Your musical compatibility with Bio_404 is Super

Music you have in common includes Big L, Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, Rakim and GZA/Genius.

2009 mustardoverlord loves you

Your musical compatibility with myuserwastaken is Medium

Music you have in common includes Comus, Can, Electric Wizard, My Bloody Valentine and Killing Joke.

chill son

haven't used my last.fm since october 2009 :X

http://www.last.fm/user/sweetlikegravy

it'd be way different now

sorry, it was to dopewolf

1) most of the school shooters put a lot of planning into their actions which is why it's prolly the hardest gun violence to completely avoid

2) your plan sounds wildly expensive and unpractical

3) it would still have a much smaller OVERALL effect on rates of gun homicide than simple gun control

4) since cops/the military would still be allowed to have guns and this dude would essentially be a cop/police officer, the two ideas arent mutually exclusive

they are if you're a poor, inner-city 17 year old

Because some of the anti-gun control people in this thread are using hyperbole to attack arguments I didn't actually make, let me clarify.

I didn't say that people owning one handgun and people owning 6 assault rifles were like co-dependent, and that having one be legal instantly meant the other would be as well. I just think both should be illegal. It's instances like this where killers go so overboard with crazy weapons and ammo that it seems difficult to enforce, but I'm willing to bet 95% of the TWELVE THOUSAND GUN HOMICIDES PER YEAR IN THE U.S. HOLY SHIT are committed by a dude who has way fewer guns, probably used a handgun, and didn't put a lot of planning or effort into it.

Let me give an example of what I'm talking about so people can stop using their interpretation of this particular shooting to somehow argue ALL gun control is futile.

For those who don't know, Scotland is kind of a shithole. A LOT of violent crime occurs there, committed by youth gangs. By far the worst example of this crime can be found in Glasgow, where certain areas are like some of the worst ghettos in the Western world. Knives are the primary source of homicide. People call it the most dangerous city in all of Western Europe.

According to this document:
http://www.scccj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/0124207_homicide_scotland_10-11.pdf

From 2010-2011, there were 97 homicide victims in all of Scotland. The amount committed in Strathclyde (the region which Glasgow is in, which has 2.5 million people) was 61. The amount in the city of Glasgow itself (which has about 600,000 people) was 26.

Almost all these homicides were committed with knives, because guns simply are not available.

Compare that to the homicide rate of Baltimore, the most violent major city in the United States, which is only very slightly bigger than Glasgow (620,000 people). Baltimore reported 196 homicides in 2011, which was actually its lowest rate since 1978 (the year before, it had 223 and Glasgow only had 20).

SO STOP SAYING GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE. WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE GUNS IT'S A HELL OF A LOT TOUGHER.

I don't understand why you're getting so worked up when it seems to me like (other than my oh-so offensive use of the dreaded caps lock key) we see eye-to-eye on this issue. I too agree that we cannot take about past events conclusively, which is why I don't understand when you say things like:

"You can not start discussing gun regulation by thinking that what you're doing would not have had an impact on what just happened."

I think we can discuss gun regulation by completely avoiding how to answer that question. Regardless of what happened here, I feel like it's just as important that cases like this are the anomaly in that it's even in question whether gun control could play a role in changing things. In most cases, it's 100% clear that it could. Isn't that enough? Why are you arguing about this one unknowable case?

Yes, I do believe gun culture is a serious and existing problem, IN ADDITION to the question of access to guns (which is I also acknowledge).

I don't think gun culture is any more abstract a factor than any of the others, because the extent to which access to guns and the like would go down with stricter gun control is really just conjecture on our parts, just like any sort of gun culture that may exist. I think talking about access to guns going down is concrete because sometimes common sense can replace actual statistics when none are available, and the same is true in terms of gun culture.

I did, you just misunderstood it.

You're essentially nitpicking when both of us feel very similarly overall. Honestly, this whole thing feels like you misread my first post, attacked the misinterpretation, and are now too proud to back out of it.

You COMPLETELY misread my first post.

I said that it's illogical that we can ONLY talk about gun control when a big milestone like this happens, and that it seems to be forbidden discourse otherwise. If it were up to me, we'd talk about it a lot more.

You're reading way more into the "huge emotional response" thing than I intended. How is it not an optimal time to talk about it? How would we do something we'll regret? By passing gun control laws? Which I want? Why would I ever say anything like that? It make no sense

Look at the context of how I was saying that. I was defending against those saying "well this guy would have still got illegal access to guns anyways so gun control does nothing herp derp". You choose to argue against them by making the case that, in this particular instance, fewer people would have died if gun control were stricter. I am making the argument that, even if that weren't true, cases like this would be a far outlier with stricter gun control laws, the last holdouts of an issue that is otherwise dead. Neither of us are capable of proving what we're arguing because of the reality, which is such laws are not in place. I don't understand how you can therefore act like your argument is stronger than mine, or that the two are exclusive. I don't care whether this particular scenario was avoidable or not, because IT ALREADY HAPPENED. I just care about reducing the overall number of gun homicides in the future, because that is preventable.

cont'd below

again

WHY DOES THAT MEAN GUN CONTROL LAWS ARE A BAD IDEA

let's compare two numbers

one is the number of gun homicides we have per year in the United States- roughly 11,500

one is the number of gun homicides we'd have with gun control- INARGUABLY LESS THAN 11,500

there will still be outliers

BUT DONT YOU WANT LESS PEOPLE TO BE MURDERED BY GUNS

WHAT IS THE DOWNSIDE

This is literally the dumbest post I've ever read on this forum

I will not even dignify it with a real response, and I'm the guy that dignifies EVERYTHING with a real response

Again, I don't see how owning a gun being a "right" according to the the Bill of Rights (I think it's debatable whether that makes bearing arms a REAL right, since I believe in transnational legalism and think that only international standards of human rights should be elevated to that level) makes the debate any less clear-cut. Yes, you have to weigh crime versus loss of freedom. However, the reason I accuse you of condoning homicide is because I literally do not understand how a rational person could side with freedom there.

Preventing literally thousands of deaths in exchange for some people being a little bit less happy (but otherwise completely fine)? How could anyone go against that trade? Just because the Bill of Rights says to? Well, we're back to constitutional originalism again.

If you aren't basing your love of the 2nd amendment due to constitutional originalism, then you're seriously bordering on being a conspiracy nut. Are you actually suggesting that we will need firearms to protect ourselves from some sort of tyrannical regime that will take over soon? If that were the case, why would what the Bill of Rights says even matter? I'm highly confused as to WHAT is important about the right to bear arms in 2012.

I'm arguing that, if gun control laws had been in place for generations, psychopaths like Lanza would have had a lot more difficult time getting guns. Saying I consider it a "win" is loaded language, but yes, it would be a LOT better if that was the only option available.

And, as I said, school shootings like this are more important for getting the debate going than for being pristine examples of when gun control laws are most necessary. They don't go most of the way towards explaining the NEARLY 12000 A YEAR GUN HOMICIDE RATE in the United States.

considering the cause is so tightly linked to what occurred (e.g. gun violence), I don't see how it can be considered exploiting emotional responses for one's own agenda. People just don't like it when other people die to guns, plain and simple.

What you're saying makes no sense. I was arguing that gun control WOULD avoid the murder on the streets of Baltimore, I only cited the factors because they obscure the public from being able to blame someone, whereas here they can blame Adam Lanza the lone gunman, making it a simpler problem to discuss.

I don't understand at all why you can't blame both mental illness AND guns. Guns and people both kill people. Just because it's a good idea to foster a culture more supportive of those with mental illnesses doesn't mean it's not also a good idea to support gun control.

(contd below)

you guys do realize different people improve in different ways right?

Yes, but in effect you are deifying our founding fathers/supporting the philosophy of constitutional originalism by applying centuries-old reasoning today, two things that THE FOUNDING FATHERS THEMSELVES DID NOT SUPPORT.

As I said, even if gun control would not affect incidents such as this (which is highly debatable because you're talking about instantly applying gun control laws today rather than having them in place for a long time, thus gradually reducing the connected culture), this still isn't the only area in which it's relevant. It's just that when cute smiling white middle class children in a suburb are senselessly murdered and there's a clear villain (the mentally ill person who did it), it receives far more coverage than when an inner city black teenager is senselessly murdered in Baltimore and it's the fault of the failing American economic system and the War on Drugs. If this is the only time we can actually have an open discourse of gun control, then so be it.

Yes, but China and European countries don't have 11,500 gun homicides a year, now do they?

The most extreme proponents of these spree killings are those that hatch out a sick plan for a long time, and work hard to procure firearms. That's why they can exist anywhere (even in countries like Norway with strict laws and a giant welfare state). That doesn't mean that gun control is futile in those other countries.

If you think preserving an ideal from the colonial era (EVEN THOUGH THE FOUNDING FATHERS DON'T WANT YOU TO PRESERVE IDEALS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA) is a good trade-off for those homicides, that's on you.