An American Response to Censorship

Indeed that is a waste. Though I'm not sure where you were coming from posting this.

If it was to highlight suicide with a gun as a problem, there are plenty of other methods that young woman could have used that would have been just as effective in taking her own life. Would have been somehow less tragic if she took a whole bottle of a relative's blood pressure medication?? The gun did make it relatively easy, unfortunately, but other methods that are even more readily available these days are much easier since they require even less mindful action on the part of the individual. That's not to mention the fact that some of those methods often end up simply putting one into sleep from which they don't wake up. That certainly seems like a more peaceful way to go than a traumatic injury caused by a high velocity projectile (which could also leave someone severely maimed instead of dead).

If you were trying to infer the guilt she felt was for not being able to stop the parkland shooting from at least being as serious as it was, you need to consider a major factor. The overwhelming majority of law abiding gun owners are just that, law abiding. Survivor's guilt is unfortunately something a survivor often has to deal with. Considering there are laws against students from carrying firearms (even if they are legally eligible under their state/local laws outside of school), she would have had to break the law at either a very specific and serendipitous time, or more likely every day, in order to have had a weapon that could have assisted her in trying to stop the shooter. The likelihood of an otherwise law abiding gun owner actually breaking the law and carrying a firearm into a "gun-free zone" (once again, if she was even eligible to carry it outside of the school) with that frequency or at that specific moment are slim to none.

Either way, it seems a bit underhanded to bring that situation up as an example of responsible citizens being armed not preventing someone from being harmed.

Regardless of the reasons why some people want to harm themselves and/or others, or even if there truly is a lack of willingness to address what may be the real cause of this type of behavior, the fact is these people exist. Until we get past these tendencies these will always be tragic situations that lead to loss of life because of a crazed or psychotic individual. I myself would rather not need to rely on others to stop an immediate threat. If you feel better relying on others, that's your decision. There's absolutely no logical argument against any living beings "God given" or "natural" right (take your choice) to defend themselves within their best abilities. It just so happens that humans have proven to be very adept at building and using tools (which is all a gun happens to be). As such, I'll err on the side of caution and make sure I have the best tool available to defend one's self besides a functioning mind (which I tend to have with me at most times anyway), a gun.

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Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

Unfortunately, here is one example of how a good guy (girl) with a gun couldn't stop a bad guy with a gun, one year later:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...erself-n986266

Sometimes the monster gets inside your child's head, and then all the deterrence in the world won't help. What a horrible waste.

I fail to see your point. She didn't have a gun, now did she? And why is that, do you suppose? Do you think things might have turned out differently had she had one on her at that time?

As quoted in that article:

But her mother, Cara, told CBS Miami that her daughter was struggling with her college classes because classrooms now scared her.

Emphasis added.

"Classrooms now scared her." Why is that, do you suppose? Why would she feel any less scared any where else?

Could if possibly be that the "gun free zones" foisted on students have now made them the equivalent of being fish in a barrel for whacked out shooters? Shooters who have known all along that it was highly unlikely they would face any substantial resistance or defense against them? And these kids KNOW it?

I'm glad I don't have kids. Were they school age, I would have to make other arrangements rather than to expose them to being defenseless targets mandated by law.

Originally Posted by wvaherp

Either way, it seems a bit underhanded to bring that situation up as an example of responsible citizens being armed not preventing someone from being harmed.

I wasn't trying to be underhanded at all; I was trying to point out that sometimes the 'good guy/bad guy' understanding of a firearm-related situation isn't very useful.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Do you think things might have turned out differently had she had one on her at that time?

Yes, differently and almost certainly better in most ways.

I was listening to a podcast today ('Invisibilia') that contained a story about a guy who was a hostage negotiator. He recounted a case in which a crazy ex-husband took his ex wife and his seven year old son hostage. Anyway, tense buildup to the end where the guy had the woman by the hair with a gun to her head and his son somehow strapped to him and a SWAT sharpshooter shot the guy in the head, and the son and the ex wife were unharmed, physically.

I thought about that kid. Scary to think myself into his shoes. SWAT saved his life, and that's good, but here's my thought: focusing on gun control isn't going to help that boy (maybe if the wife had a gun, sure, but still -- that poor kid i that incredibly hellish family). Yes, a gun saved his life, but to lose a parent that way...

I'm not trying to say law-abiding stable people shouldn't have as many guns as they want. They should, and the Constitution guarantees it. I've made the point here that banning things doesn't work, and usually makes the problem worse.

I just think that all parties to the political discussion have an interest into figuring out what our problems are (our problem isn't guns) and fixing them. I lean left (pretty far, really), and I think think the left's gun control fetish is bound to fail, and while it is failing it will damage a lot of people through creating resentment, and through omitting to address the real (psychosocial) problems that a certain percentage of people have. The gun rights vs gun control debate is a smokescreen that is blinding us from doing real good.

I think gun owners would like the crazies to stop getting in the news with their irresponsible use of guns as much as anyone, so I think I'm on your side. Guns are like reptiles, I think: the more bad stories about them stay out of the news, the better off the owners of them are.

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

I wasn't trying to be underhanded at all; I was trying to point out that sometimes the 'good guy/bad guy' understanding of a firearm-related situation isn't very useful.

I agree that it isn't always so "black and white" of an issue, but I still maintain that's not a very good or clear example if you want to talk about a "firearm-related situation."

There are far too many factors in that story we don't and will never know. In fact, I think you could remove firearms entirely from that entire scenario and end up with the same result for that unfortunate and understandably traumatized girl.

My point is really that the situations where a "good guy," and more specifically a civilian, with a gun prevent an atrocity (whether it be small or large scale) happen with more frequency than most realize. While it's dangerous to assume you won't have to fire if you draw your weapon, many cases dont even make the local newspaper because it's barely a blip on law enforcement's radar when someone backs down from a show of force like that. Even more telling is that when someone does prevent what would have been a large-scale shooting by using their personal weapon, it gets about 5 minutes of air time on any national news networks and is quickly forgotten or dismissed as a fluke by those who wish to restrict gun ownership.

I fully agree (as I made clear before) that banning most things has the opposite of the (claimed) desired effect. I also believe I see where you're going with some of this in from a wider perspective of violence and mental health issues. The trouble is, the only options I can see from a governmental perspective to address these things are excessively slippery slopes that lend themselves to massive abuse by not only the bureaucrats handling the day-to-day operations of whatever agency is handling enforcement, but politicians with desires to target those they don't agree with.

As you can probably tell, I'm more of a "traditional conservative" type that has a healthy distrust for overreaching power (which should be a very easy thing for most reptile owners to understand and sympathize with, similar to what you said in your reply to Rich).

Honestly, I dont really have any fool proof answers as to what should be done to prevent mass murder, but I firmly believe there's no way to legislate our way out of these issues. I think the best we can do is try to be good people. Part of that, in my opinion, is looking out for the safety of ourselves and others. I truly and fully believe this is the best we can do as human beings. There will always be unintended consequences to any action taken, large or small. Those consequences often grow in scale proportionally with the scale of the action, thus my belief that this isn't something that can be handled by actions like sweeping regulations or laws of any kind. It can only be handled by trying to make the best possible decisions and being decent human beings on all of our parts if we hope to not make things exponentially worse.

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I think the more sensible people talk to each other, Chase, the more we find we agree, at least on the important things

We (I) pretty much hijacked Melinda's thread... I hope she's OK with how the discussion is turning out. (Couldn't find a thanks/sorry emoji...)

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

I think the more sensible people talk to each other, Chase, the more we find we agree, at least on the important things



We (I) pretty much hijacked Melinda's thread... I hope she's OK with how the discussion is turning out. (Couldn't find a thanks/sorry emoji...)

Not sure how sensible either of us are in many people's eyes... Lol. But I do think it helps illustrate that common ground can be found when people try to have a civil and half-way intelligent conversation (especially when the ones conversing seem to have had what your username refers to in their head on the subject at hand prior to the conversation). I'm of the mind that the lack of such conversations is where most of the issues we're dealing with in this country have come from. Agreement isn't even necessary, to be honest. Just being able to wrap your head around the fact that other people think differently and often have fully justified reasons for doing so (though logic does seem to be lacking in many people's justifications, lol) and being able to accept that. Then again, I think I just defined "sensible" or "reasonable" in this context...

Nice chatting, though. I'm positive that if Melinda disapproved (whether personally or as a moderator) of the hijack, she would have already chimed in.

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Well, as someone who owns a business licensed to manufacture and sell firearms I obviously have my own thoughts on the topic.

I did read the shooter's manifesto, the distribution of which has also been outlawed in NZ, and found most of it drivel. If anything I think that to truly address the crime and violence problems in our society, we have to take a hard look at how we deal with the mentally ill, but no one wants to do that because it will mean spending money on expanding diagnosis and treatment programs rather than prisons.