Jackal
Member
You cant. Its called free will. If someone is bent on killing they will just find another way.
How to deter a gunman intent on suicide?
- Thread starter DaveBeal
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You cant. Its called free will. If someone is bent on killing they will just find another way.
Suicidal mass murderers are hard to stop once they have launched.
The best way to stop them in the act is give them a few hot ones. As we have seen in numerous incidents, once the loon shooter is wounded, he will usually crawl into a corner and shoot himself to avoid capture. Almost any wounding hit, regardless of severity seems to initiate their self-destruct sequence. So, a .22 to the leg is almost immediately effective as four .45's to the center of mass.
Preventing nutjob incidents should be even easier. In almost every event, people familiar with the shooter (aside from relatives, who are generally clueless or too shocked to believe it...) are always quoted as saying that they correctly guessed who the shooter was before any identity is announced. This is because people have a good sense of nutjobs in their midst. Also, nutjobs frequently have known, recorded history of violence, crime, antisocial behavior, and general insanity. Maybe we need to bring back the asylums and involuntary commitment, with very heavy, very public oversight.
Seriously, if writing hundreds of pages of poetry about killing kittens and puppies with claw hammers, dressing like a misfit, having extreme anger management or severe depression issues, or talking to voices in your head isn't an indication that someone probably needs some time away from the rest of society for their own good and the good of others, I don't know what is.
Let's fix the revolving door of the mental health/justice system and start securing the most dangerous weapons of all: the abnormal human brain. Once its internal safeguards of reason, conscience, and inhibition fail, there's no telling what can happen.
Crazy people are dangerous.
The best way to stop them in the act is give them a few hot ones. As we have seen in numerous incidents, once the loon shooter is wounded, he will usually crawl into a corner and shoot himself to avoid capture. Almost any wounding hit, regardless of severity seems to initiate their self-destruct sequence. So, a .22 to the leg is almost immediately effective as four .45's to the center of mass.
Preventing nutjob incidents should be even easier. In almost every event, people familiar with the shooter (aside from relatives, who are generally clueless or too shocked to believe it...) are always quoted as saying that they correctly guessed who the shooter was before any identity is announced. This is because people have a good sense of nutjobs in their midst. Also, nutjobs frequently have known, recorded history of violence, crime, antisocial behavior, and general insanity. Maybe we need to bring back the asylums and involuntary commitment, with very heavy, very public oversight.
Seriously, if writing hundreds of pages of poetry about killing kittens and puppies with claw hammers, dressing like a misfit, having extreme anger management or severe depression issues, or talking to voices in your head isn't an indication that someone probably needs some time away from the rest of society for their own good and the good of others, I don't know what is.
Let's fix the revolving door of the mental health/justice system and start securing the most dangerous weapons of all: the abnormal human brain. Once its internal safeguards of reason, conscience, and inhibition fail, there's no telling what can happen.
Crazy people are dangerous.
Rockrz
member
Why is the gun "unsecured" in the first place??? Sure, you should be able to not have to lock up your guns in your own house but with people today...you never know what they're going to do.
There's no way you're going to get the general public to not hold the owner of the gun responsible because he is responsible for his guns to keep them secured.
There's too many court precedents that are similar, such as leaving the keys laying around and your kid takes your car while drinking your unsecured booze and kills someone.
If the local DA doesn't get you, the dead guy's family will hire a good attorney who will whip you in court because almost any jury you put that in front of will agree that you are responsible for your assets whether they be guns, vehicles, etc, etc.
The only way to not be held responsible is if Congress passes some sort of federal law that says you cannot be held liable that applies to the entire nation...and you'll get that when pigs fly!
Personally, I keep my stuff secured and I'm continually thinking of ways to keep things out of the reach of others whether I think they may misuse them or not. Especially family members. Family will screw you quicker than anyone!
I learned to do this by reading all the news stories about lawsuits filed against people that ruin them financially and thinking to my self, "It would be to my advantage to do everything I can to prevent stupid crap before it has the chance to happen in the first place"
I may, or may not be able to suceed living my entire life without any problems like this, but I'm way ahead of most people by just thinking about this and trying to keep my stuff secured.
geekWithA.45
Moderator Emeritus
Well, plenty of others have pretty much shown how that's not going to achieve the desired outcome, but here's some thoughts on how one might:
We can deeply scrutinize all school children, subject them to psychological tests and mandatory therapy sessions at taxpayer expense.
We could also have some sort of "Don't be a anti-social psycho" programs, with that message reinforced by friendly clowns and poster contests. (Seriously: why not? We have "don't be a bully" programs, for whatever they're worth, and they cost nearly nothing)
We can have officer friendly address the school during safety day casually promise that in the event anyone ever tries to be a mass murderer, that they will be shot dead by the nearest honorable gunfighter at the earliest opportunity, and unamimously declared "loser" by the nation of riflebeings.
We can also educate parents, sending home pamphlets. "Is your child an anti-social psycho? How likely is he or she to attempt a mass public shooting, and wind up being shot out of a bell tower by the nearest honorable gunfighter?"
It wasn't an experiment in that sense. We collectively decided that we didn't want to pay for keeping them locked up. It's expensive, and since the State is ordering it, they're the ones who have to pay for it. That means taxes, and, given the way most States fund such things, property taxes. Which are very unpopular.
So, people vote to reduce their property tax burden, and then turn around and complain when nutcases who used to be locked away from public view are now wandering around downtown, talking to the trees and pissing on the mailboxes.
Unintended consequences suck, eh?
As to the OP's question... You can't. The only people that laws deter from doing bad things are those who wouldn't have done them anyway. Prohibition and the "War on Drugs" both failed, and for the same reason. That failure is instructive regarding gun control as well. Simply put, the number of people who will refrain from doing X, simply because X is illegal, is too small to produce a meaningful change in the frequency of X. This is true regardless of what "X" is.
I do not refrain from going into a mall and shooting everyone I see, until I have one bullet left, and then putting that bullet through my head, simply because it is illegal. I refrain from doing so because A) I value the lives of my fellow human beings too much to wantonly end them, and B) because I don't want to die.
Someone who does not agree with "A" and "B" cannot be deterred or prevented by any law you can write.
--Shannon
PS - Mr. March, while I agree with the idea that glorifying these freaks (in the pursuit of the almighty greenback, I might add) is reprehensible, giving the Government the power to tell the press what they can and cannot report is so dangerous to democracy that you need to be very, very careful. I, for myself, cannot support it. Such powers are far too easy to extend, once granted. "It's for your own good" is always a warning sign.
Rockrz
member
Or, they could do what my dad did to me....whip my *ss anytime I got out of line.
When I was a kid, I was more scared of my dad than I was the cops cause my dad was gonna beat me...
Too bad they don't allow good beatings now days!
When I was a kid, I was more scared of my dad than I was the cops cause my dad was gonna beat me...
Too bad they don't allow good beatings now days!
ilcylic
Member
I'm afraid this is known as "begging the question". You have assumed that your law will have the intended effect.
You've proposed a law that punishes someone for something they didn't do, and in this thread, suggested that it's because the criminal himself is already dead. I'm afraid that sounds rather a lot like vengeance, to me.
You're absolutely right. People need to practice quickly drawing from concealment. But I presume you mean that we need to come up with some way of preventing this crime before it happens.
Sure we should try. We should try something that might work, however. I don't know what that is, but I'm pretty sure punishing people who didn't commit the crime isn't it.
You've proposed something. Referring to it as a "solution" assumes facts not in evidence.
Did you ever read a story called "The Whipping Boy"? It was about a Prince of some long past kingdom, who couldn't be punished. So, when he didn't do his lessons, the teacher whipped another child in his place. Your proposal rings these same bells.
Robert Hairless
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DaveBeale:
Dave, you're not thinking clearly. You haven't proposed a solution to a problem. You've proposed a focus on one symptom of the terminal stage for some unknown number of problems and you insist that it's a "solution."
What you're looking at are four common elements in some mass murders: 1. the murderer chooses a certain kind of place for his killing field, 2. he uses a firearm as the murder instrument, 3. he murders as many people as possible before he can do no more, and 4. then he kills himself.
But you can't break your focus on the instrument--the firearms--so you barely notice the other three factors and you can't get enough perspective to see that it's the least significant factor of the four.
Any instrument would do as well as any other for the kind of murders committed by killers whose goals are high body counts ending in their own deaths. On September 11, 2001, for example, the instrument was airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center. Jdude has pointed out that in Iraq the instrument is bombs strapped to the murderers' own bodies. That's the same instrument they use to commit mass murders in Israel too. That kind of murderer uses various instruments. Even those murderers who use firearms don't use the same gun or even the same kind of gun.
So even if your proposed law or your approach managed to control every gun of every kind ever made, you wouldn't have solved "a problem"--unless, like other gun control advocates, the problem for you is getting rid of guns instead of reducing the mass murders of innocent people.
Most of the rest of us know that your solution is wrong and can't possibly work. We know that because even more promising versions of your idea have been tried and haven't worked. Most of the murders you look at take place where there are no guns except those carried by the murderers themselves: in cities like the District of Columbia, for example, and in "Gun Free Zones" such as schools, most colleges, most churches, most shopping malls, and bars.
Why not try reminding the murderers here and in other countries that they're breaking a lot of existing laws instead of advocating a new law for them to break too?
Dave, for what it's worth you need to understand that not all gun owners are extreme right wingers, ill educated, gun crazed maniacs, Bubbas, or poor, white, rural, cranky old men. Gun owners, believe it or not, are simply people who own guns. The reason why there's so much opposition to your ideas--and why so much of it is similar--is that the people who oppose them know a lot more than you and have much greater experience with these issues.
You are not the sane person in an asylum filled with loonies.
Dave, you're not thinking clearly. You haven't proposed a solution to a problem. You've proposed a focus on one symptom of the terminal stage for some unknown number of problems and you insist that it's a "solution."
What you're looking at are four common elements in some mass murders: 1. the murderer chooses a certain kind of place for his killing field, 2. he uses a firearm as the murder instrument, 3. he murders as many people as possible before he can do no more, and 4. then he kills himself.
But you can't break your focus on the instrument--the firearms--so you barely notice the other three factors and you can't get enough perspective to see that it's the least significant factor of the four.
Any instrument would do as well as any other for the kind of murders committed by killers whose goals are high body counts ending in their own deaths. On September 11, 2001, for example, the instrument was airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center. Jdude has pointed out that in Iraq the instrument is bombs strapped to the murderers' own bodies. That's the same instrument they use to commit mass murders in Israel too. That kind of murderer uses various instruments. Even those murderers who use firearms don't use the same gun or even the same kind of gun.
So even if your proposed law or your approach managed to control every gun of every kind ever made, you wouldn't have solved "a problem"--unless, like other gun control advocates, the problem for you is getting rid of guns instead of reducing the mass murders of innocent people.
Most of the rest of us know that your solution is wrong and can't possibly work. We know that because even more promising versions of your idea have been tried and haven't worked. Most of the murders you look at take place where there are no guns except those carried by the murderers themselves: in cities like the District of Columbia, for example, and in "Gun Free Zones" such as schools, most colleges, most churches, most shopping malls, and bars.
Why not try reminding the murderers here and in other countries that they're breaking a lot of existing laws instead of advocating a new law for them to break too?
Dave, for what it's worth you need to understand that not all gun owners are extreme right wingers, ill educated, gun crazed maniacs, Bubbas, or poor, white, rural, cranky old men. Gun owners, believe it or not, are simply people who own guns. The reason why there's so much opposition to your ideas--and why so much of it is similar--is that the people who oppose them know a lot more than you and have much greater experience with these issues.
You are not the sane person in an asylum filled with loonies.
Dave Beal
I have not yet commented in this thread or your previous connected one. I was chastized by some other members for being too harsh with you and your radical ideas in an other thread. It is interesting to see that you were "set upon" again by other members here - perhaps not as discourteously as my comments were to you. Some have that admirable trait called tact - which eludes me often.
Robert Hairless has written a response that sums up what the problems are with some of your views in general and these last proposals in particular. You would do well to read it carefully - and try to understand what he is telling you.
A lot of us on this board draw on a lifetime of experience - both with firearms and with their detractors. We will not change your views - that is obvious in your intractability - but maybe, just maybe, we can make you understand a little better.
I have not yet commented in this thread or your previous connected one. I was chastized by some other members for being too harsh with you and your radical ideas in an other thread. It is interesting to see that you were "set upon" again by other members here - perhaps not as discourteously as my comments were to you. Some have that admirable trait called tact - which eludes me often.
Robert Hairless has written a response that sums up what the problems are with some of your views in general and these last proposals in particular. You would do well to read it carefully - and try to understand what he is telling you.
A lot of us on this board draw on a lifetime of experience - both with firearms and with their detractors. We will not change your views - that is obvious in your intractability - but maybe, just maybe, we can make you understand a little better.
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Mall Ninja
Member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2007
- Messages
- 31
This whole discussion has pretty much been moot from jump street because:
1. It is already abundantly, redundantly illegal under federal law for you to sell, give, trade, barter, rent or lend a firearm to anyone you suspect of having a criminal past or criminal intent.
2. If someone you don't suspect of being a crook or crazy somehow gets hold of one of your firearms – whether you give it to them or you simply don't secure it to DaveBeale's satisfaction – and uses it to commit a crime, you are already pretty much screwed 16 ways to Sunday in the civil courts, if not also the criminal courts.
So what exactly is this new miraculous proposed law supposed to do...?
1. It is already abundantly, redundantly illegal under federal law for you to sell, give, trade, barter, rent or lend a firearm to anyone you suspect of having a criminal past or criminal intent.
2. If someone you don't suspect of being a crook or crazy somehow gets hold of one of your firearms – whether you give it to them or you simply don't secure it to DaveBeale's satisfaction – and uses it to commit a crime, you are already pretty much screwed 16 ways to Sunday in the civil courts, if not also the criminal courts.
So what exactly is this new miraculous proposed law supposed to do...?
Regarding the OP's question, "How to deter a gunman intent on suicide?", the answer is, it's easy to do; but unlikely to happen:
1) disallow media playing, replaying the broadcasts (removes the motivation for 15 minutes of fame).
2) remove pistol-free zones (increases probability that "someone" may be able to stop the attack).
Doc2005
1) disallow media playing, replaying the broadcasts (removes the motivation for 15 minutes of fame).
2) remove pistol-free zones (increases probability that "someone" may be able to stop the attack).
Doc2005
Mongo the Mutterer
Member
Grey54956 said:
Very well said. I might steal that one from time to time, if you don't mind.
Reply to Robert
Robert, I'm not focusing on the gun because it's the most important factor. It may not be. I'm focusing on it because it seems to be the easiest element to eliminate from the situation. All the others that you correctly cite involve the killer's mind. I don't know how to fix that.
All true, but a teenager is more likely to find an unsecured gun in an American house than an unsecured airplane or bomb.
I've never claimed that my proposal would completely eliminate the problem. But I do believe it would help.
Just for the sake of argument (please don't flame me for this premise), let's assume that every gun in America is kept locked up. Are you suggesting that this would not eliminate a single murder and/or suicide?
My proposal isn't meant to affect the behavior of the gunman; he may be beyond hope. It's intended to influence the gun's owner, by motivating him to keep the gun secured.
I've always admitted that I'm new to guns, and don't have a lot of experience with gun politics. But for 51 years, I've been living in the same country, reading the same newspapers and voting in the same elections as most of you.
FWIW, I agree that the civil liability of having an unsecured gun used in a crime helps to accomplish the same thing as my proposed law. And there's no doubt that the media attention on mass killings is a major contributor to the problem.
Robert, I'm not focusing on the gun because it's the most important factor. It may not be. I'm focusing on it because it seems to be the easiest element to eliminate from the situation. All the others that you correctly cite involve the killer's mind. I don't know how to fix that.
All true, but a teenager is more likely to find an unsecured gun in an American house than an unsecured airplane or bomb.
I've never claimed that my proposal would completely eliminate the problem. But I do believe it would help.
Just for the sake of argument (please don't flame me for this premise), let's assume that every gun in America is kept locked up. Are you suggesting that this would not eliminate a single murder and/or suicide?
My proposal isn't meant to affect the behavior of the gunman; he may be beyond hope. It's intended to influence the gun's owner, by motivating him to keep the gun secured.
I've always admitted that I'm new to guns, and don't have a lot of experience with gun politics. But for 51 years, I've been living in the same country, reading the same newspapers and voting in the same elections as most of you.
FWIW, I agree that the civil liability of having an unsecured gun used in a crime helps to accomplish the same thing as my proposed law. And there's no doubt that the media attention on mass killings is a major contributor to the problem.
sacp81170a
Member
Ahh, the fallacy of bifurcation. What you're talking about is the infringement of every law abiding citizen's right to defend themselves based on the theory that it's justified if it prevents even one murder or suicide.
Bzzzzt. Wrong answer. There are societies where guns are strictly regulated that have higher suicide rates than the U.S. Japan is an example. Where firearms are not as available, different instrumentalities are chosen.
There are societies where guns are strictly regulated that have higher murder rates than the U.S. There are societies where guns are strictly regulated that have far higher violent crime rates than the U.S. They're getting ready to ban fake swords in merrie olde England, for goodness' sake.
In contemplating a massive infringement of the rights of law abiding citizens, it's up to you to provide proof that the benefit would in fact accrue in the first place. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
LeoC
Member
Like all laws, I think the proposal to keep guns locked up at all times could work in an ideal situation. That being:
- Firearms locks can only be opened by the owner of the firearm. The locks are not bypassable by any sort of combination that can be guessed, stolen, or forced from the owners. They must not use keys that can be stolen/copied/replicated. They must be mechanically invincible. That way, people bent on mayhem cannot possibly get to the guns.
- All people, law abiding and non law abiding, will keep their firearms locked at all times.
Perhaps my reply sounds facetious, but the fact needs to be pointed out that locks are not magic talismans. Determined (or even extremely curious) people can find ways around them.
But I do also concede that arming everybody cannot PREVENT such mass murders from happening again. A suicidal killer won't be deterred by an armed populace. It will only reduce the number of casualties before the killer ultimately kills himself (ref. recent church shootings stopped by CCW holder).
In my unqualified opinion, the most effective way to actually PREVENT such things would be to create an extremely powerful DETERRENT. Poster Gunkrazy45's (Post #16) idea to sounds like a great one:
- Firearms locks can only be opened by the owner of the firearm. The locks are not bypassable by any sort of combination that can be guessed, stolen, or forced from the owners. They must not use keys that can be stolen/copied/replicated. They must be mechanically invincible. That way, people bent on mayhem cannot possibly get to the guns.
- All people, law abiding and non law abiding, will keep their firearms locked at all times.
Perhaps my reply sounds facetious, but the fact needs to be pointed out that locks are not magic talismans. Determined (or even extremely curious) people can find ways around them.
But I do also concede that arming everybody cannot PREVENT such mass murders from happening again. A suicidal killer won't be deterred by an armed populace. It will only reduce the number of casualties before the killer ultimately kills himself (ref. recent church shootings stopped by CCW holder).
In my unqualified opinion, the most effective way to actually PREVENT such things would be to create an extremely powerful DETERRENT. Poster Gunkrazy45's (Post #16) idea to sounds like a great one:
This would require a fundamental change in media 'reporting' of such events. If our mainstream news media truly were interested in stopping such tragedies from happening again, they would stop giving such killers the fearmongering attention that motivates them in the first place. The solution is in the hands of our mass media, we can only hope they will do the right thing.
Robert bifurcated the issue by stating that my proposal "couldn't possibly work". He didn't say it infringed gun rights. He said it wouldn't work. I was just disputing his objection.
Comparing the suicide and murder rates in different cultures is apples and oranges. In culture, Japan is about as far from the US as you can get. My question was, what would happen to those rates in this country if all guns were locked?
average_shooter
Member
Possibly, we would see a rise in homicide due to nobody having effective tools for self-defense readily available.
But everything (what would happen, what could happen, what-if this, what-if that, etc) is speculative.
True stats seem to suggest that those who are willing, able and prepared to defend themselves are much more likely to survive a violent encounter.
Zundfolge
Member
Its not speculative. There are several parts of the US that HAVE 'locked up all the guns" (DC, NYC, Chicago, etc) and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has seen a rise in violent crime and murder, whereas the many parts of this country that have "unlocked all the guns" and "untied the hands of the law abiding" have seen their violent crime and murder rates fall.
That's more than speculation.
At any rate, the Suicidal Mass Murderer isn't in it for the suicide first ... his goal is to create mayhem, kill a lot of people and then die in the end ... he sees his death as "worth it" for all the mayhem and death he creates.
If more of these guys meet a swift end, before they've achieved their goals of lots of death, then their death in the end is pointless. If their death in the end is pointless, then the whole darn thing is pointless. THAT is how CCW helps to prevent mass shootings (as postulated by John Lott). Add the insult of this shooter being stopped by a girl and you deflate the ego of the shooter and by extension those that see his actions as heroic.
The root of mass shootings is ego and narcissism fueled by hate, not just a simple psychotic or homicidal impulse.
average_shooter
Member
Zundfolge- True enough. I meant more that "what might happen if (any particular) law is passed?" tends to be speculative. However, with my last line I intended to indicate that, in fact, in many cases we see that less guns = more crime.
If a person is determined to commit mass murder, what will he do with a locked gun? He will defeat the lock, clearly.
Let's go back and explore your safe storage law idea. How will this law be enforced? How will you deal with those who don't know about the law, don't care about it, or refuse to comply? Will you send law enforcement into the homes of Americans to inspect their guns, and arrest them in their own homes? Shall you require all guns to be stored in a government armory? Of course not; you said you wanted to prosecute the owner of the gun after a tragedy occurred. That's worth highlighting; the legal action occurs after the fact. This is always the case because the legal system is reactive, not proactive.
So do you deny that your proposed law is a purely reactive mechanism and has no power to prevent a shooting?
Please read about the legal doctrine of negligent entrustment, and how it may apply to incidents involving firearms misuse. Since you admit that imposing civil liability is adequate, and since negligent entrustment has been a part of common law in the U.S. for over a century, kindly explain why you feel current legal doctrine is inadequate to address your concerns, and why additional laws are necessary.
Robert Hairless
Member
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- Oct 11, 2003
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I don't intend to rebut everything in your logic, mainly because there's no point to it. You know what you think, you know you're right, and you also know that I just don't get what you're saying. You're smart; I'm dense.
Some of what you say, though, reveals such extreme ignorance that it's easy to correct. In fact it's not true that "a teenager is more likely to find an unsecured gun in an American house than an unsecured ... bomb." Any teenage nut knows how to make a bomb in a few minutes from materials more readily available than any gun. Here's one way:
You can turn the Molotov Cocktail into the equivalent of a Napalm bomb with the addition of readily available household items, but of course that takes the additional effort of reaching into the pantry or under the kitchen sink, and you want me to stick to real easy.
There are lots of other ways, each and every one of them easier to acquire and more deadly than any gun. Timothy McVeigh murdered a lot of people with a van packed with fertilizer and gasoline. The only teenage lunatic who doesn't know how to do such things is a pathetic creature indeed.
It's also easy to respond to your rhetorical question: "Just for the sake of argument (please don't flame me for this premise), let's assume that every gun in America is kept locked up. Are you suggesting that this would not eliminate a single murder and/or suicide?"
If you're sufficiently rational to understand that neither you nor I nor Sarah Brady can possibly know what does not happen, that's not only what I am suggesting but what I am saying. If every gun in America is kept locked up--let's go further and say "if every gun in America were melted into scrap, and all the guns in the rest of the world too"--this would not eliminate a single murder and/or suicide. Not one.
Of course it would eliminate every single murder and/or suicide by gun, because if there aren't any nobody could kill anyone with one. The proof of that proposition is that no one has ever committed murder and/or suicide by unleashing a winged demon of the night. No demon, no deaths by demons. So if your goal is to prevent murders and/or suicides with guns as the instrument, you might be able to do that with enough time, money, troops, and brutality. I don't think you can do it, because I don't think you or the devine Sarah can put the genie back in the bottle, but I admit the possibility.
I don't know why you would want people murdering other people or killing themselves with gasoline, rocks, knives, cars, ropes, assorted plumbing fixtures, poisons, or any other instruments as the weapons, but there's no accounting for tastes.
I'd prefer that people not murder other people, and it pains me to think of anyone in such despair that suicide seems preferable to life, but you say you don't know how to prevent that and want to prevent their access to guns instead because you think you know how to do that.
Which reminds me of the drunk who was found scrambling around a street corner under a lamp post in the dark hours of the morning:
That's what you're doing, Dave. You can't address the problem so you'll address part of a symptom and call it good enough.
You see the guns as the problem because that's what you expect to see and what you have been taught to see.
Can't you possibly understand that nobody here wants to kill anyone else, that nobody here is stupid, and that you are not the smartest guy here? Really you're not. If anything you proposed had any merit at all--even the chance of saving lives--most of us would have proposed it long before you did and we would be supporting it with all our might.
We value life more than most other people and we want people to live. That--despite Sarah Brady, Carolyn McCarthy, Michael Bloomberg, Chuck Schumer, and all the rest--is a major reason why most of us own guns. It's not to kill people. It's to prevent murders and suicides and other horrors.
It's a bit scary to see that you actually think that the parents of these suicidal teenagers could prevent them from getting access to guns if only those parents were more responsible. There's serious disconnect here. These are the same parents who were unable or unwilling to prevent those same kids from becoming suicidal teenagers.
And you want to penalize me if your kids get access to my possessions on the screwball theory that if they were successful in stealing my stuff it's my fault for not protecting it well enough. If trigger locks, gun safes, and magical encantations fail do you want me to kill a teenager who gets at my stuff? Are you truly out of your mind? I won't do it.
I believe you when you say "for 51 years, I've been living in the same country, reading the same newspapers and voting in the same elections as most of you." But breathing, reading, and voting don't get you extra credit when you don't know what you're talking about.
You just don't know what you're talking about--nothing at all about the subjects you attempt to address--and you're lecturing an awful lot of people who do know. If you can't have knowledge or good sense, at least show some humility. You're addressing an audience that includes lawyers, judges, physicians, psychologists, law enforcement, teachers, and many other people who know what they are doing. Ask the questions but stop fighting the answers.
Spend more time with your receiver, less time with your transmitter, and soak up as much learning as you can. The High Road is a superior forum, good for learning. I still retain some small hope that you can learn. Go into firearms learning mode instead of software engineering mode.
Some of what you say, though, reveals such extreme ignorance that it's easy to correct. In fact it's not true that "a teenager is more likely to find an unsecured gun in an American house than an unsecured ... bomb." Any teenage nut knows how to make a bomb in a few minutes from materials more readily available than any gun. Here's one way:
- From the trash you gets yourself a big glass bottle;
- From a shirt you tears yourself a long piece of cloth;
- From a car you gets yourself enough gasoline to fill the bottle;
- You fills the bottle with the gasoline, you rolls the torn cloth and stuffs it into the mouth of the bottle, and what you have is a Molotov Cocktail.
- When you gets to where you want to kill a lot of people you lights the cloth, which is now a fuse, and you quickly throws it at the people or anything else you wants to destroy.
You can turn the Molotov Cocktail into the equivalent of a Napalm bomb with the addition of readily available household items, but of course that takes the additional effort of reaching into the pantry or under the kitchen sink, and you want me to stick to real easy.
There are lots of other ways, each and every one of them easier to acquire and more deadly than any gun. Timothy McVeigh murdered a lot of people with a van packed with fertilizer and gasoline. The only teenage lunatic who doesn't know how to do such things is a pathetic creature indeed.
It's also easy to respond to your rhetorical question: "Just for the sake of argument (please don't flame me for this premise), let's assume that every gun in America is kept locked up. Are you suggesting that this would not eliminate a single murder and/or suicide?"
If you're sufficiently rational to understand that neither you nor I nor Sarah Brady can possibly know what does not happen, that's not only what I am suggesting but what I am saying. If every gun in America is kept locked up--let's go further and say "if every gun in America were melted into scrap, and all the guns in the rest of the world too"--this would not eliminate a single murder and/or suicide. Not one.
Of course it would eliminate every single murder and/or suicide by gun, because if there aren't any nobody could kill anyone with one. The proof of that proposition is that no one has ever committed murder and/or suicide by unleashing a winged demon of the night. No demon, no deaths by demons. So if your goal is to prevent murders and/or suicides with guns as the instrument, you might be able to do that with enough time, money, troops, and brutality. I don't think you can do it, because I don't think you or the devine Sarah can put the genie back in the bottle, but I admit the possibility.
I don't know why you would want people murdering other people or killing themselves with gasoline, rocks, knives, cars, ropes, assorted plumbing fixtures, poisons, or any other instruments as the weapons, but there's no accounting for tastes.
I'd prefer that people not murder other people, and it pains me to think of anyone in such despair that suicide seems preferable to life, but you say you don't know how to prevent that and want to prevent their access to guns instead because you think you know how to do that.
Which reminds me of the drunk who was found scrambling around a street corner under a lamp post in the dark hours of the morning:
A cop asks "What are you doing?"
The drunk replies "Looking for my keys. I dropped them."
The cop responds "I don't see any keys here."
To which the drunk says, "I know I dropped them in the middle of the block, but the light is better here."
The drunk replies "Looking for my keys. I dropped them."
The cop responds "I don't see any keys here."
To which the drunk says, "I know I dropped them in the middle of the block, but the light is better here."
That's what you're doing, Dave. You can't address the problem so you'll address part of a symptom and call it good enough.
You see the guns as the problem because that's what you expect to see and what you have been taught to see.
Can't you possibly understand that nobody here wants to kill anyone else, that nobody here is stupid, and that you are not the smartest guy here? Really you're not. If anything you proposed had any merit at all--even the chance of saving lives--most of us would have proposed it long before you did and we would be supporting it with all our might.
We value life more than most other people and we want people to live. That--despite Sarah Brady, Carolyn McCarthy, Michael Bloomberg, Chuck Schumer, and all the rest--is a major reason why most of us own guns. It's not to kill people. It's to prevent murders and suicides and other horrors.
It's a bit scary to see that you actually think that the parents of these suicidal teenagers could prevent them from getting access to guns if only those parents were more responsible. There's serious disconnect here. These are the same parents who were unable or unwilling to prevent those same kids from becoming suicidal teenagers.
And you want to penalize me if your kids get access to my possessions on the screwball theory that if they were successful in stealing my stuff it's my fault for not protecting it well enough. If trigger locks, gun safes, and magical encantations fail do you want me to kill a teenager who gets at my stuff? Are you truly out of your mind? I won't do it.
I believe you when you say "for 51 years, I've been living in the same country, reading the same newspapers and voting in the same elections as most of you." But breathing, reading, and voting don't get you extra credit when you don't know what you're talking about.
You just don't know what you're talking about--nothing at all about the subjects you attempt to address--and you're lecturing an awful lot of people who do know. If you can't have knowledge or good sense, at least show some humility. You're addressing an audience that includes lawyers, judges, physicians, psychologists, law enforcement, teachers, and many other people who know what they are doing. Ask the questions but stop fighting the answers.
Spend more time with your receiver, less time with your transmitter, and soak up as much learning as you can. The High Road is a superior forum, good for learning. I still retain some small hope that you can learn. Go into firearms learning mode instead of software engineering mode.
Robert Hairless
Member
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- Oct 11, 2003
- Messages
- 3,983
Now you go too far, Dave. I have never bifurcated in my life. If anything got bifurcated it was someone else who did it and I was somewhere else at the time. And I have the witnesses to prove it.
For starters, Dave, you really need to do some reading. Start with Massad Ayoob's In the Gravest Extreme and read it for his thinking and principles, not for details that have been made obsolete by the passage of time. Jeff Cooper's work is often sensible and always readable: read it for Cooper's spirit.
Sooner or later--preferably before you continue to tell us how things are in your imaginative world--you need to read John Lott's More Guns Less Crime. It's full of all sorts of dull statistics that a software engineer might find interesting. But read it for the method and for the findings, the conclusions.
And watch your mouth about that bifurcation stuff.
It was previously proposed that a muzzle on the media in regards to naming/discussing/expounding on the crime/background/etc. of mass murderers for the purpose of denying their desired 15 minutes of fame is a trampling of the first amendment.
Trampling is not the word I would use. The rights of free speech and free press are not absolute. You cannot yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just to see what the reaction will be. The press cannot write anything they want, regardless of the truth (see Carol Burnett vs.The National Enquirer). The free speech and free press rights are limited when the exercise of those rights steps on various other rights.
Well, actually, you can yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, and the press can write anything they like. And the first and fourteenth amendments guarantee that the federal and state governments cannot stop it from happening. However, those amendments also do not prevent consequences from accruing to the perpetrators. If you yell "FIRE!" when there is no fire, you can be arrested and charged with several crimes, and be held liable for injuries sustained in the ensuing mad exit. Libel, slander and defamation of character charges for publishing unfounded rumors and outright lies carry severe penalties, both criminal and civil.
However, keeping this to the topic at hand, if publishers could somehow be held liable for inciting copycat instances by continually harping on some new aspect of a previous tragedy (ie: giving the 15 minutes of fame), perhaps the reporting would drop to a reasonable level.
It doesn't prevent the reporting of the event. But the publishers would have to review their reporting policies to simply report the news, once or twice, then move on to the next story. Not sure if it could be made to work, but what we currently have is not making any of us safer.
Trampling is not the word I would use. The rights of free speech and free press are not absolute. You cannot yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just to see what the reaction will be. The press cannot write anything they want, regardless of the truth (see Carol Burnett vs.The National Enquirer). The free speech and free press rights are limited when the exercise of those rights steps on various other rights.
Well, actually, you can yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, and the press can write anything they like. And the first and fourteenth amendments guarantee that the federal and state governments cannot stop it from happening. However, those amendments also do not prevent consequences from accruing to the perpetrators. If you yell "FIRE!" when there is no fire, you can be arrested and charged with several crimes, and be held liable for injuries sustained in the ensuing mad exit. Libel, slander and defamation of character charges for publishing unfounded rumors and outright lies carry severe penalties, both criminal and civil.
However, keeping this to the topic at hand, if publishers could somehow be held liable for inciting copycat instances by continually harping on some new aspect of a previous tragedy (ie: giving the 15 minutes of fame), perhaps the reporting would drop to a reasonable level.
It doesn't prevent the reporting of the event. But the publishers would have to review their reporting policies to simply report the news, once or twice, then move on to the next story. Not sure if it could be made to work, but what we currently have is not making any of us safer.
Robert Hairless
Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2003
- Messages
- 3,983
Cpaspr is on target about copycat murders.
John Fowles' novel The Collector is known to be directly responsible for at least five serial murderers and forty murders so far. We might want to consider a law punishing all authors, publishers, booksellers, and libraries that make available any book, magazine, or newspaper and did not take reasonable care to prevent access by a psycopath who later commits a crime traceable to that book. Are book locks, book safes, background checks, and simple psychological testing of readers too much to ask of those irresponsibles if we can save innocent lives by forcing them to be more responsible? I think not.
No compulsion would be used so the choice is theirs: all society will do is punish them if a crime is committed that can be traced back to one of their dangerous publications and they have not exercised the measures dictated by the law. This is perfectly fair and reasonable. If they don't do anything wrong they have nothing to worry about.
If all of the media are subject to similar laws it should be possible to at least reduce mass murders/suicides too. Robert A. Hawkins, the 19-year-old who murdered eight people before killing himself in the Westroads Mall at Omaha, Nebraska, earlier this month is an example of the teenage gunman intent on suicide that DaveBeale's proposed new law is intended to stop by punishing other people for making possible what Hawkins did.
Hawkins left behind a suicide note. "Hawkins said in the note he loved his friends and family, but 'he was a piece of s--- all his life, and now he'll be famous,' she [Hawkins' landlady] told CNN." Hawkins counted on the media to make him famous for murdering people in the mall.
If we are truly concerned with saving people's lives we should have similar laws that penalize malls and shopping centers that do not take reasonable precautions--codified in laws, of course--to prevent murders on their premises. In 2007 alone there have been at least four multiple murders of this same kind so far: in Omaha, Salt Lake City (Utah), Kansas City (Missouri), and Douglasville (Georgia). There might have been more. We don't know how to prevent people from murdering others but we do know how to shut down malls and shopping centers. Who dares argue that malls and shopping centers are more important than shoppers and other people. Again, there would be no punishment for shopping centers or malls in which no murders take place or for those that take suitable precautions to prevent them. Hawkins was recorded by the mall's security camera. The mall did not have a SWAT team ready to stop him. So maybe everything Hawkins did was at least partly the mall's fault and somebody elses' too.
John Fowles' novel The Collector is known to be directly responsible for at least five serial murderers and forty murders so far. We might want to consider a law punishing all authors, publishers, booksellers, and libraries that make available any book, magazine, or newspaper and did not take reasonable care to prevent access by a psycopath who later commits a crime traceable to that book. Are book locks, book safes, background checks, and simple psychological testing of readers too much to ask of those irresponsibles if we can save innocent lives by forcing them to be more responsible? I think not.
No compulsion would be used so the choice is theirs: all society will do is punish them if a crime is committed that can be traced back to one of their dangerous publications and they have not exercised the measures dictated by the law. This is perfectly fair and reasonable. If they don't do anything wrong they have nothing to worry about.
If all of the media are subject to similar laws it should be possible to at least reduce mass murders/suicides too. Robert A. Hawkins, the 19-year-old who murdered eight people before killing himself in the Westroads Mall at Omaha, Nebraska, earlier this month is an example of the teenage gunman intent on suicide that DaveBeale's proposed new law is intended to stop by punishing other people for making possible what Hawkins did.
Hawkins left behind a suicide note. "Hawkins said in the note he loved his friends and family, but 'he was a piece of s--- all his life, and now he'll be famous,' she [Hawkins' landlady] told CNN." Hawkins counted on the media to make him famous for murdering people in the mall.
If we are truly concerned with saving people's lives we should have similar laws that penalize malls and shopping centers that do not take reasonable precautions--codified in laws, of course--to prevent murders on their premises. In 2007 alone there have been at least four multiple murders of this same kind so far: in Omaha, Salt Lake City (Utah), Kansas City (Missouri), and Douglasville (Georgia). There might have been more. We don't know how to prevent people from murdering others but we do know how to shut down malls and shopping centers. Who dares argue that malls and shopping centers are more important than shoppers and other people. Again, there would be no punishment for shopping centers or malls in which no murders take place or for those that take suitable precautions to prevent them. Hawkins was recorded by the mall's security camera. The mall did not have a SWAT team ready to stop him. So maybe everything Hawkins did was at least partly the mall's fault and somebody elses' too.
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