More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

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orathaic
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#101 Post by orathaic » Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:11 pm

Randomizer wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:31 am

It has been pointed out that the percentages of mentally ill people world wide are roughly the same, but you don't have mass shootings in this great a number in other countries. So gun regulations do make a difference.
First of all, i think it is clear that blaming mental illness is a red herring. You see pro-gun politicians bring it up ever time a mass shooting gets this kind of media coverage, you never see them take considered action to tackle mental health.

Second, mental illness varies from country to country, largely because it is a social construct. We decide what is 'healthy', maybe 200 years ago there was no autism diagnosis, but there we're still people who were not neurotypical - the question of whether they were I'll is whether they fit in, or whether society made space for them to fit it.

But we also see many 'Diseases of Society' - that could mean higher rates of obesity and diabetes in one culture compared to another. But when it comes to mental illness it can relate to things like stress, how much holiday time is available, what kind of extra work you have to do to expect career rpogress (toxic corporate cultures) and what kind of social safety net exists or coercive procedures are in place (like losing your health insurance if you leave your job).

All of that being true, mental health issues do not coorelated with acts of violence. You are not more or less likely to be a perpetrators of violence if you have mental health issues. You are, on the other hand, more likely to be a victim. So not only is it a red herring, which does nothing to help mental health. It also villianize the people who are more likely to he victims (and likely increases police violence against them).

That said, most people with mental health issues don't commit acts of mass violence. But all people who do commit acts of mass violence are mal adjusted in some way. Their society has a toxic culture which is the underlying cause. Whether they were play deprived (and lack of appropriate developmental play coorelates with an inability to respond healthily to stresse) or otherwise maligned by something, most of these shooters knowingly throw their lives away. What is it about their own lives that they don't value? Why are they mal-adjusted?

I'm not going to paint them as cowards because they choose to murder and get killed by cops instead of just killing themselves. But they are following a narrative. One which they see is 'doing something' with their lives. Even if that something is incredibly destructive, unhealthy, and villanous. Even if they see themselves as a villian, they also know they will be remembered.

That said, and i will raise gender again, we do see men in other countries killing their entire family before killing themselves - this is a very similar behaviour. Both are self-destructive, both are blaming others (society/their family) for what they must see as a failed and useless life.

An Irish man a few years ago kill his wife and two kids and then himself. Why did he not simply take his own life? What was he lacking? Some sense of purpose? Of value? And when he decided to take his own life, did he blame his family for not giving him the things he was lacking? Making him the powerful successful father figure he felt he should have been?

I am speculating. But what he expected, and what mass shooters expect their lives should be is an important factor.

The US is a particularily cruel and uncaring one. Freedom means the freedom starve, the freedom to be shot in the streets, beat by police and stress over lack of money for health care. Or bankruptcy from inability to pay medical bills.

But race is a big factor in this, part of the reason only employees get health insurance in the US is that people didn't want those Others to be protected (lack of class solidarity). The UK does not have this issue, despite terrible class division.

But the racism in the US feeds back into expectations, what a white male expects their life to be in a white supremacist culture is very different from a white woman or a black man. And guess who is most likely to go on a killing spree? Those who a given the highest expectations for success and who fail to meet them.

I don't know the figures, but shootings like these (not including gang land crime where murder is rational based on your own survival and the police's lack of value to human life -ie you know they won't bother investigating a 'black on black' shooting) are almost exclusively white and male.

The US has a problem with White Supremacy and with Violently Toxic Masculinity.
Getting rid of guns would be great, but saying that does not address the underlying issue. It is not the guns, it is not the individual person, it is the culture that breeds them.

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#102 Post by orathaic » Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:18 pm

worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:03 am
And before you ask - I would happily die to protect my country in the event that it was invaded, like what is happening in Ukraine, and I'd be unwilling to give my guns up if the government came to collect them at my doorstep just because 'guns are bad, some British guy says so'.
And before you think i am agreeing with you, this is a rather mild example, but it is part of the culture i am criticising. The Macho masculinity which says that every man can be a hero (just give them a gun).

It is not only not true (just look at Waco - which i firmly believe was an act of State Terrorism).but also dangerous - just look at Jan 6th.

But further, the US as it currently stand will never be invaded like Ukraine. You have one of the most powerful state powers ever to have existed, and having guns will not protect you from them (again Waco proves this). Thus the 'answer' you give is an example of what needs to change before the US can 'have nice things'.
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#103 Post by Octavious » Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:57 pm

orathaic wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:11 pm
All of that being true, mental health issues do not coorelated with acts of violence. You are not more or less likely to be a perpetrators of violence if you have mental health issues. You are, on the other hand, more likely to be a victim. So not only is it a red herring, which does nothing to help mental health. It also villianize the people who are more likely to he victims (and likely increases police violence against them).
I was reading through your thoughts absentmindedly wondering why it was I found myself disagreeing so strongly, and I think I've got there. It's the treatment of mental illness as a single entity, rather than a catch-all term for countless differing conditions. It would be like claiming that there's no correlation between physical illness and ability to jump, which is probably true for a great many physical maladies, but very much not true for people suffering from a broken leg. I feel for this discussion to be useful we must differentiate between various mental conditions, and accept that some do indeed greatly increase the chances of the afflicted being caught up in violent acts
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#104 Post by worcej » Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:33 pm

orathaic wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:18 pm
worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:03 am
And before you ask - I would happily die to protect my country in the event that it was invaded, like what is happening in Ukraine, and I'd be unwilling to give my guns up if the government came to collect them at my doorstep just because 'guns are bad, some British guy says so'.
And before you think i am agreeing with you, this is a rather mild example, but it is part of the culture i am criticising. The Macho masculinity which says that every man can be a hero (just give them a gun).

It is not only not true (just look at Waco - which i firmly believe was an act of State Terrorism).but also dangerous - just look at Jan 6th.

But further, the US as it currently stand will never be invaded like Ukraine. You have one of the most powerful state powers ever to have existed, and having guns will not protect you from them (again Waco proves this). Thus the 'answer' you give is an example of what needs to change before the US can 'have nice things'.
I would caution against your assessment of 'protecting one's country' is just a masculine principal. Patriotism is a core principal of the United States and is carried by both genders. Now, back to myself, I am not as patriotic as certain individuals - I didn't join the armed forces and never once thought to enter law enforcement. But I wanted to illustrate that if a Ukraine-like situation happened in the US, I would respond in order to protect my country/freedoms. Bluntly, I wanted to get in front of Jamie from going down that line of questioning about my commitment towards protecting the way of life we have here.

When you bring up Waco, you're referring to the Waco Siege or the recent shooting? I assume you mean the Siege - and I'd say that's the best example in present day, but I would think we could agree that it is a poor example of what could happen if you step it up to the government going door to door collecting all firearms from the population. I'd expect you'd see a wide range of different siege-like events and a lack of total resources by the government to accomplish the task due to scale and the fact many agents tasked with conducting it wouldn't participate due to their own beliefs, but this is just speculation on my part.
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#105 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:42 am

While we're all still talking about this, there has been a mass shooting at a hospital in Oklahoma.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61669873
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#106 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:46 am

worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:08 am
Jamiet99uk wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:43 am
Okay.

I'll engage with this, Worcej, if you'll come with me.

Can you accept, however hard it might seem, that eliminating personal gun ownership would be a good thing? (For all the reasons I have already mentioned).
Could it be a good thing is really dependent on what your objective is. If your goal is to just prevent death, then it’s obviously going to be good with little contest otherwise.

Personally I think it is not good to eliminate private gun ownership because it eliminates the potential for a militia in times of government oppression. An example of this type of concern is on display with Hong Kong’s absorption into China and lack of ability for protesters to prevent the government from imposing their will with violence and arrests without cause.

The presence of private gun ownership ensures the people are truly in power. A look at the history of authoritarian regimes such as Communist China and Nazi Germany highlights the fact that disarming the population was necessary step to their establishment of control.

To TL;DR it - I do not think it is worth disarming the population to prevent gun deaths because the consequences of an authoritarian regime possibly taking power, similar to what Chaqa reflected early in this thread.
So, just to be clear, you do not think that preventing the deaths of schoolchildren is an objective worth prioritising?

You think that your gun ownership is more important.

Right?
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#107 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:49 am

worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:59 am
In common sense thinking, if the public doesn't have the weapons, how can they be a militia?
Which Militia are you a member of, and how is that regulated?
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#108 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:52 am

worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:59 am
As for the second - you're continuing to assume that my belief in private gun ownership means I condone mass shootings, which is an extreme exaggeration and constant misinterpretation of what I have been consistently saying in this thread. At no point am I okay with mass shootings - stop trying to say I am. In truth, the only real thing we differentiate on is in our opinions on how to prevent them from occurring.
I'm not trolling you, but from my perspective you're defending the system which allows these mass shootings of children to be perpetuated, and you're placing your own made-up "right" to own a gun as more important than those children's right to remain alive and not be filled with bullet holes.
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#109 Post by worcej » Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:59 am

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:49 am
worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:59 am
In common sense thinking, if the public doesn't have the weapons, how can they be a militia?
Which Militia are you a member of, and how is that regulated?
This is a troll post and you know it.

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#110 Post by worcej » Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:00 am

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:52 am
worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:59 am
As for the second - you're continuing to assume that my belief in private gun ownership means I condone mass shootings, which is an extreme exaggeration and constant misinterpretation of what I have been consistently saying in this thread. At no point am I okay with mass shootings - stop trying to say I am. In truth, the only real thing we differentiate on is in our opinions on how to prevent them from occurring.
I'm not trolling you, but from my perspective you're defending the system which allows these mass shootings of children to be perpetuated, and you're placing your own made-up "right" to own a gun as more important than those children's right to remain alive and not be filled with bullet holes.
No, I am not. You’re just too much of a troll to want to have a meaningful conversation and comprehend the differences in our approach to this problem. You continue to try to talk to me as if this is a mafia game - you think only your perspective is right and you cannot view anything else as a possibility.

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#111 Post by worcej » Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:03 am

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:46 am
worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:08 am
Jamiet99uk wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:43 am
Okay.

I'll engage with this, Worcej, if you'll come with me.

Can you accept, however hard it might seem, that eliminating personal gun ownership would be a good thing? (For all the reasons I have already mentioned).
Could it be a good thing is really dependent on what your objective is. If your goal is to just prevent death, then it’s obviously going to be good with little contest otherwise.

Personally I think it is not good to eliminate private gun ownership because it eliminates the potential for a militia in times of government oppression. An example of this type of concern is on display with Hong Kong’s absorption into China and lack of ability for protesters to prevent the government from imposing their will with violence and arrests without cause.

The presence of private gun ownership ensures the people are truly in power. A look at the history of authoritarian regimes such as Communist China and Nazi Germany highlights the fact that disarming the population was necessary step to their establishment of control.

To TL;DR it - I do not think it is worth disarming the population to prevent gun deaths because the consequences of an authoritarian regime possibly taking power, similar to what Chaqa reflected early in this thread.
So, just to be clear, you do not think that preventing the deaths of schoolchildren is an objective worth prioritising?

You think that your gun ownership is more important.

Right?
Also, another troll post trying to bait argument. You focus only on one specific aspect and are only listening to be combative.

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#112 Post by worcej » Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:19 am

Octavious wrote:
Fri May 27, 2022 8:25 am
Do you? To my mind what is key can be outlined below.

Whatever solution applied to the problem must have the consent of the American people.

Whatever solution applied needs to take into account the peculiar realities of the current American situation, which are substantially different to what existed in the UK prior to Dunblane, and indeed much of the rest of the world.

Whatever solution applied to what is a complex and difficult problem is unlikely to be both simple and effective
Circling back to this, and sharing more information, the American Public at large’s opinion is not as most websites are portraying: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/25/politic ... index.html

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#113 Post by orathaic » Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:58 am

The American Public at large, i mean aren't they the problem? Jamie is reducing the issue to a very simple dichotomy, guns or children's lives. But he's not entirely wrong.

That said, there is more that can be done to tackle white Supremacy, male entitlement, toxic masculinity and generation of violence.

How do Americans feel about violence? What if i said it is just like your founding fathers (except they won)? That the US military state has imposed violence on much of the world for at least a century, and this is bad actually.

How do you think American public opinion would feel about my take on their history of violence?
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#114 Post by Octavious » Thu Jun 02, 2022 10:20 am

orathaic wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:58 am
The American Public at large, i mean aren't they the problem?
Absolutely. Eliminate the American public and there will no longer be a gun violence issue in America. The land will become a paradise of peace with zero cruelty, much like you get in places like Mars.
orathaic wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:58 am
How do Americans feel about violence? What if i said it is just like your founding fathers (except they won)? That the US military state has imposed violence on much of the world for at least a century, and this is bad actually.
I dare say that much of the population of Europe would disagree. The threat of American violence has been overwhelmingly a force for good over the last century, barring a few well publicised errors. I confess it's hard to deny that the efforts of the Nazis, Soviets, and cultural revolutionaries in the far east gifted an eternal peace to many millions of people (and would have extended it to many millions more given half a chance), but on the whole I have to say I have a strong preference for American violence.
orathaic wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:58 am

How do you think American public opinion would feel about my take on their history of violence?
One imagines the American public would feel that you were an ignorant foreign intellectual trying to impose your will on an issue that is none of your business and of which you have limited understanding. That's my guess, anyway.
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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#115 Post by worcej » Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:32 pm

An example of what federal laws should expand to in my opinion: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/politic ... index.html

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#116 Post by Randomizer » Thu Jun 02, 2022 3:33 pm

https://www.yahoo.com/news/disturbing-p ... 06454.html

Rise of mass shootings by 17 to 22 year olds is blamed on lack of impulse control in changing brains, social media, lax gun laws for 18 year olds, and emulating other mass shooters.

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#117 Post by orathaic » Thu Jun 02, 2022 4:58 pm

worcej wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:33 pm
[When you bring up Waco, you're referring to the Waco Siege or the recent shooting? I assume you mean the Siege - and I'd say that's the best example in present day
Yes, and i agree that it is a good example, and though i don't have sympathy for the particulars of the Cult, i do have sympathy for not being shot, attacked, burnt to death by law enforcement personnel. - though again, this doesn't happen in other countries, because not having fire arms everywhere means a 'seige' of this kind is fairly rare.
, but I would think we could agree that it is a poor example of what could happen if you step it up to the government going door to door collecting all firearms from the population. I'd expect you'd see a wide range of different siege-like events and a lack of total resources by the government to accomplish the task due to scale and the fact many agents tasked with conducting it wouldn't participate due to their own beliefs, but this is just speculation on my part
Yes, i agree, i don't think going door-to-door is likely. What happens in other places is a gun amnesty or buy back scheme.

Northern Ireland had paramilitaries put their weapons beyond use. Not by having a door-to-door campaign where the state officials (who had been target of many of those weapons) 'took our guns' - it was overseen by an independent expert (a Canadian General iirc)

Canada has announced a similar scheme to reduce firearms in recent days.

So, no, because it is the US and because of the gun culture, i don't think that fantasy Tyranical government coming to get you is likely.

Not on a large scale -whereas Waco Seige did involve some claims that illegal weapons partly justified the murder of several children by the state.

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#118 Post by orathaic » Thu Jun 02, 2022 5:07 pm

To take a comparable US example, after slavery was abolished, compensation was paid to former slave owners for their loss of property. Right?

The point being, people may not like the change which is happening, but political power can bribe them...

(I looked it up, because i didn't remember the details

"the District of Columbia Emancipation Act paid those loyal to the Union up to $300 for every enslaved person freed." )

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#119 Post by orathaic » Thu Jun 02, 2022 6:50 pm

The threat of American violence has been overwhelmingly a force for good over the last century, barring a few well publicised errors.
They nukes two cities. Those we're not military targets and thus are clear examples of war crimes.

Nobody held them to account (because they won) and this is just the most agregious example. But the justness of American violence is not in question, it is the glorification of that violence which is the problem here. The mimics who want to be glorified by dieing in violent terrorist shootouts rather than living mediocre lives.

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Re: More American children murdered by gun-toting lunatic

#120 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 02, 2022 9:23 pm

worcej wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:32 pm
An example of what federal laws should expand to in my opinion: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/politic ... index.html
That would certainly be a step in the right direction.
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