|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 17, 2012 19:17:05 GMT -5
Wrong! America enjoys a healthy murder rate Out of context quote of the day! We kill just for lulz.
|
|
|
Post by Phantom Stargrave on Dec 17, 2012 19:30:58 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Crom-Cruach on Dec 17, 2012 22:04:53 GMT -5
Honestly the "right to bear arms" is both outdated and looking at the problem from the wrong end I think.
And no, I don't think guns should be banned. As someone who enjoys sports hunting. I believe there's nothing wrong with owning a gun or using one for reasonable purposes.
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 17, 2012 22:52:42 GMT -5
Honestly the "right to bear arms" is both outdated and looking at the problem from the wrong end I think. And no, I don't think guns should be banned. As someone who enjoys sports hunting. I believe there's nothing wrong with owning a gun or using one for reasonable purposes. You seem to have a different perspective than any of us so please elaborate.
|
|
|
Post by Crom-Cruach on Dec 17, 2012 23:37:29 GMT -5
The problem isn't guns. It has been stated before, but it must be stated again: Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
The problem is two-fold: the mentality and gun culture a country has, versus where priorities are placed to ensure safety of the population.
The right to bear arms is a relic from a time when yes, people were isolated and having a gun nearby could be a necessity in certain regions. Police forces could be days away, and a person could easily find himself in a situation where he is alone with a gun. This combined with a get go mentality of individualism where the single person's right and precedence goes over the group created by the circumstances and way key points of U.S history has created a gun culture where guns and their availability has been raised to the level of sacred goose beyond reason and where there is not standardized oversight (guns laws are state dependent).
However, in the world of today. That is not the case anymore, most people live in metropolises where average respond time for police is between 5-15 minutes tops in many cases. Combined with the fact that security systems for your home and the tools to get help fast make the ownership of a gun not only not a necessity for safety, but a liability. Having a gun is no garantee whatsoever that you can effectively use it and in fact most tests of crisis situations by credible psychologists have shown that by majority, people with guns will not react in a manner that will increase their safety. Furthermore, the fact that guns are so easily accessible makes because of their state as sacred goose means that the population feels any general reasonable oversight a personal attack on their freedoms without regard to the fact that it will have no impact on their freedom or any meaningful effect to improve their safety because of the problem highlighted above (which is recorded fact by study)
The only way to curb gun violence is to crack down on misuse of guns and remove guns from their hallowed sacred halls. Owning a gun should be something you need constant reevaluation with safety courses and tests just like a vehicle or any other dangerous job (handling nuclear waste, anti-money laundering courses taken every year for bank employees in Canada) etc.
If guns were properly regulated federally and most importantly brought back to what should be their actual state of useful tools for various purposes then holy representatives of the validation of a culture. Then half the problem would be solved without having to ban guns.
Combine that with a general overhaul of the training and methods of police both in response times, tactics and a massive crackdown on illegal gun traffic and gun deaths would go significantly down.
Here in Canada, everyone can own a gun. That's a given under our laws. However you don't get to acquire one without getting first a safety license for use, then getting another license for acquisition mandated by federal police. To pass the test of the second, your criminal and mental record needs to be clean (meaning that if you have registered psychological trouble, you cannot acquire a gun).
The second portions of regulation is fairly simple. First by law you must have the means to safely store your weapons and the regulations are strict. This cuts down on gun theft as you must also present your license before any firearm or ammo purchase. Second gun use is restricted to the actual activities they should be intended for: sports hunting, target shooting etc, And there are clear laws where they may be used and how they may be legally transported. All these are there to remove the possibility of guns being used unlawfully and of guns being used in places where they may cause accident because misuse.
What is needed is not for guns to be banned. It's to put the effort of changing the mindset of the people where they are distributed, then giving law enforcement both the tools to crack down on illegal gun acquisition and use. But also creating and environment where even potential misuse and acquisition of firearms can have serious consequences both financially and penaly (in Canada if a gun used in a crime gets traced to a gun salesman who failed to do proper background check they face serious legal consequences)
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 18, 2012 6:50:20 GMT -5
You said a lot about facts from credible psychologists, where are these? I just just did a quick google and came up with several sites that contradict that statement. "gun crimes prevented by gun owners". I am sure you can find more by searching plain old crimes prevented by gun owners. Quite a few mass shootings prevented by the level-headedness of some tenacious gun owners as well.
And a response time of 5-15 minutes if not so ideal when most crimes aren't even reported until after they are committed anyway. And a security system will do nothing to prevent violent crimes. Not a thing.
I agree that more rigorous background checks must be performed before being able to purchase a gun though. I would love a crackdown on illegally purchased weapons too. You were vague about "means of transporting weapons". If that means people are no longer allowed to carry weapons on their person, I am against it.
|
|
|
Post by Supreme Marvel on Dec 18, 2012 7:59:35 GMT -5
Also how the coward p**ck got the gun in the first place was because of his mother. His mother had them and he took them. So if one person has the mentality to get a gun, then a family member or friend that doesn't of the mentality might be able to get the guns from them.
So I think family background.mental checks should also be done.
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 18, 2012 8:03:06 GMT -5
I disagree again because of the slippery slope. I think safety and proper storage when not in use would have settled that issue.Just awareness and education on firearms.
|
|
|
Post by Supreme Marvel on Dec 18, 2012 8:09:39 GMT -5
I couldn't give a damn about a slippery slope. People are not instantly grow awareness of things. People keep doing awful things like this, They need to do something so crap doesn't happen like this all the time. Or at least limit the doings of this.
America is still a kid, the adults of America need to put their foot down otherwise people will continue and the proof, check your history.
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 18, 2012 14:53:08 GMT -5
I couldn't give a damn about a slippery slope. People are not instantly grow awareness of things. People keep doing awful things like this, They need to do something so crap doesn't happen like this all the time. Or at least limit the doings of this. America is still a kid, the adults of America need to put their foot down otherwise people will continue and the proof, check your history. I know you don't care, which is why your argument cannot stand. Maybe you think taking away the rights of law abiding citizens is fine and that's too bad. It is morally and ethically wrong to reduce people's rights. You probably think people's rights to religion should be taken away. As a passionate atheist, I strongly disagree. I am well aware of American history. Taking the "stupid American" route is fine in jest but won't get you anywhere in an actual debate. I can pull up plenty dumb moves from the UK with the power of the internet too so why don't we leave the superiority out. The methods of your country are not universal, especially when it is hardly a perfect system. People will continue to do awful things even if guns were taken away. Your reasons for criminalizing the public is flawed. I don't own a gun but I will one day. Does that make me a blood thirsty animal? Too many crimes have been stopped due to gun owners, too many lives saved, and you want to prevent that? And I certainly will never take away someone's rights based on the actions of another. It is thinking like that that is getting that psycho's brother death threats.
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 18, 2012 15:51:47 GMT -5
Gun related crimes are a problem in the US, this is a fact. Considering most of them are done with illegally purchased firearms, a ban on guns will do almost nothing other than turn otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals.
The gun industry is a 31.4 billion dollar industry just from last year alone and as of 2010, 300 million guns are legally owned in America. The US population is 311,592,000+. That is nearly a gun for every living person in America. Those are just the legally owned guns.
Guns are a part of American culture as much as the katana was once part of the Japanese culture, more so in fact. You cannot take away something that big; you might as well try to ban the cell phone. All a ban would do in America is create 300 million criminals. I think the government would have a hard time prosecuting every citizen in the country.
1.1% of total applications for guns were denied during background checks between 94 and 2009 and the NRA have pushed through 99 laws in the past 4 years to make it easier to acquire a gun.
The obvious solution, since guns are such an integral part of American culture, is to simply make the wait time longer for the application process and a much more thorough background check because obviously more than 1% should have been denied.
I also believe that there should be continued courses on training and ethics for gun owners and I believe leaders of institutions should be required to carry so long as places like schools ban the carrying of guns.
You cannot simply look at the raw numbers and come to a conclusion, especially when the numbers are agenda driven. The National Defense Survey reported that defensive gun use prevented 2.5 million gun-related crimes per year in the US. That is once every 13 seconds. They also reported that about 16% of those surveyed stated that they believed they most certainly would have died had they not used their guns and a life is saved about every 1.3 minutes by a privately owned gun.
83% of this 2.5 million times, the attacker threatened or used deadly force.
92% of these cases, the gun defense was not actually used to harm or kill the attacker(s).
74% of the attackers were complete strangers to the victims. Out the window goes the myth that most gun owners will use it against family or friends…
Over 50% of these cases were against more than one attacker. So much for the argument that a gun is not necessary in protecting your life.
13.3 million total crimes stopped by guns in 2010.
Why is this crap not reported? Because it is not “newsworthy” in our era of sensationalist news media. These reports were speculated to actually be extremely conservative estimates through peer review. Peer reviews have come up with numbers that were as high as double these numbers in some cases. And these peer reviews were gun-control advocates in some cases.
There was so many more useful stats but I honestly thought the point was made and I am a lazy American so that’s good enough.
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 18, 2012 15:55:30 GMT -5
Law abiding gun owners are the vast majority, it is the criminal/insane few that cause the problems. No man of reason will try to punish the innocent just to punish the evil.
|
|
|
Post by Supreme Marvel on Dec 18, 2012 16:44:21 GMT -5
Religion affects people but it doesn't point a gun and kill people. Although some people use "God told me to do it" as an excuse. Someone putting their views at me isn't going to kill e whereas a gun will. You say it's morally wrong to reduce people's rights? Well gun has no morals, doesn't care what you had for breakfast or dinner even if it was a nice steak. Once fired it'll rip a whole through you.
I know we have done plenty of stupid things but this isn't about that. This is about guns. Because of the protocols put in place after events in the past 20 years or so, there has been a decline in offences by firearms every year. In the space of nearly 10 years the fire arm offences dropped from 24,070 in 2002/03 to 11,227 in 2010/11. UK's biggest city, London, in the greater area, crimes reported by police in 2002/03 there were 4,202 and that dropped every year until 2010/11 when it reached 2,748 from a population of 8 million people. Greater Manchester area was the same. That population is 2.5 million people. Fire arm offences reported by police dropped from 1,240 in 2002/03 to 504 in 2010/11. The amounts of deaths also declined in that time 81 in 2002/03 to 41 in 2009/10, 60 in 2010/11 but there was a massacre then when nearly 20 people were killed. I'm just say that the laws here have shown a decline in gun crimes.
I read that elsewhere
Here is what other people put to that
1) Even if you think the 2.5 million statistic was correct at the time it was computed, it must be obsolete today, for the same reason that the victimization survey data is obsolete. The 1995 study that generated the figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses was based upon data collected when crime rates were vastly higher than they are today. Some of the data was collected in 1981, near the very peak of the post-Vietnam War crime wave. It's just incredible on its face that defensive gun use would remain fixed at one level even as criminal attempts tumbled by one-third to one-half.
2) When we hear the phrase "defensive gun use," we're inclined to imagine a gun owner producing a weapon to defend himself or herself against bodily threat. Not so fast. The authors of the 1995 study aggregated 13 prior polls of gun users, most of which did not define what was meant by "use." As the authors of the 1995 aggregation study themselves ruefully acknowledged: "The lack of such detail raises the possibility that the guns were not actually 'used' in any meaningful way. Instead, (respondents) might be remembering occasions on which they merely carried a gun for protection 'just in case' or investigated a suspicious noise in their backyard, only to find nothing." In other words, even if the figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses had been correct at some point back in the early 1990s or early 1980s, the vast majority of those "uses" may be householders picking up a shotgun before checking out the noises in the garage made by raccoons rooting through the trash.
3) The figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses is supposed to represent the number of such uses per year. Yet none of the studies aggregated in the 1995 paper measured annual use. Most asked some version of the question, "Have you ever?" Two asked instead, "Have you within the past five years?" The authors of the 1995 study took those latter two surveys, multiplied the rate in the survey by the number of U.S. households, then divided by five to produce an annual figure.
But people's memories of fixed periods of time are highly unreliable. It's not very likely that many respondents thought, "Today it's August 1990. I do remember scaring off a prowler in June 1984. But that was more than five years ago, so the answer to the question is 'No.' Not within the past five years." More likely they thought, "I'll never forget the night I warned off a prowler with my shotgun. That was scary. Man, I'm glad I had my gun ready. When was that anyway? Three years ago? Four? I don't remember exactly, but the answer to the question is 'Yes.' "
4) Meanwhile, over in the world of hard numbers, the FBI counted an average of 213 justified firearm homicides per year over the period 2005-2010. If the figure of 2.5 million defensive gun uses were any way close to accurate, it would imply that brandishing a gun in self-defense led to a fatality only 0.00852% of the time. That seems almost miraculously low.
5) Underneath all these statistical problems is a larger conceptual problem. When we hear "defensive gun use," we're invited to think of a law-abiding citizen confronting a criminal aggressor. Yet crime does not always present itself so neatly. The vast majority of homicides take place between intimates, not strangers. Assaults, too, are often an acquaintance crime. When guns are produced by two parties to a confrontation, one party may deter the other. Yet it may be seriously misleading to designate one of these persons as a "criminal" and the other as a "law-abiding citizen." Perhaps when we hear "defensive gun use," we should not imagine a householder confronting a prowler. Perhaps we should think of two acquaintances, both with some criminal history, getting into a drunken fight, both producing guns, one ending up dead or wounded, the other ending up as a "DGU" statistic -- but both of them entangled in a scenario that would have produced only injuries if neither had carried a gun.
Gonna be honest, only read half of that. So halfway through they could have damaged my point. :/
You can never be certain about what will happen until you do it. If you did tried stronger laws on guns in one state, see if that benefits, then you can try it elsewhere if it doesn't then maybe find new methods to try and stop gun crime.
UK showed that it has benefited from the laws for gun crime. Although that can be the people and the mentality of our people. We both know as a whole the average Brit has a maturer mentality than an American so maybe that might help our cause and might not work with the Americans. Although we're more pessimistic and your more optimistic (I think I'm more optimistic than the average Brit though). Which I would much rather our country have. Actually, I'm gonna make a thread, something to do with that. Ohhh, might be cool.
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 18, 2012 19:32:31 GMT -5
Religion affects people but it doesn't point a gun and kill people. Although some people use "God told me to do it" as an excuse. Someone putting their views at me isn't going to kill e whereas a gun will. You say it's morally wrong to reduce people's rights? Well gun has no morals, doesn't care what you had for breakfast or dinner even if it was a nice steak. Once fired it'll rip a whole through you. Religion doesn’t kill people? Now who needs to check their history? Religion has killed millions and even today, continues to be the cause of thousands of deaths per day, but I digress. Then we also get on the fact that there are several other things that can be used against you that very much will kill you. A gun has no morals but then again, a gun is just a tool so no one expects it to. Your car has no morals, your knife has no morals, your computer has no morals. Whatever point you tried to make with that, it is irrelevant. But they still exist only in your country, civilians have no way to defend themselves from such a massacre. Okay since this is not your argument, I don’t have any problem attacking it with prejudice. So don’t take it as an attack on you. LOL crime rates are not lower today than in 1995. If anything, they have increased. And the peer reviews came in after this study was published anyway and still have vastly higher stats… But I am willing to bite; where is the counter-study? I am astonished that the naysayers of the study were willing to go as far as suggest speculation as fact. Not that it matters anyway, use is use. Brandishing the bloody thing without doing anything else does not matter at all. The people whose argument you have chosen to copy/paste also failed to understand that no matter what way the gun was used, it was attributed to the prevention of the crime. So much for counter-argument number two of some other person… Irrelevant. It is an approximation and again, peer review done by both sides of the “war on guns” have come up with higher numbers. Speculation… Not willing to argue conjecture and speculation. Doubting verified data alone is silly but then offering no counter-evidence just makes you look bad Mr. Nameless Person. Forgetting that 92% stat? Wrong Mr. Nameless Person! I already provided statistical data that counters this statement, at least where it concerns firearms. You want to fight data, you fight it with other data. So far, you aren’t providing any. Meh… See above. I can think up hypothetical scenarios as well. Elaborate and colorful ones at that. Still not relevant Mr. Nameless Person. Lol Well I don’t know if it damaged your point but I think there is plenty in there that damages THEIR own points. It is mostly counter-arguments packed with hypotheticals and maybes. Not data. I don’t think it matters. The majority do not want their rights taken away and even if the majority did want that, there is legislation in place for concurrent majority to prevent the majority from ruling through tyranny, which is exactly what happens in a purely “majority rules” type society. Maybe. I am of the opinion that most everyone is stupid and immature, regardless of their nationality with the exceptions numbering in the few. One other thing that I thought of about Superman. You said you like his code. His code is, among other things, to not restrict the rights of others. Superman certainly has the power to remove every single weapon on the planet in the blink of the eye. Gun, knife, plasma weapon, bomb, all of it. He could do it in moments and prevent any other weapon from ever being made, yet he refuses to take such action. Why? Because he believes it is wrong to do so. I am sure he believes that it would be nice if we put away guns but even in a utopian society like Star Trek, weapons are a necessity to protect ourselves. Do we need guns? As of right now, yes. Should they be so easy to get? No, absolutely not.
|
|
|
Post by Supreme Marvel on Dec 18, 2012 20:57:15 GMT -5
If it were up to me, I would have religion as more of a mythology rather that it having real life significances.
Least you could jump out of the way of an oncoming car. On coming bullet, you stand no chance unless you're Cassandra Cain. A knife can't get you from 100 metres away unless you're Bullseye. Also, if it's a room full of people, a knife could only do a certain amount of damage. People can run from it without the pressure of being shot from distance. A computer is way more deadly than a gun and it doesn't need to kill you. But only in very smart hands. A gun, you don't have to be smart, just point and shoot.
Maybe your constitution needs to evolve?
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 19, 2012 0:11:44 GMT -5
If it were up to me, religion would not exist. But since it does, I will not allow anyone to take it away from people. I personally view it as having absolutely no value other than control of people and prevention of progress.
You miss the point. Jumping out of the way of a speeding car is not as easy as it seems in comics and movies. If it were, no one would ever get hit. But that wasn't the reason why I brought them up anyway. I just had no clue where you were going with stating an inanimate object has no morals. It was meaningless because no inanimate object has morals.
I am not sure why the lethal range of a weapon is seriously a contributing factor in why we should ban it. That seems like such a limp argument. "Other weapons are okay because you have to see the white of their eyes to kill them" has no higher moral value in my eyes at all. In all other aspects, guns are tools but the only reason they should be outlawed is because a crazy person can kill several people at a time from mid-range? I am sorry but I just don't see how you can read that back to yourself and think it is a reasonable stance to take against the war on guns.
You don't think a woman should have the right to protect herself from rape from a significantly larger man? Because I know of several instances reported by my junior high law enforcement officer that for example, kicking in the balls can just enrage the rapist. At what point should people be allowed to protect themselves?
How about the woman a few months back that put buckshot into the robber that tried to raid her house with a knife? She had called the police and informed them of the invasion and that she had a baby. Her husband had died that very month so it was unlikely that he could protect her. Without her guns, she and her baby might have been murdered. You would have preferred that?
|
|
|
Post by Supreme Marvel on Dec 19, 2012 7:23:25 GMT -5
When I was writing it was late for me, so I'm trying to remember my points if I had any.
Well you say don't take away your rights, it seems fine in the US to defend the right to own a deadly weapon, but then when two american citizens who love each other want to get married, suddenly it's immoral.
That's because the people getting hit aren't paying attention usually. Me and my friend were walking across the road once, while the light were on red (well, we thought it was), we hear a horn, looked to the side, bus! I instinctively hop back, my friend on the other side of me jumps and we narrowly miss getting hit. We wasn't paying attention and if he never hit his horn we'd be roadkill. If that was a gun, we'd be dead no matter what because a bus travels nowhere near the speed of a bullet. If the same person behind the bus shot the gun we'd be dead even with warning.
Well the long range factor is important because it is more impersonal. The bullet is doing the work. A knife would be an extension of your arm so it would be you're doing the killing. So it will be more personally No one can argue that it is less personal. Doesn't just take a crazy person. Just takes one person to just have a bad day and under whatever pressure he has to snap. Go and get his gun he can easily get and go shoot someone. Like that guy who shot them kids, had a bad day and snapped. Obviously because you're not looking at my point of view, you disagree so you find any holes you want in my argument. Although there probably is holes, it's much easier for a person who disagrees with my view to see them.
Why does it have to be a lethal weapon? There are alternatives.
Just to be clear, I'm not against owning guns. I'm against that it is easy for a lot of people to get them. It should be very hard to carry a gun. People react badly to stupid things. What if they misinterpret something, they pull their gun out and it leads to the a person being killed for the wrong reasons. For instance there was a man recently got tasered. It was night, and police were told someone was out with a samurai sword with a white handle. They saw a person to have what seemed like a long weapon. Police called him to stop, he didn't and they tasered him. They didn't know he was blind and it was a walking stick. He carried on because he obviously thought it was for someone else. Imagine if that was a gun and they had shot him. Although it was the wrong man, and an act of stupidity from the police, it didn't result in his death. I'd want it extremely hard for people to get guns. Not walk in a shop, do a quick back ground check and a few days later they've got a lethal weapon. Why do people have to have lethal weapons?
I've rushed that last bit because am going to see the Hobbit now. See you later bitches! <3
|
|
|
Post by Phantom Stargrave on Dec 19, 2012 10:52:34 GMT -5
I am not sure why the lethal range of a weapon is seriously a contributing factor in why we should ban it. That seems like such a limp argument. "Other weapons are okay because you have to see the white of their eyes to kill them" has no higher moral value in my eyes at all. In all other aspects, guns are tools but the only reason they should be outlawed is because a crazy person can kill several people at a time from mid-range? I am sorry but I just don't see how you can read that back to yourself and think it is a reasonable stance to take against the war on guns. It's a lot harder psychologically to plunge a knife into someone's gut than to pull a trigger. It's more personal, and impact of our action hits us that much harder. Distance does matter when it comes to that shit. It's the same reason why massacring civilians with a machine gun is ghastly and horrifyingly inhumane, but opening the bomb bay 30,000 feet above a city is just following orders.
|
|
|
Post by Supreme Marvel on Dec 19, 2012 15:25:53 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Erik-El on Dec 19, 2012 19:47:41 GMT -5
Well you say don't take away your rights, it seems fine in the US to defend the right to own a deadly weapon, but then when two american citizens who love each other want to get married, suddenly it's immoral. You are arguing against the wrong person on that. I think gay marriage is a constitutional right. Not true. If it were a gun and the guy called out before firing off shots at you, you could have just as much of a chance finding cover. You can’t use an example where you had warning and you were given enough time to evade and then try to use an example where you would have none of those things with a gun. If the bus was trying to kill you, you would be dead right now. Really, how is that relevant at all? And it is only partially true anyway. You and Phantom seem to think that killing with a knife is more personal. It only is if you think it is. I don’t. I could kill a man with a knife just the same as with a gun and not feel a dang thing at all if the person gave me reason to fear for my life. What you are talking about is based purely on personal beliefs. A knife is a tool just as a gun. I would use both with the same exact intent to protect me and mine. I am not sure about your education is psychology but mine is just about non-existent. But what I do know is psychosis is not something that just happens. An act of cold blooded murder can only be done from someone with deep psychological issues. Someone who is severely emotionally disturbed. We have no idea what caused this guy to kill those kids but from what we do know, it was not a sudden, snap impulse. He had grown increasingly withdrawn after his girlfriend left him and odds are, he had been struggling with big issues for a long time. I am looking at your point of view. I see what you are saying, I just think your case is outrageous, even if the outcome was satisfactory to you. Taking away rights for security is giving up freedom, I will not have that. If the only way we could have world peace was to have the government watching every move we make day in and day out for our entire lives, carefully directing our every action, we are not free human beings anymore, we are cattle. I am not willing to give up one single freedom for more security. Thinking like that is what spawned SOPA and now, the newer version that has passed. It is also what created and passed into law, the NDAA, which allows the government to arrest and detain a citizen without trail indefinitely. Not even if the peace was guaranteed. It is not worth it. There are alternatives but nothing is as effective as the rapist simply not being alive anymore. Guaranteed. I don’t have a single problem with many people owning them. I don’t think it should be hard to carry a gun either. I think it should be impossible for some people to get one and the methods of getting one should be more stringent than they currently are. That man you speak of would not have been shot in the same scenario, assuming the police were acting in accordance of their duties. To counter your example, I have an actual katana wielding crazy that was outside a bank swinging his sword at what he thought were demons. The cops shot him alright, but with a fire hose until he dropped the weapon, then the cops rushed him. But swinging back to your argument about “what if they had shot him”, well what if? There are many number of places that a person can be shot and not die… most places actually. The cops were aware someone was holding a sword, not a gun. Their duty would require them to not take lethal action when it is possible to avoid it, ergo leg or arm shots. People have to have lethal weapons because we live in a very lethal world. It is their right to defend themselves and their loved ones from that lethality. LOL no federal law is going to be passed on 25,000 signatures. Texas has gone the opposite way and has allowed teachers to carry on locations. I would feel safer with my kid in a Texas school than in New York (assuming that is where the law would be passed). It's a lot harder psychologically to plunge a knife into someone's gut than to pull a trigger. It's more personal, and impact of our action hits us that much harder. Distance does matter when it comes to that shit. It's the same reason why massacring civilians with a machine gun is ghastly and horrifyingly inhumane, but opening the bomb bay 30,000 feet above a city is just following orders. Not for me. I guess I am a blood-thirsty animal because I would do it and sleep like a baby if I felt it was a me or him case. I would however, be haunted by the fact that I killed 10,000 people with a bomb from 30,000 feet in the air if I knew that any of them were non-combatants.
|
|