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Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 654

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yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

Of course he had the desire to kill because of all these factors — where did I ever doubt that? Making the process more efficient at catching those at risk is part of the guns debate.

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yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

Of course he had the desire to kill because of all these factors — where did I ever doubt that? Making the process more efficient at catching those at risk is part of the guns debate.

Didn’t mean to respond to your post.

But restricting access to guns makes sense.

The total gun ban idea is unrealistic and wrongheaded.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo said:

If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun

Add the word “seventeen” and you’re on to something. Harm reduction is the concept behind the whole thing. The only one actually fighting against evil is Batman.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

Of course he had the desire to kill because of all these factors — where did I ever doubt that? Making the process more efficient at catching those at risk is part of the guns debate.

Didn’t mean to respond to your post.

But restricting access to guns makes sense.

The total gun ban idea is unrealistic and wrongheaded.

And for the millionth time, a total gun ban is not the objective. Go back and look at the Australian law posted a couple pages back - that’s the ideal objective we should be working toward IMO.

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 (Edited)

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

Of course he had the desire to kill because of all these factors — where did I ever doubt that? Making the process more efficient at catching those at risk is part of the guns debate.

Didn’t mean to respond to your post.

But restricting access to guns makes sense.

The total gun ban idea is unrealistic and wrongheaded.

And for the millionth time, a total gun ban is not the objective. Go back and look at the Australian law posted a couple pages back - that’s the ideal objective we should be working toward IMO.

The realistic goal is the Australian policy. The actual goal to me is a total gun ban. I think it should be for every human.

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ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

Of course he had the desire to kill because of all these factors — where did I ever doubt that? Making the process more efficient at catching those at risk is part of the guns debate.

Didn’t mean to respond to your post.

But restricting access to guns makes sense.

The total gun ban idea is unrealistic and wrongheaded.

And for the millionth time, a total gun ban is not the objective. Go back and look at the Australian law posted a couple pages back - that’s the ideal objective we should be working toward IMO.

Yep, I think I’ve been pushing the envelope of the most restrictive regulation possible here, and even I’m not in favor of a total gun ban. And, as we discussed about 30 pages back or so, I’d support policies that aren’t nearly as aggressive as the ones I’m suggesting. I’m just bringing it up because why not give your honest opinion?

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

Mrebo said:

If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun

Add the word “seventeen” and you’re on to something. Harm reduction is the concept behind the whole thing. The only one actually fighting against evil is Batman.

Maybe you misunderstood, I will rephrase: If you think he was only able to kill people because he had a gun…

As for harm reduction, a gun ban is unrealistic and sacrifices basic liberties (whether you think those liberties are outmoded or rarely needed). It’s like the ‘free range’ parenting topic, where charging parents with negligence is about harm reduction.

What if we could put a virtual end to school shootings without a gun ban? Do we even want to try that?

The blue elephant in the room.

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When a gun is always involved in the problem, it’s hard to deny that it’s part of the problem. So saying “we should try to solve everything except the gun part” just seems silly. We should try everything we can. We shouldn’t shy away from controlling guns just because some people like them a lot.

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ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

Of course he had the desire to kill because of all these factors — where did I ever doubt that? Making the process more efficient at catching those at risk is part of the guns debate.

Didn’t mean to respond to your post.

But restricting access to guns makes sense.

The total gun ban idea is unrealistic and wrongheaded.

And for the millionth time, a total gun ban is not the objective. Go back and look at the Australian law posted a couple pages back - that’s the ideal objective we should be working toward IMO.

Depends who you talk to in this thread. Some say ban semiautomatic rifles, some say handguns too. Some say it’s never going to happen but we totally got to do it.

As I’ve expressed in previous pages, some kind of additional gun regulations can be a good idea. I don’t think the Australia law is permitted here under our Constitution, even beyond the 2nd Amendment, but would have to study that further. I think the obsession with banning guns is distracting from taking other concrete steps to end mass shootings at schools.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

yhwx said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

I think we should all be pleased we’re talking about gun control (mostly large scale banning of guns) exclusively, while some are)admitting it’s almost certainly not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile we ignore the enormous numerous failings that could have been avoided to prevent the deaths here and at other schools. Round of applause!

Okay, why don’t you start? What sort of failings?

They’ve been in the news and I’ve mentioned them previously in the thread. But there were the calls to the FBI, including a post by Cruz that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” He was expelled from school because he had bullets in his backpack. The family he lived with knew he was deeply troubled, knew he had guns (but apparently not how many and where). Kids at school were afraid of him. People knew he tortured and killed animals. Numerous police and social service visits to the house with no actions taken. The deputy working at the school that day stayed outside when the shooting was going on.

But if he hadn’t had a gun, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be talking about Trump’s claim that he is, in fact, one-fourth Chinese.

Setting aside the practicality of gun bans, if he didn’t have a rifle, I don’t see why he wouldn’t use a handgun, and if not a handgun, a knife or an explosive device. And then maybe we could talk about how we could stop him from killing whatever number of people he killed. Would it be only 5 dead children? Maybe. We can only guess. There’s a sleight of hand going on here and it’s not by me. If you think this kid only killed people because he had a gun you’re ignoring all those facts, strangely because they’re not controversial.

Of course he had the desire to kill because of all these factors — where did I ever doubt that? Making the process more efficient at catching those at risk is part of the guns debate.

Didn’t mean to respond to your post.

But restricting access to guns makes sense.

The total gun ban idea is unrealistic and wrongheaded.

And for the millionth time, a total gun ban is not the objective. Go back and look at the Australian law posted a couple pages back - that’s the ideal objective we should be working toward IMO.

Depends who you talk to in this thread. Some say ban semiautomatic rifles, some say handguns too. Some say it’s never going to happen but we totally got to do it.

As I’ve expressed in previous pages, some kind of additional gun regulations can be a good idea. I don’t think the Australia law is permitted here under our Constitution, even beyond the 2nd Amendment, but would have to study that further. I think the obsession with banning guns is distracting from taking other concrete steps to end mass shootings at schools.

And I think reasonable gun control is the most concrete step that can be taken to end mass shootings at schools.

Are there others? Sure.

For example, our media actually has a pretty sensible attitude toward reporting suicide, because data has shown that when suicides are reported in the news, suicide rates increase. I believe that when mass shootings are reported in the news - especially when we talk so much about the shooter - the rates of mass shootings similarly increase. We need to carefully examine how we report these massacres and the amount of attention we give to the individuals that perpetrate these crimes, and adjust the way these things are reported accordingly.

That would help.

As another example, the treatment of mental health in this country is still heavily stigmatized to the point where most people are either unwilling to seek treatment for fear of being ostracized, or unable to seek treatment because resources are unavailable to them, or both.

Further, when others report on people who show signs of violent behavior, we need to start taking the reports seriously and put procedures in place (or start following existing procedures) to help these individuals or reduce the risk they pose to others, rather than treating the reports as a waste of time and resources, as we seem to have done with Cruz.

Those things would help, too.

You know what would help way, way more than either of those things?

Controlling who can purchase firearms and what type of firearms, accessories, and ammunition are available to the general public.

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Mrebo said:

As for harm reduction, a gun ban is unrealistic and sacrifices basic liberties (whether you think those liberties are outmoded or rarely needed).

In my opinion, nobody would sacrifice anything important at all under a gun ban. They wouldn’t even be inconvenienced. But yes I agree it’s currently unrealistic.

It’s like the ‘free range’ parenting topic, where charging parents with negligence is about harm reduction.

Except no harm is actually reduced and people are actually harmed, making it sort of the opposite of a gun ban.

What if we could put a virtual end to school shootings without a gun ban? Do we even want to try that?

School shootings are a very tiny subset of the larger American gun problem, which is large and will take a long time to address, and there may be a very different political climate before the whole problem is solved. So while solutions that can pass a legislature are preferred in the near term, I don’t feel we should feel obligated to be silent about solutions that solve the problem more effectively without as many downsides, just because they’re currently unpassable.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

So while solutions that can pass a legislature are preferred in the near term, I don’t feel we should feel obligated to be silent about solutions that solve the problem more effectively without as many downsides, just because they’re currently unpassable.

Even though I don’t fully agree with some of the more “extreme” solutions you’ve proposed, I am 100% fully on board with this statement.

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Some people only want to ban certain guns or restrict guns a bit more.

But, because SOME people want to ban ALL guns, we therefore shouldn’t ban any guns or further regulate gun ownership at all?

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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ChainsawAsh, I appreciate what you’re saying. And I am not advocating silence (as CatBus suggests) but following page-after-page of mostly pro-gun control statements, I think the other solutions deserve some attention. The failings I mentioned could be addressed by legislation but it takes enormous work to get the votes to address those things, whether it is increased security at every school in the country, mental health intervention, or cooperation between law enforcement and schools/health professionals. If we use this moment (and every other) to mostly or entirely pontificate about guns (including the bad idea from pro-gun people saying we should have armed teachers), then I’m afraid nothing will be done. I’ve previously suggested several gun control measures I favor. I’m worried about the dysfunction in our society that prevents addressing problems in terms beyond our pet issues.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Some people only want to ban certain guns or restrict guns a bit more.

But, because SOME people want to ban ALL guns, we therefore shouldn’t ban any guns or further regulate gun ownership at all?

No.

The blue elephant in the room.

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 (Edited)

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh, I appreciate what you’re saying. And I am not advocating silence (as CatBus suggests) but following page-after-page of mostly pro-gun control statements, I think the other solutions deserve some attention.

It just seems to me that the “other solutions” are like putting a bandage on a severed limb before trying a tourniquet.

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ChainsawAsh said:

Mrebo said:

ChainsawAsh, I appreciate what you’re saying. And I am not advocating silence (as CatBus suggests) but following page-after-page of mostly pro-gun control statements, I think the other solutions deserve some attention.

It just seems to me that the “other solutions” are like putting a bandage on a severed limb before trying a tourniquet.

Security at schools, mental health interventions, and proactive action by law enforcement (the latter two which may limit access to guns) seems like a way stop school shootings in an acceptable way starting now. No constitutional problems and no partisan resistance. Combine those with gun control measures you might think modest but are feasible. I really disagree that it would just be a bandaid.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Back to that Atlantic article I linked to earlier:

The correlation between gun deaths and mental illness is far, far smaller than the correlation between gun deaths and an assault weapons ban. Mental illness policy would help, but not as much as people think it does.

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Frink makes a point. 15-Love

I think that chart is pretty useless. It is looking at state level numbers. So x% of the population has been identified and reported as mentally ill. What percentage of non-suicide shooters are mentally ill? What percentage of mass shooters are mentally ill? Are they being identified?

Whether a mental health policy would help depends on how/if it is targeted.

Although the suicide/McCain voters thing makes sense, amirite?

I don’t imagine a lot of people are committing suicide with semiautomatic weapons so maybe the states with assault weapon bans have a low suicide rate for other reasons, which accounts for measured correlation.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Firstly, you have misread the chart. It’s showing the correlation between gun deaths in general and certain things, not suicide.

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yhwx said:

Firstly, you have misread the chart. It’s showing the correlation between gun deaths in general and certain things, not suicide.

Secondly, I did not misread the chart. I neglected to restate that suicides comprise most gun deaths. I should have stated that and put the McCain quip at the end. Sorry for the confusion.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Then I don’t really get your point. If suicides are most gun deaths, then shouldn’t these statistics apply to gun deaths too? I don’t just want a solution for mass shootings. We should want one for other gun problems too.