Honest, Adult Debate. Gun Violence, Goddamnit!

[20score]

Last edited Sat Dec 15, 2012, 12:19 AM - Edit history (2)

There is no easy answer and there is no one ‘answer.’ Like every complicated problem, more than one factor went into causing it, so more than one solution will be needed to solve it. Every tragedy involving guns that happens in the US is greeted immediately with a chorus of, “It’s too soon to talk about it.” Followed by, “You have an agenda… and it’s too soon,” then a few weeks later…it’s too late – on to the next tragedy. And nothing changes. Tragedy, after tragedy, after tragedy. The truth is we needed to have this national dialogue years ago. This time we can’t let it be put off. But we should have a few ground rules.

No fanatics, liars or simpletons should be allowed in the discussion. And they certainly shouldn’t be allowed to run it. Fanatics cannot accept a fact that doesn’t fit their worldview, and simpletons can’t understand them. Liars are just, well, liars. This has to happen with serious adults that can act as least as mature as a seven-year-old child told there is no Santa Clause.

One cannot solve a real world problem with partial or fantasy remedies. Fanatics get irate when anything contradicting their pet beliefs are challenged in any way. They yell, scream, insult, attack with ad hominems and demand that their issue be off the table. It’s sacrosanct. So important information needed to solve a problem is left out of the discussion. Hence, the problem can’t be solved. Guns are off the table when talking about gun violence? Really? It has NOTHING to do with it?

Simpletons also need to be ignored from now on. When one’s answer to a mass shooting in a crowded theater, is to have everybody armed, you’re not thinking things through. Grow the hell up! You’re not Rambo, John Wayne or Dirty Harry. Professional soldiers kill people on their own side in every war. Trained police sometimes end up killing more innocent people than the criminals they were trying to stop during a shootout. And these are professionals who do this for a living and have trained together. But if forty wannabe Rambos who have never met each other, never mind trained together, stood up in that theater in Aurora, Colorado and started shooting…well, everything would have worked out great!

There is some crossover between simpletons and liars in some examples, but at the very least, these types of arguments hold in common one major theme – they’re insulting. “You can kill someone with a pencil, too.” Or “Lots of things can kill people, a knife, or whatever.” Why should logical adults have to explain to supposed adults the differences between a pencil and a automatic weapon? People who make that, and similar arguments can only drag the conversation down to ridiculous, childish and time wasting levels. They should be allowed back into the conversation when they have learned to think and can bring something useful to the table if we are ever to have any hope of solving this.

Don’t like this and think it’s too hard on some? Anger you, or hurt your feelings? Tough shit. Because this will keep happening if your feelings keep taking precedence over other’s lives. Innocent children dying are a tragedy that hopefully will never happen again. There are no guaranties, but doing nothing is the worst possible course of action. (Or inaction, as the case may be.)

I don’t know what the answers are, but I do know we need to talk about all the factors like adults do when they want to solve a problem. All aspects should be discussed, honestly. Health care, mental health clinics, training, cultural awareness, education, and even gun control. Everyone that is not completely crazy believes in some form of gun control. No one wants the criminally insane to have access to Stinger missiles. So different people draw lines in different places. Why can’t we talk about where that line should be drawn, like adults?

[punkin87]

1. This shooting is making me sick!

[punkin87]

7. But maybe it's making enough people sick and this is a tipping point.

[20score]

12. Hope so.

[rustydog]

2. No honest debate, an adult DISCUSSION on this senseless violence

the time is now.

[RegieRocker]

3. Witnessed two guns

Last edited Sat Dec 15, 2012, 11:16 AM - Edit history (1)

in an altercation yesterday. Had to seperate them and send them on their way. Guns are idiots. Mix them with crazy humans like mental unstable citizens, cops and military etc. and you've got a real problem. Hundreds of thousands dead. Want to ban guns? Make it across the board. When its safe for cops and military to be gunless then go ahead and ban them.

[Tumbulu]

4. OK, at a minimum there needs to be a licensing system in place

in order to be able to posses any firearm. Similar to motor vehicles with testing and renewals every few years and liability insurance required. And as with driving a semi- a lot more training would be required for someone to operate a more powerful weapon, such as rifles.

And forget all these automatic weapons. They need to be outlawed and all liability for damages they cause fall to the manufacturers. That will encourage them to take the weapons back- come up with a buy back scheme of some kind.

Until this is in place I think that gun manufacturers need to be sued for all the damages caused. And the people that sell the ammo need to be charged as well. If they have been fighting regulation, then they need to pay up.

Then we need absolute universal health care and a real social safety net. The climate of fear and violence so well described by Michael Moore needs to be changed.

We can and will change this.

[suede1]

5. Those are some damn good points! If not now when?

[20score]

6. ........

.

[20score]

8. Thanks for getting my rant.

[suede1]

9. .

[question everything]

10. For a start let's retore the ban on assault weapons

It passed in the 90s and for some reason expired some 10 years later, I think, and even its sponsor - Dianne Feinstein - knew that she did not have the votes to extend the ban.

Individuals do not need assault weapons to defend their property or even to hunt.

[Kaleva]

11. One should also eliminate from the discussion those who wish to ban all guns.

[TheKentuckian]

13. Of course not. That is a "reasonable" viewpoint, see.

Reasonable is what I say is reasonable is many folks rule.

Banned by what means? Ignored? Force? What are they going to do anyway? Fucking nothing, preaching incrementalisim and tied hands at every turn but find statistical anomalies to be hills to die on while turning a blind eye to mass suffering and entropy pit systemic problems building pain on at least the generational level but this is balls to the wall to the wheels come off and it doesn't make any sense to me as a triage of our problems.

[suede1]

14. What's your reasonable answer?

[TheKentuckian]

15. I don't argue my view is one that is reasonable. I hold a nearly absolutist view, but I admit it.

Grabber authoritarians do not, though there position is so absolute that it would override other rights en route to the goal line that are welcome to the conversation.
You know folks calling for house to house searches, confiscation of personal property, disruption of assembly for the "unreasonable" and banning of undesirable opinion from the debate. Forms of extremism that my admittedly absolutist position doesn't share which I think means should have at least as much say as those that would end around search and seizure, the right to be secure in one's property, basic privacy in an all out effort to get their way.

If you have to go through the Bill of Rights like a bull in a china shop to make your objective then I think it is fair to call you an extremist or at least that in the particular area you are.
Perhaps certain times and obstacles call for extremism but I'll never trust anyone who won't fess to the fact the measures are extreme with a plan to put the genie back in the bottle that restores the rights they trample along the way to the brass ring. I've even seen calls for ongoing annual house searches, so zealous on this that they would ban privacy forever as long as the paperwork can say "weapons search".

I call that batshit crazy and deeply authoritarian. Too desperate to be called rational on a good day.

[20score]

16. I hope you're not tying me to those insane views you just described.

Because I came nowhere near that. In fact, this is the first time I've even heard of anyone, anywhere proposing them. If true, they're fanatics.

I own guns. But I will always, and especially after something like this, hate idiots, fanatics and liars. Holds true for all issues.

[TheKentuckian]

17. No, not particularly but definitions that aren't self defined often become difficult in this area

and the opposite extreme is never subject to the idea of exclusion in general terms.

I'm sorry if you felt sniped at individually, I take exception to the overall tone that says reasonable is reasonable and if you have to ask then you aren't. It is talking in circles and meaningless because it means everyone just assumes they are reasonable because no one wants to think themselves unreasonable.

If you are call for limiting a conversation to the "reasonable" it cannot be out of bounds to be asked what that is and why. In fact, it seems a functional requirement for the purposes of the aim.

[hbskifreak]

18. No, that's just unreasonable

To say that everyone thinks their own point if view is reasonable and anyone who disagrees with it, then they are the unreasonable ones, well that is a very interesting perspective. There may be something to that, but then having dialogue between two opponents would never get anywhere...kinda like where liberals and conservatives are right now on so many points. Something to think about. So, maybe we need to change the way the discussion is framed and start backwards from the goal that we can all agree on. If the ultimate objective cannot be agreed on by both parties, there will not ever be resolution.

[hbskifreak]

19. Fanatics

If we ban fanatics from the dialogue, it will be a very short conversation. We think they are fanatics and they think we are fanatics. Once again, we are discussing something that, tragedy or not, the right will never give one fraction of an inch on. More guns is the only answer they claim will solve this epidemic. "If the teachers all carried guns..." This gun control argument needs to happen, but ONLY the fanatics will engage in it. The non-fanatics are too busy watching Survivor to give a shit that some kids got killed, just like they didn't give a shit that W started an illegal war. Oh, they will "do their part" by electronically signing a Facebook sympathy card that doesn't really mean anything. Apathy is too rampant in our nation these days. I hope that we can have the meaningful discussion, but I just don't trust my fellow Americans to care enough to get us to where we need to be. Keep on keepin on though, 20score, you are a better man than me with your hope. I hope mine can match it one day

[20score]

20. Thanks my man!