Elliott Rodger & Santa Barbara shootings

Post Reply New Topic

how many cds/dvds/ mp3s/ cars/ clothes/etc do you need. you only need two sets of clothes do you have more?

my guns have never hurt anyone, nor do i have intent for them to do so, so why should i not be allowed to not have them, how will me having less guns stop someone from killing others. it won't. you admit it won't but say we should try anyways, the only problem is trying will hurt gun owners and effect their freedom, with a high likely hood of not effecting voilence. then when it doesn't will you say we should try again?

isn't it illegal for them to go across state lines and buy them? also the type of guns used. handguns, isn't illegal in their state nor even Chicago anymore they didn't have to go to another state to get them. besides if California doesn't want guns so they ban them, but Nevada does want guns, now all Nevada citizens should suffer so California can have its way? that's not how our nation works.

wanting to restrict or ban something imply s you are against it, those wanting to restrict weed aren't pro weed. they are anti weed. so you want to restrict guns, there for it would seem you are against them or at least certain type of guns. I'm not anti immigrant I just want to restrict them. how does that sound?
there's already a lot of restrictions on guns already. It is unlikely more will solve the problem, it will however infringe on people's rights. some of the politicians trying to pass these laws will admit they won't do anything other then restrict legal people who don't do the crimes.

I don't like violence either, though I don't only dislike one type. gun violence is small compared to the other types of violence, why do you center on just it? more people are killed by other means. Maybe we should try to solve why people become violent, try to fix our society that embraces and puts violence across the media. adress the things that drive people to violence, poverty, poor childhood, bullies(they themselves violent yet people tend to say its ok, part of growing up) we should say no, its not ok, violence isn't ok. part of growing up should be that you get the crap beat out of you every day for years. this doesn't begin to address the sources of violence.

guns are accounted for, or we wouldn't know how many there are. people are innocent until proven guilty , gun control assumes everyone is guilty. we need to keep track of your guns cause we know you're going do something bad with them. Owning a gun shouldn't put me on some gov list to be watched and if needed rounded up. I haven't done anything wrong nor shown any intent to. only reason to register guns is so you know where to find them for when you decide the people can't have them anymore, we are seeing this in a few states currently and it happen in other nations.

we went thru this before with the current background check system and we said sure lets try, now they want to expand it and make more laws, ban certain types of guns, and if it still doesn't work. they push for more.

lastly we don't load up on guns for spite or political issues. we do it cause we enjoy them, there are tons of different types and designs, people collect them. I don't own two guns that are the same. most serve different purposes, or different ammo. some are historical, others are neat designs, some are for defense. others just for target shooting. you can own thousands of guns and not have one be the same. there are museums full of them.

common sense is different person to person. to me its common sense not to drink achol or smoke others its not, common sense is really personal sense, but worded to make it sound like what you say is right and anyone that thinks differently is just wrong. for a long while it was common sense to keep blacks and whites separate, it was common sense that women shouldn't have rights, it was common sense that indians weren't people, etc. i hat that phrase. its not common sense its an feel good irational law proposal that effects millions of people and won't solve anything those who write it know so, but they use that phrase and words to get people to believe it is for the best. then paint those who know it to be bad and fight it as bad people. let me find something you love and try to ban then call it common sense and say you're a bad person for trying to fight for the thing you love.

now if a law comes that won't effect legal non violent gun owners and will do something to stop violence i'll be all for it.

Some people just cant let people die without trying to exploit it for their own political gain. Disgusting. It makes this forums completely useless. Could be a good discussion about other relevant topics, but no lets hijack it for political statement. Bad taste and bad timing.

A discussion about the number of suicide and murders done one Rx Meds or an autism conversation would have been more productive.

Sure, not likely. However, it is the culture in America.

Americans:
-many are ex-military
-many love hunting
-many love showing off their collection of guns
-many are proud of America's independence in beating England
-many see themselves as "ready soldiers" (i.e., like minute men)
-in the south, and in New Hampshire ("live free or die" state) you will see people walking around with guns at their hip - like Cowboys
-many states let their residents carry concealed guns
-it is idolized on tv shows
-and it is enshrined in our national Constitution

The USA homicide rate with fire arms is 3.6 people killed with a fire arm per 100,000 citizens. This rate includes both murder, and justifiable homicide.
source, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate

The implied argument is that because less than .0036% of the population are being killed unjustly from firearms, then the culture should be changed ? People should lose their historical gun ownership rights, and cultural values to what minimize the killing down to what to .001% ? Doesn't this reasoning lead us to conclude that people should be restricted further in their normal activities, so that the rate can be driven down even lower ? And then further and further ?

Really? Who's you guys? I don't think people should be "permitted" to make crystal meth either, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the fact that it's not permitted to bring it to an end. Certain people shouldn't be "permitted" to obtain firearms but I'll never put much stock in the effectiveness of those laws.


That's never been my stand. Guns cannot be made to go away so they'll never have to resort to using only cars, knives, and hammers or whatever. Only a ret*d entertains the notion that "if there were no guns". You'd have better luck making the common housefly disappear from the face of the earth.

Care to explain to the other boys and girls where the restriction of any kind of firearm has had an actual bearing crime? About the 2nd Amendment or any other constitutional right: Freedom isn't free. Take the associated risks or move to where there are no rights.

Here again you tie gun ownership with incivility.


Here you seem to want to write law based on perceived attitude. Might as well say that no one should be allowed to own a Mustang GT if they think they are NASCAR drivers.


Militarised society?? Where do you live, North Korea?


Small sacrifices to what avail? Are you aware that small and not so small sacrifices in terms of gun laws have been made for well over 100 years. Tell us exactly what that has gained us.

Prove it.


More hyperbole.


First you say you're not attacking "right wing gun owners". /\
Then you go ahead and do it. \/



AND SOME AREN'T ALLOWED BUT DO IT ANYWAY. MURDER IS ILLEGAL, TOO. DID YOU KNOW THAT?


If you walk like a duck and quack like a duck.......


Who? And so what if it does? Are you suggesting attitude based laws again?

You would not know the problem if it walked up and pissed on your leg.

If the goal here is to prevent as many of these types of incidents from happening as we can, then I think that a focus on the weapons is fundamentally unsound.

It seems to me that the siren call of gun control is an immediate response from a pretty empty public policy cupboard that says, "we have to do something--anything!--to respond to this."

On the other hand, a more sober, considered assessment can help us start to look at where these large scale crimes of violence have their origins. It is trite to suggest that these people are sociopathic--it is as accurate as it is meaningless. What we have to be able to do is look beyond the sociopathy and ask what structures are absent from an otherwise civil society that allows sociopathy to take root and flourish in an individual like this. This young man's issues did not go unnoticed; he had received at least some care from mental health professionals. And yet here we are.

This isn't about firearms. This is about creating a society in which people are provided with the means to succeed and flourish--both financially and socially.

But this kind of effort is hard work--both to conceptualize and to implement. So much easier to cry, "gun control!" and leave it at that.

The thing is, owning a gun is one huge responsibility. While I do agree with you that we should look at the root causes of violence, I still think that surely, the mere fact that guns are easier to use to kill people with and are more deadly should make gun control logical? I'm not saying that guns should be banned entirely but in the wrong hands, they could make certain people a danger to society who otherwise wouldn't be. It's logical to not allow people who have previous convictions of domestic violence to not own guns for example, or people who have propensity for violence, because guns are more fatal than other weapons. Also, there may be some people with mental disorders who would be more likely to kill someone by accident with a firearm without even having the the intention to kill.

There are no answers, the "we have to do something" crowd cannot be appeased every time over every little thing. Sometime you just have to accept the reality that bad things happen. How could anybody predict when somebody with no history of violence and isn't outwardly psychotic will go out kill people? This kid is a good example of having everything given to you and was getting help but it didn't make a difference. You can talk about warning signs but those are only really evident in hindsight. What realistically could of stopped this?

Guns, misogyny, mental illness, video games, drugs ... Am I missing anything? A lot of axes have grinding material here. Personally I think these and a million other things played a part in his choosing a path to evil. As awful as it is, I cant see what could prevent such things from happening. They are a part of the world we live in.

There was a very specific point where this could have been averted. Rodger's mother called the police when she became aware of his scary rant videos. It wasn't hindsight. It was foresight. The police went to his house but he didn't seem threatening to them. So that was the end of that. The police department has said they acted exactly as their protocol directs. He did not seem threatening. Given what we have seen about him since, he probably answered then door with a quiet demeanor. They are used to walking in on tweakers and more obviously threatening people so he probably didn't register as anyone to be concerned about.

That visit right there is a pivot point and a place for preventive change. But how to do it without trampling on peoples' rights? Perhaps future mental health police checks should be accompanied by a mental health professional. Maybe the visits should be preceded by a look at the person's online presence (because it's public and so wouldn't need a warrant). The depths of his pathology could be found very quickly by googling (it was on youtube) and the odds are high that future pople doing this will also have a public internet presence that can be seen without a warrant. The mental health professional accompanying the visit would be more expensive but probably not prohibitively so given that this can't possibly be a daily (or even weekly) occurance. Most well checks the police make are to make sure a vulnerable person (alzheimers, etc.) is alive and safe. This sort of request is probably uncommon.

The tougher question is what are the police allowed to do if internet rants and a concerned shrink do make the police think a specific person is a risk? Are they allowed to take the person to a psychiatric hospital for observation? What is the bar that makes them legally allowed to do that? We can't make the bar too low or such call requests can be abused for revenge or whatever when one person wants to mess with another with a bogus call. There is great potential for rights infringement. But there is also the potential to stop a tragedy if the bar is set in the right place. It's more achievable anyway than something as nebulous as trying to attack a "culture of entitlement". I think that culture of entitlement played a big part here, but concrete problems need concrete measures.

the question is how do you draw the line. people rant all the time on youtube and blogs, most don't do voilent things. should we lock up anyone who rants about obama? we don't the fbi instead looks at the probility of that person doing something, have they took steps, done research. A person who rants about something and then researches how to make bombs gets bumped up. a few years back they then did a sting operation on a kid wanting to blow up a stadium full of people. they pretended to be selling him the parts he needed. bam they had tons of evidence needed. I wish we had more of this. they should have watched this kid, that last video or the one i've seen he takes in detailish about doing something at that point he should have been locked up and had his guns taken away.

what we worry about is people who rant(first amendment right) getting their rights taken or being locked upt while they might be very unlikely to do stuff but are merely expressing their anger at the bad stuff that is happening. i've seen people on tv, threaten to kill someone but they aren't arrested, its taken as just a rant on tv news show. the trick is watching them to see if they show intent to do things.

domestic abuse being a reason to lose guns is another thing that whould have proof. currently all it takes is a woman saying a guy does something and bam he loses his guns. while this isn't common place, it does happen. its a way for some people to do mean things and what better way then to get his rights taken away. I mean they should look into it more is all. it just shouldn't be all based off the word of one side. Its a tricky matter though cause domestic abuse is a very real thing. My brother is abused by his wife. and nothing is done. I'm not sure how to fix the system so it pisses me off. that many are left alone with the abusers seen as liars and others are punished for things they didn't do. look at the people found guilty for crimes then later on the system is like wups. we were wrong be on your way after you spent 20 years in jail. the justice system frustrates me. but thats not what this is about.

I just worry cause I know there's politicians that if had it their way would make it "born with disorder, no rights" like have aspergiers then shouldn't have guns, or drive, or work. stuff should be done person to person not blanketed over anyone born different

/\ That's why I tell people to take care of themselves as much as they can and not to rely on big brother so much. Big brother actually does not give a s**t and is often enough not guided by his better angels. Every ounce of extra security is likely to be bought at the cost of a few ounces to a pound of freedom somewhere down the line.

You act like such a provision doesn't already exist within our legal system. It's called involuntary commitment.

I'm glad he didn't have easy access to fully automatic weapons. Another win for gun control.

People who feel humiliated are sometimes dangerous. Post WWI Germans, radical Muslims, fired workers, or resentful kids like this case. That anyone is surprised is the only surprising thing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0[/youtube]

Lazy cops didn't even bother to ask Rodger for a consent search.

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties ... nt-you-see