School Shooting

[molly bloom]

Ken, do you have children ?

I can assure you when I read about the shooting, the first thing that went through my mind was a feeling of unbelievable pain at the thought of loosing my daughter. So yes I felt bad for the families involved

'The Guardian' printed the school photographs of most of the victims in a tribute, and I have to confess, I lost my composure for some time looking the faces of all the children who will never see next year. Fortunately it was in the broadsheet section so I could hide my embarassment. Then I read the words of the father of one of the dead, asking people to remember the killer's family too... and I felt very humble indeed.

[Lancer]

This is the saddest news. If it didn't break your heart you might not have one. This event has so revolted me that its actually painful to dwell on and when the night gets quiet I can't get it out of my mind. Those poor children...their last horrific moments on the Earth. So terribly sad.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't think that happiness of the people is really something that government can promote, aside from protecting their freedom to do what makes them happy. Individual dignity is essential to a free society, but it's a vague term. That is to say, I see nothing wrong with taxing the rich to keep the poor from starving or freezing to death. I like labor unions, even if I resent their politics. I think that it's better for everybody to be comfortable than for a few people to live in luxury. What I don't like is using individual dignity as a back door to censorship, or otherwise to infringe on the rights of others.

Oh, I think the government can most definitely help pursue policies that lead to the happiness of the people. In one example, in economics we refer to it as "utility" and the goal is maximization of utility. I think that in a lot of ways we tend to want the government to help provide for things that lead to our general happiness, whether its in form of funding art museums, paying for sports teams, funding research into beneficial things, etc.

And dignity may be a vague term, but then again so is freedom (I go back to freedom to vs. freedom from - is the freedom to keep wealth greater than the freedom from starving to death, etc). The point is we can't just pick one word and make it our "goal". Society (and people) is far to complex for that.

[MichaeltheGreat]

All evidence in countries not subject to the propagandizing of the N.R.A. to the contrary. How would the killer have acquired the same weapons, legally or illegally, in this country do you imagine ?

There are already 200 million or so firearms in the US, exclusive of government issued weapons. Even if you say, magically, that by people voluntarily surrendering them, you get 90% out of circulation (an unrealistically high amount), that still leaves 20 million, assuming no smuggling of imports. You'd acquire them the same way you acquire drugs - buy them from a private party or steal them.

So don't bother with, for instance, the war on drugs, the war on terror, trying to control alcohol sales and consumption.... geez, Louise.

The war on drugs is a great funding tool for federal law enforcement, but it's not like anyone has to work especially hard. The war on terror doesn't involve (or visibly affect) the vast majority of the population. And alcohol sales are only minimally regulated (by age) and there's still plenty of drunk drivers out there.

[MichaeltheGreat]

[QUOTE=molly bloom;6182369]So liquor sales aren't subject to controls in the United States ? And drunk driving isn't a crime ? And there aren't regular campaigns about alcohol abuse and driving under the influence ?[quote]

Liquor sales are anyone over 21 can by as much as they can pay for. Drunk driving is a crime, so is killing your mother, stealing guns, and killing other people. This individual really wasn't concerned with committing crimes, nor the consequenses thereof.

How many people could the young man have killed in the same amount of time with his mother's car, drunk or sober ? Ignoring the salient fact that a car has a main use which isn't killing or injuring people.

Again, even with an outright total ban on gun ownership, what do you propose? Having law enforcement go door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood, and tear people's houses apart looking for contraband guns? They don't even do that in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where guns are illegal and the per capita homicide rate is the highest in the world. That would give no creedence whatsover to the "government gonna give us all over to the evil UN one world order" crowd. Or do you rely on voluntary compliance with a total ban, which means tens of millions of guns will still be out there? Push comes to shove, mass killers will take a page from our Islamist friends and go for suicide vests.

I could sit here with a hundred guns, I'm not ever in any circumstance going to go out and shoot people to prove some sort of point. It's the mindset of the individual, which maybe we can detect and intervene with better availability of (and public focus on) mental health services and resources, without the "when in doubt, lock 'em up" extremity.

[Felch]

Absolutely not. They can talk, shout, speak, mime, sing catchy tunes, and express themselves through interpretive dance if they want, with the same gusto and authority as, say, the Westboro Baptist Church. However, take every penny the NRA have, and give it to the victims and their families.

Thank God our Constitution protects both our right to bear arms, and our right to say things you disagree with. I'd hate to live in a country where people are bankrupted for expressing unpopular political beliefs.

[Uncle Sparky]

Well, why not make all murder legal in the US then? There are some prohibitions against it, but many states (especially in the South) have laws that allow you to defend your property, or even your honour, with lethal force. I think its extremely fvcked up that so many Americans want to arm themselves to defend themselves against their well armed neighbours, who are arming themselves to defend against you. Why not simplify things, and take the OT approach (old testament, or off topic, either works)? Think of the money you'll save if you elliminate the law enforcement and judiciary.

[regexcellent]

Ignoring the spelling errors,

1) There are no places in America where honor killings are legal.
2) It is legal throughout the country to defend yourself against lethal force with lethal force. It is legal in most countries to do that.

[Uncle Sparky]

Sary - Aee was youzing English. Cvnt git youzed to Amerkin.

[regexcellent]

"eliminate" is still spelled wrong despite your edit.

[Uncle Sparky]

Not wearing glasses - couldn't see the 2 'L's. Nothing much to see here. Seen one troll, seen them all.

[Felch]

Oh, I think the government can most definitely help pursue policies that lead to the happiness of the people. In one example, in economics we refer to it as "utility" and the goal is maximization of utility. I think that in a lot of ways we tend to want the government to help provide for things that lead to our general happiness, whether its in form of funding art museums, paying for sports teams, funding research into beneficial things, etc.

One man's happiness is another's waste of money. Why should the government be in the business of paying for sports teams when there are kids going to bed hungry? I'm not a strict libertarian, obviously, but I think that the government should restrict itself to needs rather than wants. The moral authority to tax rests on the assumption that the government will put tax money to its best possible use.

[Uncle Sparky]

I like Gwynne Dyer's take:

Here's an interesting statistic: The second-highest rate of gun ownership in the world is in Yemen, a largely tribal, extremely poor country. The highest is in the United States, where there are almost as many guns as people: around 300 million guns for 311 million people.

But here's another interesting statistic: In the past 25 years, the proportion of Americans who own guns has fallen from about one in three to only one in five. The United States, however, unlike Yemen, is a rich country, and the average American gun owner has four or five firearms. Moreover, he or she is utterly determined to keep them, no matter what happens.

What has just happened in Newtown, Conn., is the seventh massacre this year in which four or more people were killed by a lone gunman. The fact that this time 20 of the victims were little girls and boys six or seven years old has caused a wave of revulsion in the United States, but it is not likely to lead to new laws on gun control. It's not even clear that new laws would help.

Half the firearms in the entire world are in the United States. The rate of murders by gunfire in the United States is almost 20 times higher than the average rate in 22 other populous, high-income countries where the frequency of other crimes is about the same. There is clearly a connection between these two facts, but it is not necessarily simple cause-and-effect.

Here's one reason to suspect that it's not that simple: The American rate for murders of all kinds -- shooting, strangling, stabbing, poisoning, pushing people under buses, etc. -- is seven times higher than it is in those other 22 rich countries. It can't just be guns.

And here's another clue: The rate of firearm homicides in Canada, another mainly English-speaking country in North America with a similar political heritage, is about half the American rate, and in England itself it is only one-thirtieth as much. What else is in play here?

Steven Pinker, whose book The Better Angels of Our Nature is about the long-term decline in violence of every kind in the world, is well aware that murder rates have not fallen in the United States in the past century. (Most people don't believe that violence is in decline anywhere, let alone almost everywhere. That's why he wrote the book.) And Pinker suggests an explanation for the American exception.

In medieval Europe, where everybody from warlords to peasants was on his own when it came to defending his property, his rights and his "honour," the murder rates were astronomically high: 110 people per 100,000 in 14th-century Oxford, for example. It was at least as high in colonial New England in the early 17th century.

By the mid-20th century, the murder rate in England had fallen more than a hundredfold: In London, it was less than one person per 100,000 per year. In most Western European countries it was about the same. Whereas the U.S. murder rate is still up around seven people per 100,000 per year. Why?

Pinker quotes historian Pieter Spierenburg's provocative suggestion that "democracy came too early" to America. In European countries, the population was gradually disarmed by the centralized state as it put an end to feudal anarchy. Only much later, after people had already learned to trust the law to defend their property and protect them from violence, did democracy come to these countries.

This is also what has happened in most other parts of the world, although in many cases it was the colonial power that disarmed the people and instituted the rule of law. But in the United States, where the democratic revolution came more than two centuries ago, the people took over the state before they had been disarmed -- and kept their weapons. They also kept their old attitudes.

Indeed, large parts of the United States, particularly in the southeast and southwest, still have an "honour" culture in which it is accepted that a private individual may choose to defend his rights and his interests by violence rather than seeking justice through the law. The homicide rate in New England is less than three people per 100,000 per year; in Louisiana, it is more than 14.

None of this explains the specific phenomenon of gun massacres by deranged individuals, who are presumably present at the same rate in every country. It's just that in the United States, it's easier for individuals like that to get access to rapid-fire weapons. And, of course, the intense media coverage of every massacre gives many other crazies an incentive to do the same, only more of it.

But only one in 300 murders in the United States happens in that kind of massacre. Most are simply due to quarrels between individuals, often members of the same family. Private acts of violence to obtain "justice," with or without guns, are deeply entrenched in American culture, and the murder rate would stay extraordinarily high even if there were no guns.

Since there are guns everywhere, of course, the murder rate is even higher. But since the popular attitudes to violence have not changed, that is not going to change either.


Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

[Imran Siddiqui]

One man's happiness is another's waste of money. Why should the government be in the business of paying for sports teams when there are kids going to bed hungry? I'm not a strict libertarian, obviously, but I think that the government should restrict itself to needs rather than wants. The moral authority to tax rests on the assumption that the government will put tax money to its best possible use.

One man's needs is another man's wants . I believe in a basic right to health care, some do not. It's why we engage in discussion in the public sphere in order to cajole people into agreement on an issue.

Moral authority to tax also rests on an assumption (a proper one, IMO) that on some things the government is the best way (and has better economy of scale) to do certain things.

[kentonio]

Again, even with an outright total ban on gun ownership, what do you propose? Having law enforcement go door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood, and tear people's houses apart looking for contraband guns? They don't even do that in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where guns are illegal and the per capita homicide rate is the highest in the world. That would give no creedence whatsover to the "government gonna give us all over to the evil UN one world order" crowd. Or do you rely on voluntary compliance with a total ban, which means tens of millions of guns will still be out there?

Why not? For one thing most people are cowards, and if they're faced with voluntarily handing in their guns or risking a jail sentence for unlawful possession, they will hand in those guns. Sure millions of guns will remain out there, but over time that figure will fall and fall, especially if you keep offering amnesties so when the government doesn't actually try and enslave the people, folks will over time become increasingly willing to comply. There's no point in going door to door, there's no time limit on this, it takes time to change peoples perceptions.

Maybe it would take a century to get rid of the bulk of the countries guns, but so what?

Push comes to shove, mass killers will take a page from our Islamist friends and go for suicide vests.

Sorry but that's a dumb comment. Where exactly are these mass killers going to get explosives from and the talent to actually build a suicide vest? Have you noticed the vast empty gap where European mass killers are not blowing up schools with explosive vests?