An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be

[Doctor Phibes]

I honestly don’t think there’s a solution that is workable. There’s no way the US is going to accept doing what pretty much the rest of the world does in one form or another.

The idea of turning schools into Checkpoint Charlie is equally dreadful. Kids shouldn’t be subjected to military security to go to school.

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

I honestly don’t think there’s a solution that is workable.

Yes, there is. It is, as @Aqua-Letifer said, changing the culture. This is, as I said, a multigenerational thing. Look no farther than the bangers on twitter, facebook, IG, etc. This shit is ALL over that media.

Rap - a culture of violence to a great extent. Good luck with that.

As I said, the shooting of dozens of innocent children is a horrible tragedy, but, at the end of the day (and I hate that phrase), is it really worse than the pregnant mom who was shot in the uterus that I took care of? We're arguing about price.

To continue, what part of "The culture" needs to change? @Jolly said that he went to school with a gun, pretty much every day. Until the early 1960s, this was pretty common.

What changed?

Why?

I don't pretend to know. I just bow my head, and shake it. Sad as fuck as to how this has gone.

[Aqua Letifer]

@George-K said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

How. Details of how that would happen. No firearms? Only long guns? How about hammers (which kill more people than rifles)?

That last comment was snarky, but I'm serious. HOW DO YOU CHANGE THE LAW? Which law? In which state?

A federal license to own any firearm, which can only be obtained through a background check, neighbor interviews, a reason to own one that the government deems appropriate and a training course at least as rigorous as getting a fucking driver's license. If that's impractical I don't give a fuck. If that's legally impossible then we change whatever laws we need to in order to make it happen anyway. If we have to repeal the 2nd in order to make this happen then let's do it tomorrow.

What the hell does it matter? Effective solutions are insane. Reasonable compromises will lead to absolutely nothing. So you're either for crazy ideas or for watching the next one on the news. Anything else is delusional.

So, the hell with the law. Your response is just "fuck 'em." Not helpful, and not practical.

I understand your rant. However, without real suggestions on how to change law, culture, personality, sadly, all it really is is a rant.

What I'm saying "fuck 'em" to is anyone who has a problem with increasing gun regulations. I don't care what they think. And they should do the same with me because it's not like my opinions mean anything here.

[George K]

@Aqua-Letifer first of all, I'm playing Devil's advocate here in your thoughts.

any firearm, which can only be obtained through a background check, neighbor interviews, a reason to own one that the government deems appropriate and a training course at least as rigorous as getting a fucking driver's license.

SCOTUS has affirmed that owing a firearm is a right, not a privilege, unlike a license to drive a car. Change the law/constitution. Until you do that, irrelevant.

If we have to repeal the 2nd in order to make this happen then let's do it tomorrow.

Exactly, and good luck. Nice thought, but it's not practical, and it's not going to happen.

Effective solutions are insane. Reasonable compromises will lead to absolutely nothing.

Because criminals gotta criminal. The vast majority of gun deaths are by illegally obtained weapons. "This is a 'gun-free' zone" is laughable on its face.

What I'm saying "fuck 'em" to is anyone who has a problem with increasing gun regulations.

What regulations will work? With over 300 million guns out there, how you plan to do that? Again, see Chicago. The genie is out of the bottle. Not getting back in.

[Horace]

I suppose you could become a one-issue voter. Until you have two issues you are "full stop" about, and they don't align with the same party. Then you'd have to consider the politics of the possible all over again.

[Aqua Letifer]

@George-K

Change the law/constitution.

Sounds good.

Exactly, and good luck. Nice thought, but it's not practical, and it's not going to happen.

I think it could. Not today, but maybe tomorrow.

What regulations will work?

Only the most radical ones is how I see it.

[George K]

@Aqua-Letifer said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

@George-K

Change the law/constitution.

Sounds good.

Exactly, and good luck. Nice thought, but it's not practical, and it's not going to happen.

I think it could. Not today, but maybe tomorrow.

What regulations will work?

Only the most radical ones is how I see it.

Agreed - and it's not going to happen. Do you have an alternative?

[Aqua Letifer]

@George-K said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

@Aqua-Letifer said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

@George-K

Change the law/constitution.

Sounds good.

Exactly, and good luck. Nice thought, but it's not practical, and it's not going to happen.

I think it could. Not today, but maybe tomorrow.

What regulations will work?

Only the most radical ones is how I see it.

Agreed - and it's not going to happen. Do you have an alternative?

Only other radical ones. The dilemma holds.

[Copper]

If you are going to go to the trouble of changing the culture, why not try an approach that we have seen work?

Get married before having children.

Come home every night and take care of your family.

Go to church on Sunday. Or at least join your community somewhere even if it is a children's soccer game.

Give your children the gift of discipline.

That is no more difficult than confiscating personal property and locking down the schools. And it is so much nicer.

Using vulgar language and ranting doesn't help anything.

[George K]

Ten years ago, The Kraut:

(3) The Culture

We live in an entertainment culture soaked in graphic, often sadistic, violence. Older folks find themselves stunned by what a desensitized youth finds routine, often amusing. It’s not just movies. Young men sit for hours pulling video-game triggers, mowing down human beings en masse without pain or consequence. And we profess shock when a small cadre of unstable, deeply deranged, dangerously isolated young men go out and enact the overlearned narrative.

If we’re serious about curtailing future Columbines and Newtowns, everything — guns, commitment, culture — must be on the table. It’s not hard for President Obama to call out the NRA. But will he call out the ACLU? And will he call out his Hollywood friends?

The irony is that over the last 30 years, the U.S. homicide rate has declined by 50 percent. Gun murders as well. We’re living not through an epidemic of gun violence but through a historic decline.

Except for these unfathomable mass murders. But these are infinitely more difficult to prevent. While law deters the rational, it has far less effect on the psychotic. The best we can do is to try to detain them, disarm them and discourage “entertainment” that can intensify already murderous impulses.

But there’s a cost. Gun control impinges upon the Second Amendment; involuntary commitment impinges upon the liberty clause of the Fifth Amendment; curbing “entertainment” violence impinges upon First Amendment free speech.

That’s a lot of impingement, a lot of amendments. But there’s no free lunch. Increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties.

We made that trade after 9/11. We make it every time the Transportation Security Administrationinvades your body at an airport. How much are we prepared to trade away after Newtown?

[Mik]

God, I miss him.

[Catseye3]

@Aqua-Letifer said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

And they should do the same with me because it's not like my opinions mean anything here.

Join the club.

[George K]

@Catseye3 said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

@Aqua-Letifer said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

And they should do the same with me because it's not like my opinions mean anything here.

Join the club.

Our opinions here certainly "mean something" here.

They probably certainly won't make any difference, in the greater scheme of things. But it's fun to speculate, right?

[Doctor Phibes]

It seems to me like a lot of people, myself included, would be more than happy for other people to make sacrifices, and stop doing the things they themselves don't like or have any interest in.

Maybe if everybody gave up something they really like?

[Copper]

@Doctor-Phibes said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

Maybe if everybody gave up something they really like?

Confiscate the telephones.

Problem solved.

[Mik]

@Catseye3 said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

@Aqua-Letifer said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

And they should do the same with me because it's not like my opinions mean anything here.

Join the club.

Nah. Nobody usually agrees with me either.

[Catseye3]

@Mik said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

Nah. Nobody usually agrees with me either.

Just as well! It keeps things interesting.

Think how dull it would be if everybody agreed all the time.

[Jolly]

@Doctor-Phibes said in An illustration of how difficult preventing mass shootings will be:

It seems to me like a lot of people, myself included, would be more than happy for other people to make sacrifices, and stop doing the things they themselves don't like or have any interest in.

Maybe if everybody gave up something they really like?

Lent has passed.

[George K]

Interesting read, with some historical perspective.

Williamson: Explaining the Gun Debate

[Larry]

We do not have a gun problem. We have a social and spiritual problem.

Passing laws isn't going to change anything. Why do so many people think government is the answer, when it gets proven over and over again that government causes the problems, not just with crimes involving guns, but in every other aspect of life?

So a crazy kid runs out and kills a bunch of kids, and many think the solution is to punish the innocent people who only want to protect themselves and their families by violating their guaranteed rights. Yeah, that has worked SO well in Chicago.....

If you try to stop this that way, all you will do is disarm the law abiding citizens. Crazy people and criminals will still have guns. Good people simply won't be able to defend themselves against them. If you want to stop things like this from happening, you've got to address the cause of the problem. And as I said, it's a social and spiritual problem.

When I was in high school, it was common to see rifles mounted in the rear windows of trucks that students drove to school in. But it would never even crooks their minds to bring that rifle into the schoolhouse. Daddy would have torn their ass up when they got home from school. Back then, parents raised their children. They didn't leave it up to the "village" to raise their kid. Kids were taught right from wrong. They knew where to piss. Every kid knew based on his raising how to act. He sat in classrooms where he Ten Commandments were likely framed and hanging on the wall. They prayed and said the Pledge of Allegiance. They were taught VALUES.

Until we go back to teaching values, raising our kids, until we have a spiritual awakening, these kinds of events will continue, I don't care how many laws you pass.