27 dead, including 18 children, in Connecticut shooting spree!

[Sdkdmd]

And why do we need numberous guns including assult weapons to protect ourselves?

[Despare]

Originally Posted by neverending

The need for guns has largely disappeared, but we still revere them. It's an emotional issue for gun owners. It's such a complex issue I don't think it can be summed up in a few posts on a message board. Personally, I don't think people need guns, and I don't think people should own them. They're just not nice. Their only purpose is to harm.

See, as somebody who is getting his CPL in 2013 and makes regular trips to Detroit I disagree with you there. The purpose of any firearm I own is to protect others. I'm talking about a city where police were called before a son and his mother were even jumped because of harassment and they didn't get there until 45 minutes later (in the downtown area) after both of them needed hospital visits. I suppose you only need to be in that situation once before it's an issue. Oh, and before you say that you shouldn't put yourself in a dangerous situation, it was outside of a concert by Tiger stadium not some back alley.

Originally Posted by Sdkdmd

And why do we need numberous guns including assult weapons to protect ourselves?

We do not, I think the NRA goons will tell you that it's our right to carry any gun that a security force or law officer can. I think, I have no idea what the argument could be for owning an assault rifle.

[Despare]

Somebody Pretending to be Morgan Freeman:

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed

people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

[Ferox13]

I don't think its as simple as blaming the modern media - I feel they are more of a symptoms than a cause. They are in the business of selling a product so they show/write what is popular and what sells.

I think its just part of the human condition that people are interested in murders, monsters and criminals (be that right or wrong). This isn't something new. History remember the infamous - Marquis De Sade*, Jack the Ripper, Idi Amin, Gilles De Rais, HH Holmes - are known by most people but how many people can name their victims.

Before 'Thug Culture' and Gangster Rap we had had old Ballads glamorizing the deeds of Pirates and Highway Men. During the Roaring Twenties and Troubled Thirties, the media treated Gangsters like John Dillinger and Charles Floyd like rock stars and gave them colourful names like "Pretty Boy" and "Baby Face".

[Despare]

Originally Posted by Ferox13

I don't think its as simple as blaming the modern media - I feel they are more of a symptoms than a cause. They are in the business of selling a product so they show/write what is popular and what sells.

I think its just part of the human condition that people are interested in murders, monsters and criminals (be that right or wrong). This isn't something new. History remember the infamous - Marquis De Sade*, Jack the Ripper, Idi Amin, Gilles De Rais, HH Holmes - are known by most people but how many people can name their victims.

Before 'Thug Culture' and Gangster Rap we had had old Ballads glamorizing the deeds of Pirates and Highway Men. During the Roaring Twenties and Troubled Thirties, the media treated Gangsters like John Dillinger and Charles Floyd like rock stars and gave them colourful names like "Pretty Boy" and "Baby Face".

Oh it's not that simple but it is a piece of it. We're so good at dehumanizing our foreign enemies but when it comes to something like this they plaster his picture all over, talk about his home life, blame placing (there was already Video Game talk but then it turned out his brother liked the game and not the shooter...), and generally make this guy into an idol for other monsters. If somebody wants to dig up the info on the guy because they're curious that's one thing but the early hours of a tragedy like this should be focused on the victims.

[roshiq]

I'm no longer a good reader but it was so unspeakable that I wonder whether any writer ever even dared to imagine such tragic incident in his/her mind & could put it in words! Today we're living in a world where truth can be deadlier & uglier than fiction in any minute.

Before this School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut (USA) or the gang rape in a bus, New Delhi (India), we were here already terribly shocked & horrified with the fire at a Garment factory, killing 117 people and the recent...brutal killing of Biswajit Das, a tailoring shop employee, who hacked to death reportedly by the hooligans of Bangladesh Chhatra League (the so called Student Political unit of ruling party) near Victoria Park, DHAKA near a police station on December 9, Sunday during the opposition 18-party-called countrywide road blockade activity. The killing was carried live on numerous TV news channels and the clear pictures of the killers with full identity have appeared in the newspapers the very next day. And that put the ruling government in "a bit awkward situation" & thus lately the police (who initially was quite reluctant) captured some of them.

The injustice & open brutality is becoming a common scenario here. But as per mass child murder or any this sort of mass shooting (other than war or a military invasion) with an assault weapon like Bushmaster, I can't recall anything like or near that ever happened even in this one of the most over populated parts in the world where lives of general people overtaken by murderous propensity and thirst for power & money in a regular basis more or less. May be that's because we don't have any gun industry or an open & sensible gun culture here and IMO...we here actually can't or shouldn't afford guns in personal possession; even that would become a luxury here as per our very low national income level in compare to any developed country.

Though it may not right for me to say anything in this issue, as I'm not living in USA and know very little about the gun culture there but after reading & listening some discussions on TV & articles online, I think to put some new law on gun control issue will have some little impact on happening similar sort of mass shooting in future but the thing is though that would be 'little' but it will at least have some impact, I believe.

[Despare]

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff here in Michigan with remembering the Bath Massacre (an elementary school killing in 1927 that took the lives of 38 kids with explosives) and it really just brings to light how terrible people can be. Throughout time and regardless of technology we can't stop killing each other. It's a shame that we get to hear about news from all over the world as it happens and all we get to hear about is more disaster and death. It doesn't matter if you're from the USA or not, your opinion is just as valid as mine.

[Dara]

[viv]

Originally Posted by Despare

(...) it really just brings to light how terrible people can be. Throughout time and regardless of technology we can't stop killing each other.

Hi Despare

Been following the thread, good to see a conversation here. To comment on your quote^^^. I think the realisation that there will always be an individual somewhere who wants to do other harm is an insightful component for the argument, you're certainly right, we have a murderous history.

But then if we accept this (and I feel all the but most naive would) then the question becomes - how do we control ourselves?

In the UK farmers (and various other people) have the right to own a rifle, occasionally these weapons fall into the wrong hands and are used for killing people - but on the whole (because of the smaller circulation of the weapons) they remain in safe hands, with people who have a genuine reason for possessing a them.

I'm interested in understanding how a firearm is protective in domestic circumstances, for me a firearm is only protective insofar as it is threatening to do harm to the threat. It is not a protective tool, more a potently threatening tool - a potency thats prospect can be used as protection.

But unfortunately, people are very pre-emptive. And naturally, if you suspect a threat of aggression from someone you need to at least be able to level out the playing field with your own threat - most likely another gun. This is played out in burglaries gone wrong scenarios - the difference is the threat of choice, and the threat people can generally gain access to.

So in an environment where all have firearm access is very high - threat levelling strategies will lead to a situation whereby all have guns, simply because all have guns. Whereas in other environments threat could be levelled with less lethal weapons (kitchen knives, base ball bats, metal sticks, whatever).

In the latter environment there will always be a minority who do raise their threat above the norm and gain access (illegally) to a gun. Likewise in the former there will lots of responsible usage that helps society. But the general dynamic of threat matching (a la cold war) is there. The question of gun control is that of where do we want the generalised threat levelling to land, - at the level of a firearm, or less lethal weapons such as knives. Personally I feel the lower the better, as this will preserve life.

----

Media etc does play a role but I feel ultimately this is a grey an area to discuss as the weather, I think addressing what level of threat we want people to have access to is the real issue. Mental health issues also, there will, unfortunately, always be someone who slips through the system and becomes dangerous - how easy should it be for these people to access weapons?

Despare - (this isn't necessarily directly to you but in response to) when you say "regardless of technology" I cannot agree - I feel the issue of gun control pivots around technology.

If you are concerned about protection, and the threat you are protecting against by harbouring another threat (threat levelling)- then technology's capacity to harm becomes the question - in the this game theory/cold war concern over the next mans ability to harm you or your friends or family I ask for question -(if you could change the world tomorrow) do you want to play (generally speaking) for bruises and scars or gun shots and body bags?

Thanks for reading this far if you have, discussion is important.