An opinion on gun control

A lot of these problems are caused by the survival of premature babies who would never have survived in the past. A large minority grow up mentally abnormal. It can be argued that nature knows what it's doing.

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Reply to
harry
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I would not call someone who decides to commit a massacre "level headed". And there is a distinction between being crazy to the point that you don't know right from wrong and just having a mental illness. The Aurora guy was seeing a psychiatrist, so he must have had some mental problems. Perhaps in time we'll find out what exactly they were.

The problem with that would seem to be that I haven't seen evidence that these latest folks who committed these acts felt their lives have been wasted and that they are a failure.

Reply to
trader4

e quoted text -

Following your argument, then insanity would be an immediate and airtight defense in any trial for a mass murderer. They, by definition, would be insane and could not be found guilty. Clearly that is not the way the legal system works because the world doesn't use your definition. And I'm sure if you look at the long' list of defendants that have faced trial for mass murder, you will find plenty that were judged sane and then tried and found guilty.

Reply to
trader4

" snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net" wrote in news:068519b7-d365-4a93- snipped-for-privacy@eo2g2000vbb.googlegroups.com:

Yes, and it probably should be, too -- at least in jurisdictions such as Indiana, in which "not guilty by reason of insanity" hasn't been an option since about 1975 (Google "Tony Kiritsis" to find out why; the law here was modified in the wake of that case). Now, if the accused's sanity is questionable, an Indiana jury can return a verdict of "guilty but insane", and the person is sent to a mental hospital for the same length of time he would spend in prison if he were sane; if he is later found to be sane, he spends the remainder of the time in prison.

It works that way in some (but IMHO not nearly enough) parts of the world; see above re Indiana.

And plenty that were judged insane, too.

But all that is beside the point. You're missing the subtext here, trader. There's a hidden agenda behind the declaration that mass murder is a "rational" act: if it's rational, then

*anyone* is a potential mass murderer. In this scenario, then, since potential mass murderers cannot be trusted with firearms, and all of us are potential mass murderers, then confiscating firearms is justifiable.
Reply to
Doug Miller

Indiana, in which "not

(Google "Tony Kiritsis"

if the accused's

insane", and the

spend in prison if he

time in prison.

Doug, I am not sure that's the precise outcome of the Kiritsis case, which was a quite sensati>

There's a good summary of the changes brought about by public reaction to the Hinckley case here:

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My, what a surprise. (-: He often misses the plain text, too.

Given that 44 of the most recent 62 mass killers were white men, I could point to a few eternally bellicose people posting here that I wouldn't trust with a burned out match, let alone a Beretta. It's really just simple arithmetic. Look at the numbers - how many shooters (62) out of say 150 million Americans capable of committing these acts - and then how many of them have turned out to have severe mental or medical problems (Texas Tower shooter Charles Whitman, one of the very first mass shooters had a brain tumor).

The remarkable intersection of those two universes implicates mental illness pretty thoroughly. It's clear someone who goes on a shooting rampage like Whitman's isn't faking mental problems. He's the real deal and his case strongly infers that others who commit similar crimes suffer from similarly serious mental impairments.

The only people that can believe most mass shooters are sane are those that have never had real contact with the severely mentally ill or are buying into what appears to be the latest round of NRA propaganda. For several years prior, Loughner had displayed signs of serious mental illness, including outbursts during his high school classes and complaints about voices in his head. Nevertheless, he was able to stroll into a Sportsmen's Warehouse in Tucson and purchase a weapon and ammunition legally.

It seems confiscation is the only way to keep guns out of the hands of people like Adam Lanza but that horse left the barn a long time ago. Barring a second Civil War where the outcome results in pacification of the losers by confiscation, it's not going to happen. The saddest part of that conclusion is that I am not convinced we'll be able to avoid a second Civil War. The US is getting more polarized and less polite by the day.

I believe the relevance of the Kiritsis decision today is a bad one for gun advocates. It once again proved, like the 1934 National Firearms Act, that people demand changes to even long-standing laws when their sensibilities have been offended. People on both sides get infuriated, often due to the media's saturation coverage and editorializing. Unfortunately Newtown has made a lot of people angry. Angry enough to upset the current status quo.

I've seen what happens to parents that have to bury their children. It's the worst reversal you can encounter in life. It shatters many families beyond repair. I can almost guarantee that one or more of those mothers will preserve their child's bedroom just as it was on the fateful day for years and years to come. One mom sat in her murdered son's favorite chair, wearing his jacket and weeping every night. One of the LIRR shooting widows won a seat in Congress on a gun-control platform.

Polls shows that a majority of Americans favor bans on high-capacity ammunition mags and military-style assault weapons. A huge majority - 74 percent in a recent Washington Post/ABC News survey -also say it is "acceptable" to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year.

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I suspect that many arch-conservatives are going to end up being as disappointed over new gun controls as they were over Obama's re-election. And the coming increase in taxes.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Having talked with most of the main players over my years as a PsychRn in Indy, I can state that there was, indeed, a cause-and-effect relationship. FWlittleIW

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

A libertarian solution, at least.

Reply to
krw

What are you dribbling on about? After we had sorted out Napolean, we drove you out of Washington and burned the place down. The commander of the British army sat in the White House and ate the US president's dinner. Then he burned it down. Meanwhile all the yellowbelly Yanks had run. We let you keep the fetid place because we had no use for it.

Boy they teach you some funny history lessons where ever you were educated.

Oh, it was Hollywood! They never made an epic John Wayne film about the sack of Washington. Funny that eh?

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Reply to
harry

A significant number of individuals still drive without licenses, training or testing. If you check you'll find that driving is not a protected right under US law.

Uninsured motorist are and have been a significant problem for years.

I have an 1853(?) muzzel loader. There have been signifant improvements in that technology. (hint there is no safty) I also have a WWII M1 which likewise has had signifant improvements in subsiquent designs. There is a safty but you can get a bad case of M1 thumb if you're not paying attention.

That liability still applies what does not apply in either case is when the appliance is operated in accordance with the intended purpose. If a car you are operating runs over someone's foot you can be sued as can the car manufacture. The case against you will survive summery the case against the car manufacture won't.

Just did.

Reply to
NotMe

"harry" <

It's you are the stupid one. Thick as pitch comes to mind. Owning a gun is no defence against getting shot. Any aggressor can choose his time and place.

{{

There is some truth to what you say but my owning a gun does improve the odds in my favor. I'm reminded of the weeks following Katrina where we had do-bads from out of town the came with the intend of looting and were not opposed to home invasions.

Several years back my

Reply to
NotMe

drop

If nobody had a gun, there would be no issue. Americans can't grasp the fact that even illegal gun ownership here is insignificant. Virtually no-one is interested in owning a gun in the UK. We have more intellectual pursuits.

Reply to
harry

With all the radical Islamists allowed into The U.K. you can be morally superior in the knowledge that you eschew owning an evil gun to defend yourself with while some Muslim wacko cuts your head off because it thinks you somehow offended Islam. It's so enlightened of you to give away your cities to throngs of thugs who have no compunction about obeying any laws restricting any weapons which they use on you modern, superior, ultra-civilized people. Your sacrifice to civility will be a great source of pride for those visiting your grave site and monument. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

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Reply to
Winston Churchill

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SHHHHH! You'll give Harry a stroke, he can't handle the truth. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

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Right - if you make guns really really hard to get people will just move to knives, socks full of quarters, whatever. Tendency towards violence is somewhat independent of weapon ownership. I would ask if you wanted to ban sharp knives but we're already moving in that direction! (I'm in the US not the UK)

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

But not killed. Dead is permanent.

Reply to
harry

Harder to kill people with those weapons.

Reply to
harry

This thread has now surpassed the 305 post mark.

Does anyone in here feel that further discussion/argument is going to resolve this issue?

Put guns in the same bag as abortion and capital punishment. It's a problem with no good solution. And, feeble minds like ours aren't going to find a solution either.

Hopefully, in future, technology will provide some solution that we can all live with.

PS: The 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine when to two doctors who were able to produce stem cells from fully differentiated adult cells. This, it is hoped, will end up paving the way to produce stem cells for treating a myriad of medical problems like spinal cord injuries without having to go through that "life begins at conception, and therefore stem cells are people" road block that caused problems for researchers in this field up until now. The problem isn't that researchers as so ethical that they feel that using a stem cell to do anything except create a new life is unethical, it's because abortion is a political football and no politician wants to commit to providing money and grants to researchers who are doing work that the anti-abortionists disapprove of. They're too big a voting block. So, there's no money for research unless you can get around the "using stem cells to repair spinal cords is denying the stem cell the potential of becoming a human being, and that smells just like abortion." argument put forward by the anti-abortionists. They can't use that argument is the stem cell was previously a blood cell.

Reply to
nestork

Time to get rid of all guns and the second ammendment too.

Reply to
tmurpha1hi

Troll score: 0/10

Reply to
krw

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