended by it. Although the proposed changes would simply alter his style of makeup and nothing else, these people vehemently resist any change that would make Pete the slightest bit different from how they remember it from their childhood days. Polls among children have consistently shown that they do not care what kind of makeup Black Pete has - they like his colorful dress and his acrobatics, but don't care what color or style of makeup he has - but this large group of adults feels threatened by even minor changes that won't affect them in the least.

I am beginning to suspect that this very same mechanism is also behind the groups of Spanish (and French) people who refuse to abolish bull fighting, as well as many other traditions that people who never knew anything else consider innocuous, but outsiders see as highly offensive. People cling to essentially meaningless rituals and customs as a way to deal with anxiety regarding the constant change that is an essential characteristic of the world since the Industrial Revolution.

[QUOTE] [b]Doga wrote:[/b]


The feeling i have from the outside is you guys in USA take the shootings and the guns for granted.[/QUOTE]

I'll respond by quoting one of your earlier simpleton responses:

"Bullsh*t"

[QUOTE] [b]*goodco* wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Doga wrote:[/b]


The feeling i have from the outside is you guys in USA take the shootings and the guns for granted.[/QUOTE]

I'll respond by quoting one of your earlier simpleton responses:

"Bullsh*t"

[/QUOTE]

Actually i'm glad to receive that response, the more people aware of the badness of the guns, the better.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

People cling to essentially meaningless rituals and customs as a way to deal with anxiety regarding the constant change that is an essential characteristic of the world since the Industrial Revolution. [/QUOTE]

TQ, this was an excellent post and your examples and points, IMO, are spot on. I would add US Christmas vs. holiday celebrations (and labels) as one of the traditions that cause a violent reaction of protectionism in people. Those who see a “war on Christmas” fail to see how the traditional form of marketing and celebration of the holiday excluded those who didn’t/don’t celebrate the same. Any acknowledgement of someone else’s celebration is now seen as a threat. Beyond that, attention to the racist name of a sports team is met with irrational fury; any adjustment to the form-fitted version of Columbus, as hero, discovering America, is seen as an attempt to change history when, in fact, it’s meant to expose it for what it truly was. The times of old are cherished, as you said, because they’re familiar. The negatives are sifted through memories or… I would suggest… were, at the time, spun so well, in a brainwashing way, that they are seen as pure, while the more inclusive and aware positions of today are seen as prejudice and threatening. It’s reverse persecution. Sadly, I’d also suggest that attempts to clarify the situation (ex. muskets vs. AK47s) only strengthen the knee-jerk reaction to protect the past or perceptions thereof.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

What we're seeing with the gun-related-deaths discussion is an example of what I'd like to call "habitual conservatism" - which is completely unrelated to political or philosophical conservatism. It is the tendency of people to consider the circumstances they grew up in as "good" and any change to them as "bad" regardless of the objective (or even subjective) effects of those changes - something closely related to feeling nostalgia for the "good old days" even if you were worse off than you are now.

In America, where guns are such an important part of their culture for many people, it is impossible for most people to objectively consider the topic. Responses are purely emotional and when arguments are proposed, they are rarely more than rationalizations of pre-conceived notions. People who were raised to believe that the Second Amendment is all that stands between them and government oppression have internalized this belief and will not question it.

I am beginning to suspect that this very same mechanism is also behind the groups of Spanish (and French) people who refuse to abolish bull fighting, as well as many other traditions that people who never knew anything else consider innocuous, but outsiders see as highly offensive. People cling to essentially meaningless rituals and customs as a way to deal with anxiety regarding the constant change that is an essential characteristic of the world since the Industrial Revolution.[/QUOTE]

^ excellent post as always, TQ, but these points are especially bang on and ever so necessary for this dialogue.

As easy as it is to blame the NRA, the problem goes far deeper than them.

I don't know what an academic counsellor is (please excuse my European spelling) and you didn't actually invite any responses.

Is it a cultural thing? I don't know the gun law in my country. I have never thought about owing a gun.

I have held one one (in the United States). It was not loaded. I have never fired a gun.

Why does a topic on guns in the United States elicit responses on Queenzone while a topic wishing everyone a happy Bohemian Rhapsody anniversary elicits none?

Please discuss...

[QUOTE] [b]Voice of Reason 2014 wrote:[/b]

I don't know what an academic counsellor is (please excuse my European spelling) and you didn't actually invite any responses.

Is it a cultural thing? I don't know the gun law in my country. I have never thought about owing a gun.

I have held one one (in the United States). It was not loaded. I have never fired a gun.

Why does a topic on guns in the United States elicit responses on Queenzone while a topic wishing everyone a happy Bohemian Rhapsody anniversary elicits none?

Please discuss...
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps this is difficult for you to understand, but some people prefer to discuss subjects with actual substance and relevance over something as ridiculously silly as "wishing everyone a happy Bohemian Rhapsody anniversary".

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

What we're seeing with the gun-related-deaths discussion is an example of what I'd like to call "habitual conservatism" - which is completely unrelated to political or philosophical conservatism. It is the tendency of people to consider the circumstances they grew up in as "good" and any change to them as "bad" regardless of the objective (or even subjective) effects of those changes - something closely related to feeling nostalgia for the "good old days" even if you were worse off than you are now.

In America, where guns are such an important part of their culture for many people, it is impossible for most people to objectively consider the topic. Responses are purely emotional and when arguments are proposed, they are rarely more than rationalizations of pre-conceived notions. People who were raised to believe that the Second Amendment is all that stands between them and government oppression have internalized this belief and will not question it.

I am beginning to suspect that this very same mechanism is also behind the groups of Spanish (and French) people who refuse to abolish bull fighting, as well as many other traditions that people who never knew anything else consider innocuous, but outsiders see as highly offensive. People cling to essentially meaningless rituals and customs as a way to deal with anxiety regarding the constant change that is an essential characteristic of the world since the Industrial Revolution.[/QUOTE]

^ excellent post as always, TQ, but these points are especially bang on and ever so necessary for this dialogue.

As easy as it is to blame the NRA, the problem goes far deeper than them.
[/QUOTE]

And now you imply a very interesting and relevant point. The gun-issue actually consists of two seperate but closely related issues. On the one hand the social aspect that I discussed above, and on the other hand the politico-economic side, represented by the NRA and the arms lobby. It's a simple fact that the weapons industry (and, on a related note, the military-industrial complex, which has really become a military-political-industrial complex) forms a significant part of the US economy. Politicians can get elected simply by getting military spending into their districts to create jobs. There are literally several dozen major arms companies and hundreds of smaller ones, providing employment for the people and money for politicians.

The tremendous difficulty is that this makes the gun-issue into a two-front battle, as social and ideological considerations are paired with economic and power-political ones. Opposing weapons doesn't simply elicit fearful responses for the reasons I described above, but in some areas it will also lead to fear of unemployment and it crosses the plans of a powerful (both politically and economically) lobby of which the NRA is simply one gear.

The problem is tremendously complicated, even if the insanity of the current situation is perfectly evident. As Ben Stiller (and many others) said: how can it be that one idiot tries to make a shoe-bomb and fails, and we all take off our shoes and wait in line for hours to get on a plane, but thousands get killed by guns each year and we do nothing?

The same people who supported the Patriot Act over one (HUGE) terrorist attack refuse to do anything about a problem that kills just as many people each year as 9/11 did once. And clearly, it's a matter of money, political leverage AND ideology. A volatile and dangerous mixture that has proven catastrophic in the past (the fleet building of the early 1910s, the 'Modern Imperialism' of the 1870s and beyond).