Myspace to blame for colorado shooting

floyd1975

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

In issues such as healthcare, I agree. If a patient is ill, and their doctor recommends a consultant, bureaucrats shouldn't step in between them and do means tests, to clog the system. But that's an issue of a patient's right to treatment, something which is acknowledged in our free National Health Service, in the UK. But with the "right" to own a gun, something which kills or maims in the hands of an inexpert user, I think the more vetting, the better. We want to minimise all risk of accidents while hunting, surely? Dick Cheney would never get a licence, for a start!

We have to accept that accidents will happen though. If we weren't willing to accept that we would have banned cars, bicycles, walking, etc...

chopitdown

cutback wrote:

I'm not trying to be a smart-ass, but if they love being in the wilderness why do they need to kill something? It confuses me that they love to be out there so they better kill an animal.

Most hunters I know love the outdoors and still go outdoors not during hunting season. They use the hunting for food for throughout the year. Every hunter I knows takes the meat back and uses it for cooking etc... I don't know of hunters that just go to kill and leave it there. They just prefer getting their meat directly from the source rather than going to the grocery store. Some enjoy the sporting nature of it. Some days you catch something and other days you dont, but you still enjoyed hanging out with friends.

chopitdown

zstillings wrote:

We have to accept that accidents will happen though. If we weren't willing to accept that we would have banned cars, bicycles, walking, etc...

we better ban homes too since that's where most accidents occurr.

floyd1975

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

Is that a sound argument for reintroducing handgun ownership? Or a reason for the authorities to work harder, to crack arms traffic?

While authorities are working at curbing this violence (most around this city aren't very good at that by the way) people are being killed almost nightly. The fact of the matter here is that these laws would not be needed (the hindrance on the Constitutional Rights) if the murder laws were upheld. Just because someone yells "fire" in a crowded theater is no reason to repeal the Bill of Rights either.

FinsburyParkCarrots

zstillings wrote:

We have to accept that accidents will happen though. If we weren't willing to accept that we would have banned cars, bicycles, walking, etc...

You don't necessarily drive with the intention to target and illiminate an object. You drive your car to town. That's an intransitive verbal construction, one that's important to note, because it's not an act of aggression where the object is prone. People can be killed by cars, but seeing as the purpose of the car was not to kill the road (since it's not alive, to start with), but to drive on it, then the extent of accident is high. (Unless someone is - very rarely - run over deliberately.) Now, you shoot something, with your gun. That's a transitive verbal construction. You are rendering something prone, defunct, dead or inert, which has more often than not been alive and healthy beforehand. If someone gets shot in a misfiring, the level of accident is less because the gun was fired with the intention to effect an act of aggression. Just the wrong object = person. The intent of the use of a car is, in the main, different from a gun, and therefore, the agent of a car accident is largely more mitigated by circumstance, than the agent of a gun accident.

Lots of factors come into play in the complex circumstances of a car accident. Surely, when you're out in the country, there are less obstacles to shooting straight and properly?

dunkman

chopitdown wrote:

we better ban homes too since that's where most accidents occurr.

why do you people use poor sarcasm... see Finsburys post, its very very good..
there is a huge difference in someone dying whilst trying to iron something and standing in the bath at the same time and someone who is in mental turmoil and yet can still buy a gun legally and then go into a school and shoot someone

rebornFixer

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

But restricting gun ownership is surely a step in the right direction, especially in preventing loner types from going into schools, and shooting away.

Depends on what you mean by restriction. Preventing someone who is mentally unstable or who has a history of violent crime from owning a gun would be a good thing. Preventing someone who does not meet these criteria from owning a gun would do nothing beneficial.

rebornFixer

dunkman1974 wrote:

why do you people use poor sarcasm...

Why do you disregard logical arguments? Its an equally valid question, my friend.

Abookamongstthemany

dunkman1974 wrote:

why do you people use poor sarcasm... see Finsburys post, its very very good..
there is a huge difference in someone dying whilst trying to iron something and standing in the bath at the same time and someone who is in mental turmoil and yet can still buy a gun legally and then go into a school and shoot someone

exactly! accidents are one thing, weapons that can kill another person effortlessly are another.

Pearl Jam and toast

Pretending that guns aren't causing any kind of problem in our country is naive. They're a huge problem as a matter of fact.

But I don't think simply banning them will solve the problem.

Think about the drug war.. We ban something it's just going to come into our country illegally and boost the mob or whoever happens to take advantage of the situation.

Abookamongstthemany

reborncareerist wrote:

Depends on what you mean by restriction. Preventing someone who is mentally unstable or who has a history of violent crime from owning a gun would be a good thing. Preventing someone who does not meet these criteria from owning a gun would do nothing beneficial.

In most cases you don't know until it's too late.

dunkman

zstillings wrote:

Sometimes though a step in the right direction completely defeats the purpose of what is intended. Handgun ownership in DC is illegal. We have one of the highest per capita murder rates in the country. Obviously this step is in no direction except to restrict the rights of law abiding citizens.

Crime rates in Washington have been dropping consistently for over ten years, and as a result gentrification has swept eastward across the District and has transformed the neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Logan Circle, Columbia Heights, and the East End of Downtown (Chinatown). In the past ten years, the number of homicides has been halved — from 399 in 1994 to 195 in 2005. It is believed by many that the gentrification of these neighborhoods was spurred in part by the extension of Metrorail's Green Line to the Shaw, U Street, Columbia Heights, and Petworth neighborhoods during the late 1990s. The revitalization efforts began first in the Adams Morgan and Logan Circle areas and more recently in Columbia Heights.

dunkman

reborncareerist wrote:

Why do you disregard logical arguments? Its an equally valid question, my friend.

i'm not disregarding them though chief... i accept some of the points you are making


1. i accept that a total handgun ban might not work
2. i accept that the murder rate might not go down
3. i accept that society as a whole in the US needs to be pro-active in this, its not just about banning... its about education


what i do know is that its an experiment worth trying... give it a shot

i know that if handguns were banned/regulated properly then all those kids who die every year in the US wouldnt be dead.

Ahnimus

Why are threads like this so popular?

The brain kills.

dunkman

Ahnimus wrote:

Why are threads like this so popular?

The brain kills.

because life is so valuable...

floyd1975

dunkman1974 wrote:

Crime rates in Washington have been dropping consistently for over ten years, and as a result gentrification has swept eastward across the District and has transformed the neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Logan Circle, Columbia Heights, and the East End of Downtown (Chinatown). In the past ten years, the number of homicides has been halved — from 399 in 1994 to 195 in 2005. It is believed by many that the gentrification of these neighborhoods was spurred in part by the extension of Metrorail's Green Line to the Shaw, U Street, Columbia Heights, and Petworth neighborhoods during the late 1990s. The revitalization efforts began first in the Adams Morgan and Logan Circle areas and more recently in Columbia Heights.

If you look at the areas where people are being pushed out to (East of the District), their crime rates are enormous. It has gotten better but I would dare people to walk alone in some of the neighborhoods that you name as the bars are closing.

The question still remains, is all of this a reason to tell law abiding citizens that the Bill of Rights does not apply to them?

floyd1975

dunkman1974 wrote:

what i do know is that its an experiment worth trying... give it a shot

If we repeal the First Amendment, there would be a little less for people to kill over.

Wait, we already did that.

hippiemom

dunkman1974 wrote:

Crime rates in Washington have been dropping consistently for over ten years, and as a result gentrification has swept eastward across the District and has transformed the neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Logan Circle, Columbia Heights, and the East End of Downtown (Chinatown). In the past ten years, the number of homicides has been halved — from 399 in 1994 to 195 in 2005. It is believed by many that the gentrification of these neighborhoods was spurred in part by the extension of Metrorail's Green Line to the Shaw, U Street, Columbia Heights, and Petworth neighborhoods during the late 1990s. The revitalization efforts began first in the Adams Morgan and Logan Circle areas and more recently in Columbia Heights.

Coincidentally, this time period is when Maryland and Virginia, the latter formerly home to some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation, instituted a one gun per person, per month law

floyd1975

hippiemom wrote:

Coincidentally, this time period is when Maryland and Virginia, the latter formerly home to some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation, instituted a one gun per person, per month law

It's doing a great job in PG County too.

rebornFixer

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

In most cases you don't know until it's too late.

Maybe so, but you can make that sort of argument about any kind of accidental or intentional death. I don't want to be 100% safe if it means living in a police state where there are no freedoms.