We're violent because we don't emphasize that all life is precious and that every single man, woman, and child is created in the image of God.

I don't believe this.

Ol_Ag_02 said:

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We're violent because we don't emphasize that all life is precious and that every single man, woman, and child is created in the image of God.

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Ok, now do Europe.

Macarthur said:

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There's no single thing to point to but it is clear that we have a sickness.

This is being reported as the gun dealer that sold the gun to the kid in Uvalde. If you don't see this as a part of this sickness, you need to do some soul searching.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/nAnmjp4i1T

— Daniel Defense (@DanielDefense) May 16, 2022

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Violence and the possibility of violence is fetishized in this country it seems.

schmendeler said:

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Ol_Ag_02 said:

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We're violent because we don't emphasize that all life is precious and that every single man, woman, and child is created in the image of God.

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Ok, now do Europe.

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This is where my mind goes in this debate also. There is something unique about America that goes beyond religiosity. I'm sure there are holes to punch in the image below, but the point I think is that the number of school shootings we have compared to the rest of the first world countries is so frightening.

Macarthur said:

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I don't believe this.

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What don't you believe? That if this man had thought that all human life is precious he wouldn't have exterminated so many innocent ones.

Macarthur said:

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There's no single thing to point to but it is clear that we have a sickness.

This is being reported as the gun dealer that sold the gun to the kid in Uvalde. If you don't see this as a part of this sickness, you need to do some soul searching.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/nAnmjp4i1T

— Daniel Defense (@DanielDefense) May 16, 2022

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Well.

For starters the kid in the picture appears to have a father in his life. This man Ramos, did not.

schmendeler said:

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Ol_Ag_02 said:

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We're violent because we don't emphasize that all life is precious and that every single man, woman, and child is created in the image of God.

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Ok, now do Europe.

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Exactly.

It's a bit of an eye-roller when people cite lack of God and religiosity for the increase in school shootings. Maybe we don't value human life as much as we should, sure. But nearly every (or maybe all of them?) European country is more secular than the United States, despite the fact that some still have state churches. School shootings are a complete non-factor there.

If only I could put a finger on an obvious difference between the USA and Europe. But I just can't for the life of me think of what that difference is.

Quote:

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This is where my mind goes in this debate also. There is something unique about America that goes beyond religiosity. I'm sure there are holes to punch in the image below, but the point I think is that the number of school shootings we have compared to the rest of the first world countries is so frightening.

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it's a self created thing. We added a ripple in American culture from what happened at Columbine and the subsequent handling of it. We've created self-fulfilling effect of school shootings...and we've created the cycle of pearl clutching about school shootings.

Our culture, our desire to promote ourselves via social media, our desire to own the libs, our desire to do performative art as a basketball coach...it's all connected and it all perpetuates the cycle.

Macarthur said:

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You look at that ad in light of yesterday and this being the group that supplied the gun, and that is your takeaway?

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Yesterday was gut wrenching. I have no idea who or what Daniel defense is. The gun was supplied by a local gun shop per my understanding.

My point is that the root of gun violence like this is usually broken homes and disturbed family structures.

At the end of the day the second amendment was designed for one thing and that is a check on government. I do not trust our government to be benevolent or protect our freedoms. Within the last two years you've had government officials actively proposing to remove children from homes for failing to take a vaccine that many here probably had religious objections to.

My hope is that today those children are comforted in the presence of God. May their families find peace.

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Yesterday was gut wrenching. I have no idea who or what Daniel defense is. The gun was supplied by a local gun shop per my understanding.

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I've seen both so I guess we don't know yet, but even if they didn't, that ad should be very disturbing, Uvalde issue aside.

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My point is that the root of gun violence like this is usually broken homes and disturbed family structures.

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No argument here, but again, as the graphic showed, other countries face the same issue of broken homes and strained family structures, but it doesn't result in mass shootings.

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At the end of the day the second amendment was designed for one thing and that is a check on government. I do not trust our government to be benevolent or protect our freedoms. Within the last two years you've had government officials actively proposing to remove children from homes for failing to take a vaccine that many here probably had religious objections to.

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And here we start to get to the issue. Let me let you in on a little secret. If you and 5000 of your AR buddies got together to take our authoritarian government, I can assure you a drone would take you 5000 out in probably 10 minutes or less. This is such an assinine argument. You really think you can fight the government?

Here's another thing that bugs the hell out of me.

What are these guys doing with body armor? So no red flags should go up that somebody buys a couple of AR's, over 300 rounds of ammo and some body armor?

Macarthur said:

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Quote:

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Yesterday was gut wrenching. I have no idea who or what Daniel defense is. The gun was supplied by a local gun shop per my understanding.

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I've seen both so I guess we don't know yet, but even if they didn't, that ad should be very disturbing, Uvalde issue aside.

Quote:

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My point is that the root of gun violence like this is usually broken homes and disturbed family structures.

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No argument here, but again, as the graphic showed, other countries face the same issue of broken homes and strained family structures, but it doesn't result in mass shootings.

Quote:

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At the end of the day the second amendment was designed for one thing and that is a check on government. I do not trust our government to be benevolent or protect our freedoms. Within the last two years you've had government officials actively proposing to remove children from homes for failing to take a vaccine that many here probably had religious objections to.

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And here we start to get to the issue. Let me let you in on a little secret. If you and 5000 of your AR buddies got together to take our authoritarian government, I can assure you a drone would take you 5000 out in probably 10 minutes or less. This is such an assinine argument. You really think you can fight the government?

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We're really moving more to a politics thread at this point and you're vastly oversimplifying what a overthrow of a tyrannical government would look like, and which branches of the military and police side with which faction. But a short answer is 5000 maybe, 5MM absolutely.

Guns in a citizenry is a deterrent to government overreach and there's nothing asinine about that. Again see my point about people proposing removing children from homes by force or forcefully moving people to quarantine camps for not behaving as authorized.

Did it happen here no. Is it more likely to happen in the future with an unarmed society, absolutely, it happened in Australia. No one wants to go door to door to forcefully remove someone's child when they'll be met with firepower and a parent with nothing to lose.

Again, yesterday was terrible but policy and law shouldn't be made as the result of emotion and anger.

5 million...lol.

Yes, it's asinine. This is a fantasy world you're describing.

Macarthur said:

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5 million...lol.

Yes, it's asinine. This is a fantasy world you're describing.

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There were 230,000 members of the continental army in a population of 2.5MM that fought overthrow an oppressive government. That's 9%.

9% of 300MM is approx 27MM.
5MM is only 1.5% of the current US pop.

I'm not advocating anything, and hopefully action is never needed. I'm simply showing you why the second amendment was created.

Today sucks.

Ol_Ag_02 said:

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We're really moving more to a politics thread at this point and you're vastly oversimplifying what a overthrow of a tyrannical government would look like, and which branches of the military and police side with which faction. But a short answer is 5000 maybe, 5MM absolutely.

Guns in a citizenry is a deterrent to government overreach and there's nothing asinine about that. Again see my point about people proposing removing children from homes by force or forcefully moving people to quarantine camps for not behaving as authorized.

Did it happen here no. Is it more likely to happen in the future with an unarmed society, absolutely, it happened in Australia. No one wants to go door to door to forcefully remove someone's child when they'll be met with firepower and a parent with nothing to lose.

Again, yesterday was terrible but policy and law shouldn't be made as the result of emotion and anger.

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I think it is foolish to think that an armed citizenry is going to be used as anything other than a manipulated tool of the whichever side of the government that panders to them. And an armed citizenry certainly hasn't kept our current government from over reaching from BOTH sides of the aisle.

I like the idea of having checks on the government and I don't have any problem with private citizens owning reasonable weapons for defense. (Surely we agree to some limitations to the 2nd Amendment - no private citizen should own nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or predator UAVs.) But, I don't think gun ownership elicits the deterrent that some people think it does. If we ever elect an American Joseph Stalin and the US military is convinced to murder tens of millions of Americans. . . . then we'll need those guns. In the more likely scenario that this doesn't happen, those guns aren't deterring much.

My concern with guns as deterrent argument is that I think that rather than making us safe, our obsessions with guns is pouring gasoline on any and every situation that comes up. Road rage incidents aren't going to be made safer if everyone has a gun. Domestic violence isn't made less terrible with the addition of guns. Disturbed or unstable people aren't going to do less damage if they have access to guns. Cops in the US have to treat every suspect like they are armed to the teeth. . . . cops in other countries don't have that pressure. Sparks happen everywhere. When they happen somewhere covered in gasoline, the explosion is that much bigger. And in the worst of all cases, another civil war, our obsession with guns is going to be the difference between a couple million dead and a hundred million dead.

The whole idea of "I have muh guns to fight the tyrannical gubbment" is nothing more than a stupid fantasy, almost as stupid as Texas seceding.

It made sense in the 18th century when we were being harassed by a British monarch. But it's such a silly idea now. You have every right to protect yourself and your family but please stop it with this fantasy about you and your well armed friends overthrowing the democrats or something.

And a bunch of kids being murdered in a classroom isn't an acceptable price to pay for this fantasy.

larry culpepper said:

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The whole idea of "I have muh guns to fight the tyrannical gubbment" is nothing more than a stupid fantasy, almost as stupid as Texas seceding.

It made sense in the 18th century when we were being harassed by a British monarch. But it's such a silly idea now. You have every right to protect yourself and your family but please stop it with this fantasy about you and your well armed friends overthrowing the democrats or something.

And a bunch of kids being murdered in a classroom isn't an acceptable price to pay for this fantasy.

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And clearly, as I said a couple of times, I have no fantasies about doing anything of that.

Try and have a good day guys.

Ol_Ag_02 said:

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Macarthur said:

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There's no single thing to point to but it is clear that we have a sickness.

This is being reported as the gun dealer that sold the gun to the kid in Uvalde. If you don't see this as a part of this sickness, you need to do some soul searching.

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Well.

For starters the kid in the picture appears to have a father in his life. This man Ramos, did not.

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The Columbine shooters had active fathers in their lives. And overall violence is down over preceding generations, which suggests your preferred argument may be little leaky.

Quote:

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If we ever elect an American Joseph Stalin and the US military is convinced to murder tens of millions of Americans. . . . then we'll need those guns.

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That Stalin will likely have the support of plenty of private gun owners, making any supposed rebellion that much more unlikely to succeed while amping up the slaughter.

Ol_Ag_02 said:

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larry culpepper said:

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The whole idea of "I have muh guns to fight the tyrannical gubbment" is nothing more than a stupid fantasy, almost as stupid as Texas seceding.

It made sense in the 18th century when we were being harassed by a British monarch. But it's such a silly idea now. You have every right to protect yourself and your family but please stop it with this fantasy about you and your well armed friends overthrowing the democrats or something.

And a bunch of kids being murdered in a classroom isn't an acceptable price to pay for this fantasy.

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And clearly, as I said a couple of times, I have no fantasies about doing anything of that.

Try and have a good day guys.

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Maybe you dont, but lots of others do. It's the excuse used to justify a wild west approach to guns. Dont regulate anything, all laws are an infringement.

I can't and won't have a good day today. I'm disgusted by what happened yesterday, and by all the nutcases in leadership who still refuse to do anything about it and continuously prioritize lining their pockets with NRA money over the lives of innocent people.

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In any comparative analysis or regression modeling a social scientist will tease out different independent variables (including demographic) to see what is causing what.

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You need to be careful. A social scientist would also look at the socioeconomic elements to determine if skin color is really a factor...of it there's a disparity happening to a particular skin color in America.

Race is always hard, because sometimes race is meant all those factors rolled in, and others interpret as purely skin color.

Serotonin said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Serotonin said:

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Here's my best swag at guessing what drives the difference in homicides between the USA and EU:

• Racial differences: ~85%
• Age distribution: ~5-10%
• Gun laws/other: ~5-10%

Homicide rate:
EU: 1.23
USA: 7.80
Gap = 6.57

Homicide rate:
EU: 1.23
USA (White): 2.20
Gap = 0.97

Homicide rate:
EU (2009 when age distribution more in line with USA): 1.78
USA (White): 2.20
Gap = 0.52

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/05/21/how-america-compares-to-the-world-when-split-by-race
https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/eng/News/Data-news/Homicide-and-suicide-rates-in-the-EU-are-falling

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Why is race being used as the dividing point? What exactly is it definitive for?

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In any comparative analysis or regression modeling a social scientist will tease out different independent variables (including demographic) to see what is causing what.

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Except race is pretty useless, especially in this context.

I think people blame guns because it is an easy scapegoat, instead of looking at the fact that some kid, a real person was behind this and somehow reached a mental state where he could commit this sort of unspeakable violence.

Mental health issues are a much more complicated and difficult thing to solve than gun ownership. It is very difficult to institutionalize people and very easy to release and hope for the best.

I also think that the style of violence has changed. All the people watching these murder podcasts about heinous serial killers...most of those murders are decades ago.. people don't commit those types of crimes as much (murder/kidnapping/serial torture etc) Why? well, because society has changed. Committing one big blaze of glory action has instant gratification.