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.
Ah, the old gun debate. A few stats for you to digest.
Gun homicides per 100,000 population
Australia: 0.14
England and Wales: 0.07
USA: 2.97
So... you are 42 times more likely to die by gunfire in the US as you are in the UK. I'm sure glad I live where I do
[Moderator]
That is derogatory nonsense. You need to apologize to the Australians. You are dead wrong. Cease now.
A copy of a response to this event in a yahoo news article. Don't worry.....I made it. I can't steal from myself....I think.
For what its worth. I too am 60. I grew up among the families in New York, 50's and 60's. Back in the day this sort of thing did not happen, there was a helluva lot more respect for people. Today.......there isn't any respect! Its a fuck you hooray for me mindset. A product of individual environs. All crime, however you describe it, has one commonality, a weapon. A gun is the weapon of choice because you can't argue with one, you do or you die! Too many things were ignored for too long a time by the powers that be, for whatever reason, and today's society reflects that. Wake up folks. You have no one to blame but yourselves. You put the ones in office, in power, that are responsible for this. If some one you are paying to do a job doesn't do that job, actually fucks it up, you take that personand throw him or her the hell out! Period! Then you put some one in there that 'WILL' do the job right. Unless you have forgotten, we the people pay their salaries through the myriad taxes levied upon us. We Pay Them! Get it. Time to take out the trash. Rant over.
Link to yahoo news article.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/gun-control-debate-erupts-twitter-195914529.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html#ixzz2F4LRKtVV
My sincere apologies for my remarks concerning Australians. It was indeed way out of line and not typical of my behavior or upbringing. I am sorry.
I did not mean to imply that all Australians were convicts, or of convict decent. I meant to point out that your country and mine come from two entirely different backgrounds and histories. It just came out ALL wrong.
A lot of American blood has been and is still being shed around the world to defend the rights and freedoms of others. I guess having the now free world say that our rights now no longer count just set me off.
Just to remind you, Wiz... Australians (especially their SAS) fight side by side with the SEALS in Afghanistan and did in Iraq and a thousand hell holes we don't even know of. They die for our "rights".
Let me try to put this event into its proper perspective. That same day some 60 million gun owners like me didn't kill anyone. That same day an estimated 80 people died in automobile accidents in the US. That same day an estimated 105 people died from second hand smoke in the US. Yes, this is cause for great sorrow for the families and friends of the victims, but to blame gun ownership, is irresponsible!
The problem is not guns, but screwed up priorities by governments at all levels and a misguided belief in mythological deities. Where was this God that everyone is talking about? Why wasn't He protecting these innocent kids?
One does not need a gun to commit the kind of act that occurred yesterday. In some countries they strap on explosives or use knives. Of course the most dramatic example was the use of airplanes in 9/11. The real problem is the failure of governments at all levels in this world to deal with the mental and physical conditions that lead to this kind of event. Unfortunately, the people in power are too busy battling with each other to worry about the little people.
@Jafo: I'm glad you don't live in the US either!
20 kids are dead who shouldn't be - explain your logic to them.
Oh...are you saying there are 240 million Americans who do not own guns?
Why is it that 20% of the population determines what happens with their ownership? Is the lobby SO powerful...or is it simply that 60 million guns can TELL 240 million Americans exactly how they will live...and/or die?
OK...I'm having a lend of your number...without qualification...but I kinda get the feeling it's another of those...
"Hey Indian...give me all your land.....for these beads.." "No" .... "I have a big gun..." "Nice beads"....
No, but it certainly helped.
I think he would have had a tougher time committing the same crime with a spoon.
The rest of the statistics are a smoke screen. The problem is violence and more specifically, gun violence.
Additional problems: An outdated, misinterpreted, misused and overused 2nd Amendment. Add to that the "Stand your ground" and "concealed weapon" idiocy.
What about this is incomprehensible? If you're a farmer and need a rifle for varmints, or a hunter providing food for your family you'll be screened for mental health issues. If you're ok...no problem. If not, you get treatment and when ok, no problem.
Everyone else? You have no need. The risk/benefit ratio says "No". Therefore "No". You're caught with an unlicensed weapon, you will REALLY regret it. End of story.
Read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/after-newtown-shooting-running-and-hoping-to-find-a-child-safe.html?ref=nyregion&_r=1&
Feel something besides, "I want/need a gun." Feel the terror those instruments of killing engender in normal people.
"Enough is enough."
Bang! Nail on the head!
Doc.. try to look at other peoples points of view...a little more.. off with the blinders... Ur point of view.. isnt. the only point of view.
It is.. not.. black and white.
God forbid someone does come at you, or someone you love, with a gun one day.
Im done in this thread.
You are entitled to your point of view, v. I'll fight to the death to protect that.
But not a gun.
Someone came at 20 kids...20 someones someone loved... with a gun.
Gun ownership did not help them.
Frankly there is no other 'point of view'.
All the chest-beating aside [yes, mine too], here's what you all need to think about.
Think of that cute/lovely nephew, neice, son, daughter, rug-rat ... the one everyone loves...but now not coming home from school again. The sense of loss.
It's profound.
Now, do it again...for his/her classmate you met once or twice maybe. Not coming home.
Then...again....the one he/she mentioned you hadn't met yet....and now won't.
....and 17 more.
There IS no understanding of how it happened....just as there is no understanding of how a society could be sufficiently flawed for it to happen.
Blame whom-ever you will. Nothing reverses the reality.
People on 'any' side of a proverbial fence need to wake up a little and DO SOMETHING to try to guarantee it does not happen again.
Only you can decide, but I can assure you that WHEN it is closer to [your] home your stance will be tested.
Last week, 5 people died in a 'car crash' on the Geelong freeway.....6 young [to me] people in one car coming back from a party..... and one driver on the wrong side of a divided freeway apparently trying suicide-by-car [succeeding]. She died...but so did 4 people I'd met, one of whom was connected family-wise [indirectly]...she's dead at 24....survived by children. [nephew's wife's sister]
Real trauma happens. That's life. It's a responsible adult's obligation to ensure such things are as minimal as humanly possible.
If you really think more guns in public [uncontrolled] hands is a good thing then fine...go for it, but I will remain sceptical.
Connecticut already has the 5th toughest gun control laws in the country. More laws is not the answer but maybe better enforcement of the ones on the books is.
You can debate the need for tougher gun control laws if you want but before you decide that outlawing guns is the answer, here are a few thousand stories of how guns saved lives and provided home invasion protection.
From the NRA ? ....seriously?
You don't think it just may be a wee bit BIASED?
Snorting cocaine is good for you [so says some cartel in Colombia] too....
Society is the problem. Fix the people. Fix the system that cares for the people.
Anyone in their right mind wouldn't commit such heinous crimes. (Fix the people.) If he hadn't used guns, he would have found another weapon. (The spoon thing is ridiculous.)
Remember 9/11 and the boxcutter gang? Just one case in point.
It ain't the guns, it's the people.
I'm done here too. This thread was about the little ones being needlessly slaughtered and has become a soapbox for gun control.
Yep. Society got into that school and shot the hell out of the kiddies.
Try this on for size, Jim: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/14/1337551/michigan-guns-classroom/?mobile=nc
There is pro's and con's on both sides and strong beliefs. Just like everything else there is no winners however it turns out.
Good idea!
The best possible scenario for gun criminals is to disarm everyone else, good idea!!!! I'll vote for that, not.
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.
Could it possibly get back on topic?
I'm sorry, I was/AM done here...
A better one would be to bring the Second Amendment to relevance. That's what the Constitution is designed to do: To be flexible enough to change and not break.
This thread was an open invitation to all to speak their minds and hearts with civility. I'm perfectly satisfied that each might have his own soap box.
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