Today the President, many other Americans and yours truly shed tears. It's beyond belief, beyond explanation and beyond any understanding.
Despite the grief felt after Columbine, Aurora and most recently Portland, today's "event" added a new dimension to the insanity which cavorts in our country. Twenty children aged 5-10. Teachers. Those who dedicate their lives to opening the minds and spirits of those precious, fragile sprouts.
Despite this newest horror, this appeared on Twitter:
Vipers: No compassion. No genuine human feeling. Sociopaths and psychopaths waiting to happen to some other group of people here or somewhere else. 'People'/airheads who interact with keyboards and touch screens who have no thought beyond, "entertain me". No, not vipers... vipers are snakes which do what they're supposed and succeed at doing in the context of normal Nature. These creatures are something else entirely.
If you see people crying or somber, nod your head to them. They are real people.
If you see people laughing and acting happy, ask them "Have you heard what happened in Newtown, Connecticut?". Odds on the answer will be, "Huh?". If after you tell them, they respond blithely: Run!
Run for your life.
Doesn't wash/hold water/make sense! With no guns in society, period, the gutless wonders who invade others homes would likely not be doing so... not without the gun that gives them the balls they otherwise lack. Okay, there may be exceptions to the rule, there always are, and the pro-gun wackos use this to justify gun ownership, but the fact is, the incidence of violent home invasion is going to decrease dramatically if the tools of trade [guns] are made unavailable to all except the military and police.
Besides, how the fuck is a home owner shooting and killing an intruder saving life? Regardless of whether that person was committing crime or not, he was still somebody's son; brother; nephew; grandson; uncle, etc, etc, and it is no less tragic for those family members to have lost a loved one by gunfire. No, you do not save life by killing, no matter how you want to paint it/dress it up.
The simple solution is, take the gun out of the equation entirely, then the intruder is unlikely to be there, and the home owner has no need to shoot him. That's how you save lives... not by placing the instruments of death in the hands of anyone who can do harm, whether it be murder or self defence, deliberate or accidental.
And before any of you says "what would you know about it down there in Australia and what right have you to tell us, I don't have to be American to see the stupidity of it all and feel compassion for the slain and their families. And what Right do I or any other outsiders have? Perhaps none, but look at the fucking mess Americans have made of it over the last 400 or so years of this inalienable right to bear arms.... millions of innocent people gunned down in cold blood... not one or two here or there... fucking millions... ALL DEAD because of some twisted notion that guns save lives. So do rattlesnakes [their venom is used medicinally] but you wouldn't want the bastards loose in your community.
In closing, because I'll not comment in this thread again, and this is aimed at NO particular person, but I am mystified and deeply disappointed at the lack of compassion and common sense being displayed here. 27 more people, 20 of them kids under 10, have been senselessly gunned down in a flurry of bullets, yet there's still this pro-gun "it's my right to carry a gun" thing going on... blah, blah, blah. Put bluntly, it just makes me sick to my stomach and my opinion.....
One more thing. I realize this isn't my call, but this thread has become a political thread, which isn't supposed to be taking place here in this particular forum, if I'm not mistaken.
Indeed it isn't; you are, and it isn't a political thread.
It was a moral issue thread when you started it, gun control is a political issue. Done for real, this time.
Again:
People are free to speak their minds and hearts as long as they do so civilly.
It was entirely predictable that it would include the discussion of gun control. Fair enough. No one's hurt anyone by having a much needed discussion.
This time I hope it doesn't end there, but some real pressure is put in the right direction.
If 20 dead children can't do that, there really is no hope.
@Murex: No. It won't. The measures discussed before will.
Someone please close this thread...it is only going to end badly. This is an exercise in futility.
Just saying it looks like a double standard, Doc. This from a pinned post:
How did owning a gun save any of those 20 kids?
Have you ever used a gun in self defence?
It's already been said above. If your country does not have guns readily accessible to anyone, you are 40 times less likely to have a fatality. So how does owning guns make you safer?
My heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the families at this school.
Just curious Doc......what will be your weapon of choice in that fightt?
Just plain old me, ernie leo. Just plain old me. There are Courts of Law. No guns needed.
Jim... for someone who quit the thread, you're sure here a lot. If you wish to discuss it further, please take it to pm. Also, if you wish to redirect the thread in what you consider a positive direction, once again, feel free to do so.
Again, there is nothing religious/racist/etc. here. No politics either. If what you wish to say is "I'm saddened this happened. My condolences to the families.", you've done so.
Argument around one issue or another isn't forbidden as long as it's done in a civil manner.
That post by kryo was in reference to "Off-Topic Forums" in the GalCiv website and not the "WinCustomize Talk" forum page. Also, I do seem to recall Frogboy requesting no political/religious posts in the "Life the Universe and Everything Else" forum section.
No double standard.
PS: The decision on whether a post is deemed a political/religious post is the responsibility of the site Admins and Forum Moderators.
Yes, there's no 'double standard'. This forum is not the 'everything else' thread which crosses to all sites.
Obviously it was/is OK as I am present contributing to it. Stardock's Admins come from both sides of the 'gun control' fence and also in many other ways are sufficiently diverse to be even-handed about forum management...
People haven’t changed and there is nothing wrong with them. They are as they have been, mostly selfish, petty, stupid and afraid, their hearts hidden behind the fog of what they think and fear. What has changed is there is almost instantaneous and overwhelming access to this mundane everyday shallowness in many people because of things like facebook and twitter. It does say something about you that you would use one of these social media sites and people who would even be concerned about Justin Bieber to demonstrate some kind of deficiency in people.
Bless us all, every one of us, forever and today.
A 'deficiency' is a prerequisite of being a Bieber fan.....
....brain....good taste.....talent appreciation......you get the drift....
Ahhh... the word I was searching for: Vapid.
A splendid and fitting adjective.
1) The gun was just an instrument used by a deranged person. It was the mental condition of the person that pulled the trigger that caused the loss of life.
2) Yes and it's the only reason I am here today. Did I have to pull the trigger? No, but I would have if I had to.
3) By the same logic, if cars were not available to anyone, would there be any fatalities due to car crashes? No, so should the automobile be outlawed?
It would have been easy for this guy to use his car to kill these innocent children. If he had, I guarantee that there wouldn't be an out cry to outlaw cars.
One thing to think about, Mexico has some of the toughest gun laws and restrictions. The average person is denied ownership and look at the murder and crime rate there. Do you think that gun laws has stopped the Cartel from getting weapons?
That's the word and twitter is the place!
Again: Gun control is NOT the only thing being proposed. Adequate mental health care, among other measures were also suggested.
1) That is true. But if he did not have a gun, he would not have had such a lethal tool to use. The Medical Examiner said these were the worst wounds he had ever seen.
2) I'm truly happy you didn't have to, Mike.
3) Mike, cars were not designed to kill people. Guns were designed only for that reason. Anything can be abused...but a gun? No. That's its use.
There is no earthly reason for personal possession of a lethal weapon designed only to kill.
Let's look at it your way... If a car can be used to do the same thing, there's no need for a gun, right?
So... go buy a car, not a gun.
A car is for transport but a gun is for killing people. They are not the same instrument.
I would imagine getting a car into a classroom would be problematic....but clearly a gun was not.
Such absurd argument.
For the record, our "home defense" system consists of my wife and one of two baseball bats. She can, will and does (on the occasional raccoon and possum) use it. I don't think for one moment she would hesitate to use it on anyone who had it coming. Batter up!!
Take my word for it, the little woman has one mean swing!
Because the denial is deep: The culture which trains children from a young age to the notion of "toy guns" and games around killing.
The denial of the mother who owned guns despite having a disturbed child.
The hypocrisy of a Congress which piously decries the violence and cheer a colleague grievously and permanently damaged by gun violence, beholden to the money and power of an organization devoted to guns and unable to go beyond their own cupidity to save innocents, while hiding behind the Second Amendment (hopelessly outdated) as if it were The Word of G-d handed down to Moses, Jesus, Mohammed or John Smith.
The thought that "I can win". The thought that somehow "My violence is better than yours".
Denial is deep on both sides of the coin. And if one would choose to use a car as a weapon they would simply use a different approach. Obviously driving a car into a class wouldn't work.
We can argue this till dooms day or until there is nothing left to ban or assert some sort of control over the next inanimate object in question and all our hands are bound. The bottom line is "we" are the ones making the decision to kill and the weapon of choice really makes no difference....dead is dead. There are lots of ways to kill...but unless we get our own acts together the killing will continue.
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