Gun ownership itself is a slight mental illness

Is a society where it's okay to shoot other people...

 

That's where we are now.

Chicago Tribune › nation-world
Police say Texas cop accidentally shot and killed a woman when he fired repeatedly at her dog ...

CNN.com › 2017/07/17 › minn...
Minneapolis shooting: Woman calls 911, gets killed by police, source says - CNN - CNN.com

Wikipedia › wiki › Shooting_of_Ta...
Shooting of Tamir Rice - Wikipedia

ETC

 

So how exactly does this show how being an armed nation has made us a polite nation?

 

Was it supposed to?

:-/

 

I'm beginning to wonder if the number 350,000,000 is evading some of the contributions around here. We have only a handful of these mass shootings compared to the US population. And yet, they are supposed to be indicative of the entire United States?

That's what we used to call a reach.

With that many people, many of them concentrated in cities, I'd say we're getting off light on the maniacs. I'd expect many more by now. So many that even leftists would be packing heat just to ensure survival. But we don't have anything remotely approaching such a time. I realize it's SO easy to accept any report about how horrible America and Americans are with their horrible gun culture, rampant racism and civil rights being virtually ignored, but do take a step back and see how much of this is media sensationalism.

It's like their elite ownership is experimenting with the human condition en masse to see what kind of story or event triggers the most ad clicks, then figuring out ways to actually drive that profitably. We may be witnessing the really dark side of the media, leaps and bounds over subliminal voice tracks and 23rd frame ads.

While I have written some salacious shit over the years, I have never considered writing material to try to drive people into attacking one another. Maybe because I'm not greed-centric. Who knows?

 

The way it is now... Way too many people have way too many guns. So the obvious solution is to let more people have more access to way to many guns...


Yeah, seems logical.

 

Sounds like you are calling for more shootings... Percentages are just too damned low.

 

Maybe not but I didnt expect you to post something that proves the exact opposite

 

Oh please, do you REALLY mean that? Did I frighten you? Butterfly?

Get real already, I wasn't being flippant. With a population this massive, I'd expect far more freaks of every cloth (or lack of). I suspect the drugs have something to do with it. The downer epidemic is real. I see people in traffic who are surely on pain killers. Or they're Hawaiian.

So if Trump is serious about reducing the supply of downers, shit will happen. And I think maybe somebody has been explaining that to him. Yanking people's cocaine was different, the breaks did them some good. But narcotic addicts are another matter.

Trump is a cocaine-era thinker.

 

these are two that I know of. I don't want to search though.

Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program — FBI
NIBRS | Federal Bureau of Investigation

more on that Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics

 

Nice topic change. One of your frequent tactics....

Trump is so serious about the opiate thing he put Kellyanne Conway in charge... Judging from her brain scattered way of talking and her looks, she does seem to know a lot about drugs. He always picks the best people.

No idea what you are trying to say here...

Wait! You aren't on drugs by any chance, are you?

 

This reminds me of the Star Trek episode - A Taste of Armageddon – where two nations are conducting a simulated war and where the ‘victims’ of every pretended attack are executed, and this is just accepted by both sides and the war just carries on forever.

The US is basically having a domestic war - deaths and injuries in this war are huge with some 113,108 people being shot in the US every year with 36,383 been killed and of which some 12,800 are murdered.

The totally number of US soldiers killed in the Vietnam War from 1954-1975 was 57,939 I believe the highest number in any one year was in 1968 in which 16,899 were killed in most years it was far less.

In the US's longest war in Afghanistan i believe some 2,400 American service members have been killed since 2001.

It makes you wonder is the American policy of ease of access to guns, is the US’s forever war?

 

This has come up in many gun threads here over the years and here is an edited mix up of just some of my replies i've posted over those years.

*

I remember a post I wrote some time ago around this subject when some pro gunner quoted that old Heinlein line about –

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”

My theory is that there is a general attitude among many Americans that accepts threat of violence, intimidation and suppression as legitimate means of societal control and this mind-set gets in the way of them actually working toward solutions to the US’s social and political problems.

This is because that attitude colours the way they think about and view the world from personal interaction to how they see other countries…..

*

Well as I’ve said guns are a means of intimidation, the whole movement to legalise the carrying of a concealed weapon is based on the premise that ‘criminals’ (and anyone else) will be too afraid to act badly.

The view prevalent among pro-gunners that America is a more polite society because of widespread gun ownership is also based on this idea of repression it basically about the threat of – ‘be polite or else’ - not real politeness but politeness at the point of a gun.

*

So is it true that an armed society is a politer society, or is it just that an armed society is a paranoid society that is just being polite out of fear?

And it begs the question, why not try and bring about a society where people are polite because they are polite not just out of fear that they might be shot?

The thing is that, maybe you already have it, maybe your society is as polite as it is and guns and gun ownership have nothing to do with it, it’s just a myth and says more about the mentality of pro-gunners than about reality?

Because I’ve been to the US (well California at least) and I’ve meet a lot of Americans from all over the states, and the thing is that they seem as polite (or not) as any other people I’ve meet and I’ve live and travelled extensively in Europe and I’d say that there is really very little difference in the range and the amount of politeness between those people and Americans, and it seems they don’t need the threat of getting shot to be polite.

So why is it that so many pro-gunners in the US think they need guns to have polite Americans?

*

I’d also ask who judges what is correct behaviour. What constitutes been polite? It can be subjective and also irrational and if irrational people get into arguments the outcomes are likely to be irrational.

I mean a pro-gun lobbyists replied to my post by saying

But in the US people do pull out their guns for silly reasons– they get into minor arguments that end with guns been used either to threaten, injure or kill, I’ve posted many silly reasons why people used their guns I remember the guy who shot someone over a parking place and another over a cheeseburger anyway here are a couple of incidences I’ve posted (there are many more but it gives a taste)


My husband was yelling at me so loudly that the neighbors could hear. It was embarrassing, so I shot him. (PA)

Some guy didn’t hold the door open for my lady friend at McDonald’s, which seemed disrespectful, so I shot him dead. (NV)

 

H

Again why do you feel the need to lie and how do you think lying strengthens your position?

I said - I’m not totally against people owning a gun and that I just want regulation in place to lessen the possibility of guns falling into the hands of criminals and the irresponsible.

I DID NOT SAY - "I understand the need to have a gun for personal home protection."

Why lie – when the words are in the public domain and so easy to see – what do you think you gain by lying – it seems like totally irrational behaviour.

OK – to repeat

I’m not totally against people owning a gun I just want regulation in place to lessen the possibility of guns falling into the hands of criminals and the irresponsible.

That doesn’t mean I cannot ask why so many on the pro-gun lobby side seem so frightened and paranoid and seem to want to constantly sell guns through fear and the promotion of paranoia

*

AND (once again) WE GET EVASION – can you please answer the question - what in the statistics indicates that ease of access to guns is beneficial in tackling crime and so for you to be pushing gun ownership as a means to tackling crime?

Sorry I have to repeat - you keep claiming you have wide knowledge on this issue but so far you have not shown it.

 

Lots of semantics debates...

But, can't we just all get along???

- There needs to be consequences to actions!

A discussion of what doesn't work, or how some phrase/concept doesn't mean what our interpretation of it would be... It's not solution-oriented.

Neither is pointing out a few instances of this or that happening when they are rare occurrences. It's not convincing, distracts from seeking solutions, and demonstrates an agenda.

And all these "numbers" -- there's contradicting sources showing a wide range. How do we know what to believe?

Rather than trying to discredit people by picking apart some segment of their argument, wouldn't it better serve us to work toward an understanding of the problem at hand and brainstorm for solutions?

Not that everything can be fully solved, as everything is a compromise, but we are capable of digging in and seeking to balance things out in a process that's amenable and productive.

And what are our biggest problems? Is murder by "gun" high on the list? What about cancer? That's about a lot more suffering on the way to dying! As is diabetes, heart disease, opioid/alcohol/etc abuse. Is death from being cut to pieces in a womb not a problem? What about all the deaths caused by drivers not trained well? Healthcare mistakes? Where's the outrage on behalf of all the many more people dying prematurely from causes other than being murdered with a "gun"?

 

"Why are you so frightened? Why are you so paranoid? I don’t feel I need a gun why do you,"

Anyone reading what you wrote there will have no problem understanding that even though you say you're not totally against people owning guns, it's actually a lie because you nonetheless refer to them as frightened and paranoid because they own a gun and you don't.

So, in your own words, why lie when your words are already in the public domain and so easy to see? Good luck with trying to turn that around.

 

Yours seems to be coming up with shit conclusions from way out in left field.

And what do you call that? "You sound like you're calling for ....." bullshit. THAT is deflecting from the subject far more than I did.

Open a window or something.

 

Well, first I separate the preventable causes of premature death from those not currently preventable. That excludes a lot of things related to health that are not related to choices. (Not in this category are SMOKING, poor diet choices, etc.). Auto deaths have been lowered by a lot of technology and Restrictions,Enforcement and rules. Drug addiction is caused by poor personal choices and overwhems law enforcement.
And the we have guns where the restrictions are trivial, many of the victims are totally innocent, and the total approaches the number of auto deaths. A small number of zealots prevent any traction on this issue and all the rest of us are at risk. Our neighbors north of the 49th have a lot more sense on this issue a correspondingly lower rate of gun deaths..

 

Trudgin

Can you not walk and chew gum?

Why can’t we tackle multiply things at the same time it’s what many people do every day are you saying that you can only one thing a day?

The reason why there are multiple departments in a company or government is so many things can be done at the same time and even within those departments it is usual for many differing things to be taken care of.