School Shooting in Connecticut

Off Topic
161

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:

[quote]butcherman7 wrote:

[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:

[quote]howie424 wrote:
Why do things like this happen? I just don’t understand. Do we blame guns?[/quote]

Because there are crazy and evil people.

Guns are no more at fault than a fork made Rosie Odonnel fat.[/quote]

^^well said[/quote]

No we can’t blame guns. On the other hand, if the perpetrator only had a knife…[/quote]

The fallacy though is equating gun control with this guy not having a gun. I could go get meth and a hooker in fucking 45 minutes for Christ’s sake. Unfortunately that means I really don’t know the answer to people like this shooter :frowning:

162

[quote]cwill1973 wrote:

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:

[quote]butcherman7 wrote:

[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:

[quote]howie424 wrote:
Why do things like this happen? I just don’t understand. Do we blame guns?[/quote]

Because there are crazy and evil people.

Guns are no more at fault than a fork made Rosie Odonnel fat.[/quote]

^^well said[/quote]

No we can’t blame guns. On the other hand, if the perpetrator only had a knife…[/quote]

[/quote]

so, are you saying less people would be injured/dead?

163

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:

[quote]butcherman7 wrote:

[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:

[quote]howie424 wrote:
Why do things like this happen? I just don’t understand. Do we blame guns?[/quote]

Because there are crazy and evil people.

Guns are no more at fault than a fork made Rosie Odonnel fat.[/quote]

^^well said[/quote]

No we can’t blame guns. On the other hand, if the perpetrator only had a knife…[/quote]

The fallacy though is equating gun control with this guy not having a gun. I could go get meth and a hooker in fucking 45 minutes for Christ’s sake. Unfortunately that means I really don’t know the answer to people like this shooter :([/quote]

You have an excellent point. But in this particular case, the guns he acquired were his mother’s, which he then used to blow her brains out.

If she doesn’t legally own two handguns then her son can’t steal them from her and then kill her and 25 other innocent people with them.

If prostitution and crystal meth were legal you could go get both in 5 minutes, not 45 minutes.

164

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I never went deeply into the issue but can’t really come up with a good reason for giving the average Joe the right to arm himself.
[/quote]

Well thankfully our Constitution was not drafted by people like you. [/quote]

Actually, it was drafted by people like him, specifically James Madison.

The original intent of the 2nd Amendment was simply to allow for public armories that could arm a militia in the event of invasion or something along those lines. It was not intended to allow for every citizen to privately arm himself against other citizens. Madison knew that many anti-Federalists would be suspicious at best of a large, federal standing army, so the 2nd Amendment provided for each state to have an armory that could arm the populace in times of insurrection.

Up until about the 1960’s or 1970’s even gun rights advocates and the NRA did not fight to allow automatic or semiautomatic assault weapons into the hands of citizens. The NRA didn’t lobby against the ban of automatic weapons early in the 20th century, nor did they fight against banning carrying concealed weapons. Shit, carrying concealed weapons was outlawed throughout most of the country even as far back as the early 19th century, including today’s ardent gun-control-opposed states like Texas, Alabama and Kentucky.

And up until the early 1970’s people rarely, if ever, challenged the 2nd Amendment’s language. In U.S. v. Miller the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the 2nd Amendment did not apply to private citizens but only to the right of the public to provide for individual states’ protection in the form of a well-regulated militia or other such armed forces.

In the 1970’s, as a reaction to the liberalizing times, people’s individual rights became a large political issue. Turning the 2nd Amendment into a matter of private gun ownership rights distorted the actual intent of the Amendment and turned it into a political issue that conservatives could hang their hats on, since liberals seemed to have monopolized most of the other individual rights issues.

It’s the conservative version of judicial activism, in a way. The language of the first section of the 14th Amendment, along with some other areas of the Constitution, has been liberally interpreted to mean that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” somehow confers upon women the right to abort children. In much the same way, the language of the 2nd Amendment has been liberally interpreted to mean that “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” confers upon people the right to own any and all sorts of assault weapons for recreational purposes.

I love guns. I own three 12 gauge shotguns (Weatherby, Remington and Browning), a S&W .500 Magnum (instant erection when that big fucker comes out of its case) and an old snubnosed S&W .357 Magnum. I like shooting them, a lot. It’s one of the simplest, purest forms of recreation there is.

But at some point we need to ask ourselves if this sort of fun is a right or a privilege. I think in light of this latest tragedy it’s an entirely appropriate time to examine the issue further. And clearly, a conservative interpretation of the Constitution reveals that we have never really had the “right” to privately arm ourselves for recreational purposes. I prefer a more liberal interpretation, but liberal interpretations can go too far, as I feel the Court went with Roe v. Wade and now with its protection of expanded gun rights. Because that IS what has happened. Our gun ownership rights have been liberally interpreted and have expanded every decade, with little lasting contraction, since the 1970’s.

And let’s not forget that guns aren’t the final factor here. Crazy, disillusioned, maladjusted cowards are the REAL problem here. But you know what? A disillusioned coward with mommy and daddy issues with a knife or a baseball bat who is hellbent on killing a lot of people simply aren’t going to kill as many people as a disillusioned coward with two handguns and two 20-round clips or a fucking assault rifle.[/quote]

This might be the best post I’ve ever read on this site. Well done.

165

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

And let’s not forget that guns aren’t the final factor here. Crazy, disillusioned, maladjusted cowards are the REAL problem here. But you know what? A disillusioned coward with mommy and daddy issues with a knife or a baseball bat who is hellbent on killing a lot of people simply aren’t going to kill as many people as a disillusioned coward with two handguns and two 20-round clips or a fucking assault rifle.[/quote]

What could possibly prevent somone this disillusioned from getting those handguns or assault rifles? New more restrictive gun laws? Banning them altiogether? I think not. They will find a way.

166

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I never went deeply into the issue but can’t really come up with a good reason for giving the average Joe the right to arm himself.
[/quote]

Well thankfully our Constitution was not drafted by people like you. [/quote]

Actually, it was drafted by people like him, specifically James Madison.

The original intent of the 2nd Amendment was simply to allow for public armories that could arm a militia in the event of invasion or something along those lines. It was not intended to allow for every citizen to privately arm himself against other citizens. Madison knew that many anti-Federalists would be suspicious at best of a large, federal standing army, so the 2nd Amendment provided for each state to have an armory that could arm the populace in times of insurrection.

Up until about the 1960’s or 1970’s even gun rights advocates and the NRA did not fight to allow automatic or semiautomatic assault weapons into the hands of citizens. The NRA didn’t lobby against the ban of automatic weapons early in the 20th century, nor did they fight against banning carrying concealed weapons. Shit, carrying concealed weapons was outlawed throughout most of the country even as far back as the early 19th century, including today’s ardent gun-control-opposed states like Texas, Alabama and Kentucky.

And up until the early 1970’s people rarely, if ever, challenged the 2nd Amendment’s language. In U.S. v. Miller the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the 2nd Amendment did not apply to private citizens but only to the right of the public to provide for individual states’ protection in the form of a well-regulated militia or other such armed forces.

In the 1970’s, as a reaction to the liberalizing times, people’s individual rights became a large political issue. Turning the 2nd Amendment into a matter of private gun ownership rights distorted the actual intent of the Amendment and turned it into a political issue that conservatives could hang their hats on, since liberals seemed to have monopolized most of the other individual rights issues.

It’s the conservative version of judicial activism, in a way. The language of the first section of the 14th Amendment, along with some other areas of the Constitution, has been liberally interpreted to mean that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” somehow confers upon women the right to abort children. In much the same way, the language of the 2nd Amendment has been liberally interpreted to mean that “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” confers upon people the right to own any and all sorts of assault weapons for recreational purposes.

I love guns. I own three 12 gauge shotguns (Weatherby, Remington and Browning), a S&W .500 Magnum (instant erection when that big fucker comes out of its case) and an old snubnosed S&W .357 Magnum. I like shooting them, a lot. It’s one of the simplest, purest forms of recreation there is.

But at some point we need to ask ourselves if this sort of fun is a right or a privilege. I think in light of this latest tragedy it’s an entirely appropriate time to examine the issue further. And clearly, a conservative interpretation of the Constitution reveals that we have never really had the “right” to privately arm ourselves for recreational purposes. I prefer a more liberal interpretation, but liberal interpretations can go too far, as I feel the Court went with Roe v. Wade and now with its protection of expanded gun rights. Because that IS what has happened. Our gun ownership rights have been liberally interpreted and have expanded every decade, with little lasting contraction, since the 1970’s.

And let’s not forget that guns aren’t the final factor here. Crazy, disillusioned, maladjusted cowards are the REAL problem here. But you know what? A disillusioned coward with mommy and daddy issues with a knife or a baseball bat who is hellbent on killing a lot of people simply aren’t going to kill as many people as a disillusioned coward with two handguns and two 20-round clips or a fucking assault rifle.[/quote]

167

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

And let’s not forget that guns aren’t the final factor here. Crazy, disillusioned, maladjusted cowards are the REAL problem here. But you know what? A disillusioned coward with mommy and daddy issues with a knife or a baseball bat who is hellbent on killing a lot of people simply aren’t going to kill as many people as a disillusioned coward with two handguns and two 20-round clips or a fucking assault rifle.[/quote]

What could possibly prevent somone this disillusioned from getting those handguns or assault rifles? New more restrictive gun laws? Banning them altiogether? I think not. They will find a way. [/quote]

Dude, the guy used legally-bought guns to kill those children. He had two handguns and a semiautomatic assault rifle that his mother had legally purchased. I just saw on the news a few minutes ago that he had also tried to buy a gun on Tuesday. Had he gone to a gun show instead of a gun store he WOULD have bought another gun and he might have used it to kill even more children.

Tighter gun laws won’t erase the threat entirely, but it can help. That kid would have had to go through the black market or whatever to get his hands on those sorts of guns, and that gives people like the FBI or ATF a chance to catch him trying to purchase illegal firearms and prosecute him before it ever gets to the point that it got to yesterday morning.

Like I said earlier, I love guns and I own two that would probably be banned under harsh gun-control laws, if not all of them. I don’t like that possibility at all. But you know what? If taking away my guns can give kids like the ones whose lives ended yesterday ANY sort of chance of living, if that gives law enforcement ANY sort of extra opportunity to catch sickos like Lanza, then I’ll gladly turn them in. I’m not going to turn them until then though.

I agree. People like Lanza will find a way to get guns. So let’s make it harder to get them.

168

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

And let’s not forget that guns aren’t the final factor here. Crazy, disillusioned, maladjusted cowards are the REAL problem here. But you know what? A disillusioned coward with mommy and daddy issues with a knife or a baseball bat who is hellbent on killing a lot of people simply aren’t going to kill as many people as a disillusioned coward with two handguns and two 20-round clips or a fucking assault rifle.[/quote]

What could possibly prevent somone this disillusioned from getting those handguns or assault rifles? New more restrictive gun laws? Banning them altiogether? I think not. They will find a way. [/quote]

Its funny how tens of thousands of deaths occur in the USA each year due to hand guns and it does not have any relation to the gun laws the USA currently has… (not saying its the ONLY factor, but you’re blind if you don’t believe it isn’t part of the problem)

Edit: DB, good post.

169

I didn’t read the thread, but I figure it has devolved in to a typical “gun rights/ban” thread.
I expect the usual retards to come out of the woodworks.

I bet some of those retards saying WELL WE DON’T NEED ASSAULT RIFLES or AUTOMATIC RIFLES.
No, we don’t need them.

However, I’d like you to consider the type of firearms used in school shootings and rampages. Then I’d like you to realize that 99.999% of these incidents involve semi-automatic handguns, SA rifles and/or shotguns.

I do not recall there ever being any sort of fully automatic rifle or pistol being used during these school shootings.

In which case, what exactly is the point of saying automatic weapons should be banned, despite their availability, when they are (pretty much) never used to perpetrate school shootings?

Do you morons not realize that handguns are actually way more dangerous than fully automatic rifles?
Even gang on gang crimes are predominantly handguns perpetrated.

FUCK!

170

[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
I didn’t read the thread, but I figure it has devolved in to a typical “gun rights/ban” thread.
I expect the usual retards to come out of the woodworks.

I bet some of those retards saying WELL WE DON’T NEED ASSAULT RIFLES or AUTOMATIC RIFLES.
No, we don’t need them.

However, I’d like you to consider the type of firearms used in school shootings and rampages. Then I’d like you to realize that 99.999% of these incidents involve semi-automatic handguns, SA rifles and/or shotguns.

I do not recall there ever being any sort of fully automatic rifle or pistol being used during these school shootings.

In which case, what exactly is the point of saying automatic weapons should be banned, despite their availability, when they are (pretty much) never used to perpetrate school shootings?

Do you morons not realize that handguns are actually way more dangerous than fully automatic rifles?
Even gang on gang crimes are predominantly handguns perpetrated.

FUCK![/quote]

Maybe you should read the actual thread before coming on here and calling everyone’s arguments in it ignorant. You stupid, motherfucking inbred piece of shit.

No one in here is arguing about automatic weapons in specific; we’re arguing about assault weapons in general. The kid had two handguns and a semiauto assault rifle. You know why gang-related shootings are primarily carried out with handguns and not fully auto assault rifles? Because it is extremely difficult to get your hands on a fully auto assault weapon in this country, legally or otherwise.

And I think that is at least anecdotal evidence that making guns harder to obtain gives children like the 25 that are dead in CT a chance to live. I’m sorry pal, but those kids’ right to life FAR outweighs my “right” to own and responsibly use my guns.

171

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I never went deeply into the issue but can’t really come up with a good reason for giving the average Joe the right to arm himself.
[/quote]

Well thankfully our Constitution was not drafted by people like you. [/quote]

Actually, it was drafted by people like him, specifically James Madison.

The original intent of the 2nd Amendment was simply to allow for public armories that could arm a militia in the event of invasion or something along those lines. It was not intended to allow for every citizen to privately arm himself against other citizens. Madison knew that many anti-Federalists would be suspicious at best of a large, federal standing army, so the 2nd Amendment provided for each state to have an armory that could arm the populace in times of insurrection.

Up until about the 1960’s or 1970’s even gun rights advocates and the NRA did not fight to allow automatic or semiautomatic assault weapons into the hands of citizens. The NRA didn’t lobby against the ban of automatic weapons early in the 20th century, nor did they fight against banning carrying concealed weapons. Shit, carrying concealed weapons was outlawed throughout most of the country even as far back as the early 19th century, including today’s ardent gun-control-opposed states like Texas, Alabama and Kentucky.

And up until the early 1970’s people rarely, if ever, challenged the 2nd Amendment’s language. In U.S. v. Miller the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the 2nd Amendment did not apply to private citizens but only to the right of the public to provide for individual states’ protection in the form of a well-regulated militia or other such armed forces.

In the 1970’s, as a reaction to the liberalizing times, people’s individual rights became a large political issue. Turning the 2nd Amendment into a matter of private gun ownership rights distorted the actual intent of the Amendment and turned it into a political issue that conservatives could hang their hats on, since liberals seemed to have monopolized most of the other individual rights issues.

It’s the conservative version of judicial activism, in a way. The language of the first section of the 14th Amendment, along with some other areas of the Constitution, has been liberally interpreted to mean that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” somehow confers upon women the right to abort children. In much the same way, the language of the 2nd Amendment has been liberally interpreted to mean that “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” confers upon people the right to own any and all sorts of assault weapons for recreational purposes.

I love guns. I own three 12 gauge shotguns (Weatherby, Remington and Browning), a S&W .500 Magnum (instant erection when that big fucker comes out of its case) and an old snubnosed S&W .357 Magnum. I like shooting them, a lot. It’s one of the simplest, purest forms of recreation there is.

But at some point we need to ask ourselves if this sort of fun is a right or a privilege. I think in light of this latest tragedy it’s an entirely appropriate time to examine the issue further. And clearly, a conservative interpretation of the Constitution reveals that we have never really had the “right” to privately arm ourselves for recreational purposes. I prefer a more liberal interpretation, but liberal interpretations can go too far, as I feel the Court went with Roe v. Wade and now with its protection of expanded gun rights. Because that IS what has happened. Our gun ownership rights have been liberally interpreted and have expanded every decade, with little lasting contraction, since the 1970’s.

And let’s not forget that guns aren’t the final factor here. Crazy, disillusioned, maladjusted cowards are the REAL problem here. But you know what? A disillusioned coward with mommy and daddy issues with a knife or a baseball bat who is hellbent on killing a lot of people simply aren’t going to kill as many people as a disillusioned coward with two handguns and two 20-round clips or a fucking assault rifle.[/quote]

Before I read any further, I just wanted you to know that this is by far one of the best posts I’ve read concerning this topic. And I’m not just referring to this recent incident, I’m referring to all the others like it. Well done!

172

[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
I didn’t read the thread, but I figure it has devolved in to a typical “gun rights/ban” thread.
I expect the usual retards to come out of the woodworks.

I bet some of those retards saying WELL WE DON’T NEED ASSAULT RIFLES or AUTOMATIC RIFLES.
No, we don’t need them.

However, I’d like you to consider the type of firearms used in school shootings and rampages. Then I’d like you to realize that 99.999% of these incidents involve semi-automatic handguns, SA rifles and/or shotguns.

I do not recall there ever being any sort of fully automatic rifle or pistol being used during these school shootings.

In which case, what exactly is the point of saying automatic weapons should be banned, despite their availability, when they are (pretty much) never used to perpetrate school shootings?

Do you morons not realize that handguns are actually way more dangerous than fully automatic rifles?
Even gang on gang crimes are predominantly handguns perpetrated.

FUCK![/quote]

So would you then advocate the banning of hand guns?

173

Is there not some storage law for firearms as well? As hard as they may be to enforce here in Canada you must have a trigger lock (or some kind of mechanical mechanism to prevent firing) and locked up in a gun cabinet or separate room. I bought my dad a gun case that has him have a trigger lock, breaks the barrel off the gun and the case locks as five separate points.

RCMP can knock on your door and ask “How is your gun storage today?” without notice if they suspect anything etc. It was quite easy for myself to buy a gun for my dad through the mail once I had my license to do so. However, only hunting rifles and shotguns with a five clip max only semi-auto.

What this adds to the debate, I’m not sure.

174

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
If prostitution and crystal meth were legal you could go get both in 5 minutes, not 45 minutes.[/quote]

I’m not sure this matters in the long run though. I mean, sure it could have been harder for him to acquire the guns, but he still could have gotten them. What would the difference be? 20 kids dieing on Dec. 17th instead of Dec. 14th?

175

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
If prostitution and crystal meth were legal you could go get both in 5 minutes, not 45 minutes.[/quote]

I’m not sure this matters in the long run though. I mean, sure it could have been harder for him to acquire the guns, but he still could have gotten them. What would the difference be? 20 kids dieing on Dec. 17th instead of Dec. 14th?[/quote]

I could obviously go with the cheesey line that the parents would have had 3 more days with their children, but I don’t even really believe that’s much of an argument. I’m Canadian and don’t really want to even get involved in a gun debate with a board ripe with Americans.

177

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
If prostitution and crystal meth were legal you could go get both in 5 minutes, not 45 minutes.[/quote]

I’m not sure this matters in the long run though. I mean, sure it could have been harder for him to acquire the guns, but he still could have gotten them. What would the difference be? 20 kids dieing on Dec. 17th instead of Dec. 14th?[/quote]

If it’s legal, then there isn’t nearly the impediment to acquiring drugs and guns and hookers and high-octane meth (these are a few of my favorite things) that there is otherwise.

Look, no rational person here thinks that tight gun-control laws are going to completely erase these sorts of threats. There is nothing that people or legislators can do/enact that will entirely eliminate the threat that people like Lanza represent.

However, you would have to be pretty ignorant to think that tighter gun-control legislation won’t lessen the chances of tragedies like yesterday’s.

Let’s deal with a hypothetical here, shall we? Let’s say that Lanza decides that he just HAS to kill a LOT of people. Let’s assume that handguns and/or assault rifles are banned in this country. How the hell is he going to get one? Does anyone here really think that these sick fuckers who commit these sorts of crimes have legitimate access to the underground, black market for assault weapons?

And even if they did have access to the black market, that also puts them squarely in the crosshairs (no pun intended) of the FBI or ATF or perhaps even Homeland Security. The point is that making it harder to acquire these sorts of things, along with illegalizing them, also increases the chances that the guy can get caught.

And if he decides that it just isn’t feasible to try and acquire a bunch of guns thru the black market, then he may go another route. Perhaps he chooses to try and blow up the school or something like that. Well, in a post-9/11 country it’s going to be virtually impossible to acquire enough knowledge or enough equipment to blow up an entire school without attracting the attention of the Homeland Security Dept.

Sure, it may just mean that 20 kids die on the 17th instead of the 14th, but a lot can happen in those 72 hours.