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waitwhatno posted:Social alienation had nothing to do with Holmes killing spree How sure are you of that? quote:He said, and I am going to read this, because I have a quote, 'I don't have relationships with people. They have relationships with me.' It seems like society failed him here, anyways. The story of James Holmes supports my case: he was telling therapists he wanted to kill people and was obsessed with the idea, yet no one helped him overcome those feelings, notified the police, or at least got his name on a list of people that shouldn't own guns. Edit: looking into the extant gun control laws as they relate to mental illness I do see a couple issues: the majority of states either require a court order (which wouldn't be completely unreasonable if there was also an adequate structure for reporting and investigating people that mental health professionals could access) or they require the person to have been committed to a mental health institution. I don't think that's a terribly hard sale to republicans, most of the pro-gun people agree that access by the homicidally unwell should be restricted. ashgromnies fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 12, 2015 15:24
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Are there any good studies on how much full on Feinstein wet dream gun confiscation would cost? Are there any bad studies? Apparently we can't afford a great wall of Trump (unless mexico pays for it), but rounding up 300 million guns and doing something (destruction I assume) is trivial and there is no reason it can't be implemented immediately.
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Dec 12, 2015 15:57
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If gun control was going to happen effectively, it would be over a period of decades anyway. The same is true to the treatment of wealth inequality. But because human beings are retarded, it is much harder to take something away than it is to just make it difficult to obtain in the first place. Taking money away from the wealthy in the US almost cannot happen due to the makeup of the political system, and taking guns away is just as pragmatically challenging. But piece by piece, both could be achieved. However the inertia on both of these issues makes me feel like neither will be solved in the short or even medium term. The closest things recently are Obama talking tough and a Bernie Sanders fever, but whether either go anywhere is doubtful. Of course a Bernie Sanders presidency would be pretty cool, from an outsider's perspective, but the pessimist in me thinks he'll never overcome the wealth and cronyism behind Hillary. FWIW, I think people are seriously underestimating the root and branch changes the entire nation would have to undergo in order to prevent even a fraction of socially alienated spree killers. Like, the social safety net doesn't really exist already. How do you stop a shut in nerd marinating in his own hatred? You almost can't do it. And even the most advanced social safety net in the world can't stop an Anders Breivik.
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Dec 12, 2015 16:10
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raven4267 posted:I have to say I am impressed on how polite this gun discussion is, compared to the poo poo shows that go on in the so called debate and discussion forum. I have only read a couple of condescending comments from people who hate guns as well as hate the people who own them. why'd you edit out your post ashgromnies posted:How sure are you of that? eliminating checks on mental health disqualifications is gonna be a hard sell to anyone actually interested in maintaining the pretense of civil liberties for much the same reasons as uncitizening anyone on a secret TSA blacklist; diagnosing people as crazy has been a favored means of arbitrarily stripping undesirables and Kennedys of their rights with no recourse for longer than it's been a means of helping them, and there's still not a huge amount of uniformity or clear, non-subjective standards in the field. If you've been adjudicated mentally incompetent, you know it, and you know why, and you crossed a pretty clear line to get there, you didn't just say something in passing to some headshrinker who chose to interpret it poorly. you might wanna ask yourself why you're going straight to Stalin's Greatest Hits in order to catch, like, one or two actual badguys ever A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 12, 2015 16:44
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Jeza posted:How do you stop a shut in nerd marinating in his own hatred? Here is an original sound bite I have used for something like 8 years now, applicable to basically any situation involving violence. If people are trying to kill you, perhaps you should reconsider your actions. Doubly so if they are willing to die in order to get the chance to kill you. Unfortunately, you know, thinking is hard so it isn't often that people actually apply this either to their own personal lives or to organizations. Harrower posted:Are there any good studies on how much full on Feinstein wet dream gun confiscation would cost? Are there any bad studies? Apparently we can't afford a great wall of Trump (unless mexico pays for it), but rounding up 300 million guns and doing something (destruction I assume) is trivial and there is no reason it can't be implemented immediately. Jeza posted:just make it difficult to obtain in the first place Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 03:07
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Keldoclock posted:Here is an original sound byte I have used for something like 8 years now, applicable to basically any situation involving violence. yeah man if those first graders had thought through their actions a little harder they woulda known better than to gently caress with Adam Lanza
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Dec 13, 2015 05:41
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:yeah man if those first graders had thought through their actions a little harder they woulda known better than to gently caress with Adam Lanza Yes, clearly it's the victims I'm blaming here, and not society at large, and all of us as individuals, which have a duty to at least try to be compassionate to people, even if they're basement-dwelling losers with mental illnesses. Thank you for your incredibly charitable, literal interpretation of my statement using a cherry-picked example, which I did qualify as being original and a sound bite, therefore sacrificing thoroughness (or, uncharitably, literally every other possible value) for catchy-ness. Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 06:04
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Dude's victims had never even heard of the guy, which is as common as not, their major role in the leadup to the shooting was simply to exist in the nearest large concentration of people that the shooter had any relation whatever to. Cherry-picked nothing, that's standard; neither the students Seng-Hui Cho shot nor Virginia Tech as a whole did anything particularly awful to him to merit a blood vendetta, they housed him and gave him a community and a decent education and a shot at a nice life which is a better deal than most folks ever get from anyone; they were simply around when he got it in his head to do what he did. You could maybe argue that universities have some kind of moral obligation to ensure their male students get laid by Freshman year but beyond that we're already talking drastic "root and branch changes the entire nation would have to undergo" that individuals have literally no power to effect so all your response does is reframe the exact same lack of an answer as somehow the victims' faults for being born in an imperio-capitalist patriarchy or something
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Dec 13, 2015 06:13
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:somehow the victims' faults for being born in an imperio-capitalist patriarchy or something I'd go with "due to factors currently unknown in the primitive state of modern neuroscience and psychology", and that these factors are exacerbated by their environment, such as, for example, continual national and international news coverage of mass shootings, serial killers, and killing sprees. For example, some people are more or less disposed genetically to diabetes but the foods available in their diet over their lifetime are going to influence to what degree the symptoms manifest. What can we do as individuals, without waiting for a collective consensus, since one has not yet formed? I posit that we can make an effort especially to not be dicks to people, to examine ourselves and our actions to ensure we are maintaining that commitment, and also to do kindnesses unto others, pending investigation and determining of a root cause and a solution, or at the very least a consensus by all of us on what exactly we should do.
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Dec 13, 2015 06:24
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It sounds wonderful, but so far in human history "let's all just be nice to one another" hasn't caught on, even when most people agree with it in theory. At that point gun control becomes a non-issue, as does poverty, homelessness, and almost every social ill.
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Dec 13, 2015 15:30
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And again, nobody's been particularly unkind to most of the spree killers out there, the average school shooter's had an easier life than the average normal person. Maybe the true solution...is to start bullying nerds again...
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Dec 13, 2015 15:33
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Guys who grew up with their parents beating the living poo poo out of them every day are more likely to become hockey stars than spree killers, the notion that the Eliot Rodgers of the world are driven to kill by the pain society has inflicted upon them is actually kinda disgusting. These are guys who who place no value on others' lives and go straight to the most nihilistic and extreme acts of cruelty they can think of because they don't have any definable external problems in their own lives, and if you're handed the world on a silver platter and still miserable there ain't poo poo you're gonna do to fix it except stare at your navel and grow malevolent.
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Dec 13, 2015 15:51
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:And again, nobody's been particularly unkind to most of the spree killers out there, the average school shooter's had an easier life than the average normal person. Maybe the true solution...is to start bullying nerds again... You don't have to directly be unkind to socially exclude somebody. Not many (or none?) of these spree killers had lots of friends. Aside from the few who are truly delusional, most school shootings seem to be a kind of lashing out due to loneliness and bitterness. I guess Keldoclock is saying you should be inviting that weird fidgety kid with no friends to your MtG game if you don't want to get riddled with bullets. It is never a question of how easy your life is, but how happy your life is. Social and physical isolation completely distorts a person's view of the world and other people. There is probably no doubt that both Adam Lanza and Seung Hui-Cho would have lived normal unremarkable lives if those around them had made a special effort to include them in lots of activities. It is an unreasonable and unrealistic demand, imo, but it doesn't make it untrue. I briefly scrolled through the list of wiki list of school shootings (so many) and most of the ones I cared to click on showed the perpetrator as bullied or majorly isolated.
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Dec 13, 2015 15:53
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Jeza posted:You don't have to directly be unkind to socially exclude somebody. Not many (or none?) of these spree killers had lots of friends. Aside from the few who are truly delusional, most school shootings seem to be a kind of lashing out due to loneliness and bitterness. I guess Keldoclock is saying you should be inviting that weird fidgety kid with no friends to your MtG game if you don't want to get riddled with bullets. Or you woulda been convenient to get murdered when they decide to make the lives of a bunch of random people all about them with a nine-mil, there's a reason we're not friends with misanthropic, self-absorbed loners. If you wanna do more to make sure those assholes are never manufactured in the first place fine cool but that poo poo gotta start in pre-K. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 15:56
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:Guys who grew up with their parents beating the living poo poo out of them every day are more likely to become hockey stars drat, that was a rough read. I was hoping for a happy ending where he beat his father to death with a hockey stick.
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Dec 13, 2015 16:00
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:Or you woulda been convenient to get murdered when they decide to make the lives of a bunch of random people all about them with a nine-mil, there's a reason we're not friends with misanthropic, self-absorbed loners. People aren't born misanthropic loners. If you don't mind me saying, that's a peculiarly American perspective. These people are not innately evil. Almost all of them would turn out roughly well-adjusted if they didn't end up spending several years without any social outlet. A happy person does not go on a school shooting. e: the point about pre-K...maybe? Probably can't hurt. But a lot of anxious depressive tendencies only manifest during puberty anyway. Jeza fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 16:03
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No, they become misanthropic loners at the age when your socialization gels, i.e. starting at infancy and ending roughly in elementary school, but almost never when their lives at that age actually have substantive difficulties either. Kids who get molested might grow up to be pedos and kids who grow up in crackhouses tend to catch cognitive and behavioral issues that'll push them towards violence but they ain't the ones popping anyone who shows up to the movie theater so they can be a TV star. If 'being bullied in middle school' is the best you can do for a difficult-life, the-world-made-me-do-this narrative you need to face the possiblity you're grasping at any straws you can to make the facts fit that predetermined storyline. Everyone gets bullied in middle school, the bullies get bullied in middle school, the kind of innate nastiness that lets you kill random people you never knew for your own ego isn't gonna make you a star of the social scene. That ain't really cool for its own reasons but if it's middle-school bullying that makes spree killers, it's only when that's their one and only exposure to meanness in this world. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 16:08
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:only when that's their one and only exposure to meanness in this world. The opposite of love is indifference, not hate. I'm just saying man, if you don't have an actual plan and aren't going to do your tiny part to fix some problems as defined by you in the world as defined by you just do the best you can and live virtuously and poo poo. Since we still haven't produced a plan here, I'm just offering an alternative that will let you sleep at night, knowing that at least you didn't make it worse. I think that's okay as a temporary solution for everybody, and it's probably OK as a permanent solution to me, since I have dedicated my life to frying what I think are bigger fish (automation engineering). e: not because I think ineffectual reprisals against innocents are okay, just that I am of the wrong specialty to produce a solution and am cynical of one being produced at any point before the phenomenon changes into something else or I die. Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 16:34
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here's an alternative: when some shitbird murders a preschool stop rushing to make him a celebrity and cry about his pain. He ain't got any loving pain, he just knows from watching it happen on a biannual basis that this is the quick way to turn a failure with no direction and nobody else to blame into a nationally celebrated noble victim who everyone wants to know all about, his life, his philosophy, who was mean to him (his own, actual victims, who may have survived all kinds of genuinely terrible poo poo but didn't survive him, will of course be impossible for any of these deeply concerned speakers for the downtrodden to even name)
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Dec 13, 2015 16:40
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The road of a paedophile or child abuser or a kid who acts out is completely separate from that of a spree killer. Spree killers rarely have the same issues, which is why "exposure to meanness" isn't really a relevant yardstick. Nobody is pre-destined to be a misanthropic loner as an infant. I also disagree with your interpretation of spree killers motivations too. It is less a case of "I wanna be famous and my hand was forced because wahhh bad things." and more a case of dehumanising other people and believing that the world deserves it. Socialising with others is a reality check. The longer a person spends alone, the more their thoughts go off the beaten track. When there is no social correction, after a long enough time, some people are so twisted that shooting up a school doesn't even seem wrong anymore. It just so happens that bullying leads some people to social isolation, where others still have friends. "Everyone is bullied" is just convenient dismissal. "Oh I got bullied but I didn't shoot up a school! So this guy must be nutty from the word go!" It's just cognitive dissonance. The chances are most of these spree shooters could have been normal people. You think there's nothing spectacularly wrong with their lives that explains their actions, therefore they must be inherently crazy. Then why do the rates of spree killings keep going up? Are people just being born crazier? Or is it the society you live in that is changing?
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Dec 13, 2015 16:59
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Jeza posted:The road of a paedophile or child abuser or a kid who acts out is completely separate from that of a spree killer. Spree killers rarely have the same issues, which is why "exposure to meanness" isn't really a relevant yardstick. maybe they keep going up because guys who deeply want them to be the Revenge of the Nerds all evidence be damned have made shooting up a school the new Kardashian sex tape, and so long as there's a highly visible easy road to fame and glory at least one in 300 million egocentric slackers with no distinguishing talents is gonna take it. You think Breivik got beat up by some junior social democrats in eighth grade? Dude knew free publicity when he saw it, and also knew he was never gonna do nothing to get his face and message out there on their own merits. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Dec 13, 2015 |
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Dec 13, 2015 17:07
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It's cart before horse. Why did Breivik even want to kill dozens of Social Democrats in the first place? Because he thought that it would send a message and raise awareness of the dangers of multiculturalism. Why was he convinced that multiculturalism was such a threat to society, and why did he harbour such a hatred for Social Democrats? The goals and beliefs of almost all spree killers are generally totally incoherent. The question shouldn't be what they hope to achieve by killing all these people, but how they ended up with such a hosed up belief system in the first place. The story usually starts in childhood abuse or prolonged social isolation. I'm sure the internet as a breeding ground for self-justification also helps a bunch.
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Dec 13, 2015 17:21
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Yes, but we have known for decades that copycat killing is a phenomenon as well. I have been in favor of national media gags on this from the get-go. Keep the coverage local, say it's out of respect for the victims if admitting that you are beholden to the government makes you lose face. In a world where people have to go to /r/watchpeopledie in order to see a mass shooting, there will be fewer mass shootings (at least of this variety). I think this alone would take us back to pre-2005 levels. I don't actually know that or anything. It's just my intuition. I don't even know if there were less mass shootings 10 years ago. But it certainly seemed that way, then.
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Dec 13, 2015 18:32
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most socially isolated sexually undesirable males just become harmless computer technicians/internet sociologists
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Dec 13, 2015 19:36
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there are no tragic stories of child abuse linked to school shooters and we unfortunately do not know how effective a proper and thorough rear end beating would've been in preventing these attacks. back when being a creepy little turd meant people would physically attack you until you changed your behavior was also back when we didn't have school shootings.
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Dec 13, 2015 19:40
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Jeza posted:It's cart before horse. Why did Breivik even want to kill dozens of Social Democrats in the first place? Because he thought that it would send a message and raise awareness of the dangers of multiculturalism. Why was he convinced that multiculturalism was such a threat to society, and why did he harbour such a hatred for Social Democrats? White supremacy and reactionary politics predate guns, schools, and Social Democracy, wars were fought in their name, they're still more-or-less mainstream political ideologies held by millions of people and just like any ubiquitous tendency with a long social tradition some people take it more seriously than others. This is like claiming Islam is caused by bad parenting. Jeza posted:
It literally doesn't, stop repeating this. It is a lie. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Dec 14, 2015 |
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Dec 14, 2015 11:43
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If only the Nazis hadn't been bullied in school, which as far as I know some of them might have.
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Dec 14, 2015 12:26
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Does every white supremacist go on a spree killing? The ideology is almost irrelevant in this situation. The ability to go on an murder spree of total strangers is related to being able to dehumanise other people. It takes a specific upbringing or mental issue to enable a person to do that. Dunno why you selectively quoted half of what I posted, but there's nothing mythological about it. Your own example, Breivik, is on record is having been abused as a child: quote:He spent the first year of his life in London until his parents divorced when he was a year old. His father, who later married a diplomat, fought for his custody but failed. When Breivik was four, living in Fritzners gate, Oslo, two reports were filed expressing concern about his mental health, concluding that Anders ought to be removed from parental care. One psychologist in one of the reports made a note of the boy's peculiar smile, suggesting it was not anchored in his emotions but was rather a deliberate response to his environment.In another report by psychologists from Norway's centre for child and youth psychiatry (SSBU) concerns were raised about how his mother treated him: "She 'sexualised' the young Breivik, hit him, and frequently told him that she wished that he were dead." In the report Wenche Behring is described as "a woman with an extremely difficult upbringing, borderline personality structure and an all-encompassing if only partially visible depression" who "projects her primitive aggressive and sexual fantasies onto him [Breivik]". The psychologist who wrote the report was later forbidden from giving evidence in court by Behring, who herself was excused from testifying on health grounds. Many others too. It isn't that abuse is a necessary component, but it is a lead on component to the social isolation I am talking about. Everybody acts the way they do for a reason. Sprree killers are made, not born. It is a mistake to think what happens in their childhood is irrelevant.
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Dec 14, 2015 14:47
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Jeza posted:Does every white supremacist go on a spree killing? 
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Dec 14, 2015 17:00
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drat u wizard of goatse!! its a valid pointttttt seriously. Being an irredeemable racist may make you a shitbag, but it doesn't automatically qualify you into the "I can kill dozens without a conscience" sweepstakes. My argument here is that a spree killer's motivations are almost irrelevant. They are different in pretty much every case, and the methods don't match up to the stated goals. They are just petty self-justifications. A person always needs an internal logic before doing something. Nobody snaps and kills people for no reason. There is always a reason, even if that reason is spurious and deluded. If you dismiss spree killings as incomprehensible freak events or the results of ideology, you can never hope to address them.
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Dec 14, 2015 18:58
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A far higher percentage of the total population of racists (still well under one in a million) become mass murderers than people who ever got picked on as children, but the latter is still the real root cause of spree killing because some killers got picked on as children, albeit at if anything a lower rate than everyone else. The specific ideologies of terrorism (which is what a maximally visible massacre of random people you have no specific beef with is) vary for the same reason that the specific products in advertisements do. It's not ideologically sourced, it's an undeniably effective way of getting your whatever-your-deal-is out there no matter whether that's extremist politics or being mad at your lovely office or just your own ego. Everywhere in the world there's young dumb dudes looking to die for a cause, or just to look cool, this is the basis on which armies are founded. Any idiot can do something shocking and reprehensible enough to make the news, and get people to predictably give the perpetrator a biopic and their manifesto heard in every house and a heroic narrative casting them as desperate men forced to extremes by unimaginable circumstances spun out of whole cloth using whatever trace of a hint of a supposition might fit the plotline. It's in places like America, Iraq, and Palestine that this behavior happens and is lavishly rewarded so regularly with such a massive level of social saturation that it's gonna be among the first answers any idiot who holds their life cheap and notoriety dear can't help but arrive at; if anything, it's a testament to the power of the human spirit that it's still so rare in the face of such cheerleading. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Dec 14, 2015 |
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Dec 14, 2015 19:39
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Spree killing, serial killing, and religiously driven suicide bombing etc. are all quite distinct in terms of who carries them out. You seem especially interested in discrediting the idea that bullying could play a role in developing spree killers, but the facts speak otherwise. The majority underwent especially consistent patterns of bullying, and especially end up out in the cold from regular socialisation. You claim everybody in the US is bullied, but I wonder really if you can really compare the two. Maybe everybody experiences a few incidences of bullying, but I can hardly imagine that significant numbers are singled out as seems to often be the case. You say they are less picked on than everybody else, but every report I've ever seen indicates otherwise. It's also worth mentioning that just because something affects one person one way, does not make it fallacious to suggest it can affect another in a different way. I'm also not fully convinced that media coverage is the best explanation for these cases. It certainly can't help, but mass media coverage of shooting incidents is much the same as it has been for decades, except the world-weary tone we get now. If that hasn't changed, then you have to ask the question "what has changed?". It is my belief that any desire for notoriety is always secondary to the root reasons for a spree killing, namely their deep emotional and psychological problems. The idea that people will shoot up a school just to make something of themselves had always seemed to me a convenient dismissal, turning something very grey into something black and white. I doubt very much a media gag on school shootings would prevent them from occurring, even if it would help some. You'd do just as well assassinating your local Senator if notoriety was your only goal. Most people shoot up a school or a university because there is something they resent about that place, and the people there. hey check it out we're solving the world's problems over here, move over d&d
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Dec 14, 2015 20:13
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Jeza posted:So if I understand you, you really don't care too much about guns or gun control, but care instead about the sanctity of the constitution? Don't you think that the original intention behind the amendment has been completely lost? The "right to bear arms" is just an addendum to the importance of having a Militia, back when something like that could feasibly have overthrown a corrupt government. Not to mention the sheer technological constraints of single shot, muzzle loaded weapons means that they were legislating effectively for a completely different thing. Honestly, the sanctity of the constitution argument is the dumbest thing ever. If people really support the right to keep and bear arms on the basis of the sanctity of the constitution, then why don't the major proponents of this argument ever follow it to it's logical conclusion and support the ownership of Surface-to-Air missiles? Or ICBM's? They asked conservative "genius" Justice Scalia this exact question and he said that when the founders wrote "keep and bare arms" they really meant that you had to be able to pick up and carry the weapon in order for it to qualify for the 2nd amendment, which anyone with a brain and who is being intellectually honest knows is complete bullshit. They meant that you were not only allowed to own weapons but that you were also allowed to carry them on your person if you wanted to as well. So of course then Scalia was asked, provided that his childishly intellectually dishonest reading of the 2nd amendment was accepted, how he explains the rather obvious giant gaping loophole in his logic that allows people to own bazookas, hand grenades, shoulder mounted rocket launchers, and suitcase nukes, things which he obviously didn't support but were logically consistent with his interpretation of the 2nd amendment. His response was basically a shrug and a hand-wave that he would legislate it "very carefully". In other words he gave a total non-answer when his obvious hypocrisy and logical inconsistency was pointed out. And this is the guy who's supposed to be one of the smartest conservative gun advocates and best arguers on the planet.
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Dec 15, 2015 02:36
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-Blackadder- posted:why don't the major proponents of this argument ever follow it to it's logical conclusion and support the ownership of Surface-to-Air missiles? Or ICBM's? i support it; sounds like a good plan.
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Dec 15, 2015 02:47
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:i support it; sounds like a good plan. Haha, well if nothing else, it would resolve the issue, one way or the other, rather quickly.
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Dec 15, 2015 03:02
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-Blackadder- posted:Honestly, the sanctity of the constitution argument is the dumbest thing ever. If people really support the right to keep and bear arms on the basis of the sanctity of the constitution, then why don't the major proponents of this argument ever follow it to it's logical conclusion and support the ownership of Surface-to-Air missiles? Or ICBM's? They asked conservative "genius" Justice Scalia this exact question and he said that when the founders wrote "keep and bare arms" they really meant that you had to be able to pick up and carry the weapon in order for it to qualify for the 2nd amendment, which anyone with a brain and who is being intellectually honest knows is complete bullshit. They meant that you were not only allowed to own weapons but that you were also allowed to carry them on your person if you wanted to as well. So of course then Scalia was asked, provided that his childishly intellectually dishonest reading of the 2nd amendment was accepted, how he explains the rather obvious giant gaping loophole in his logic that allows people to own bazookas, hand grenades, shoulder mounted rocket launchers, and suitcase nukes, things which he obviously didn't support but were logically consistent with his interpretation of the 2nd amendment. His response was basically a shrug and a hand-wave that he would legislate it "very carefully". In other words he gave a total non-answer when his obvious hypocrisy and logical inconsistency was pointed out. And this is the guy who's supposed to be one of the smartest conservative gun advocates and best arguers on the planet. Funny thing about that. You can theoretically own surface to air missiles. They're classed as Destructive Devices, registered under the NFA, and require a $200 per tax stamp to transfer. Hell, everything on your list up to the nukes can be had if you can find someone selling one that's got the right papertrail. Most of it you can set off as well, so long as you've got a piece of property outside city limits big enough that you're not risking anyone else's. That includes not interfering in flight paths, so firing your SAM is right out. You can also buy surplus tanks and warplanes, although the FAA won't certify anything armed for flight. ICBMs, like nuclear weapons, are weapons of mass destruction, and are regulated under different laws than individual arms. I really wish both sides of this argument would actually read the relevant laws before spouting off.
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Dec 15, 2015 05:08
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That's pretty disingenuous, actually. Between the paper work, restrictions, certifications, fine print, taxes, and red tape there are so many barriers to getting those kinds of weapons that they're essentially de facto illegal, like a backdoor abortion ban. Granted a lot of people own and use explosives, but the permits almost always require it to be for commercial use demolitions like construction. Those permits aren't just handed out to any yokel that walks through the door. It's a hell of a lot easier to buy a hand gun than it is a rocket launcher. I'd be interested to hear the logical argument behind nukes being classed differently, it's just a bigger explosion. And that doesn't even get into biological weapons. I wish people would make intellectually honest arguments before "spouting off". -Blackadder- fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 07:28
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I'd agree, the closed NFA registry is effectively a backdoor ban, and it should be reopened for just that reason, as that is the least change that can be made to give relief to those whose rights are being infringed. Nukes (as well as biological weapons, chemical weapons, and things like landmines) are classed differently because they are weapons of massive collateral damage. Your desire for intellectual honesty in discussion should extend to not attempting to handwave the difference between a personal weapon that is designed to strike a single target, and a weapn that is by its nature a weapon meant to destroy masses of people indiscriminately. This is, idly, why they are referred to as WMDs as outlined specifically under US Code, and why the surviving Tsarnaev brother was charged with Use Of A Weapon Of Mass Destruction for his actions in the Boston Marathon bombing. Edit : Going to drop this here. It's a piece from Ken White over at Popehat on discussing gun control, and how to do so in a useful way. https://popehat.com/2015/12/07/talking-productively-about-guns/ Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 07:43
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-Blackadder- posted:That's pretty disingenuous, actually. Between the paper work, restrictions, certifications, fine print, taxes, and red tape there are so many barriers to getting those kinds of weapons that they're essentially de facto illegal, like a backdoor abortion ban. Granted a lot of people own and use explosives, but the permits almost always require it to be for commercial use demolitions like construction. Those permits aren't just handed out to any yokel that walks through the door. It's a hell of a lot easier to buy a hand gun than it is a rocket launcher. There's only two real relevant national restrictions in the SAM case, a $200 tax on launcher and ammunition each (so, $400 for a MANPAD), and some state secrets poo poo for the exact configuration of military missile guidance systems, which is about keeping the Russians from figuring out how to defeat the Army's not keeping civilians from possessing their own copies. So they're harder to get outside New Jersey than a pistol, sure, but a motivated guy with $400 and an Arduino can still have a SAM and there's not blood in the streets. He just can't use it to shoot down a plane (duh) so they're an extremely pointless thing for a private citizen to own, so there's no demand, so you'll have a hard time finding someone selling one commercially - but the same is true of, say, personal flamethrowers, which are entirely 100% unregulated. It's entirely possible some crank with hobby money has a barn of homebrew SAMs somewhere, I've seen weirder things at auction from time to time, and I'd have no problem declassifying old Redeye gyroscope designs or something, the Feds already let the loving Taliban have them it can only be a positive development to release the blueprints to someone who might use them for something productive. Likewise, there's nothing inconceivable about private ICBMs. That's what SpaceX is. There is, however, an effective ban on putting a nuke in one as a private citizen, and the FAA owns the sky so you gotta ask them every time you wanna launch one, so that's some bullshit. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 11:58
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Yeah, the real "ban" on surface to air missiles, RPGs, giant cannons, or other ridiculous poo poo, is the extreme cost of actually buying one. Hell, flamethrowers actually aren't under any federal regulation and to my knowledge are completely unregulated aside from some state laws. EDIT: Available in up to 12 different colors and finishes to compliment your personal style! http://store.xm42.com/XM42-Flamethrower-p/xm42.htm LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 12:18
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