Rush Limbaugh's Tucson Billboard & Right Wing Massacre Culpability

Where were you last night...

 

Here's the video I was watching. I'll be honest, I don't know a lot about him, but judging by the way he screams at people, talks about killing people, and talks about hating 9/11 victims' families, there's no way this guy is serious.

People writing things like, "He's a psycho," etc. They're taking it for face value.

When Colbert first came on I thought he was some Rebuplican douchebag with a tv show. Then I realized that half the time he makes fun of Republicans and on top of that all the republican fear mongering he does is clearly in jest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3J_QLtYqlk"]YouTube - Glenn Beck Fail: Best Of Beck Clips

 

Psychos get guns when they're illegal too. Again, the LA shootout. Most simple gun crime is committed with illegal firearms, generally by people who legally can't own firearms to begin with.

Tell me why are psychos having guns so scary. This was only 6 deaths. About 9,000 people will die in gun crime in the US this year. In fact, this guy is completely irrelevant to anything. Tell me please what is the difference between having a 16 round clip for example, or just strapping 4 fully loaded guns to your torso. In fact if you really want, if you keep 2 guns in your pocket, 4 strapped to your torso, and 2 on your ankles, even with an 8 round clip, you now have 64 bullets without ever having to reload. YOU CAN'T REGULATE CRAZY.

But again, psychos having guns is irrelevant. 99% of shooting deaths in the US, or any nation for that matter will not happen by psychos. When you want to ban guns it's just a feel good, knee jerk reaction for people who don't want to address the actual problems because they're too difficult, namely the fact the drug war with the politics and money involved, further combined with vast income disparities is what actually fuels gun crime. Florida and California for example account for almost 1/3 of the US's gun deaths despite only having just under 20% of the population. A good deal of those crimes come from both the greater LA and Miami areas, fueled by gangs fighting over drug money.

As I've said before if banning guns solves the problem, why is it the crime rate in US cities skews the crime rates for the entire nation. Suburbs and rural areas in the US actually have pretty low crime rates, while generally possessing much higher rates of firearm ownership, as well as generally having much more relaxed laws in both ownership and carry rights.

As well as the map I posted in your other threads, if guns really have any correlation on crime, given the huge spread of concealed carry rights in the 90's, the crime rate should've been rising all through the 90's and early 00's, not falling like a rock.

*edit*
This goes for both sides, both people who after a mass shooting go OMG WE NEED TO BAN GUNS, and people on the other side who go OMG WE NEED TO ARM EVERYONE. Neither solution in any way effects gun crimes because you're just giving a knee jerk reaction that does absolutely nothing to address the issue of why people are shooting other people.

 

That ^^^ should be posted in the guns thread as well as here.

 

your exactly right, beautifully stated. my best friend Tanner (RIP) was butchered to death with a knife by a crazy guy from las vegas whom he worked with and invited home for drinks, im sure social reforms would have done a lot more to prevent that than outlawing firearms. the man had already served a year and a half for stabbing his best friend in the neck, then he was released without probation, paroll or anything and welcomed into my great state of washington where he commited this atrocity. the prisons no longer have room for the crazys because their busy imprisoning college students selling marijuana.

 

Annnnnd, D.C. until last year if you remember had a complete and total ban on guns and yet has by far the highest crime rate. Should've looked into that more. You'll also notice the chart follows basically a correlation of the poorest states. Then you have Vermont and Alaska, two states, both very rural, both that have absolutely no restrictions on concealed carry, on opposite sides of the list. As well we New Hampshire which is probably the most libertarian state on this side of the country.

And what bogus info are you talking about? I'm sorry if you don't like the fact it's true but violent crime beginning in 1993 began falling like a rock, and in the past 20 years almost all states have changed their laws to allow concealed carry for everyone on demand.
Going back to the list, Kansas, SD, ND, Nebraska, Utah, Iowa, and going more to the left, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, Oregon, Washington, all have very high rates of gun ownership yet are on the bottom half of the list. Blue state in presidential elections =/= anti gun in the US.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html

Fun fact, CCW holders are actually less likely than the general public to commit crime, including gun crime, for example, from crime ridden Florida
http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Again, maybe it's just possible that gun legislation one way or the other that guns have no correlation to gun crime. Otherwise the evidence seems to point towards when gun laws are relaxed gun crime goes down.

*edit*
The US also comparatively to other nations has a high homicide by knife rate. Considering I doubt our cutlery ownership rate is any different than say Canada or any other western nation, should we start restricting knives too?

 

skip your statistics still dont disprove madcapsyds point that most deaths occur because of inner city related drug/domestic violence despite the rural suburban area having higher rates of gun ownership. those statistics you use are for firearm deaths including suicide, accidents etc. california does have a higher homicide rate per 100,000 than alaska. 5.83 to 3.93. which means most of those deaths were suicides, which if you look up the suicide rates you find alaska has the highest.

 

I'd also be curious to see the breakdown in what type of firearm death it was. Fun fact, most firearm deaths are not homicides in the US, they're suicides.

• Homicide: 11,624 / 39% of All Fatalities
• Suicide: 16,750 / 57% of All Fatalities
• Unintentional Death (Accidental): 649 / 2% of All Fatalities

http://washingtonceasefire.org/resource-center/national-firearm-injury-and-death-statistics

Ironically on that note, the US suicide rate is actually actually rather average.

 

plus just think how much more comfortably someone could rob a house knowing theres no weaponry for the owners to defend themselves. you could just as easily rob people with crossbows and a sword, you being the hardened criminal, them probably having no fighting expirience.

 

I think blaming right-wingers for this is similiar to blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine.

One mentally unstable person committed this crime. It would be different if it was an organized militia, but it was just one guy with no grasp on reality.

With that said, I do think our current political climate has created an environment of hostility that creates seemingly extreme differences between people where no differences really exist. I can see how a mentally unstable person living in our current political climate could follow the ideas of political pundits like Rush Limbaugh and use their views as justification for violence.

Still, the only person to blame is the person that pulled the trigger.

Guns are not solely used to kill people. In some pockets of America, hunting is still quite popular and there would be a lot of self-sufficient, pissed off people in this country if the right to hunt with a firearm was stripped away.

Outlawing guns completely is unrealistic for this reason. Even if gun control was tightened to the point where only hunters were able to obtain firearms legally, the psychos of the world would still be able to obtain them illegally.

If Loughner did not have access to a gun, he could easily have found another means to his end. Homemade bombs are not that hard to make, for example.

 

*edit*
wrong thread

 

I don't think you can point the finger for this incident at overheated rhetoric. The dude was a total whackjob.

But -- I think it's important that the dialogue is happening and that both left and right wing camps (hopefully) are giving serious consideration to dialing back the heat and cheap shots.

If the Yanks are lucky (and wise up) maybe something good can come from such a horrible tragedy.

 

We don't know that for sure. People said the same thing about Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

No. That someone is out of control and does something that they should not is their fault.

While there may have been thing posted or said that in my opinion should not of been by many, it does not make them responsible for the actions of a person who makes a choice to harm others.

 

Yea, if we were to always blame actions (in this case bad ones) on external parties, where does personal responsibility come into play? Everyone can go around blaming everyone else for everything.

Although I don't think that right wing political rhetoric helped at all, personal responsibilty is important. Without it we would live in a society of victims and free-for-all action, be it good or bad, without real personal consequence.

 

We already live in a society that wants to lay blame to take away from personal responsibility. We want it to be someones fault, other than our own of course. We need the excuse so that we can justify why we are better than them or those who do these things.

In this case, the right wing nonsense is spouted daily to millions but one person takes an action and then let us blame them. Hog wash.

The blame lies with anyone who makes the choice to kill others.

 

the devil made me do it.. >... impulse =action=/ action taken = no harm. referring to myself here...



the same impulse to commit acts of violence, is the same impulse a comedian uses to be funny.., just a different emotion , same response .

 

when people like ann coulter say stuff like "if democrats ever dared speak what they believe coherently, the american people would lynch them" to large uneducated paranoid crowds of mcarthyites how can you not expect something like this would happen. it would not have such an effect if the media reflected true public opinion but it spews out this eliminationist rhetoric as if most americans think this way and it makes the crazys think theyve got the backing of half the american people when they commit there atrocities. i support mrs coulters right to free speech but statements like these really should be ridiculed out of existence.