Gabby Giffords, pushing law that her attacker obeyed before shooting her...

[martybegan]

Shooting things is somehow cool. Maybe you've never tried it, but when you're pelting targets 1000 meters away with a belt fed M-60, it is straight awesome! Freedom doesn't run in your veins, but it runs in mine.

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

No....a certain, tiny portion of our culture needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... I think gun slaughter has been around a teensy-weensy bit longer than a certain, tiny portion of our culture that needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

But yes, there is a portion, and it's in no way "tiny", of our culture that needs to grow up and has no maturity or emotional control. One of their kind is even running for President -- TODAY.

So why does that mean it takes me 3-6 months and $1000 in fees just to get a home use handgun permit in NYC?

I have no idea (or interest in) how long it takes to get a permit. That's just politicians throwing laws at what is really not a legal issue. My entire thrust here has always been that that's an irrelevant exercise in politicking --- doing something that looks good on paper but has no real effect. Treating the symptom while ignoring the disease.

but that law assumes I am some nutter who doesn't "deserve" a gun unless some NYPD flunky decides I am worthy.

 

[2aguy]

Shooting things is somehow cool. Maybe you've never tried it, but when you're pelting targets 1000 meters away with a belt fed M-60, it is straight awesome! Freedom doesn't run in your veins, but it runs in mine.

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

No....a certain, tiny portion of our culture needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... I think gun slaughter has been around a teensy-weensy bit longer than a certain, tiny portion of our culture that needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

But yes, there is a portion, and it's in no way "tiny", of our culture that needs to grow up and has no maturity or emotional control. One of their kind is even running for President -- TODAY.

No....you missed it.........the current problem with murder in the United States is confined to our inner cities...to criminals with long criminal histories....it isn't normal, law abiding gun owners who own and carry guns for self defense, sport, and collecting...so you are wrong......our criminal culture is violent and murderous...they will kill over facebook insults...and it has nothing to do with guns..it has everything to do with teenage mothers raising children who raise children decade after decade.....and no one teaching these children how to be mature adults...the rest of the gun owning culture...perfectly fine....

"Criminal culture" has always been violent and murderous, by definition.

But again the point you're trying to dance away from is that gun violence has been around a fuck of a lot longer than black people, which is what you're also trying to dance around. That shit doesn't fool anybody.

Sorry.....doesn't hold water.......the violence by young men raised without fathers in democrat voting districts out paces every other category.....normal, law abiding gun owners are not turned into killers because they have access to guns and are watching Game of Thrones.......the out of wedlock birth rate for Blacks in America have increased and with that increase there is more crime and murder....teenage mothers create killers.......not guns.

 

[martybegan]

But how can it stop gun violence when nearly every mass public attacker of recent memory passed a background check for his or her guns?

This is a fair point, and it's one I've been making since the day I joined this site --- the remedy to gun slaughter doesn't lie in the laws, it lies in the culture. What we need to stamp out is not this gun or that user --- it's the whole attitude that shooting things is somehow "cool" .... the gun fetish mentality. That's what needs to go, yesterday.

Shooting things is somehow cool. Maybe you've never tried it, but when you're pelting targets 1000 meters away with a belt fed M-60, it is straight awesome! Freedom doesn't run in your veins, but it runs in mine.

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

More "live the way I want to, not the way you want to" progressivism.

Indeed "the way you want to" --- you meaning people in general --- is the whole point here.

Analogies-R-Us: if we were a culture that "wanted to" greet each other each day by hitting the other person about the head with a two-by-four, then changing the culture to one that does not "want to" do that would end the practice. On the other hand if we just passed laws against doing that ---- "want to" would still exist, and it would still happen, law or no law.

We're in the process, as yet unfinished, of doing the same thing with smoking. Fifty, seventy-five years ago it was "cool" to take a noxious weed that's been sprayed with pesticides and wrapped in chloriine-bleached paper by huge megacorporations keeping their suppliers at poverty wages, set fire to that thing and inhale the smoke into one's lungs. Now it's "uncool". Nobody passed a law to make that happen. Laws ain't the answer to everything unless you're a statist.

They passed plenty of laws to make that happen, punitive taxes galore. Plus, now that a less harmful cigarette has been invented, they are trying to squash that out of pure nannyism.

It's about control, and it always will be.

 

[Pogo]

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

No....a certain, tiny portion of our culture needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... I think gun slaughter has been around a teensy-weensy bit longer than a certain, tiny portion of our culture that needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

But yes, there is a portion, and it's in no way "tiny", of our culture that needs to grow up and has no maturity or emotional control. One of their kind is even running for President -- TODAY.

So why does that mean it takes me 3-6 months and $1000 in fees just to get a home use handgun permit in NYC?

I have no idea (or interest in) how long it takes to get a permit. That's just politicians throwing laws at what is really not a legal issue. My entire thrust here has always been that that's an irrelevant exercise in politicking --- doing something that looks good on paper but has no real effect. Treating the symptom while ignoring the disease.

but that law assumes I am some nutter who doesn't "deserve" a gun unless some NYPD flunky decides I am worthy.

And that's one of the flaws of approaching this by throwing laws at it, rather than my systemic approach. Again -- treating the symptom, ignoring the disease.

Not the biggest flaw but one of them. The biggest flaw would be that it doesn't work -- if a lowlife wants to get a gun, he'll do it, law or no law.

 

[martybegan]

No....a certain, tiny portion of our culture needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... I think gun slaughter has been around a teensy-weensy bit longer than a certain, tiny portion of our culture that needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

But yes, there is a portion, and it's in no way "tiny", of our culture that needs to grow up and has no maturity or emotional control. One of their kind is even running for President -- TODAY.

So why does that mean it takes me 3-6 months and $1000 in fees just to get a home use handgun permit in NYC?

I have no idea (or interest in) how long it takes to get a permit. That's just politicians throwing laws at what is really not a legal issue. My entire thrust here has always been that that's an irrelevant exercise in politicking --- doing something that looks good on paper but has no real effect. Treating the symptom while ignoring the disease.

but that law assumes I am some nutter who doesn't "deserve" a gun unless some NYPD flunky decides I am worthy.

And that's one of the flaws of approaching this by throwing laws at it.

Not the biggest flaw but one of them. The biggest flaw would be that it doesn't work -- if a lowlife wants to get a gun, he'll do it, law or no law.

So you don't support laws like NYC's laws?

 

[Pogo]

This is a fair point, and it's one I've been making since the day I joined this site --- the remedy to gun slaughter doesn't lie in the laws, it lies in the culture. What we need to stamp out is not this gun or that user --- it's the whole attitude that shooting things is somehow "cool" .... the gun fetish mentality. That's what needs to go, yesterday.

Shooting things is somehow cool. Maybe you've never tried it, but when you're pelting targets 1000 meters away with a belt fed M-60, it is straight awesome! Freedom doesn't run in your veins, but it runs in mine.

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

More "live the way I want to, not the way you want to" progressivism.

Indeed "the way you want to" --- you meaning people in general --- is the whole point here.

Analogies-R-Us: if we were a culture that "wanted to" greet each other each day by hitting the other person about the head with a two-by-four, then changing the culture to one that does not "want to" do that would end the practice. On the other hand if we just passed laws against doing that ---- "want to" would still exist, and it would still happen, law or no law.

We're in the process, as yet unfinished, of doing the same thing with smoking. Fifty, seventy-five years ago it was "cool" to take a noxious weed that's been sprayed with pesticides and wrapped in chloriine-bleached paper by huge megacorporations keeping their suppliers at poverty wages, set fire to that thing and inhale the smoke into one's lungs. Now it's "uncool". Nobody passed a law to make that happen. Laws ain't the answer to everything unless you're a statist.

They passed plenty of laws to make that happen, punitive taxes galore. Plus, now that a less harmful cigarette has been invented, they are trying to squash that out of pure nannyism.

It's about control, and it always will be.

Feel free to try to make the case that increased costs have forced smokers to quit. Or how "they" are trying to "squash" this "less harmful" stuff (which characterization is in itself an admission).

The fact is it's still the same amount of legal, and yet the practice has markedly diminished. Ain't laws doing that.

 

[Pogo]

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... I think gun slaughter has been around a teensy-weensy bit longer than a certain, tiny portion of our culture that needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

But yes, there is a portion, and it's in no way "tiny", of our culture that needs to grow up and has no maturity or emotional control. One of their kind is even running for President -- TODAY.

So why does that mean it takes me 3-6 months and $1000 in fees just to get a home use handgun permit in NYC?

I have no idea (or interest in) how long it takes to get a permit. That's just politicians throwing laws at what is really not a legal issue. My entire thrust here has always been that that's an irrelevant exercise in politicking --- doing something that looks good on paper but has no real effect. Treating the symptom while ignoring the disease.

but that law assumes I am some nutter who doesn't "deserve" a gun unless some NYPD flunky decides I am worthy.

And that's one of the flaws of approaching this by throwing laws at it.

Not the biggest flaw but one of them. The biggest flaw would be that it doesn't work -- if a lowlife wants to get a gun, he'll do it, law or no law.

So you don't support laws like NYC's laws?

I don't live in NYC, don't know what those laws are and if I did still wouldn't know because it's not something I have any interest in. For me they're irrelevant.

I'd need to look into how to get a taxicab medallion if I were a cab driver-- but I'm not, so I don't need to know.

 

[Pogo]

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

No....a certain, tiny portion of our culture needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... I think gun slaughter has been around a teensy-weensy bit longer than a certain, tiny portion of our culture that needs to grow up...which is hard to do when they have been raised, generation after generation by single, teenage mothers...with no fathers, and no adult role models to teach adult maturity....and emotional control.

But yes, there is a portion, and it's in no way "tiny", of our culture that needs to grow up and has no maturity or emotional control. One of their kind is even running for President -- TODAY.

No....you missed it.........the current problem with murder in the United States is confined to our inner cities...to criminals with long criminal histories....it isn't normal, law abiding gun owners who own and carry guns for self defense, sport, and collecting...so you are wrong......our criminal culture is violent and murderous...they will kill over facebook insults...and it has nothing to do with guns..it has everything to do with teenage mothers raising children who raise children decade after decade.....and no one teaching these children how to be mature adults...the rest of the gun owning culture...perfectly fine....

"Criminal culture" has always been violent and murderous, by definition.

But again the point you're trying to dance away from is that gun violence has been around a fuck of a lot longer than black people, which is what you're also trying to dance around. That shit doesn't fool anybody.

Sorry.....doesn't hold water.......the violence by young men raised without fathers in democrat voting districts out paces every other category.....normal, law abiding gun owners are not turned into killers because they have access to guns and are watching Game of Thrones.......the out of wedlock birth rate for Blacks in America have increased and with that increase there is more crime and murder....teenage mothers create killers.......not guns.

Inchoate as all that mindless ramble is, it actually does generate a point that supports my position --- these gun murderers, whether single homicides, serialists or mass shooters --- are almost always male. That's entirely true whether they're in a city or shooting up a building in rural Colorado, a campus in Virginia, a church in South Carolina, an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania or any number of schools elsewhere. It's also true of the subject in your own OP.

Again -- it's the culture that teaches those core values. I'm talking real basic values, like what "male" means and what "gun" means.

 

[martybegan]

Shooting things is somehow cool. Maybe you've never tried it, but when you're pelting targets 1000 meters away with a belt fed M-60, it is straight awesome! Freedom doesn't run in your veins, but it runs in mine.

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

More "live the way I want to, not the way you want to" progressivism.

Indeed "the way you want to" --- you meaning people in general --- is the whole point here.

Analogies-R-Us: if we were a culture that "wanted to" greet each other each day by hitting the other person about the head with a two-by-four, then changing the culture to one that does not "want to" do that would end the practice. On the other hand if we just passed laws against doing that ---- "want to" would still exist, and it would still happen, law or no law.

We're in the process, as yet unfinished, of doing the same thing with smoking. Fifty, seventy-five years ago it was "cool" to take a noxious weed that's been sprayed with pesticides and wrapped in chloriine-bleached paper by huge megacorporations keeping their suppliers at poverty wages, set fire to that thing and inhale the smoke into one's lungs. Now it's "uncool". Nobody passed a law to make that happen. Laws ain't the answer to everything unless you're a statist.

They passed plenty of laws to make that happen, punitive taxes galore. Plus, now that a less harmful cigarette has been invented, they are trying to squash that out of pure nannyism.

It's about control, and it always will be.

Feel free to try to make the case that increased costs have forced smokers to quit. Or how "they" are trying to "squash" this "less harmful" stuff (which characterization is in itself an admission).

The fact is it's still the same amount of legal, and yet the practice has markedly diminished. Ain't laws doing that.

New taxes are laws. cost is a big factor with some people. They have also raised the age in some places to 21, again, more laws.

They are trying to "squash" vaping by making it difficult for all but the biggest companies to get through the approval process.

If anti-smoking people were just about health consequences, they should be embracing vaping. It makes nicotine use as easy as getting caffeine into your system. It removes all the combustion products that are the real cause of health issues with smoking. Yet most anti-smoking people hate vaping because they don't want people more healthy, they want to control how people live.

 

[Pogo]

That's not "freedom"---- that's "wanton destruction".

Again --- we as a culture have to grow the hell up. This ain't childhood any more.

More "live the way I want to, not the way you want to" progressivism.

Indeed "the way you want to" --- you meaning people in general --- is the whole point here.

Analogies-R-Us: if we were a culture that "wanted to" greet each other each day by hitting the other person about the head with a two-by-four, then changing the culture to one that does not "want to" do that would end the practice. On the other hand if we just passed laws against doing that ---- "want to" would still exist, and it would still happen, law or no law.

We're in the process, as yet unfinished, of doing the same thing with smoking. Fifty, seventy-five years ago it was "cool" to take a noxious weed that's been sprayed with pesticides and wrapped in chloriine-bleached paper by huge megacorporations keeping their suppliers at poverty wages, set fire to that thing and inhale the smoke into one's lungs. Now it's "uncool". Nobody passed a law to make that happen. Laws ain't the answer to everything unless you're a statist.

They passed plenty of laws to make that happen, punitive taxes galore. Plus, now that a less harmful cigarette has been invented, they are trying to squash that out of pure nannyism.

It's about control, and it always will be.

Feel free to try to make the case that increased costs have forced smokers to quit. Or how "they" are trying to "squash" this "less harmful" stuff (which characterization is in itself an admission).

The fact is it's still the same amount of legal, and yet the practice has markedly diminished. Ain't laws doing that.

New taxes are laws. cost is a big factor with some people. They have also raised the age in some places to 21, again, more laws.

They are trying to "squash" vaping by making it difficult for all but the biggest companies to get through the approval process.

If anti-smoking people were just about health consequences, they should be embracing vaping. It makes nicotine use as easy as getting caffeine into your system. It removes all the combustion products that are the real cause of health issues with smoking. Yet most anti-smoking people hate vaping because they don't want people more healthy, they want to control how people live.

The effects of vaping are not yet known. And it's catching on primarily among the young and male, as in high schoolers.

Not really our point here but again --- I'm not a vaper and don't know what the laws are, but if I wanted to vape, I could do it even if I was 17, just as if I wanted to smoke pot I could do it. I don't even need to know what the laws are.

Again -- it all comes home to "want to". That's why everybody who ever smokes does so --- because they've been told they "want to", and bought it. Whether it was legal or not.

 

[martybegan]

More "live the way I want to, not the way you want to" progressivism.

Indeed "the way you want to" --- you meaning people in general --- is the whole point here.

Analogies-R-Us: if we were a culture that "wanted to" greet each other each day by hitting the other person about the head with a two-by-four, then changing the culture to one that does not "want to" do that would end the practice. On the other hand if we just passed laws against doing that ---- "want to" would still exist, and it would still happen, law or no law.

We're in the process, as yet unfinished, of doing the same thing with smoking. Fifty, seventy-five years ago it was "cool" to take a noxious weed that's been sprayed with pesticides and wrapped in chloriine-bleached paper by huge megacorporations keeping their suppliers at poverty wages, set fire to that thing and inhale the smoke into one's lungs. Now it's "uncool". Nobody passed a law to make that happen. Laws ain't the answer to everything unless you're a statist.

They passed plenty of laws to make that happen, punitive taxes galore. Plus, now that a less harmful cigarette has been invented, they are trying to squash that out of pure nannyism.

It's about control, and it always will be.

Feel free to try to make the case that increased costs have forced smokers to quit. Or how "they" are trying to "squash" this "less harmful" stuff (which characterization is in itself an admission).

The fact is it's still the same amount of legal, and yet the practice has markedly diminished. Ain't laws doing that.

New taxes are laws. cost is a big factor with some people. They have also raised the age in some places to 21, again, more laws.

They are trying to "squash" vaping by making it difficult for all but the biggest companies to get through the approval process.

If anti-smoking people were just about health consequences, they should be embracing vaping. It makes nicotine use as easy as getting caffeine into your system. It removes all the combustion products that are the real cause of health issues with smoking. Yet most anti-smoking people hate vaping because they don't want people more healthy, they want to control how people live.

The effects of vaping are not yet known. And it's catching on primarily among the young and male, as in high schoolers.

Not really our point here but again --- I'm not a vaper and don't know what the laws are, but if I wanted to vape, I could do it even if I was 17, just as if I wanted to smoke pot I could do it. I don't even need to know what the laws are.

Again -- it all comes home to "want to". That's why everybody who ever smokes does so --- because they've been told they "want to", and bought it. Whether it was legal or not.

Logic states that breathing in something WITH combustion products is worse than breathing in something WITHOUT them.

And going back to your original point, that making guns somehow "uncool" will accomplish something, the issue is that the people using them wrongly mostly don't see them as "cool", they see them as a tool to get what they want, be it a person's wallet, more drug turf, or the death of people they want to kill "just because".

Trying to attach a stigma to lawful gun ownership would not eliminate the crimes I listed in any way, shape or form. It would just strengthen calls to legislate gun rights away from law abiding citizens.

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

I felt sorry for that bitch for about 10 minutes when she was shot because nobody deserves that. But she's alive and well now and actively working to take away my guns, so fuck her. Getting shot didn't turn her into a good person, she's still the same anti freedom politician she's always been.

"that bitch".....another Alt-Right Drumpfster speaks up.

Anyone who wants to take away people's guns is a bitch.

That means you.

 

[MindWars]

I felt sorry for that bitch for about 10 minutes when she was shot because nobody deserves that. But she's alive and well now and actively working to take away my guns, so fuck her. Getting shot didn't turn her into a good person, she's still the same anti freedom politician she's always been.

lmao you crack me up. Aren't these liberal fks something else. The stupidity is mind blowing on a daily level.

 

[MindWars]

I felt sorry for that bitch for about 10 minutes when she was shot because nobody deserves that. But she's alive and well now and actively working to take away my guns, so fuck her. Getting shot didn't turn her into a good person, she's still the same anti freedom politician she's always been.

Yeah and remember that bitch's husband turned around and bought a machine gun , they used that bs lie " They wanted to see how long a background check took" talk about g.d. liars. They are Gov. they know how long it too, Democrats are such sickening fkging liars I can't stand them.

 

[Pogo]

Indeed "the way you want to" --- you meaning people in general --- is the whole point here.

Analogies-R-Us: if we were a culture that "wanted to" greet each other each day by hitting the other person about the head with a two-by-four, then changing the culture to one that does not "want to" do that would end the practice. On the other hand if we just passed laws against doing that ---- "want to" would still exist, and it would still happen, law or no law.

We're in the process, as yet unfinished, of doing the same thing with smoking. Fifty, seventy-five years ago it was "cool" to take a noxious weed that's been sprayed with pesticides and wrapped in chloriine-bleached paper by huge megacorporations keeping their suppliers at poverty wages, set fire to that thing and inhale the smoke into one's lungs. Now it's "uncool". Nobody passed a law to make that happen. Laws ain't the answer to everything unless you're a statist.

They passed plenty of laws to make that happen, punitive taxes galore. Plus, now that a less harmful cigarette has been invented, they are trying to squash that out of pure nannyism.

It's about control, and it always will be.

Feel free to try to make the case that increased costs have forced smokers to quit. Or how "they" are trying to "squash" this "less harmful" stuff (which characterization is in itself an admission).

The fact is it's still the same amount of legal, and yet the practice has markedly diminished. Ain't laws doing that.

New taxes are laws. cost is a big factor with some people. They have also raised the age in some places to 21, again, more laws.

They are trying to "squash" vaping by making it difficult for all but the biggest companies to get through the approval process.

If anti-smoking people were just about health consequences, they should be embracing vaping. It makes nicotine use as easy as getting caffeine into your system. It removes all the combustion products that are the real cause of health issues with smoking. Yet most anti-smoking people hate vaping because they don't want people more healthy, they want to control how people live.

The effects of vaping are not yet known. And it's catching on primarily among the young and male, as in high schoolers.

Not really our point here but again --- I'm not a vaper and don't know what the laws are, but if I wanted to vape, I could do it even if I was 17, just as if I wanted to smoke pot I could do it. I don't even need to know what the laws are.

Again -- it all comes home to "want to". That's why everybody who ever smokes does so --- because they've been told they "want to", and bought it. Whether it was legal or not.

Logic states that breathing in something WITH combustion products is worse than breathing in something WITHOUT them.

And going back to your original point, that making guns somehow "uncool" will accomplish something, the issue is that the people using them wrongly mostly don't see them as "cool", they see them as a tool to get what they want, be it a person's wallet, more drug turf, or the death of people they want to kill "just because".

Trying to attach a stigma to lawful gun ownership would not eliminate the crimes I listed in any way, shape or form. It would just strengthen calls to legislate gun rights away from law abiding citizens.

It's not possible to "eliminate" crime, violent ones or otherwise. No one's ever done that. But we can at least get it more under control -- to the point where yes it still happens but it's a rarity. Unfortunately that's the best anyone's ever been able to do.

I'm thinking specifically of mass shooters here -- as I've made the point countless times on this site, mass shooters aren't out for murder per se ....... they're out for carnage. As in sensory input. That's why the firearm is the instrument of choice, because it delivers sensory input, big time. These are insecure, disfunctional misfits with an acute personal power crisis, and they've been told and shown and had drummed into their heads all their lives that with a gun you can make people dance and scream and bleed and run for cover. That's power. And it addresses whatever fucked-up degradation is going on in his head.

Therefore, I'm saying, let's quit sending that message and selling the perverted idea that, as some other poster put it earlier, "it's cool to blow things up". That's where it starts.

This isn't a legislative problem; it's a masculinity problem. Well, there ain't no legislating that. That's why I keep saying the course correction needs to come not from laws but from social mores.

Again ---- as it's been doing with smoking.

 

[martybegan]

They passed plenty of laws to make that happen, punitive taxes galore. Plus, now that a less harmful cigarette has been invented, they are trying to squash that out of pure nannyism.

It's about control, and it always will be.

Feel free to try to make the case that increased costs have forced smokers to quit. Or how "they" are trying to "squash" this "less harmful" stuff (which characterization is in itself an admission).

The fact is it's still the same amount of legal, and yet the practice has markedly diminished. Ain't laws doing that.

New taxes are laws. cost is a big factor with some people. They have also raised the age in some places to 21, again, more laws.

They are trying to "squash" vaping by making it difficult for all but the biggest companies to get through the approval process.

If anti-smoking people were just about health consequences, they should be embracing vaping. It makes nicotine use as easy as getting caffeine into your system. It removes all the combustion products that are the real cause of health issues with smoking. Yet most anti-smoking people hate vaping because they don't want people more healthy, they want to control how people live.

The effects of vaping are not yet known. And it's catching on primarily among the young and male, as in high schoolers.

Not really our point here but again --- I'm not a vaper and don't know what the laws are, but if I wanted to vape, I could do it even if I was 17, just as if I wanted to smoke pot I could do it. I don't even need to know what the laws are.

Again -- it all comes home to "want to". That's why everybody who ever smokes does so --- because they've been told they "want to", and bought it. Whether it was legal or not.

Logic states that breathing in something WITH combustion products is worse than breathing in something WITHOUT them.

And going back to your original point, that making guns somehow "uncool" will accomplish something, the issue is that the people using them wrongly mostly don't see them as "cool", they see them as a tool to get what they want, be it a person's wallet, more drug turf, or the death of people they want to kill "just because".

Trying to attach a stigma to lawful gun ownership would not eliminate the crimes I listed in any way, shape or form. It would just strengthen calls to legislate gun rights away from law abiding citizens.

It's not possible to "eliminate" crime, violent ones or otherwise. No one's ever done that. But we can at least get it more under control -- to the point where yes it still happens but it's a rarity. Unfortunately that's the best anyone's ever been able to do.

I'm thinking specifically of mass shooters here -- as I've made the point countless times on this site, mass shooters aren't out for murder per se ....... they're out for carnage. As in sensory input. That's why the firearm is the instrument of choice, because it delivers sensory input, big time. These are insecure, disfunctional misfits with an acute personal power crisis, and they've been told and shown and had drummed into their heads all their lives that with a gun you can make people dance and scream and bleed and run for cover. That's power. And it addresses whatever fucked-up degradation is going on in his head.

Therefore, I'm saying, let's quit sending that message and selling the perverted idea that, as some other poster put it earlier, "it's cool to blow things up". That's where it starts.

This isn't a legislative problem; it's a masculinity problem. Well, there ain't no legislating that. That's why I keep saying the course correction needs to come not from laws but from social mores.

Again ---- as it's been doing with smoking.

First of all, the person who thinks gunning down or blowing up mass amounts of people doesn't have a masculinity problem, they have a crazy problem.

Second, 99.99% of people can own a gun, enjoy shooting a gun, or enjoy making things like tree stumps go boom! as a form of entertainment and never for a second think of doing it to another person, or even someone else's property.

And you forget the other parts of genuine masculinity, the desire to protect others and take responsibility for ones actions, that you want to throw out as well. The issue isn't too much masculinity, its too much of the wrong type, a type that is infected with a "me me me" mentality.

 

[blastoff]

We need more gun laws like Gabby needs another hole in the head.

 

[Pogo]

First of all, the person who thinks gunning down or blowing up mass amounts of people doesn't have a masculinity problem, they have a crazy problem.

They have both together. And that is a deadly combination.
If that's not the case ---- why is a mass shooter always male? How does a person who has simultaneously a crazy problem and a femininity problem manifest? It ain't by grabbing an AK and spraying bullets, because that's a "guy" thing ----- as we define it.

And those four italicized words sum up my whole point.

Second, 99.99% of people can own a gun, enjoy shooting a gun, or enjoy making things like tree stumps go boom! as a form of entertainment and never for a second think of doing it to another person, or even someone else's property.

Didn't say they do. But the element you just mentioned --- to "enjoy making things like tree stumps go boom!' --- is where it starts. That seed may or may not germinate but it requires a basic casual disregard for the Life Force to even see one's way clear to doing that to a tree stump, let alone seeing it as 'enjoyable'. If one "enjoys" blowing things up, then one already has a problem.

And you forget the other parts of genuine masculinity, the desire to protect others and take responsibility for ones actions, that you want to throw out as well.

No, *I* don't forget that ---- THEY do.

It's a very good point. That's part of the positive masculinity aspect that needs to be advanced, rather than the destructive one that already is. So in effect on this aspect we agree.

 

[martybegan]

First of all, the person who thinks gunning down or blowing up mass amounts of people doesn't have a masculinity problem, they have a crazy problem.

They have both together. And that is a deadly combination.
If that's not the case ---- why is a mass shooter always male? How does a person who has simultaneously a crazy problem and a femininity problem manifest? It ain't by grabbing an AK and spraying bullets, because that's a "guy" thing ----- as we define it.

And those four italicized words sum up my whole point.

Second, 99.99% of people can own a gun, enjoy shooting a gun, or enjoy making things like tree stumps go boom! as a form of entertainment and never for a second think of doing it to another person, or even someone else's property.

Didn't say they do. But the element you just mentioned --- to "enjoy making things like tree stumps go boom!' --- is where it starts. That seed may or may not germinate but it requires a basic casual disregard for the Life Force to even see one's way clear to doing that to a tree stump, let alone seeing it as 'enjoyable'. If one "enjoys" blowing things up, then one already has a problem.

And you forget the other parts of genuine masculinity, the desire to protect others and take responsibility for ones actions, that you want to throw out as well.

No, *I* don't forget that ---- THEY do.

It's a very good point. That's part of the positive masculinity aspect that needs to be advanced, rather than the destructive one that already is. So in effect on this aspect we agree.

The concept of masculinity does not include gunning down innocent people. Considering that most of the guys doing these mass shootings are textbook "Betas", maybe its the feminizing of men that is the issue. Considering we didn't have shootings like this even when the guns were available decades ago, and the current war to make boys behave more like girls, I would blame that way before blaming masculinity.

And maybe its a biological reason why it is mostly guys doing this. Serial killers who never even use a gun are grossly over-represented by males.Try using education to prevent a serial killer from forming and see how it goes.

And yes, making a Stump go boom IS fun, its just like fireworks are fun.

 

[Pogo]

The concept of masculinity does not include gunning down innocent people.

No it doesn't but it does include the use of assertive force -- which is for one thing, why we have sports.
It's the perversion of that assertive force that ends in gunning down innocent people. That is, once we've also established that "gunning down things" is a cool thing to do. And we already do that through TV shows, video games, Hallowe'en costumes, even everyday linguistic idioms like "shoot from the hip" and "let's call in our big guns" and "shot down an idea".

All of that requires a callous disregard for the Life Force of one's target. And that starts at the tree stump. If it's OK to do that to a tree stump, then it's OK to do it to a deer. If it's OK for a deer, then it's OK for a bird. If it's OK for a bird then it's OK for a "bad guy" because he's an "other". If it's OK for a "bad guy" then it's OK for a "might be a bad guy". Etc etc. It has no end. But it does have a beginning, and that's what I'm focused on.

Considering that most of the guys doing these mass shootings are textbook "Betas", maybe its the feminizing of men that is the issue. Considering we didn't have shootings like this even when the guns were available decades ago, and the current war to make boys behave more like girls, I would blame that way before blaming masculinity.

Although I wouldn't articulate it quite this way as it tries to fly without context, we may be in some agreement here.

You are correct that we didn't have shootings like this in the past to this degree. Something has changed, or I would say, degraded. And that's what I've got in my crosshairs. See? There's yet another one.

And maybe its a biological reason why it is mostly guys doing this. Serial killers who never even use a gun are grossly over-represented by males.

Completely agree. Again, perverted assertive force.... or, I would postulate, suppression thereof. As I keep pointing out, if we lived in a Sword Culture instead of a Gun Culture -- where swords were glorified and romanticized every night on TV and in every movie house and in every historical novel and in every video game --- we would have mass Sword slayings. But the underlying motivation would still be the same.

Try using education to prevent a serial killer from forming and see how it goes.

That's what I've been advocating here. The whole time I've been here.
I don't get a lot of takers but that's how it is breaking through to tell an entire population that what they've been obsessed with all their life is wrong. I understand that. It's not an easy thing. So I keep at it.

And yes, making a Stump go boom IS fun, its just like fireworks are fun.

Fireworks don't destroy anything. There's the rub.


Perhaps a modicum of musing on the appeal of "destruction" is in order here.

I do enjoy, say, a good demolition derby (do they still do that?). That's certainly destruction, in fact it's whole point is destruction.

What's the difference?

Demolition derbies involve cars. Cars are not and never were living things. They're instruments we put together.

A bomb or a bullet isn't a living thing either. That's another instrument we put together. The destruction of the bomb or bullet isn't the issue... it's what the bomb or bullet takes with it. Once you've accepted the idea that it's OK for a bomb or bullet to take a living thing with it ------------------- you've crossed a threshold.