Bowling for Columbine

[Chewbacca]

I'm for responsible, reasonable, fair gun control via leglislation (kinda like it is now I think in most cases, though I'm not an expert) and responsible gun makers via customer demand. Though if gun owners don't succeed in influencing gun-makers to make better, "smarter" guns then leglislation is a last resort.

"No guns" is not a realistic feasible solution here in the U.S. now or in the forseeable future. in my opinion. Note I say this as a hard-core pacifist who has never even so much as fired any gun and has only held a gun, a .44 magnum handgun, once in my life.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: quote: It's a governmental advocacy of murder.

This would be the third time I explained how this is false and is a clever attempt to frame the issue in an incorrect way. It would be the third time you in particular and others in general would have to admit the argument does not logically apply, but that you were nevertheless against the death penalty. This would be the third time.... if I were to bother. However, I won't, because everyone conveniently forgets losing the argument before and lets their brains slide back into these simple (but incorrect) little phrases that help them mentally box the world into compartments in their mind.

It is, however, a strong testament to the power of prejudice and already-held beliefs to remain in place even when confronted with overwhelming evidence/logic to the contrary.

Note that I'm not saying I can beat you on a death penalty argument overall. I simply point out that I have roundly trounced this "state-sponsored murder" argument time and time again, and if you can't learn from previous lessons, you won't learn this time.

It does hurt your credibility in my eyes, though. [/QUOTE]You have never presented an argument that even resembles one that proves a death penalty is not a government murduring it's people, and therefore doesn't create a loophole of acceptability in the mind of a potential murderer that the killing is somehow justified. Not once. Zero. Zilch. I have never been convinced otherwise, which is why I will keep repeating the reality, truth and logical consequence, that:

Govt killing citizens = social moral view that death is acceptable in certain circumstances = a citizen justifying a particular circumstance as warranting death = murder scenario.

Further evidence is the reality that I just presented.

No death penalty in Canada, Japan, Germany or England. All nations Moore cited in his comparisons regarding the US 11,000 gun related deaths.

Guns
Death penalty
Violent past (Slavery, Civil war, Revolution)
Lack of social support/social programs/awareness of society
Violence in cultural expression (music/art/film/games)

All these contribute. Seems pretty clear to me. Not rocket science.

The solutions?

1.Ban guns, totally. Only for military & reserves (which any citizen can join, but which provides psych. support). Not even police should have guns, except for certain highly trained fed squads.

2.No death penalty, abortion or euthenasia. Remove any situation where the government endorses humans taking human life. I can see the slogan now:
THERE IS NEVER A REASON TO KILL. NEVER EVER.

3.Create a cultural awareness of media/artist responsibility. That society imitates art, just as art imitates society. It is cyclic. To change the cycle, the artists should initiate INFLUENCE, and DECIDE what they want their society to be like.

4.Create universal health care. Every man woman and child covered. Health becomes a generic human right.

5.Remove the culture of litigation driving medical costs up and making "culpability" a disempowering word people avoid, rather than embrace it, and the power to change that accepting blame then gives.

6.Own, accept and atone for the sins of the past. Let corporations that benefitted from slavery pay compensation. Give public apologies to Indian groups betrayed and murdered, and accord land rights where possible.

[WOLFGIR]

Well I have seen the movie as well, I liked it but found it though as a "sarcastic" piece of influential material. None the less the message it speaks is pretty obviuos regardless. Something is wrong and something needs to be done.

Comming from a country of of many hunters and ex militaries we do have alot of guns per inhabitants in Sweden. Having grown up in a home with guns I have been accustomed to them as well. But here it is a crime to keep a weapon ready for firing when you are not hunting or on a shooting range. Why?

Because the most gunkills here have been accidents.

Now USA just speaks a very clear message, and there are more countries that probably have a slight increase in gun related crimes.

I am not against weapons, but I am agaisnt weapons that are not for self defense at home. Hunting weapons, sure if you pass your tests and don't have a criminal record and hunt. Fine.

Army style weapons shouldn't be allowed though, IMVPO.

One can argue that Michael Moore is far from correct, but the point is still valid. There is an unproportionate number of gun kills.

So as someone suggested earlier on, get behind the solution and work for a better place.

[Oblivion437]

Yorick, kick the raw numbers in the ass and start using rates. The US ranks 23rd in the world for firearm homicides then, even if you count them including self defense killings.

Also, absolute pacifism is not just idealistic, it's stupid. Knowing that you're a pacifist, if I'm ever down and out, I'll figure out where you live and rob the hell out of you. I might even make multiple trips.

Also, banning firearms won't really get rid of firearms! How many times do I have to explain this? If every two-bit tool-and-dye in the Soviet Union in the 1940s' could crank out PPSh41's at acceptable speeds (and those are very good firearms. A little improficient, but most criminals don't give a damn) as well as ammunition, then it won't be a problem for a few well-disguised plants to turn out firearms and ammunition for gangster use. Al Capone hid Speakeasies and distilleries (he ran 40,000 speakeasies in Chicago at the height of his power) as little as half a block away from a police department, and only those who went there would know it was in fact a speakeasy. Suppose we were to hide the machines for making a firearm's receivers (you can use any machine you like, even do it by hand if you're so inclined) such as a stamper, and we were to start cranking out good ole reliable AK-47 parts, made to above-Soviet standard (not hard). Now, there's a whole nest of Fully automatic capable firearms (or at least their receivers) on the street. Then a precision parts maker is brought in (by whatever means, blackmail, gambling debts, business proposition) by the gangsters to start turning out all the other little bits, including the springs, milled parts, and also all the moving pieces of the internals. This same person can turn out barrels. Then we go to our friends with an injection molder, they turn out polymer stocks at an optimal rate of 4000 a day.

Now you have it, a group of experienced criminals are now heavily armed, and the populace they prey on is unarmed. After all, laws only affect the law abiding. The police forces will be practically powerless to react to a situation on the street, if some jackass with a .44 starts blasting tellers at a bank, what the hell are they going to do? Tell him to stop? Wait for him to run out of ammo on the tellers?

These two situations alone are enough, not to mention that well-made firearms are some of the longest lasting machines in the world. Any guns hidden at the time of a round-up (such a thing would be unconstitutional on the grounds of the 4th ammendment) won't be caught for a while. You might see a slight shift, but gun crime, in this country would rise meteorically and the ban will be a fruitless waste of human life. Not to mention it'll restrict liberty, and that's practically intolerable on all fronts.

Also, Yorick, there is good reason to kill. If someone goes to kill you you're just in self defense. If killing him is a necessary way to save your life well, he decided he could take yours, what's so wrong with eliminating such a presumptuous individual from your life and ours? This person is after all trying to kill you. He pays no respect to the sanctity of life, and thusly has no right to harp about his.

Another possibility: (as seen in Taxi Driver) A man gets stuck up in a store, you happen to be in the store, and you also happen to be carrying your pistol. The robber is getting antsy and is likely going to shoot the clerk out of spite. You distract him, and blast him from here to kingdom come. You've done nothing wrong. You saved an innocent man's life, by taking the life of a man who was about to commit murder, and was committing a robbery.

However, I agree that a death penalty, and government sanctioned killing, are a problem. The government is just too big and powerful right now. The CIA was formed with the expressly limited purpose of coordinating the gathering of intelligence. They had no power to gather intelligence, or compile such intelligence, nor were they supposed to have a position at the advisory table to tell the leaders of the military how to react. They did all those things. Then you get the CIA forming the OPC (Office of Policy Coordination) which was (or is, I'm not sure if it still exists) ostensibly formed for the 'coordination of office policies' but was actually the real muscle of the CIA. Hidden so thoroughly behind the political machinery that no one could find it. There's good reason to believe they made the war in Vietnam happened. 150 years ago, we didn't engineer wars. It wasn't until the Spanish American war that the big G truly became too big for their britches.

Finally Yorick, I wonder, I really wonder, do any of the corporations that profited from slavery still exist? If so, then I'd like to have an accurately computed figure on how much they owe people, especially considering that 3 (40 years) whole generations have passed now of people who don't do business with slavery-based economies.

[Azred]

Originally posted by Davros: If it were remotely possible for a dictator to seize power from the 2 party system, presumably with the backing of the US military, how effective a revolution could be staged?

You must have some sort of event or group of events in which many people are killed either on live TV or in rapid succession in several waves of attacks. These events must be attributed to a group which is not identifiable by sight and to which various current societal trends such as unemployment or "moral decay" may be attributed. This will keep everyone off-balance just enough to allow all sorts of naughty goings-on.
The problem is that no such group that currently exists. You could try "white separatists", but those groups really don't make the general populace nervous because they have had too much connection with the Nazis. No one worries about Communism anymore, "drug dealers/pushers" is too nebulous and disorganized a group to be effective, the Mafia is too stereotypical, etc.
Another problem is that there are now too many people with access to sufficient information to make them skeptics--the Internet in action. As soon as something of sufficient magnitude happens it takes only a couple of hours for the first conspiracy theories/spin to appear (how long did it take Aristide and Rev. Jackson to accuse the US of staging a coup?). Besides, it wouldn't take long to find/download satellite pictures of the location where the event is said to have happened, or find someone's picutres taken from a digital camera/phone.

The only revolutions possible anymore are good old-fashioned revolutions--a large angry mob takes to the streets (okay, okay...the Czech Velvet revolution is an execption to this "rule".) The only successful "slow" revolutions are indeed slow--you erode freedoms over the course of a couple of years and/or place many people in an ecomonic stranglehold until you are ready to strike...but this takes you down the path ending in the Illuminati. [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Yorick: 1.Ban guns, totally. Only for military & reserves (which any citizen can join, but which provides psych. support). Not even police should have guns, except for certain highly trained fed squads.

Not possible--it is too easy to buy guns illegally. For those with both patience and proper tools it would be too easy to make their own gun.

Originally posted by Yorick: 6.Own, accept and atone for the sins of the past. Let corporations that benefitted from slavery pay compensation. Give public apologies to Indian groups betrayed and murdered, and accord land rights where possible.

No. I do not now, nor will I ever, apologize or atone for the mistakes that someone else made. I wasn't there, I didn't do it, so am not culpable and feel no guilt. Nations should take the same stance. Mistakes might have been made in the past, but as long as they are not happening now then the past should stay in the past.

[Azred]

Originally posted by Oblivion437: Another possibility: (as seen in Taxi Driver) A man gets stuck up in a store, you happen to be in the store, and you also happen to be carrying your pistol. The robber is getting antsy and is likely going to shoot the clerk out of spite. You distract him, and blast him from here to kingdom come. You've done nothing wrong. You saved an innocent man's life, by taking the life of a man who was about to commit murder, and was committing a robbery.

I would have to disagree with you here. Vigilantism of this style is first-degree murder no matter how you slice it.

Yes, I am talking to you, Travis. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

[Masklinn]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: We probably would have a lot fewer murders if everyone had to get up close-and-personal with a melee weapon to kill someone else. Now, if we can just figure out how to keep criminals from getting guns. Hmmmm... don't criminals have guns in countries where guns are illegal? Who here thinks we should ban ALL guns? Who is just for responsible gun control? (we can fight about what kind another day) And who is for no gun control?

Hi TL,

Of course some criminals have guns in countries where guns are illegal. That's the point of being a criminal btw : doing illegal stuff. But the problem of countries like USA where guns are easily obtainable is that both *good* people AND criminals (and especially future possible criminals) can get guns with ease. Its a bad bad circle : criminals have guns, then ppl want guns for self-defense, so we make guns easily obtainable, then more criminals can have guns, then more ppl want guns for self-defense...ad infinitum...
The very good point of making guns illegal is that you give a very hard time to criminal_wannabes. The problem of USA, I think, is that the cycle I described above is already anchored deeply and thus very hard to break.
Or is my point totally dumb ?

(I changed btw : I am now very aware that some of my points of view are totally idealistic and just that... [img]smile.gif[/img] )

[Masklinn]

Also, absolute pacifism is not just idealistic, it's stupid. Knowing that you're a pacifist, if I'm ever down and out, I'll figure out where you live and rob the hell out of you. I might even make multiple trips.

Hi Oblivion,

Yes it's of course idealistic, no it's not totally stupid. You see, if everyone were pacifist there would be no problems at all, right ? Then, to turn everyone into a pacifist, there has to be somewhere to start right ? This somewhere is yourself. Show to others that it's possible. Just make the idea cross their mind. And also, stop being totally paranoid, that helps a lot.
Now, its not by saying that you would come rob the hell out of me that you will fix anything. In fact, by thinking the way you do and expressing it so loudly, you can only make things worse. See, when I hear you I don't wanna be a pacifist anymore. That's terribly sad. We have the duty to make this world better, not to say "its already awful, lets be awful as well". Else we re all dead meat in advance.

(LoL well ok, i didnt change that much, I'm still way too much idealistic...argh)

[skywalker]

What I want to know is: How many people in this thread are carrying a concealed firearm?

Mark

[Oblivion437]

I spend over 80% of my time indoors. That is averaged against times I get outside for whole days or whatever. Most of that time I'm spending at home. 3-4 hours of sleep a night plus just about every other moment, 7 hours of the day aside. The weekends make up for the numbers difference.

Masklinn, this world isn't THAT horrible. Horrible stuff goes on, that I'll concede, but humans are inherently human. We'll kill for what we want. You may be a pacifist, but wait until you have children and some sick piece of shit does something to one of them. All that idealism drains away before your humanity. Sure, it would be a great world where there was no violence, but let's not pretend. Let's be realistic. I'm a generally polite person and don't persue conflict, I don't precipitate violence.

My thing to Yorick was merely advertising the fact that he didn't intend to defend himself if attacked, it might not be so wise to advertise said fact on the internet.