Elliot Rodger and autism specific gun prohibition: awful
against_the_clock
Raven
Joined: 27 Nov 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 109
Location: Louisville Kentucky (if you think I don't wear shoes I'll throw them at you)
01 Jun 2014, 11:06 am
My username is: felixtheratruns
The original poster is: ODaddyO
Article in question is here and what I find most disturbing is that this guy is raising somebody with autism and claims to have studied it yet has these views:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/2 ... rom-autism
this was before I was aware of this thread: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt260173.html
but I did post the link to that and the forbes article later.
Here's a link to where my comments and his start:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1302467/53533302#c48
I'll post the most important below in case they get deleted:
"If Elliot Rodger suffered from autism then he was too sick to have been allowed to own firearms."
There's many people with mild forms of autism, such as myself, that are perfectly capable of owning guns and I find the author's article rediculous and obviously prejudiced against people with autism, take the following statement:
"All the comments about society and sex really have very little to do with this tragedy. He was very sick. His family knows what I speak of here, if they know anything at all about autism. They tried to intervene...but it didn't work. He fooled the cops."
This is a really sick statement and you should be ashamed that you wrote it. I feel sorry that your daughter has to be raised by someone with your views. The assumption that just because he had some form of autism explains the shooting better than his absolute abuse by society (in the form of bullying) or his dysfunctional view of sexuality is a vulgar smear against all people with autism.
You also conveniently have provided us with no evidence that autistics are more likely to commit violent crimes (this is because there isn't any). If this was done with any other group of people, commenters would call you a bigot and rightfully so, but I guess no one sees what is clearly staring them in the face: "psychiatrists agree that people with autism or Asperger?s are not more likely to commit violent crimes than members of the general population." http://www.psychologytoday.com/...
"My real point is this: I know autism. I've studied it as a parent. I've seen what it is with my own eyes, in my own child."
I've never met your daughter so I can't say whether she is responsible enough to own a gun, but I ask you this: Please don't raise one child and then conclude all people with autism are like that. It's really shameful that I need to point this out especially if you are writing about autism like you know it. It's like having to say: please don't conclude that all foreigners are like the foreign child you adopted. What an ignorant, careless, vulgar, and dangerous article. I almost feel like I have to buy a firearm to protect myself against people like you who will automatically conclude I am a menace to society for no apparent reason.
by felixtheratruns on Fri May 30, 2014 at 12:28:29 AM PDT
[ Reply to This ]
I have observed and interacted with many hundreds of people with autism. I have my opinions. Obviously you don't agree.
I never said people with autism were more likely to commit violent crimes than typical people. I do know that violence is commonly associated with people who have autism; it's simply a fact that they get frustrated, and when they have little or no intervention or help, violence happens, especially in pre-adolescent or teen males.
My point, which I will repeat, is this: People with autism have an incredibly difficult time understanding the communication from others in social situations. This affects their judgment, and if they have a gun...they could miscalculate a situation in which they think they might need to use it.
That's all. I already know I'll never get a gun out of your hands, if you really want one. I'm a realist.
And my daughter may have been better off without my help, but that's certainly not for you to decide. I have a lot more information than just my experience with her to go on.
"I feel a lot safer already."--Emil Sitka
by DaddyO on Fri May 30, 2014 at 08:34:57 AM PDT
[ Parent | Reply to This ]
I should apologize for saying I felt sorry for your daughter. I don't know how you have raised her and you have obviously tried helping her out which I appreciate. However, I think you are prejudiced and I cannot let you get away with saying this stuff.
"I have observed and interacted with many hundreds of people with autism."
And you've developed a false stereotype. Elliot Rodger interacted with hundreds of people of different races and he was still racist.
"I do know that violence is commonly associated with people who have autism; it's simply a fact that they get frustrated, and when they have little or no intervention or help, violence happens, especially in pre-adolescent or teen males."
Autistic people don't magically get out of being classified as criminal when they commit violence, in fact I would imagine since many are socially awkward they would be less likely to get out of it. Autistic pre-adolescent or teen males is irrelevant to the subject of your article: Elliot Rodger. Again you provided no evidence for this set of assertions and it certainly is not a fact as I have already shown. Even though you have tried to change your original position by moving from violent crime to violence in general (convenient because I can't find any studies on autistic "non-criminal" violence) it doesn't save you face since it is no longer relevant to your subject: Elliot Rodger or especially guns, and this looks very disingenuous.
"I have my opinions. Obviously you don't agree."
This is a cop-out, this isn't a matter of opinion the studies have spoken on this issue, just admit you are wrong. There may be more evidence that people with tic disorders and ADHD will commit violent crimes than people with autism (again this study shows there is no correlation between violent crime and autism): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/... why don't you go talk about how people with ADHD and tic disorders shouldn't have guns to prevent more Elliot Rodgers and have more people pissed at you? You may have better evidence with ADHD (at least I found one study)
I'm done talking to you. I find this quite frustrating.
by felixtheratruns on Fri May 30, 2014 at 12:42:04 PM PDT
01 Jun 2014, 2:57 pm
Unless you live in the wilds and are at risk of being eaten by large animals, I am failing to understand why it's either smart or necessary to have a gun at all.
I have been raped, mugged, and had my house broken into twice. In none of those cases, despite all cartoonish gun-crazed fantasies, would gun ownership have been at all helpful. In at least two of the cases it would have made the situation much more dangerous.
The rape happened when I was already in bed. Most rapes aren't "dragged into a dark alley"; it's the guy who's already sleeping next to you and decides "no" has no meaning, because for some reason he's just entitled to force sex on you. The mugging was a complete surprise, and the guy was considerably stronger than I was. Had I been able to get to a gun in the first place, he'd only have taken it away. In both burglaries, I scared the guy off by making noise, but had I come down with a gun, I'd have given him reason to attack me first instead of the more sensible GTFO.
This is before we get to the wisdom of having a gun and children in the same house. Oh, sure, I know, responsible blarrgh gun safe super responsible bleeergh. You know the only time I've had a gun pointed at me, and the trigger pulled? When there was a six-year-old behind it, in my very responsible boyfriend's dad's house. Very, very responsible dude, an engineer, type of guy who won't let you walk on a deck he's built unless he personally certifies it can hold an elephant & is obsessive about car maintenance, grew up rural, knew all about gun safety. He just forgot there was a gun down there. Decades since he hunted, long time since he'd had young kids around. Oops. Good thing it wasn't loaded. Good thing for the kid, too. Even if he hadn't shot me, that thing was old/neglected enough that who knew what kind of condition it was in. I just adore the fantasy of safe gun ownership. ("It's safe! It's only for killing people when I say so!" Whatever.)
After the first burglary, my landlords freaked, installed a fence and an alarm system. No further problems. After the second burglary (different state, 15 years later), I installed a very good, very reliable, multiply-redundant alarm system; still haven't got the dog, but will. Gun wackos jeered at me for this, telling me I'd be dead, trussed, raped (obviously they don't know what rape is, the way they talk about it), a full-on horrorshow before cops arrived. And that I wanted to be victimised. Because obviously the only way to stay safe is to sleep with an arsenal and booby-trap your house with cannon lasers. I thought this was probably nonsense, and was right. A few weeks ago, cleaning the control panel of the alarm system, I accidentally hit the emergency alarm, one of the signals where they don't call and say, "Sorry, is this an actual emergency?" but just send cops/fire/whatever. Not three minutes later my street was full of massive sirens and burly guys stomping up my steps. I think we're in okay shape. If my neighborhood actually gets so dangerous that that's not good enough, we'll move.
I've watched this country get more violent, like insanely violent, over the last few decades. Children live with expectations of violence, now, that made sense only for wars when I was a kid. And it's due almost entirely to the massive proliferation of guns. I went the other day to get key copies made, was leaning on the counter, looked down: guns. Maybe I want a hand-held people-killing machine for $70? It's pink! One-stop shopping! Hell, I could pick up some fruit and a birthday cake at the same time. THAT'S INSANE.
Other parents and I just beat back some security psycho's plans for our school district, too: we were going to have to go to "secure entrances" at our kids schools, hand over ID, and have background checks run on us before we could go in to hear about the motherfucking water cycle and watch the choir show in the gym. THAT'S ALSO INSANE.
I love, too, the "I just like to shoot, it's sport" thing. Fine. Go to the range where they have rifles, and shoot, then go home. "But I just like shooting, you can't take my gun away, it's my right!" Okay, fine. Sure, it's your right to engage in this massively socially destructive...sport. I guess when people enjoy dumping waste into wetlands, or buying gigantic trucks that they just like driving cuz power, and run their CO2 factories all the time, that's dandy too. "But 2nd amendment, tyranny!" Yeah, okay. I feel ya there. Here's the thing: you already lost, if it's the government you're worried about. They've got the world's biggest standing military force and nukes. I'm sorry, but your whosis that can fire off 100 rounds is not the makings of a militia for protecting society from tyranny. Not even if you count that wicked bow and arrow setup you also got. No, at this point it's just lots of overarmed people shooting the hell out of each other, and making life much more dangerous and crazy than it has to be.
People in the rest of the world think we're batshit on this subject, and they're right. If you've ever had the luxury of living in a place where no, it is not normal for people to walk around with guns, you would know that.
tl;dr I don't see why either of you should be allowed to have a gun.
against_the_clock
Raven
Joined: 27 Nov 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 109
Location: Louisville Kentucky (if you think I don't wear shoes I'll throw them at you)
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