CONNECTICUT SHOOTING

author=harmonic
And what works for the rest of the world will not necessarily work here. This country is not only enormous and diverse, but it is rather unique. I am sick to death of hearing a European talk about how something worked for their 2-mile-long country with a population of 500,000 and a military budget of 0. The USA is not only geographically huge, but it is a world-spanning empire and a "federation" style government, as in, decentralized power structure in government. It's like saying what's best for the rowboat is best for the 100,000 ton luxury liner.

You may be right banning guns would have a harder chance of succeeding in America, but that is not due it's size. If you see different states as separate countries, you could try implementing it on a state level. The problem would be with the ginormous amount of guns you'd have to find and get rid of. Big countries can have gun laws and not be pure chaos, just look at Australia.

Also, world-spanning empire? 100,000 ton luxury liner? Nationalism isn't going to make America a safer place.

Well, that paragraph had 'America is great' written all over it.

author=harmonic
Do you have a problem with me thinking my own country is great? Do you think your country is great?

No and no. I'm just saying while discussing how to reduce crime we shouldn't be defensive. Also, every country has its flaws, so does mine, but let's not go there.

author=harmonic
World-spanning empire. Are you saying it's not? Even the most ignorant, anti-American drooling idiot would have to acknowledge that America is a superpower and its influence reaches everywhere. It's a fact, not an opinion.

I never said America doesn't influence almost the entire world, I was merely stating that it sounded nationalist.

It would be that "find and get rid of part" that would cause a big problem for me. I own firearms that, for the most part, have been handed down in my family for years. I have a rifle my grandfather brought back from WW2, and a shotgun that has been in the family since he was my age, to say nothing of the sentimental value behind the first rifle my father taught me to shoot. I even have a Musket propped up in my living room.

I had a friend, his wife, and their teenage sons over for Thanksgiving. We spent most of the afternoon teaching the kids how to shoot rifles and shotguns. When one of the kids said he'd never fired a gun before, I responded "I used to be like you, then I entered first grade." I wasn't just quoting Sledge Hammer, I was telling the truth.

My father took pride in being a good shot, and from an early age I was taught to respect firearms as well as how to properly use them, at least after I gave my parents no other choice. My mom didn't want me to have any toy guns, but it wasn't long before I started making them out of legos. When I finally got a toy gun, I remember taking it on a fishing trip and playing cowboys and indians along the shore(or something) since I didn't have much interest in fishing. I remember showing my dad that when I fired the little projectile, it made a sound against a cement block. Before we left, my father took out a .357 magnum handgun he carried (and was licensed to, for his protection when he was at his security job, and for our protection when he wasn't) and shot the cement block. Vaporized would be a more appropriate term. I had stark visual reinforcement that toys could be guns, but that guns were not toys. Guns were serious, no matter what side of one you happen to be on at the moment.

By the time I was ten, the grouping on my targets from the range with both pistols and rifles was equal to, or better than in some cases, some of my father's cop friends' scores.

I wouldn't pick up a gun in anger to go kill a bunch of people. I was raised better than that, literally.

Coming at this from another angle, the shooter instead of the shooting iron, so to speak - I remember what it was like around my high school in the wake of the Columbine massacre. Because I tended to dress in dark clothes, listened to aggressive music, and had disciplinary problems on my record, you might expect I was on the receiving end of some profiling. In retrospect, I probably was. Of course, I was also an insider. I was far enough ahead on credits that I had two blocks where I worked as an assistant in the front office for the dean and later vice principal. I remember hearing walkie talkie chatter as they kept tabs on some of my friends as well as some other kids. The shortsightedness of it astounded me. Being a rural school, I knew of past occasions where seniors who drove had parked on the lot with hunting rifles behind the seat of their trucks. The kids in the cowboy hats and tight jeans (of whom firearm ownership was pretty much a given) weren't on the watch list, but transfer students from larger cities and almost any kid who dressed in a lot of black was.

The vice principal, who had been my favorite teacher when I was still a freshman, gave me the keys to the kingdom, in a way, when she explained what highschool was really about and why kids like Klebold and the other one missed the point. Schools are where kids learn, but also where they learn to grow their social skin. You get bullied, you bully, you spread rumors, you become the butt of jokes, you make jokes at the expense of others. You experience, in handy microcosm format, the entire rest of your life.

The people who snap under that pressure would have no way of handling adult life, with the additional considerations that brings. It is easy to place the blame on the system, on schools, but they are only a small part of a child's day. Parents need to be more engaged, and they need to realize that both through deed and instruction, they are the children's first and foremost teachers.

As much of an easy target as First Person Shooters would be, I don't believe in censoring/prohibiting violence in video games either, beyond the controls already in place with the rating system (which should be enforced.) The prohibited material will always exist, in some form or another. It is up to parents/teachers/etc to give it context.

I remember watching tv in the early 80's, a re-run of the Equalizer or something. The bad guy had just been killed off on another show. I asked my dad about it, and he said, "Real life isn't like tv. If someone gets killed, they don't get to come back next week with a different name and life story. They die."

The true enemy of desensitization (to violence and anything else), is context.

author=Sailerius
That "quick fix" seemed to work everywhere else in the world. People who make this argument never seem to realize that other countries have made the same laws that are being discussed here and it worked.

What about the 22 children stabbed at an elementary school in China?

author=Killer Wolf
What about the 22 children stabbed at an elementary school in China?

As noted earlier, none of those children died. While people do die in the knife attacks that go on in China, it's a lower fatality rate than assaults with guns.

author=kentona
ps. "Irregardless" is not a word

Kenton, you know that it's wrong, stop arguing with me because I'm me. Stop encouraging bad grammar.

where does the notion that 'more guns will make it better' come from?

A gun defender and lover, living in total defiance of the human race, well, that's an unexpected Killer Wolf..! (sorry, off topic).

I don't really see my stance as total defiance of the human race, then again I'm the one standing here so my perspective might be a bit different.

While I believe some people can have a spectacular capacity for kindness and generosity, I'm just as sure there will always be others who would find ways to commit atrocities no matter how many laws are drafted to prevent it.

The bottom line, for me at least, is that in tragedies like these, guns are an easy scapegoat.

They are a place to lay the blame. "If there weren't any guns, these things wouldn't happen!" It is a way for the world to make sense again. "If only the profanity of firearms were removed, there would never be another senseless killing."

To me, it is like people searching for vast conspiracy theories to explain other horrendous crimes. If there is a plan, an order to everything, than you are still safe. Even if you can't trust the government, you are safe because there is a plan. Terrible things happen, but at least it is according to a plan.

As long as there are horribly broken human beings whose minds can justify or rationalize the type of action taken by these spree killers, terrorists, and cowards, these things will continue to happen.