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Post by: angelofvengeance
Ughh ANOTHER senseless act of violence...
http://time.com/4011147/photographer-and-reporter-killed-during-live-broadcast-virginia/
A third victim survived but remains in surgery
Two members of a television news crew were killed Wednesday during a live broadcast in Franklin County, Va., according to the crew’s station. The local sheriff’s department confirmed that the shooter remains at large.
A third victim was also identified by the Roanoke Times as Vicki Gardner, head of the local Chamber of Commerce. Gardner, who survived but remains in surgery, was being interviewed by Parker, according to paper.
Video of the broadcast begins like any local news report but turns grisly as the on-camera reporter screams and a gun can be heard firing multiple times. The video ends with the camera on the ground before cutting to a clearly distressed anchor.
WDBJ7, the crew’s station, identified the victims as photographer Adam Ward, 27, and reporter Alison Parker, 24. Parker was a graduate of James Madison University and Ward graduated from Virginia Tech, according to the station.
The incident occurred at Bridgewater Plaza, a shopping center in Moneta, Va. Local law enforcement remains on the scene, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has joined the manhunt for the suspect.
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Post by: squall018
This is about 30 miles from where I live. I've been to bridgewater plaza numerous times. This is pretty upsetting, especially since its so close to home.
That being said, the police and FBI are in pursuit of the suspect as we speak on I64 and should have him soon.
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Post by: Sinful Hero
The shooter was actually caught on camera when you look at the stills of the video- pointing a gun at the camera. Not sure if it's appropriate to link here.
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Post by: Nostromodamus
Apparently shooter shot himself. Reports indicate he was an employee of the station at some point.
Very sad.
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Post by: Orlanth
Senseless
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Post by: Iron_Captain
 Sinful Hero wrote:The shooter was actually caught on camera when you look at the stills of the video- pointing a gun at the camera. Not sure if it's appropriate to link here.
I shall put it in a spoiler for those who want to see what happened. You don't actually see anyone getting hit, but you can indeed see the murderer very briefly when the camera falls to the ground. Video of the incident (not graphic): That must be really weird (and shocking) when you are watching the news. Not really smart of the murderer too, to attack while on live TV. I heard the murderer shot himself after being hunted down by police and FBI. I just can't comprehend why people feel the need to do this. It is so senseles...
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Post by: agnosto
Killer put on twitter that he did it and female victim reported him to HR before she was hired.
Very sad, the camerman's fiancee is the morning producer and she was in the booth while the footage was being broadcast. Today was her last day because she got a job in Charlotte and she and the carmerman were both leaving the station to move there.
Just sad, these young people's lives cut short because some idiot held a grudge.
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Post by: Manchu
- suspect is Vester Lee Flanagan a.k.a. Bryce Williams Pic: - former employee of same station as his victims - accused victim Allison Parker of making racist comments (in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint) - fired from Tallahassee, FL , station in 2000; he sued alleging racial discrimination - victim Adam Ward filed complaint about Flanagan with station HR department - filmed himself murdering/attempting to murder, posted video online - tweeted bragging about murders - shot himself while driving on I-64 - still alive 
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Post by: curran12
I hope this dirtbag pulls through his injuries. Just so he can face the music.
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Post by: Snoopdeville3
I seen the video this morning, this was awful..
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Post by: Seaward
The video the shooter himself took is worse. It's all over Reddit at the moment, and is about as surreal as it gets.
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Post by: DaKKaLAnce
Yeah, this is one of the most graphic videos ive seen in a long time. Pretty messed up.
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Post by: MrDwhitey
The latest is that he is in critical condition, not dead.
The POV video is pretty sick. He waits until the cameraman returns to looking at the reporter before he shoots.
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Post by: Nostromodamus
 curran12 wrote:I hope this dirtbag pulls through his injuries. Just so he can face the music.
Prime candidate for letting the hospital interns get some practice in.
Hands-on training and it doesn't really matter if they feth it up.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
Here's the jerk:  He also faxed a 23 page rant to ABC News.. Automatically Appended Next Post:  MrDwhitey wrote:The latest is that he is in critical condition, not dead.
The POV video is pretty sick. He waits until the cameraman returns to looking at the reporter before he shoots.
Just seen that POV video. I feel ill :(
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Post by: Manchu
Guy tested posting vids on FB a week ago. He clearly had this planned out well in advance.
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Post by: triplegrim
Accuses collegue for being rascist, then goes and fulfills the biggest statistical stereotype there is of blacks, that of the murderous pistol shooter.
Man, I hope he pulls through the injuries and gets sent to a 24 hour isolation prison.
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Post by: Manchu
We have the death sentence in VA.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
As much as I wanted to make UHF jokes..... I hope that justice is swift and whatever VA uses for carrying out capital punishment are severe.
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Post by: squall018
Won't be needed. It is now being reported that the guy has died.
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Post by: Nostromodamus
 squall018 wrote:
Won't be needed. It is now being reported that the guy has died.
Saves some time and money. Good riddance. POS can now rot in Hell.
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Post by: HiveFleetPlastic
I want to suggest showing some respect for the victims and not rubbernecking on videos of their murder.
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Post by: curran12
squall018 wrote:
Won't be needed. It is now being reported that the guy has died.
Cowardly little gak. Leave his friends and family to answer for his crimes. But good riddance, I suppose.
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Post by: NuggzTheNinja
Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).
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Post by: Breotan
 NuggzTheNinja wrote:Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).
How has our mental health system failed? In the USA we have this thing called Civil Rights and that means you can't be forced into treatment without being brought before a judge and adjudicated as a threat to yourself or others. Usually that doesn't happen until the insane person commits a crime. Since that didn't happen until the shooting, I think it's grossly unfair to blame "the system" for something it had nothing to do with.
Now, if he had been in and out of treatment for several years that would be a different story.
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Post by: NuggzTheNinja
 Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).
How has our mental health system failed? In the USA we have this thing called Civil Rights and that means you can't be forced into treatment without being brought before a judge and adjudicated as a threat to yourself or others. Usually that doesn't happen until the insane person commits a crime. Since that didn't happen until the shooting, I think it's grossly unfair to blame "the system" for something it had nothing to do with.
Now, if he had been in and out of treatment for several years that would be a different story.
A guy who writes a 27 page psychorant clearly needs treatment. There's one thing that all of these shooters have in common: mental health problems. Treat these mentally ill people, and you can reduce the shootings.
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Post by: timetowaste85
Know how I posted that comment in the "gay weddings yay or nay" thread about how Christians are supposed to love and/or honor everyone? Yeah, the guy who wrote that comment is sitting this one out.
This scumbag doesn't deserve sympathy. Much sympathy for all the families and friends involved, but I hope this piece of garbage gets dumped in a landfill somewhere. I know I personally wouldn't show up at his funeral if I was one of his family.
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Post by: Breotan
NuggzTheNinja wrote: Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).
How has our mental health system failed? In the USA we have this thing called Civil Rights and that means you can't be forced into treatment without being brought before a judge and adjudicated as a threat to yourself or others. Usually that doesn't happen until the insane person commits a crime. Since that didn't happen until the shooting, I think it's grossly unfair to blame "the system" for something it had nothing to do with.
Now, if he had been in and out of treatment for several years that would be a different story.
A guy who writes a 27 page psychorant clearly needs treatment. There's one thing that all of these shooters have in common: mental health problems. Treat these mentally ill people, and you can reduce the shootings.
Okay. Given he didn't distribute this 27 page manifesto until he went to kill the reporter and cameraman, how was anyone supposed to know? Specifically, how was anyone that's part of "the system" supposed to know? How were "we" supposed to get this guy into treatment if he hadn't violated any law before today?
As a society with a Constitution and a priority on enforcing Civil Liberties, we can't just snatch people off the streets and institutionalize them because we think they're mentally ill. With no prior crime, there is no lawful measure by which society can intervene. Period.
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Post by: NuggzTheNinja
Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote: Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).
How has our mental health system failed? In the USA we have this thing called Civil Rights and that means you can't be forced into treatment without being brought before a judge and adjudicated as a threat to yourself or others. Usually that doesn't happen until the insane person commits a crime. Since that didn't happen until the shooting, I think it's grossly unfair to blame "the system" for something it had nothing to do with.
Now, if he had been in and out of treatment for several years that would be a different story.
A guy who writes a 27 page psychorant clearly needs treatment. There's one thing that all of these shooters have in common: mental health problems. Treat these mentally ill people, and you can reduce the shootings.
Okay. Given he didn't distribute this 27 page manifesto until he went to kill the reporter and cameraman, how was anyone supposed to know? Specifically, how was anyone that's part of "the system" supposed to know? How were "we" supposed to get this guy into treatment if he hadn't violated any law before today?
As a society with a Constitution and a priority on enforcing Civil Liberties, we can't just snatch people off the streets and institutionalize them because we think they're mentally ill. With no prior crime, there is no lawful measure by which society can intervene. Period.
He was fired from multiple jobs for anger issues. Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.
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Post by: Breotan
NuggzTheNinja wrote: Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote: Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).
How has our mental health system failed? In the USA we have this thing called Civil Rights and that means you can't be forced into treatment without being brought before a judge and adjudicated as a threat to yourself or others. Usually that doesn't happen until the insane person commits a crime. Since that didn't happen until the shooting, I think it's grossly unfair to blame "the system" for something it had nothing to do with. Now, if he had been in and out of treatment for several years that would be a different story.
A guy who writes a 27 page psychorant clearly needs treatment. There's one thing that all of these shooters have in common: mental health problems. Treat these mentally ill people, and you can reduce the shootings.
Okay. Given he didn't distribute this 27 page manifesto until he went to kill the reporter and cameraman, how was anyone supposed to know? Specifically, how was anyone that's part of "the system" supposed to know? How were "we" supposed to get this guy into treatment if he hadn't violated any law before today? As a society with a Constitution and a priority on enforcing Civil Liberties, we can't just snatch people off the streets and institutionalize them because we think they're mentally ill. With no prior crime, there is no lawful measure by which society can intervene. Period.
He was fired from multiple jobs for anger issues.
Not a crime. NuggzTheNinja wrote:Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.
Public urination is a crime in most jurisdictions and yes, being convicted of that can screw up your NICS check, at least until you clear it up. Being an angry black man is not a crime (even if it is a stereotype) and wouldn't have thrown any flags for the NICS unless he had previously acted out, been charged with a crime, and been brought before a judge - none of which happened.
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Post by: cincydooley
 timetowaste85 wrote:Know how I posted that comment in the "gay weddings yay or nay" thread about how Christians are supposed to love and/or honor everyone? Yeah, the guy who wrote that comment is sitting this one out. .
You okay dude? See PM.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Mental health issues are still stigmatized in the US and that surely has an impact on how many people seek treatment in the first place. In that sense our mental health system has failed. Going to see a psychologist or psychiatrist shouldn't be viewed any differently than going to your general practitioner doctor to get a check up, or going to see a specialist.
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Post by: Ouze
NuggzTheNinja wrote:Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.
No it isn't, and what's more, you know it isn't.
Here's the 4473 which I'm quite certain you are familiar. Here are the reasons for a denial.
It looks like you're making an argument that public urination should be grounds to block a gun sale and/or be picked up for a mental evaluation. I can only shrug at this.
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Post by: NuggzTheNinja
Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote: Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote: Breotan wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Really sad...our defective mental health system wins again (citing the 27 page rant he apparently sent to ABC).
How has our mental health system failed? In the USA we have this thing called Civil Rights and that means you can't be forced into treatment without being brought before a judge and adjudicated as a threat to yourself or others. Usually that doesn't happen until the insane person commits a crime. Since that didn't happen until the shooting, I think it's grossly unfair to blame "the system" for something it had nothing to do with.
Now, if he had been in and out of treatment for several years that would be a different story.
A guy who writes a 27 page psychorant clearly needs treatment. There's one thing that all of these shooters have in common: mental health problems. Treat these mentally ill people, and you can reduce the shootings.
Okay. Given he didn't distribute this 27 page manifesto until he went to kill the reporter and cameraman, how was anyone supposed to know? Specifically, how was anyone that's part of "the system" supposed to know? How were "we" supposed to get this guy into treatment if he hadn't violated any law before today?
As a society with a Constitution and a priority on enforcing Civil Liberties, we can't just snatch people off the streets and institutionalize them because we think they're mentally ill. With no prior crime, there is no lawful measure by which society can intervene. Period.
He was fired from multiple jobs for anger issues.
Not a crime.
NuggzTheNinja wrote:Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.
Public urination is a crime in most jurisdictions and yes, being convicted of that can screw up your NICS check, at least until you clear it up. Being an angry black man is not a crime (even if it is a stereotype) and wouldn't have thrown any flags for the NICS unless he had previously acted out, been charged with a crime, and been brought before a judge - none of which happened.
Again, you're arguing against a strawman. I never said that he committed a crime. I said he needed help, which the current system was obviously inadequate to provide.
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Post by: timetowaste85
 cincydooley wrote: timetowaste85 wrote:Know how I posted that comment in the "gay weddings yay or nay" thread about how Christians are supposed to love and/or honor everyone? Yeah, the guy who wrote that comment is sitting this one out. .
You okay dude? See PM.
Just as a public response: I'm totally fine. I just can't voice the "they know not what they do" when people like this guy engage in pre-meditated murder.
Never claimed I was a perfect Christian. Just that I know what is supposed to be part of the faith.
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Post by: NuggzTheNinja
Ouze wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.
No it isn't, and what's more, you know it isn't.
Here's the 4473 which I'm quite certain you are familiar.
It looks like you're making an argument that public urination should be grounds to block a gun sale and/or be picked up for a mental evaluation. I can only shrug at this.
Actually...
Section 12c asks if you have ever committed a felony, or a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty greater than one year. Ohio allows misdemeanors to extend to two years. This would disqualify you. In addition, some people have ended up on the sex offender registry as a result of urinating in public because they were charged with a different, but related, crime like indecent exposure or even sexual battery.
Again, you're wrong. I'll wait for my apology.
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Post by: Breotan
NuggzTheNinja wrote:Again, you're arguing against a strawman. I never said that he committed a crime. I said he needed help, which the current system was obviously inadequate to provide.
No strawman argument on my end. I never denied he needed help. I simply stated (repeatedly) that a person who needs help cannot have that help forced upon him/her unless/until a crime is committed. As for "the system" I'd argue that it does provide adequate treatment in most cases. We have great mental health treatment available in this country for almost every possible diagnosis of mental illness. Unfortunately, it requires someone to come in and ask for treatment or for them to be forced into it as a result of court proceedings.
You keep stating that this guy needed help. Okay, that's a given but what (be specific) was "the system" supposed to do in this specific case? We've already covered that nobody knew about his manifesto until it was already way too late and anger management issues aren't always a sign of mental illness. In fact, sadly, anger is a stereotype of the African-American culture. So in what specific way did "the system" fail in this case?
Let's take a hypothetical situation based on this guy's previously being fired.
Boss: I've noticed you seem to have some anger management issues. I'd like you to talk to a councilor.
Worker: No.
Boss: Unless you resolve your anger issues, we're going to have to let you go.
Worker: I'm fine with how I am.
Boss: The company is not. In fact, your behavior is not acceptable here. Since you don't wish to do anything about it, you're fired.
Worker flips out and has to be escorted from the building by security. No laws are broken.
Question - What is "the system" supposed to do? What does law enforcement do here? What does the local psychiatric hospital do here? What does NICS do here (assume he doesn't already own a gun at this point)? What should the employer have done differently here?
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Post by: Manchu
It is a shame the murderer successfully committed suicide. The expense of his trial, imprisonment, and likely execution would have been high but these costs are justified. Suicide and execution are not equivalent outcomes.
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Post by: djones520
 Manchu wrote:It is a shame the murderer successfully committed suicide. The expense of his trial, imprisonment, and likely execution would have been high but these costs are justified. Suicide and execution are not equivalent outcomes.
I'm perfectly fine with it.
The man already destroyed a ton of lives with his actions. At least in the end he was thoughtful enough to save our tax dollars.
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Post by: Breotan
I disagree, Manchu. I'm glad he took the coward's way out. I just wish that freak from Colorado had the decency to do the same. Maybe prison will provide a solution like it did for Dahmer - hopefully sometime early on in his Life + 3,318 years.
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Post by: Manchu
If we are not willing to spend money meting out punishment through our courts of law then we ought to just give up on civilization ... or rather, one is tantamount to the other. It would not have been a waste to put this man back together, make him face his crimes, and then impose the consequences.
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Post by: djones520
Manchu wrote:If we are not willing to spend money meting out punishment through our courts of law then we ought to just give up on civilization ... or rather, one is tantamount to the other. It would not have been a waste to put this man back together, make him face his crimes, and then impose the consequences.
It's perfectly willing to give a man his day in court. To let the system prove his guilt.
With this though we saw on live television that the man was guilty. I'm all about the presumption of innocence... but at some point you've got to say ok, it is impossible to presume. There was no question of this mans innocence. There was no "moral" need for a trial for this man. So there is no need to complain that he won't have his day in court now.
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Post by: Manchu
The legal concept of presuming the innocence of the accused is not the moral basis for any legal system. Nor is the point to find out what happened, as if we're talking about a murder mystery novel. Laws and courts exist so that civilized societies can exercise their sovereignty. This murderer cheated our civilization out of its inherent right to judge and punish him.
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Post by: Breotan
Manchu wrote:If we are not willing to spend money meting out punishment through our courts of law then...
Whoa! Slow down there, Slim. Nobody said anything about denying due process for these two. I simply stated my gratitude that one chose not to avail himself of it and lamented that the other did not make the same choice.
Manchu wrote:This murderer cheated our civilization out of its inherent right to judge and punish him.
That bastard!
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Post by: Manchu
It's no kidding matter for the friends and family of the people he murdered; or our society generally, in all fairness. I think you guys are assuming suicide is equivalent to a punishment because, just like if he was executed, he ended up dead. But there is a chasm between taking your own life and having your life taken by the state because society has formally declared you do not deserve to live.
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Post by: CptJake
I suspect if our 'civilization' saw a need to exercise its 'right' to judge and to punish there would be an easy way to try a dead guy like this and once found guilty met out some nominal punishment, maybe deny him a burial and instead put his corpse in a cage on display hanging from the city walls.
Instead, our courts are actually set up to protect individual rights (not the rights of 'civilization'). I'm pretty happy about that personally. As I'm happy this feth stick offed himself and spared us the cost of long term incarceration and multiple appeals.
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Post by: Manchu
 CptJake wrote:Instead, our courts are actually set up to protect individual rights (not the rights of 'civilization').
100% incorrect. Every criminal case is titled "people versus" for a reason. You are thinking of civil law (which even so also implicates the sovereignty of the state).
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Post by: Experiment 626
In regards to if this piece of fecal matter was mentally ill or not... I'm sorry but, being an angry a**hole and blaming everyone else for your own failings at life in general is not a mental illness. This guy was just a PoS who simply refused to take any kind of responsibility for his own actions.
If simply being an angry, aggressive bully was a real mental illness, then at some point almost every individual on the whole damn planet would likely be institutionalised at some point!
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Post by: CptJake
Manchu wrote: CptJake wrote:Instead, our courts are actually set up to protect individual rights (not the rights of 'civilization').
100% incorrect. Every criminal case is titled "people versus" for a reason. You are thinking of civil law (which even so also implicates the sovereignty of the state).
Bull gak. Which why we have constitutional protections for every person, and why each individual is given due process and the State must ensure the individual's rights are protected and not violated especially in criminal cases and more so in capital punishment eligible cases. The whole appeals process and other special aspects of these cases are not set up to protect the State or some 'People', they are set up to ensure the accused (and the convicted if it comes to that) maintains his/her rights. The People's/Government's rights sure as heck are not enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and that is for a reason.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
It seems that he left quite an extensive manifesto with ABC News; http://abcnews.go.com/US/shooting-alleged-gunman-details-grievances-suicide-notes/story?id=33336339
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”
Sources say Flanagan's firearm was legally purchased from a Virginia gun store.
“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them."
It is unclear whose initials he is referring to. He continues, “As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” He said Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act.
Later in the manifesto, the writer quotes the Virginia Tech mass killer, Seung Hui Cho, calls him “his boy,” and expresses admiration for the Columbine High School killers. “Also, I was influenced by Seung–Hui Cho. That’s my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got…just sayin.'"
Sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News that in his attack, Flanagan used a Glock 19 -- a firearm similar to one that Cho used in his mass attack.
In Flanagan's often rambling letter to authorities, family and friends, he writes of a long list of grievances. In one part of the document, Flanagan calls it a “Suicide Note for Friends and Family."
He says he has been attacked by black men and white females
He talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man
He says has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work
A source with direct knowledge of his complaints against the station said a pair of tweets sent today and attributed to him accurately reflect previous complaints he lodged against the two people he killed today. These are the two Tweets: “Alison made racist comments,” and, “Adam went to hr on me after working with me one time!!!”
Nowhere in the document does he make specific threats against anyone from WDBJ.
In his manifesto, he says he encountered "nasty racist things" while working at WDBJ-7 in Roanoke, and that drove him to sue the station. "I marched down to the courthouse and sued WDBJ7 by myself and they settled! HA!"
He continues: "I can remember one day in particular... leaving the courthouse... feeling overwhelmed... confused... even some fear. But by golly I knew I HAD to fight. ... They truly f----d with my life and caused an awful chain of events." He says he even killed his cats in a forest "because of them."
Flanagan says that, "Hell yeah, I made mistakes," noting that he "should not have been so curt" with photographers in Roanoke. "[B]ut you know why I was? The damn news director was a micromanaging tyrant!!"
And, he writes, "the photogs were out to get me at WDBJ7... one went to HR after only working with me one time... the chief photog told his troops to [record video of] me if they saw be doing something wrong."
Flanagan then suggests that, after leaving WDBJ-7, he was offered a job at a station in Pennsylvania, but WDBJ-7 persuaded the Pennsylvania station to rescind the offer.
"I got to the point, this time around, where I wasn't even looking for a job. I don't need to deal with workplace bullies anymore. THAT is what lawmakers need to focus on," he adds.
“Yes, it will sound like I am angry," he writes in his manifesto. "I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace....”
“The church shooting was the tipping point…but my anger has been building steadily...I’ve been a human powder keg for a while…just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”
He chronicles the "tough times" he's faced, including some "financial crashes." He says he used to work as a male escort but, "I am proud of it" because he "made thousands."
"[I] tried to pull myself up by the bootstraps," but, "The damage was already done and when someone gets to this point, there is nothing that can be said or done to change their sadness to happiness. It does not work that way. Meds? Nah. It's too much."
"And then, after the unthinkable happened in Charleston, THAT WAS IT!!!"
"Yeah I'm all f----- up in the head," he concedes.
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Post by: Howard A Treesong
I've seen some reports describing people using this shooting to urge again for gun control. Which makes me wonder how long it'll take for others to call this a conspiracy - there's a lot of paranoid stuff written about Sandy Hook being an Obama gun-control sponsored conspiracy. That seems to be how these tragedies are responded to now.
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Post by: Relapse
Very sad event all around.
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Post by: Manchu
Not even close. Protecting the rights of the accused is only one piece of the criminal justice system. The reason the criminal justice system exists, by contrast, is to vindicate the rights of the state. Again, note that criminal cases are captioned "people versus" and not "[name of victim] versus." Criminal cases do not vindicate the rights of the victims (although there is a developing theory that victim's rights should play some role); the victim is traditionally just a piece of evidence, as it were, in the state's case against the accused.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
 Howard A Treesong wrote:I've seen some reports describing people using this shooting to urge again for gun control. Which makes me wonder how long it'll take for others to call this a conspiracy - there's a lot of paranoid stuff written about Sandy Hook being an Obama gun-control sponsored conspiracy. That seems to be how these tragedies are responded to now.
I don't think that any serious source will describe this as a conspiracy. What happened with Sandy Hook was that initially the FBI recorded to gun deaths in Sandy Hook at that time, but recorded the deaths elsewhere. This lead to the tinfoil hat brigade out in force.
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Post by: djones520
Howard A Treesong wrote:I've seen some reports describing people using this shooting to urge again for gun control. Which makes me wonder how long it'll take for others to call this a conspiracy - there's a lot of paranoid stuff written about Sandy Hook being an Obama gun-control sponsored conspiracy. That seems to be how these tragedies are responded to now.
Yeah, the bodies weren't even cold yet before I started seeing more calls for gun control. Can't let a good tragedy go to waste.
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Post by: cincydooley
Old lady Clinton certainly took advantage of it.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Here's a question; had the media not focused on Dillon Roof, and his racism, would this killer have been inspired to act?
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Post by: djones520
Well she's a blood sucking vampire, so is anyone really surprised? Automatically Appended Next Post:  Dreadclaw69 wrote:Here's a question; had the media not focused on Dillon Roof, and his racism, would this killer have been inspired to act?
Probably? He would have just found another focus for his sickness to latch onto. That reporter had nothing to do with Dillon Roof, or race wars. He targetted her (and the camera man) specifically. Something else would have made him do this.
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Post by: Manchu
It seems like the real question people want to ask ITT is, was this a hate crime?
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Post by: djones520
Manchu wrote:It seems like the real question people want to ask ITT is, was this a hate crime?
I'm of the school that it shouldn't matter. Murder is murder. A white man shooting a black man shouldn't be punished harder then if he shot a white man.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Manchu wrote:It seems like the real question people want to ask ITT is, was this a hate crime?
I think the shooter's own words speak to that;
"“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them."
It is unclear whose initials he is referring to. He continues, “As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” He said Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act. "
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Post by: Humble Guardsman
It's a damn shame this man successfully took the cowards way out, but I suppose anyone that guns down defenseless people in cold blood is something of a coward.
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Post by: kronk
Horrible act of cowardice. Poor families.
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Post by: Sinful Hero
 Humble Guardsman wrote:It's a damn shame this man successfully took the cowards way out, but I suppose anyone that guns down defenseless people in cold blood is something of a coward.
Shot them in the back no less.
As to whether it's a hate crime- technically no I think. This was basically a premeditated murder against people he thought had wronged him.
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Post by: Peter Wiggin
The guy that did this is a domestic terrorist.
Glad he had the common decency to shoot himself and save the taxpayers from the cost of a lengthy court case & imprisonment. Automatically Appended Next Post: Manchu wrote: This murderer cheated our civilization out of its inherent right to judge and punish him.
Thats ok. Better that he is no longer alive.
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Post by: Sinful Hero
 Peter Wiggin wrote:The guy that did this is a domestic terrorist.
Glad he had the common decency to shoot himself and save the taxpayers from the cost of a lengthy court case & imprisonment.
Are all murderors terrorists? This isn't the first time someone was murdered on live TV in the US. It's not like he was a mass shooter or anything- not to belittle what he did, but terrorist seems a little extreme.
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Post by: Peter Wiggin
Sinful Hero wrote: Peter Wiggin wrote:The guy that did this is a domestic terrorist.
Glad he had the common decency to shoot himself and save the taxpayers from the cost of a lengthy court case & imprisonment.
Are all murderors terrorists? This isn't the first time someone was murdered on live TV in the US. It's not like he was a mass shooter or anything- not to belittle what he did, but terrorist seems a little extreme.
The guy specifically targeted unarmed people based entirely on their ethnicity. He planned their murder in advance, and walked into their workplace. He filmed the murders and tried to post them as propaganda. He cited "race war" as his motivation. Yes, that is domestic terrorism.
Absolutely. 100%.
I have made the exact same statement about Dylan Rough, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, Chris Dorner, etc.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Sinful Hero wrote: Peter Wiggin wrote:The guy that did this is a domestic terrorist.
Glad he had the common decency to shoot himself and save the taxpayers from the cost of a lengthy court case & imprisonment.
Are all murderors terrorists? This isn't the first time someone was murdered on live TV in the US. It's not like he was a mass shooter or anything- not to belittle what he did, but terrorist seems a little extreme.
Terrorism is often seen a violent act, or series of acts, that have a political element. Dylon Roof was considered a domestic terrorist because he murdered people because of his racist views. This killer also killed people because of racial reasons. Given the similarities why would we not consider this domestic terrorism?
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Post by: Psienesis
James Holmes was just a nutcase, not a terrorist. He had no political or social issues to drive or change.
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Post by: Relapse
NuggzTheNinja wrote:Ouze wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.
No it isn't, and what's more, you know it isn't.
Here's the 4473 which I'm quite certain you are familiar.
It looks like you're making an argument that public urination should be grounds to block a gun sale and/or be picked up for a mental evaluation. I can only shrug at this.
Actually...
Section 12c asks if you have ever committed a felony, or a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty greater than one year. Ohio allows misdemeanors to extend to two years. This would disqualify you. In addition, some people have ended up on the sex offender registry as a result of urinating in public because they were charged with a different, but related, crime like indecent exposure or even sexual battery.
Again, you're wrong. I'll wait for my apology.
Gents, three people dead and another couple injured and you're arguing about pissing in public?
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Post by: Humble Guardsman
The term Terrorist is overused to the extent that it means nothing anymore.
If a gangbanger targets a white couple in a mugging and shoots them, that is also targeting someone based on their ethnicity. Your use of the word dilutes it to include any violent act where a certain demographic is targeted for unjust reasons.
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Post by: Relapse
Manchu wrote:It is a shame the murderer successfully committed suicide. The expense of his trial, imprisonment, and likely execution would have been high but these costs are justified. Suicide and execution are not equivalent outcomes.
Murder and suicide. Not something I would care to be standing in judgement of on the other side.
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Post by: Vash108
I don't think this is terrorism. Just seem like a man with very bad mental problem.
This is a tragedy either way.
The problem with mental health in the US. is the stigma attached to seeking help.
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Post by: Psienesis
Also personal history with at least one of the victims. Seems less terrorism and more a planned murder of someone with a personal connection related to their shared job.
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Post by: Peter Wiggin
 Psienesis wrote:James Holmes was just a nutcase, not a terrorist. He had no political or social issues to drive or change.
I'm of the mind that massacring a theater full of people and booby trapping your apartment building is terrorism, even if you don't have a written political manifesto. He made carefully calculated moves in order to maximize his carnage.
Simply my opinion, of course. As are all my posts.  Automatically Appended Next Post: Psienesis wrote:Also personal history with at least one of the victims. Seems less terrorism and more a planned murder of someone with a personal connection related to their shared job.
Did you read his manifesto in which he clearly states that he has a racial and political motivation which led to the killings?
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Post by: Psienesis
Peter Wiggin wrote: Psienesis wrote:James Holmes was just a nutcase, not a terrorist. He had no political or social issues to drive or change.
I'm of the mind that massacring a theater full of people and booby trapping your apartment building is terrorism, even if you don't have a written political manifesto. He made carefully calculated moves in order to maximize his carnage.
Simply my opinion, of course. As are all my posts.
Terrorism has an actual definition, it's not just a word:
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright 2011 wrote:
terrorism
ˈterəˌrizəm
noun
The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals.
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Post by: Vash108
Peter Wiggin wrote: Psienesis wrote:James Holmes was just a nutcase, not a terrorist. He had no political or social issues to drive or change.
I'm of the mind that massacring a theater full of people and booby trapping your apartment building is terrorism, even if you don't have a written political manifesto. He made carefully calculated moves in order to maximize his carnage.
Simply my opinion, of course. As are all my posts.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Psienesis wrote:Also personal history with at least one of the victims. Seems less terrorism and more a planned murder of someone with a personal connection related to their shared job.
Did you read his manifesto in which he clearly states that he has a racial and political motivation which led to the killings?
yes he was also saying God told him to shoot those people. So is this Christian Terrorism then or maybe a mentally ill person?
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Post by: SlaveToDorkness
Other religions have "gods" don't drag us into this.
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Post by: Vash108
Sorry his exact wording was "Jehova made him shoot those people"
also siting the recent church shootings.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Psienesis wrote: Peter Wiggin wrote: Psienesis wrote:James Holmes was just a nutcase, not a terrorist. He had no political or social issues to drive or change.
I'm of the mind that massacring a theater full of people and booby trapping your apartment building is terrorism, even if you don't have a written political manifesto. He made carefully calculated moves in order to maximize his carnage.
Simply my opinion, of course. As are all my posts.
Terrorism has an actual definition, it's not just a word:
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright 2011 wrote:
terrorism
ˈterəˌrizəm
noun
The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals.
A political goal like escalating a perceived race war?
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Post by: Psienesis
Again, given the personal ties between victim and shooter? Not seeing the terrorism angle. Especially considering that, as a plan of action, it's ill-thought. Did he expect the race war to erupt in the wake of his actions (as Roof did)? Did he expect the race war to cease?
Neither are true, or even possible, because there isn't a race war going on, just human beings being terrible to other human beings, which is pretty much how it's always been.
His manifesto reads like someone who has latched on to current events as both an outlet for, and a justification of, rage at personal slights, either real or imagined, rather than an attack against a larger segment of society or the government that rules it.
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Post by: Ouze
NuggzTheNinja wrote:Ouze wrote: NuggzTheNinja wrote:Considering public urination is grounds for denial in a NICS check, I'd say that warrants a further look.
No it isn't, and what's more, you know it isn't.
Here's the 4473 which I'm quite certain you are familiar.
It looks like you're making an argument that public urination should be grounds to block a gun sale and/or be picked up for a mental evaluation. I can only shrug at this.
Actually...
Section 12c asks if you have ever committed a felony, or a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty greater than one year. Ohio allows misdemeanors to extend to two years. This would disqualify you. In addition, some people have ended up on the sex offender registry as a result of urinating in public because they were charged with a different, but related, crime like indecent exposure or even sexual battery.
Again, you're wrong. I'll wait for my apology.
You'll get one when I'm wrong, which of course, I'm not. Putting aside the incredible goal-post moving of being a sex offender, Ohio has different classes of misdemeanors. It's not one size fits all. Public urination would probably be, at most, a 4th degree misdemeanor - which is 30 days.
You've gone from making an argument that public urination should be grounds for disqualification for a firearm purchase, and/or confinement for a mental evaluation, to pretending that you might serve 2 years for public urination. At this point I have to realize that I am engaging in crazy-person arguments, and find something more productive to do with my time.
Relapse wrote:Gents, three people dead and another couple injured and you're arguing about pissing in public?
I think it's hard to claim a high ground when posting in a thread that has a snuff video embedded on the first page, like 5 posts in.
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Post by: Jehan-reznor
Manchu wrote:It seems like the real question people want to ask ITT is, was this a hate crime?
Yes, he hated being fired, he hated not being in control, he hated that they hired someone to replace him, he hated everyone, because it was all their fault.
You expect reporters being shot working in a warzone but not doing some local item, RIP
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Post by: Grey Templar
Psienesis wrote: Peter Wiggin wrote: Psienesis wrote:James Holmes was just a nutcase, not a terrorist. He had no political or social issues to drive or change.
I'm of the mind that massacring a theater full of people and booby trapping your apartment building is terrorism, even if you don't have a written political manifesto. He made carefully calculated moves in order to maximize his carnage.
Simply my opinion, of course. As are all my posts.
Terrorism has an actual definition, it's not just a word:
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright 2011 wrote:
terrorism
ˈterəˌrizəm
noun
The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals.
I would say he had definite political goals. He was under the delusion that there is some race war going on. Thats definitely political.
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Post by: Spetulhu
 Grey Templar wrote:I would say he had definite political goals. He was under the delusion that there is some race war going on. Thats definitely political.
But he still chose as victims people he had history with. The "race war" delusion just served as an excuse for taking revenge on former colleagues for slights real and imagined. Maybe he wasn't quite crazy enough to kill just for getting fired but worked himself up to it by attaching some extra racial and social issues to his list of reasons? That's IMO not terrorism, it's a deranged man justifying murder by trying to make it seem less personal.
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Post by: Bromsy
Spetulhu wrote: Grey Templar wrote:I would say he had definite political goals. He was under the delusion that there is some race war going on. Thats definitely political.
But he still chose as victims people he had history with. The "race war" delusion just served as an excuse for taking revenge on former colleagues for slights real and imagined. Maybe he wasn't quite crazy enough to kill just for getting fired but worked himself up to it by attaching some extra racial and social issues to his list of reasons? That's IMO not terrorism, it's a deranged man justifying murder by trying to make it seem less personal.
And yet he didn't exactly hesitate to shoot in the back a complete stranger.
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Post by: the Signless
I have seen the accusation that he was insane thrown around, but is there any real evidence for mental illness? Writing a 27 page document detailing you grievances with the world sounds more like a mad teenager than evidence that you are mentally compromised.
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Post by: Vaktathi
 the Signless wrote:I have seen the accusation that he was insane thrown around, but is there any real evidence for mental illness? Writing a 27 page document detailing you grievances with the world sounds more like a mad teenager than evidence that you are mentally compromised.
I would posit that writing a 27 page suicide note and shooting 3 people in public, on live TV, killing two of them, are not the actions of a mentally healthy adult.
From the sound of it, I would guess the shooter had some very powerful self image and depression issues.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
Some history of Vester Flanagan. Yep. He was definitely crazy (on a side note: terrible typing in this by BBC): Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34044053 The man who accused of killing two broadcast journalists in Virginia has been identified as Vester Lee Flanagan, a former employee at the station where the victims worked.
Police said Flanagan, 41, of Roanoke, Virginia, shot himself and later died after the murders on Wednesday.
Using the name Bryce Williams, Flanagan had worked as a TV journalist in several southern states for many years.
In 2012, he was hired at WDBJ, the same Roanoke TV station where his victims Alison Parker and Adam Ward worked.
Jeffrey Marks, WDBJ's general manager, described Flanagan as unhappy, difficult to work with and always "looking out for people to say things he could take offence to".
"Eventually after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. He did not take that well,'' Marks explained. He said Flanagan had to be escorted by police out of the station when he was fired.
As police searched for Flanagan on Wednesday morning, more information about Flanagan surfaced.He posted a video of the shooting to his Twitter account - an account which only had tweets two weeks old and included many childhood and other photos.
On Twitter, Flanagan also accused the murdered reporters of making racist comments and said he complained to human resources about it.
ABC News said they had received a "lengthy" fax from someone purporting to be Bryce Williams between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and had turned it over to the authorities.
The broadcaster described the 23-page letter as "rambling" and said the writer described being motivated by previous gunmen in US mass shootings - including those in Columbine and Virginia Tech, but said the "tipping point" was the murder of nine African-Americans in Charleston early this summer.
"I've been a human powder keg for a while… just waiting to go BOOM!!!!," he wrote.
He suggested on the Twitter account he had modelled as a child and young adult, been a "high paid companion", and was raised as a Jehovah's Witness.According to his own LinkedIn account, he worked in several positions in customer service and had an undergraduate degree in broadcast media from San Francisco State University.
Local media reported Flanagan filed a lawsuit against WDBJ, alleging discrimination by the whole station, naming most of the staff in his complaint.
The case was dismissed by a judge in July 2014.
A local paper in Florida said he had sued a station there that had fired him, also alleging racial discrimination.
The writer said he had suffered both from racial discrimination and attacks for a being gay.
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Post by: triplegrim
I think we should take people at their own words. If someone says he killed these people because he wanted a race war, and because of the church shootings, I believe him.
Terrorists/bad buys mean what they write and state. I never understood people who read i.e. Hamas manifesto about destroy all of Israel, and then swats it away with "they dont really mean this", and then is suprised when ISIL, after threatening to do the same to the yezidis and christians actually starts mass murder.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Psienesis wrote:Again, given the personal ties between victim and shooter? Not seeing the terrorism angle. Especially considering that, as a plan of action, it's ill-thought. Did he expect the race war to erupt in the wake of his actions (as Roof did)? Did he expect the race war to cease?
Neither are true, or even possible, because there isn't a race war going on, just human beings being terrible to other human beings, which is pretty much how it's always been.
His manifesto reads like someone who has latched on to current events as both an outlet for, and a justification of, rage at personal slights, either real or imagined, rather than an attack against a larger segment of society or the government that rules it.
You aren't seeing the terrorism angle even when the definition you gave matches the actions and motivation of the shooter? He explicitly said that his deeds were part of a race war. That he happened to choose people that he disliked is immaterial to the fact that he committed violent acts to further a political goal.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
I don't actually see the point of discussing terrorism in this case since the man obviously was working completely alone, unrelated related to an organisation or ideology, and anyway he is dead and cannot be tried on terrorist or normal charges.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
 Kilkrazy wrote:I don't actually see the point of discussing terrorism in this case since the man obviously was working completely alone, unrelated related to an organisation or ideology, and anyway he is dead and cannot be tried on terrorist or normal charges.
Your argument presupposes that there are no such thing as a lone wolf terrorist, and ignores the fact that he was ideologically driven by racism.
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Post by: CptJake
Was the "Knock Out Game', where violence was used and driven by racism also considered terrorist acts?
Just curious as to where the line gets drawn.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Is racism an ideology? It certainly isn't a political movement.
Lone Wolf terrorists like various attacks in France and London have been inspired by political and religious ideologies promoted by organisations.
From that angle, you get an idea and act on it. If the idea is delusionary, does that make you a terrorist or mentally ill?
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Post by: Sinful Hero
I think what's clouding the issue is that it happened on live tv- first thing those who watched assumed was mass shooter. As the day wore on it became clear he wasn't going to shoot anyone else. He basically murdered who he had wanted to murder plus a witness, and then went to post his dirty deed on twitter.
It was also my understanding that it's white supremacists who want a race war to destroy the Black and Latino races in America. His comment was more of a "I'm shooting before you shoot me!" rather than a call to arms to minorities in the US.
Not the first time I've been wrong of course, but these are my observations. I just don't think just because it happened on live tv and he faxed a rant that he was a terrorist. Also he seems to imagine racial slights against him, rather than manifest any hate against other races.
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Post by: Vash108
 triplegrim wrote:I think we should take people at their own words. If someone says he killed these people because he wanted a race war, and because of the church shootings, I believe him.
Terrorists/bad buys mean what they write and state. I never understood people who read i.e. Hamas manifesto about destroy all of Israel, and then swats it away with "they dont really mean this", and then is suprised when ISIL, after threatening to do the same to the yezidis and christians actually starts mass murder.
So do you believe ther guy when he was saying Jehova made him commit this act? Hearing voices sounds pretty crazy to me.
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Post by: kronk
It's possible to be crazy and a terrorist at the same time.
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Post by: timetowaste85
 Vash108 wrote: triplegrim wrote:I think we should take people at their own words. If someone says he killed these people because he wanted a race war, and because of the church shootings, I believe him.
Terrorists/bad buys mean what they write and state. I never understood people who read i.e. Hamas manifesto about destroy all of Israel, and then swats it away with "they dont really mean this", and then is suprised when ISIL, after threatening to do the same to the yezidis and christians actually starts mass murder.
So do you believe ther guy when he was saying Jehova made him commit this act? Hearing voices sounds pretty crazy to me.
Well, there were posters on here who voted in President Bush. And he said God told him that He wanted Bush to be president. God and Jehovah are the same being, just different names. If saying you hear God makes you crazy, then a bunch of you guys should be ashamed of your voting.
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Post by: Vash108
timetowaste85 wrote: Vash108 wrote: triplegrim wrote:I think we should take people at their own words. If someone says he killed these people because he wanted a race war, and because of the church shootings, I believe him.
Terrorists/bad buys mean what they write and state. I never understood people who read i.e. Hamas manifesto about destroy all of Israel, and then swats it away with "they dont really mean this", and then is suprised when ISIL, after threatening to do the same to the yezidis and christians actually starts mass murder.
So do you believe ther guy when he was saying Jehova made him commit this act? Hearing voices sounds pretty crazy to me.
Well, there were posters on here who voted in President Bush. And he said God told him that He wanted Bush to be president. God and Jehovah are the same being, just different names. If saying you hear God makes you crazy, then a bunch of you guys should be ashamed of your voting.
There are some right now with similar claims
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Post by: Manchu
Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
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Post by: whembly
Manchu wrote:Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
I'm not... that fether is evil.
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Post by: Manchu
Agreed, except as to tense.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Manchu wrote:Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
IMO, it is entirely possible to be both crazy and evil.
As an Atheist, my mere existence is seen as "evil" by most religious folks. As a guy, the extremist feminists see me as "evil" just for the plumbing I have. Personally, I think that a person who is out killing people like the guy in the OP did, requires a bit of both crazy and evil.
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Post by: Manchu
Please just stop. Just stop. Go and learn more about the world, then you can continue.
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Post by: whembly
 Ensis Ferrae wrote: Manchu wrote:Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
IMO, it is entirely possible to be both crazy and evil.
As an Atheist, my mere existence is seen as "evil" by most religious folks. As a guy, the extremist feminists see me as "evil" just for the plumbing I have. Personally, I think that a person who is out killing people like the guy in the OP did, requires a bit of both crazy and evil.
The difference is that... the religious folks or feminists using the word "evil" in those cases are being hyperbolic.
This dude was unequivocally Evil™.
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Post by: Manchu
Certainly seems to add up: guy spends his life being angry at other people, treating them like gak, and blaming them for his faults, justifying his malicious behavior by maligning everyone around him, and this culminated in murdering some people and then plastering it on the internet along with further justifications, including complimenting other murderers.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Manchu wrote:Please just stop. Just stop. Go and learn more about the world, then you can continue.
Umm... please explain your reasoning here?
In my experience, as well as seeing what goes on on the Internet, religious folks generally fall into two categories when dealing with Atheists: 1. OMG YOU'RE EVIL.... DEVILSPAWN!!! or 2. I'm praying for your poor misguided soul.
@whembly, whether it's hyperbolic or not, the people using the term tend to have a genuine belief that they are using the word correctly. And I agree this dude was full on Evil™.
But, what I'm saying is that evil, by itself doesn't act like this. These kinds of actions, IMO require some measure of crazy.
Here's kind of the brief way I see this:
Evil, without crazy may think bad thoughts (racist, sexist, anti-cat, anti-political) but doesn't really act in any way on those thoughts.
Crazy, without evil, probably posts websites about the lizard-people overlords, their experience when they were abducted by aliens, or how they can prove that they are the 2nd coming of Christ on earth.
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Post by: Manchu
Ensis Ferrae wrote:In my experience, as well as seeing what goes on on the Internet, religious folks generally fall into two categories when dealing with Atheists: 1. OMG YOU'RE EVIL.... DEVILSPAWN!!! or 2. I'm praying for your poor misguided soul.
Again, please go learn more about the world. "Most" religious people do not think being an atheist makes someone evil. Posting that kind of tripe is tantamount to admitting you think most religious people are evil or at least stupid.
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Post by: CptJake
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Manchu wrote:Please just stop. Just stop. Go and learn more about the world, then you can continue.
Umm... please explain your reasoning here?
In my experience, as well as seeing what goes on on the Internet, religious folks generally fall into two categories when dealing with Atheists: 1. OMG YOU'RE EVIL.... DEVILSPAWN!!! or 2. I'm praying for your poor misguided soul.
And clearly group 1 encompasses MOST religious folks...
I would like to see the statistics on that.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
I doubt those kinds of stats are even collected. And again, I'm basing this on my own experience, as well as what's scrolled through around the internet.
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Post by: Manchu
Well, let's abandon this tangent for now and get back on-topic. You don't have to be religious to judge certain behavior as evil. The question is, can people do evil things without being crazy? When we jump to the conclusion that murderers must be crazy, I think we are just revealing that we are uncomfortable with the idea that people can be willfully bad.
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Post by: Vash108
Manchu wrote:Well, let's abandon this tangent for now and get back on-topic. You don't have to be religious to judge certain behavior as evil. The question is, can people do evil things without being crazy? When we jump to the conclusion that murderers must be crazy, I think we are just revealing that we are uncomfortable with the idea that people can be willfully bad.
Yeah people can do bad things without being crazy. There are plenty of examples of it.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Like Stalin. Unlike Hitler who was crazy and evil, Stalin was just evil.
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Post by: SagesStone
Perception of evil is all based on your own morale standing. If he was legitimately mentally ill and it were a delusion of some sort, I wouldn't consider him evil. Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically. However the bragging afterwards does point that way.
People can certainly do evil things without being crazy. If they are aware of their actions then yes they're just people evil without needing to be crazy. I agree the jump to saying someone is crazy is too often too fast.
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Post by: Soladrin
Yeah, the man who executed all of his officers, he wasn't crazy.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Manchu wrote:The question is, can people do evil things without being crazy? When we jump to the conclusion that murderers must be crazy, I think we are just revealing that we are uncomfortable with the idea that people can be willfully bad.
IMO, yes, it's possible to do evil things without being crazy. I do recall that the "majority" of robberies, break-ins and other forms of thievery are desperation/survival driven when you remove drugs from the equation. As in, a normal guy doesn't rob people unless he's thinking that he/his family are going to starve. I think there are plenty of things done that may not be evil by themselves or crazy by themselves, but there are plenty of times where the two overlap (drunk driving, crimes of passion, etc)
To me, this guy isn't crazy because of the premeditation, he's crazy because of the reasons he gives for his actions.
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Post by: Vash108
Even the Catholic church is guilty.
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Post by: SagesStone
 Soladrin wrote:
Yeah, the man who executed all of his officers, he wasn't crazy.
Depends on his reasoning and state of mind actually. If it were paranoia for example it's crazy, if he felt they weren't doing their job well enough and that's the way he fired them then that's much more likely to be evil than crazy.
The issue is the two are too often entwined when they really don't need to be.
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Post by: timetowaste85
Ensis, if you 100% absolutely had to have ONE term that fit atheists from a non-atheist viewpoint, I think you'd be better off with the term "unfortunate". It's unfortunate that you don't believe in God. It's unfortunate that according to my belief, you won't get into heaven due to that. It's unfortunate if you have no interest in changing your mind. But evil? Nah. That's Westboro Baptist style thinking right there. Aka, false Christians and terrorists. That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.
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Post by: CptJake
Damn, how many shots into the reporters did the Church get in?
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Post by: Grey Templar
 n0t_u wrote: Soladrin wrote:
Yeah, the man who executed all of his officers, he wasn't crazy.
Depends on his reasoning and state of mind actually. If it were paranoia for example it's crazy, if he felt they weren't doing their job well enough and that's the way he fired them then that's much more likely to be evil than crazy.
The issue is the two are too often entwined when they really don't need to be.
Its not really paranoia if its true. 
Im sure more than a few people he executed were truly plotting against him.
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Post by: Soladrin
Grey Templar wrote: n0t_u wrote: Soladrin wrote:
Yeah, the man who executed all of his officers, he wasn't crazy.
Depends on his reasoning and state of mind actually. If it were paranoia for example it's crazy, if he felt they weren't doing their job well enough and that's the way he fired them then that's much more likely to be evil than crazy.
The issue is the two are too often entwined when they really don't need to be.
Its not really paranoia if its true.
Im sure more than a few people he executed were truly plotting against him.
Seriously, learn your history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
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Post by: Manchu
n0t_u wrote:Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically.
This is exactly why it is so important to remember that evil is a thing and not just an outdated term for crazy. When you say that people failed to help this murderer, you are basically asserting that "they" (us?) -- rather than the murderer -- are the sine qua non. The murderer would not have murdered his victims but for their (our?) failure. This is ... questionable thinking.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
timetowaste85 wrote: That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.
Honestly man, I hope it is the case. I've had a few really good discussions over the past couple years with religious folks.... But as I said, if you scroll through comments sections around the internet, both social media and "regular" articles, there's a lot of heated vitriol out there. And I know it goes both ways.
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Post by: Vash108
CptJake wrote:
Damn, how many shots into the reporters did the Church get in?
around 1478, probably a lot into many reporters.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
timetowaste85 wrote:Ensis, if you 100% absolutely had to have ONE term that fit atheists from a non-atheist viewpoint, I think you'd be better off with the term "unfortunate". It's unfortunate that you don't believe in God. It's unfortunate that according to my belief, you won't get into heaven due to that. It's unfortunate if you have no interest in changing your mind. But evil? Nah. That's Westboro Baptist style thinking right there. Aka, false Christians and terrorists. That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.
I have a Christian friend like that. We have wonderful debates about religion and morality and while it may get heated, it never gets ugly and we always walk away friends. From my personal experience he is a rare case. Most Christians I have interacted with are closer to the Westboro folks than my buddy. Not saying they are the same, but if there were a spectrum with Westboro on one end and my friend on the other, the majority of Christians I have interacted with would be within brick throwing distance of Westboro and could only see my friend with binoculars.
One of my favorite exchanges from the movie Dogma sums up why I think this is the case:
Rufus: He [God] still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the gak that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier...
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Manchu wrote: n0t_u wrote:Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically.
This is exactly why it is so important to remember that evil is a thing and not just an outdated term for crazy. When you say that people failed to help this murderer, you are basically asserting that "they" (us?) -- rather than the murderer -- are the sine qua non. The murderer would not have murdered his victims but for their (our?) failure. This is ... questionable thinking.
Agreed on that front.
Though I do think that there may have been people close to him, who could have noticed some swift and uncharacteristic changes. But then again, if the reports on his temper are accurate, that he had these issues for some time, and actually cost him multiple jobs, I can see how the "signs" could be missed.
I don't think "we" the 299 million Americans as a collective whole are to blame one bit, as it's impossible for everyone to be in a position to "help". But perhaps, there may have been 5-10 people who could have helped him in some way? Was he surrounded by people saying, "hey man, I think you should calm down, think about this gak a bit" or was he surrounded by people saying, "hell yeah, they fethed up!! They racist fools, you deserved to keep that job!"
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Post by: hotsauceman1
Apparently, the culprit used to be on TV here in our area and got fired for some uknown reason
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
And to avoid the impending counter point, yes, I know there are obnoxiously vocal and intolerant atheists too. 
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Post by: Vash108
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Manchu wrote: n0t_u wrote:Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically.
This is exactly why it is so important to remember that evil is a thing and not just an outdated term for crazy. When you say that people failed to help this murderer, you are basically asserting that "they" (us?) -- rather than the murderer -- are the sine qua non. The murderer would not have murdered his victims but for their (our?) failure. This is ... questionable thinking.
Agreed on that front.
Though I do think that there may have been people close to him, who could have noticed some swift and uncharacteristic changes. But then again, if the reports on his temper are accurate, that he had these issues for some time, and actually cost him multiple jobs, I can see how the "signs" could be missed.
I don't think "we" the 299 million Americans as a collective whole are to blame one bit, as it's impossible for everyone to be in a position to "help". But perhaps, there may have been 5-10 people who could have helped him in some way? Was he surrounded by people saying, "hey man, I think you should calm down, think about this gak a bit" or was he surrounded by people saying, "hell yeah, they fethed up!! They racist fools, you deserved to keep that job!"
Like I said before, with the Stigma on mental illness, some people are afraid to go get help. Then it gets to be too late.
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Post by: timetowaste85
 DarkTraveler777 wrote: timetowaste85 wrote:Ensis, if you 100% absolutely had to have ONE term that fit atheists from a non-atheist viewpoint, I think you'd be better off with the term "unfortunate". It's unfortunate that you don't believe in God. It's unfortunate that according to my belief, you won't get into heaven due to that. It's unfortunate if you have no interest in changing your mind. But evil? Nah. That's Westboro Baptist style thinking right there. Aka, false Christians and terrorists. That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.
I have a Christian friend like that. We have wonderful debates about religion and morality and while it may get heated, it never gets ugly and we always walk away friends. From my personal experience he is a rare case. Most Christians I have interacted with are closer to the Westboro folks than my buddy. Not saying they are the same, but if there were a spectrum with Westboro on one end and my friend on the other, the majority of Christians I have interacted with would be within brick throwing distance of Westboro and could only see my friend with binoculars.
One of my favorite exchanges from the movie Dogma sums up why I think this is the case:
Rufus: He [God] still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the gak that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier...
Honestly, Kevin Smith's viewpoints in Dogma should be written into the Bible. The Boble Testament, if you will. The stuff he put in there really is an uplifting experience.
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Post by: Vash108
DarkTraveler777 wrote: timetowaste85 wrote:Ensis, if you 100% absolutely had to have ONE term that fit atheists from a non-atheist viewpoint, I think you'd be better off with the term "unfortunate". It's unfortunate that you don't believe in God. It's unfortunate that according to my belief, you won't get into heaven due to that. It's unfortunate if you have no interest in changing your mind. But evil? Nah. That's Westboro Baptist style thinking right there. Aka, false Christians and terrorists. That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.
I have a Christian friend like that. We have wonderful debates about religion and morality and while it may get heated, it never gets ugly and we always walk away friends. From my personal experience he is a rare case. Most Christians I have interacted with are closer to the Westboro folks than my buddy. Not saying they are the same, but if there were a spectrum with Westboro on one end and my friend on the other, the majority of Christians I have interacted with would be within brick throwing distance of Westboro and could only see my friend with binoculars.
One of my favorite exchanges from the movie Dogma sums up why I think this is the case:
Rufus: He [God] still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the gak that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier...
There are few examples like that with me. I usually run into hostility when I state my views and am met with hostility and how I am going to burn in hell. Especially here in the bible belt.
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Post by: timetowaste85
Bible Belt is mostly baptist extremists, one step away from being Westboro. One of the most level headed religious figures I know here on the east coast is also a baptist. And he's the minister of the local church in the town I grew up in. Told him the premise of Dogma, and he ran out to go watch it enthusiastically.
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Post by: Manchu
This thread is filling up with good examples of how dismissing evil acts as mental illness is a way to blame anyone other than the person who committed the evil acts. Let's say that somebody failed to get this murderer "the help he needed" -- I guess that failure is also a bad act. Can we say that the guy failed to help the murderer because somebody else failed him? We could go on and on with the result that no one has any moral responsibility.
Or we could acknowledge that this murderer comprehended the malicious nature of his intent and willfully executed it nonetheless.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
timetowaste85 wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote: timetowaste85 wrote:Ensis, if you 100% absolutely had to have ONE term that fit atheists from a non-atheist viewpoint, I think you'd be better off with the term "unfortunate". It's unfortunate that you don't believe in God. It's unfortunate that according to my belief, you won't get into heaven due to that. It's unfortunate if you have no interest in changing your mind. But evil? Nah. That's Westboro Baptist style thinking right there. Aka, false Christians and terrorists. That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.
I have a Christian friend like that. We have wonderful debates about religion and morality and while it may get heated, it never gets ugly and we always walk away friends. From my personal experience he is a rare case. Most Christians I have interacted with are closer to the Westboro folks than my buddy. Not saying they are the same, but if there were a spectrum with Westboro on one end and my friend on the other, the majority of Christians I have interacted with would be within brick throwing distance of Westboro and could only see my friend with binoculars.
One of my favorite exchanges from the movie Dogma sums up why I think this is the case:
Rufus: He [God] still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the gak that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier...
Honestly, Kevin Smith's viewpoints in Dogma should be written into the Bible. The Boble Testament, if you will. The stuff he put in there really is an uplifting experience.
I would so read the Boble Testament. Especially if there was a Gospel According to Jay included. 
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Post by: Vash108
Manchu wrote:This thread is filling up with good examples of how dismissing evil acts as mental illness is a way to blame anyone other than the person who committed the evil acts. Let's say that somebody failed to get this murderer "the help he needed" -- I guess that failure is also a bad act. Can we say that the guy failed to help the murderer because somebody else failed him? We could go on and on with the result that no one has any moral responsibility.
Or we could acknowledge that this murderer comprehended the malicious nature of his intent and willfully executed it nonetheless.
But isn't that also dismissing mental illness? It is a big problem and until we can have an actual discussion as a country about it it will be continued to be swept under the rug as... EVIL (DUN DUN DUN!)
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Post by: Manchu
We are having an actual discussion here and now. I am arguing against confusing malicious antisocial behavior undertaken intentionally (evil) with irresistible, involuntary impulses (mental illness).
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Vash108 wrote: Manchu wrote:This thread is filling up with good examples of how dismissing evil acts as mental illness is a way to blame anyone other than the person who committed the evil acts. Let's say that somebody failed to get this murderer "the help he needed" -- I guess that failure is also a bad act. Can we say that the guy failed to help the murderer because somebody else failed him? We could go on and on with the result that no one has any moral responsibility.
Or we could acknowledge that this murderer comprehended the malicious nature of his intent and willfully executed it nonetheless.
But isn't that also dismissing mental illness? It is a big problem and until we can have an actual discussion as a country about it it will be continued to be swept under the rug as... EVIL (DUN DUN DUN!)
Yeah, I came to the same conclusion.
If the actions are evil, but those actions are a result of a damaged brain or thought process or whatever, did the person willfully execute those actions? Willfully to me implies choice, but if your brain is misfiring is that a choice?
When I have the flu I don't choose to cough, I cough because my body is not functioning correctly and producing mucus that prevents me from breathing. Maybe that is a bad analogy, but hopefully everyone gets my point. If the brain (an organ) is damaged, can choice be ascribed to an individual's actions?
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Post by: Manchu
See above.
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Post by: SagesStone
Manchu wrote: n0t_u wrote:Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically.
This is exactly why it is so important to remember that evil is a thing and not just an outdated term for crazy. When you say that people failed to help this murderer, you are basically asserting that "they" (us?) -- rather than the murderer -- are the sine qua non. The murderer would not have murdered his victims but for their (our?) failure. This is ... questionable thinking.
To use them interchangeably is to simply not understand either. I'm saying if they are indeed mentally ill and this was the fault of some delusion then yes, I would say they are crazy and they were failed to be helped. A delusion can be strong, it's their reality and it can make people do some really stupid things. The help is to help them see past that. I'm simply talking along the line of if he was mentally ill as we were discussing the differences between them.
I'm not saying it is our failure that caused this tragedy. It is still them who are the ones who did it and are ultimately at fault.
Manchu wrote:We are having an actual discussion here and now. I am arguing against confusing malicious antisocial behavior undertaken intentionally (evil) with irresistible, involuntary impulses (mental illness).
As am I.
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Post by: Manchu
Being delusional is not mental illness. You can wind yourself up about, for example, conspiracy theories but doing so does not excuse your moral responsibility for planning and executing a murder.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Ok.
Manchu wrote:We are having an actual discussion here and now. I am arguing against confusing malicious antisocial behavior undertaken intentionally (evil) with irresistible, involuntary impulses (mental illness).
How do you determine what is undertaken intentionally versus involuntarily?
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Post by: Grey Templar
You assume its voluntary until proven otherwise. Say by a doctor.
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Post by: Manchu
How do you do this in your everyday life?
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Post by: CptJake
Vash108 wrote: CptJake wrote:
Damn, how many shots into the reporters did the Church get in?
around 1478, probably a lot into many reporters.
Ah yes, that clearly makes the Catholic Church guilty.
Sorry I doubted of the veracity your initial claim.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Manchu wrote:We are having an actual discussion here and now. I am arguing against confusing malicious antisocial behavior undertaken intentionally (evil) with irresistible, involuntary impulses (mental illness).
Agreed.... Guy stews for a period of time, plots and plans a course of action; then takes said course of action = evil
Involuntary impulse= man comes home from work early to find wife in bed with another guy, goes off and ends up killing her.
(just as a hasty example)
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Post by: Grey Templar
That last bit is definitely not involuntary.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
I generally assume everyone is mentally ill.
But seriously, how can you call someone evil, and assign choice to their actions without knowing anything about their brain chemistry?
In the case of this particular shooter there is a history that implies mental illness. If he did have a defective brain, were his actions willful? I am not convinced they are any more than I willfully cough when sick.
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Post by: Vash108
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Vash108 wrote: Manchu wrote:This thread is filling up with good examples of how dismissing evil acts as mental illness is a way to blame anyone other than the person who committed the evil acts. Let's say that somebody failed to get this murderer "the help he needed" -- I guess that failure is also a bad act. Can we say that the guy failed to help the murderer because somebody else failed him? We could go on and on with the result that no one has any moral responsibility.
Or we could acknowledge that this murderer comprehended the malicious nature of his intent and willfully executed it nonetheless.
But isn't that also dismissing mental illness? It is a big problem and until we can have an actual discussion as a country about it it will be continued to be swept under the rug as... EVIL (DUN DUN DUN!)
Yeah, I came to the same conclusion.
If the actions are evil, but those actions are a result of a damaged brain or thought process or whatever, did the person willfully execute those actions? Willfully to me implies choice, but if your brain is misfiring is that a choice?
When I have the flu I don't choose to cough, I cough because my body is not functioning correctly and producing mucus that prevents me from breathing. Maybe that is a bad analogy, but hopefully everyone gets my point. If the brain (an organ) is damaged, can choice be ascribed to an individual's actions?
So you don't think because someone has a view of themselves being always slighted through out their life, as wrong as they may be, doesn't cause any lasting effects to twist that persons views of what is normally right and wrong? The guy already wrote about these slights he has felt and it was the twig that broke the sanity.
For the most part mental illness is not some switch that just clicks on and you decide "well maybe I will be crazy today!"
Let me also say I am in NO WAY trying to say he is just crazy send him to a padded room. I am saying mental illness causes a lot of problems over a long period of time. It is easy to say someone is just a evil bastard but that isn't always the case. How can we stop this kind of thing from happening in the future, how can we spot it earlier and actually do something about it!
It's so easy to point fingers and use the big E-Word and not actually look for a cure.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Oh, are you a doctor? No?
Then you can't say his history implies mental illness.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
but is quite often ruled "temporary insanity" which implies some measure of a lack of control, or at the very least, less control over events than the OP had.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Right, which makes it 2nd degree murder instead of 1st.
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Post by: SagesStone
Manchu wrote:Being delusional is not mental illness. You can wind yourself up about, for example, conspiracy theories but doing so does not excuse your moral responsibility for planning and executing a murder.
I've been in a relationship with my gf who's diagnosis had been changed recently to schizophrenic for almost two years now. I've seen her convinced the government wanted to hunt her down and try to jump in front of a train, or point out what she had said was a cow but for it to just be a tree stump instead.
I'm not talking about the conspiracy theorists, but actual stronger delusion. The warping of their perception of reality that they have little to no control over. They do indeed control their actions, but it depends on how strong the delusion is and how it goes. For example it could be a paranoid delusion that had convinced them that they had no choice but to kill them or be killed, it again depends on what that person is like. That is what I mean when I had said if people had failed to help them. They are still accountable for their actions, but the circumstances in which they take their actions are seen differently by them to everyone else.
That is simply the difference between evil and crazy, their perception they had when they made their choices along with their choices. If they perceived things as they were and chose those actions then they are evil. If their view on reality was skewed beyond their control and they chose those actions then they are either crazy or evil and crazy depending on what they perceived and how far they acted on it.
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Post by: Vash108
Grey Templar wrote:Oh, are you a doctor? No?
Then you can't say his history implies mental illness.
And you can't say it doesn't. I am just saying think before you throw out accusations.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Vash108 wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote: Vash108 wrote: Manchu wrote:This thread is filling up with good examples of how dismissing evil acts as mental illness is a way to blame anyone other than the person who committed the evil acts. Let's say that somebody failed to get this murderer "the help he needed" -- I guess that failure is also a bad act. Can we say that the guy failed to help the murderer because somebody else failed him? We could go on and on with the result that no one has any moral responsibility.
Or we could acknowledge that this murderer comprehended the malicious nature of his intent and willfully executed it nonetheless.
But isn't that also dismissing mental illness? It is a big problem and until we can have an actual discussion as a country about it it will be continued to be swept under the rug as... EVIL (DUN DUN DUN!)
Yeah, I came to the same conclusion.
If the actions are evil, but those actions are a result of a damaged brain or thought process or whatever, did the person willfully execute those actions? Willfully to me implies choice, but if your brain is misfiring is that a choice?
When I have the flu I don't choose to cough, I cough because my body is not functioning correctly and producing mucus that prevents me from breathing. Maybe that is a bad analogy, but hopefully everyone gets my point. If the brain (an organ) is damaged, can choice be ascribed to an individual's actions?
So you don't think because someone has a view of themselves being always slighted through out their life, as wrong as they may be, doesn't cause any lasting effects to twist that persons views of what is normally right and wrong? The guy already wrote about these slights he has felt and it was the twig that broke the sanity.
For the most part mental illness is not some switch that just clicks on and you decide "well maybe I will be crazy today!"
Let me also say I am in NO WAY trying to say he is just crazy send him to a padded room. I am saying mental illness causes a lot of problems over a long period of time. It is easy to say someone is just a evil bastard but that isn't always the case. How can we stop this kind of thing from happening in the future, how can we spot it earlier and actually do something about it!
It's so easy to point fingers and use the big E-Word and not actually look for a cure.
Are you meaning to reply to me?
I am arguing that I don't think you can label a mentally ill persons actions as willful (and thus evil) if they have a dysfunctional brain.
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Post by: SagesStone
This. Automatically Appended Next Post: Manchu wrote:This thread is filling up with good examples of how dismissing evil acts as mental illness is a way to blame anyone other than the person who committed the evil acts. Let's say that somebody failed to get this murderer "the help he needed" -- I guess that failure is also a bad act. Can we say that the guy failed to help the murderer because somebody else failed him? We could go on and on with the result that no one has any moral responsibility.
Or we could acknowledge that this murderer comprehended the malicious nature of his intent and willfully executed it nonetheless.
Only if you fail to understand the context in which some are speaking to run off with your own points.
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Post by: whembly
Manchu wrote: n0t_u wrote:Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically.
This is exactly why it is so important to remember that evil is a thing and not just an outdated term for crazy. When you say that people failed to help this murderer, you are basically asserting that "they" (us?) -- rather than the murderer -- are the sine qua non. The murderer would not have murdered his victims but for their (our?) failure. This is ... questionable thinking.
But it is the current leftwing SJW ideology*. Such that, there are external factors that are to blame and not the individual.
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Post by: Desubot
DarkTraveler777 wrote: I generally assume everyone is mentally ill. But seriously, how can you call someone evil, and assign choice to their actions without knowing anything about their brain chemistry? In the case of this particular shooter there is a history that implies mental illness. If he did have a defective brain, were his actions willful? I am not convinced they are any more than I willfully cough when sick.
So what happens if you are intoxicated from drinking where your brain really isnt firing on all cylinders. are you willful when you hit on that guy thats looks like a girl? are you responsible for it in the morning?
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Post by: Grey Templar
Vash108 wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Oh, are you a doctor? No?
Then you can't say his history implies mental illness.
And you can't say it doesn't. I am just saying think before you throw out accusations.
The default assumption is that someone is mentally healthy. Its not a coin toss between them. Its you are mentally healthy, unless proven otherwise. Much like innocent till proven guilty. You are mentally stable until proven not.
We have no proof he was mentally unstable, ergo he was mentally stable.
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Post by: SagesStone
 whembly wrote: Manchu wrote: n0t_u wrote:Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically.
This is exactly why it is so important to remember that evil is a thing and not just an outdated term for crazy. When you say that people failed to help this murderer, you are basically asserting that "they" (us?) -- rather than the murderer -- are the sine qua non. The murderer would not have murdered his victims but for their (our?) failure. This is ... questionable thinking.
But it is the current leftwing SJW ideology*. Such that, there are external factors that are to blame and not the individual.
Ugh do not even try to label me as that waste of life.
Manchu was trying to discuss the difference between evil and crazy and I felt like joining in then suddenly he seemed to drop the ball and run off into the forest with it by quoting that one sentence to take it out of context to fit his response better.
The actual context and reasoning is about logic.
Are they still his actions? Yes so is at fault. Is he evil or crazy? It depends. If it were from a strong delusion could he have been helped? Quite possibly.
It's simply if the delusion led to someone making those choices then helping the delusion could help prevent it, but at the end of the day it is still their fault for having chosen those issues in the first place.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
 Desubot wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:
I generally assume everyone is mentally ill.
But seriously, how can you call someone evil, and assign choice to their actions without knowing anything about their brain chemistry?
In the case of this particular shooter there is a history that implies mental illness. If he did have a defective brain, were his actions willful? I am not convinced they are any more than I willfully cough when sick.
So what happens if you are intoxicated from drinking where your brain really isnt firing on all cylinders. are you willful when you hit on that guy thats looks like a girl? are you responsible for it in the morning?
I believe that is called impaired judgement. Or a trip to Bangkok.
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Post by: Vash108
Grey Templar wrote: Vash108 wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Oh, are you a doctor? No?
Then you can't say his history implies mental illness.
And you can't say it doesn't. I am just saying think before you throw out accusations.
The default assumption is that someone is mentally healthy. Its not a coin toss between them. Its you are mentally healthy, unless proven otherwise. Much like innocent till proven guilty. You are mentally stable until proven not.
We have no proof he was mentally unstable, ergo he was mentally stable.
That is one way of thinking yes. But He did leave clues behind if you happened to read anything he wrote and the history of his interactions. As I said maybe you want to think before jumping to conclusions, you may see the world as black and white, but it isn't.
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Post by: Grey Templar
You are the one jumping to conclusions by saying 'he must have been mentally disturbed'.
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Post by: Vash108
Grey Templar wrote:You are the one jumping to conclusions by saying 'he must have been mentally disturbed'.
No, I am saying that it needs to be kept in the forefront before using this Evil label and that mental illness is a big problem no one wants to discuss. As your mindset seems to prove.
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Post by: Manchu
DarkTraveler777 wrote:how can you call someone evil, and assign choice to their actions without knowing anything about their brain chemistry?
It must be pretty difficult to navigate social interactions for you, given your requirement of brain chemistry analysis.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
I agree we should have a discussion about mental illness, but we should not make that go to the forefront whenever someone does something horrible. Especially when Occums Razor is in effect here, and the easiest explanation is this person was evil.
Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such. Unlike you who are assuming he was mentally ill because you think you are qualified to make that decision.
We can talk about mental illness. It just doesn't factor into this situation, unless more information appears like a shrink saying this guy had problems.
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Post by: SagesStone
Grey Templar wrote:Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
I agree we should have a discussion about mental illness, but we should not make that go to the forefront whenever someone does something horrible. Especially when Occums Razor is in effect here, and the easiest explanation is this person was evil.
Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such. Unlike you who are assuming he was mentally ill because you think you are qualified to make that decision.
We can talk about mental illness. It just doesn't factor into this situation, unless more information appears like a shrink saying this guy had problems.
Have an exalt.
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Post by: Vash108
Grey Templar wrote:Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
I agree we should have a discussion about mental illness, but we should not make that go to the forefront whenever someone does something horrible. Especially when Occums Razor is in effect here, and the easiest explanation is this person was evil.
Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such. Unlike you who are assuming he was mentally ill because you think you are qualified to make that decision.
We can talk about mental illness. It just doesn't factor into this situation, unless more information appears like a shrink saying this guy had problems.
Which was one of the things I was saying. People are afraid to talk about it and the stigma about mental health is people will not seek help out of fear.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Manchu wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:how can you call someone evil, and assign choice to their actions without knowing anything about their brain chemistry?
It must be pretty difficult to navigate social interactions for you, given your requirement of brain chemistry analysis.
So you really have nothing to add to this tangent about evil you so gleefully introduced to this topic? You just want to make pithy remarks? Okay. 
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Post by: Grey Templar
Vash108 wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
I agree we should have a discussion about mental illness, but we should not make that go to the forefront whenever someone does something horrible. Especially when Occums Razor is in effect here, and the easiest explanation is this person was evil.
Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such. Unlike you who are assuming he was mentally ill because you think you are qualified to make that decision.
We can talk about mental illness. It just doesn't factor into this situation, unless more information appears like a shrink saying this guy had problems.
Which was one of the things I was saying. People are afraid to talk about it and the stigma about mental health is people will not seek help out of fear.
This is true. Now why do you keep insisting this guy was crazy in absent of any evidence saying he was?
All i see is a really angry guy who decided to vent it.
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Post by: Vash108
Grey Templar wrote: Vash108 wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
I agree we should have a discussion about mental illness, but we should not make that go to the forefront whenever someone does something horrible. Especially when Occums Razor is in effect here, and the easiest explanation is this person was evil.
Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such. Unlike you who are assuming he was mentally ill because you think you are qualified to make that decision.
We can talk about mental illness. It just doesn't factor into this situation, unless more information appears like a shrink saying this guy had problems.
Which was one of the things I was saying. People are afraid to talk about it and the stigma about mental health is people will not seek help out of fear.
This is true. Now why do you keep insisting this guy was crazy in absent of any evidence saying he was?
All i see is a really angry guy who decided to vent it.
Did you actually read any of his history or things he wrote, because I am guessing you didn't.
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Post by: Manchu
Grey Templar wrote:Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such.
YES YES YES Assume sanity. If a sane person commits bad acts, then we can assume bad intent. Instead, lots of people assume insanity. On what basis? They do not believe people can be bad; they think instead that people can only be healthy or "broken." DarkTraveler777 wrote:So you really have nothing to add to this tangent about evil you so gleefully introduced to this topic?
No reasonable person could assume as much from reading the thread. See, e.g., my point immediately above.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Grey Templar wrote:Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
When anyone behaves so out of the ordinary wouldn't it be fair to assume mental illness rather than them being "evil"? Evil is a moral judgement, and it is satisfying to pass that judgment, but it really doesn't acknowledge possible underlying physiological issues that caused the aberrant behavior in the first place.
That doesn't mean that there are no "evil" actions that take place in the world, but I'd rather assume mental illness over evil any day. Evil doesn't tell me anything useful about the person other than they differ from my own moral compass.
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Post by: Vash108
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
When anyone behaves so out of the ordinary wouldn't it be fair to assume mental illness rather than them being "evil"? Evil is a moral judgement, and it is satisfying to pass that judgment, but it really doesn't acknowledge possible underlying physiological issues that caused the aberrant behavior in the first place.
That doesn't mean that there are no "evil" actions that take place in the world, but I'd rather assume mental illness over evil any day. Evil doesn't tell me anything useful about the person other than they differ from my own moral compass.
THIS!! Thank you DT
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Post by: Manchu
DarkTraveler777 wrote:Evil doesn't tell me anything useful about the person other than they differ from my own moral compass.
What? Being able to judge between right and wrong is probably the most fundamental requirement for society.
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Post by: whembly
So what mental illness defines a child rapist?
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Manchu wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such.
YES YES YES
Assume sanity. If a sane person commits bad acts, then we can assume bad intent.
Instead, lots of people assume insanity. On what basis? They do not believe people can be bad; they think instead that people can only be healthy or "broken."
Which to me says more about your need to pass judgment than really understand what motivated a person to be "bad".
Manchu wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:So you really have nothing to add to this tangent about evil you so gleefully introduced to this topic?
No reasonable person could assume as much from reading the thread. See, e.g., my point immediately above.
See above. Automatically Appended Next Post: Manchu wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:Evil doesn't tell me anything useful about the person other than they differ from my own moral compass.
What? Being able to judge between right and wrong is probably the most fundamental requirement for society.
And if a brain is damaged to the point where a person cannot determine right from wrong, then what?
Are they evil? I asked that a page back and you ignored it. Please answer.
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Post by: SagesStone
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Manchu wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Until someone is shown to be mentally ill, they are not mentally ill and cannot be assumed to be as such.
YES YES YES
Assume sanity. If a sane person commits bad acts, then we can assume bad intent.
Instead, lots of people assume insanity. On what basis? They do not believe people can be bad; they think instead that people can only be healthy or "broken."
Which to me says more about your need to pass judgment than really understand what motivated a person to be "bad".
Isn't it now a bit troubling he's a mod when you raise that point?
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Post by: Manchu
DarkTraveler777 wrote:Which to me says more about your need to pass judgment than really understand what motivated a person to be "bad".
That's a fair distinction. I am talking about criminal justice, which is why the subject is the need to pass judgment. For the purposes of adjudging guilt, I need to know that the accused committed the act willfully and had the general capacity to comprehend the consequences. None of this is in doubt here. What brought the murderer to the point of committing the murders, the evil acts, is a subject for biographers.
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Post by: whembly
DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:Evil doesn't tell me anything useful about the person other than they differ from my own moral compass.
What? Being able to judge between right and wrong is probably the most fundamental requirement for society.
And if a brain is damaged to the point where a person cannot determine right from wrong, then what?
Are they evil? I asked that a page back and you ignored it. Please answer.
I'll answer.
A mentally ill person, in a vacuum... is NOT EVIL.
It's what they actually *DO* determines whether they're Evil™, not what they are or what they're suffering from.
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Post by: Manchu
DarkTraveler777 wrote:And if a brain is damaged to the point where a person cannot determine right from wrong, then what? Are they evil? I asked that a page back and you ignored it. Please answer.
I didn't see your question. But you are asking it in bad faith anyway considering I have already posted: Manchu wrote:We are having an actual discussion here and now. I am arguing against confusing malicious antisocial behavior undertaken intentionally (evil) with irresistible, involuntary impulses (mental illness).
n0t_u wrote:Isn't it now a bit troubling he's a mod when you raise that point?
It should not trouble you at all. It just goes to show that I would consider the intent of the person when thinking about how to deal with rule-breaking.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
 Manchu wrote:I didn't see your question. But you are asking it in bad faith anyway considering I have already posted:
I really resent the accusation that my question was made in bad faith. I am genuinely trying to understand your position on this matter because it seems completely devoid of any contemporary understanding of mental health. So I am excusing myself from this conversation because it is a waste of time with you.
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Post by: SagesStone
Manchu wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:And if a brain is damaged to the point where a person cannot determine right from wrong, then what?
Are they evil? I asked that a page back and you ignored it. Please answer.
I didn't see your question. But you are asking it in bad faith anyway considering I have already posted: Manchu wrote:We are having an actual discussion here and now. I am arguing against confusing malicious antisocial behavior undertaken intentionally (evil) with irresistible, involuntary impulses (mental illness).
n0t_u wrote:Isn't it now a bit troubling he's a mod when you raise that point?
It should not trouble you at all. It just goes to show that I would consider the intent of the person when thinking about how to deal with rule-breaking.
I was poking fun.
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Post by: Manchu
The feeling is mutual, precisely because you seem to be arguing in bad faith. Even so, it's not a bad example. As a moderator I assume (all joking aside) that all users are sane. When someone breaks the site rules, I assume they had bad intent. If it becomes apparent that they have no capacity to abide by the forum rules (just want to clarify that, as a moderator, I am in no way qualified to judge whether they are mentally ill) then I would, after consultation with the whole staff, permanently suspend their account. Intent and capacity are taken into consideration. Folks who demonstrate bad intent are temporarily or eventually permanently suspended. We don't go further than that. Sometimes users will say "well I had a bad day" but that is immaterial; it doesn't excuse bad behavior even if it might explain it.
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Post by: kronk
Maybe he was crazy.
Maybe he was just an angry, angry donkey-cave.
Maybe it was a little of both.
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Post by: BobtheInquisitor
Ensis Ferrae wrote: timetowaste85 wrote: That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.
Honestly man, I hope it is the case. I've had a few really good discussions over the past couple years with religious folks.... But as I said, if you scroll through comments sections around the internet, both social media and "regular" articles, there's a lot of heated vitriol out there. And I know it goes both ways.
I have gotten more hostility and bizarre crap for being Jewish and/or liberal than for being an atheist. However, there is quite a lot of overlap bias against "nonChristians" in general.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Manchu wrote: (just want to clarify that, as a moderator, I am in no way qualified to judge whether they are mentally ill)
Good to know. It is my understanding that diagnosis mental illness across the internet is nigh on impossible. Any qualified individual doing such a thing would have to explain why they attempted it to their professional body. Automatically Appended Next Post: Vash108 wrote:Like I said before, with the Stigma on mental illness, some people are afraid to go get help. Then it gets to be too late.
And the reduction in funding and services means limited access Automatically Appended Next Post: Grey Templar wrote:Why? Why does mental illness always have to be what we think of first when someone shots up a place?
The persecution complex, delusions of grandeur, and claiming Jehovah told him to kill might all be reasons to suspect mental illness. Automatically Appended Next Post: DarkTraveler777 wrote:When anyone behaves so out of the ordinary wouldn't it be fair to assume mental illness rather than them being "evil"? Evil is a moral judgement, and it is satisfying to pass that judgment, but it really doesn't acknowledge possible underlying physiological issues that caused the aberrant behavior in the first place.
That doesn't mean that there are no "evil" actions that take place in the world, but I'd rather assume mental illness over evil any day. Evil doesn't tell me anything useful about the person other than they differ from my own moral compass.
Also saying an act is evil does not exclude the possibility that the individual responsible was not mentally ill, and to say the act was evil does not necessarily pass judgement on the person who committed it. We can examine the act separate from the actor
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DarkTraveler777 wrote:When anyone behaves so out of the ordinary wouldn't it be fair to assume mental illness rather than them being "evil"? Evil is a moral judgement, and it is satisfying to pass that judgment, but it really doesn't acknowledge possible underlying physiological issues that caused the aberrant behavior in the first place.
That doesn't mean that there are no "evil" actions that take place in the world, but I'd rather assume mental illness over evil any day. Evil doesn't tell me anything useful about the person other than they differ from my own moral compass.
Also saying an act is evil does not exclude the possibility that the individual responsible was not mentally ill, and to say the act was evil does not necessarily pass judgement on the person who committed it. We can examine the act separate from the actor
That isn't what this whole evil tangent was about.
Manchu wrote:This thread is filling up with good examples of how dismissing evil acts as mental illness is a way to blame anyone other than the person who committed the evil acts. Let's say that somebody failed to get this murderer "the help he needed" -- I guess that failure is also a bad act. Can we say that the guy failed to help the murderer because somebody else failed him? We could go on and on with the result that no one has any moral responsibility.
Or we could acknowledge that this murderer comprehended the malicious nature of his intent and willfully executed it nonetheless.
It has always been about assigning "proper" blame. Saying someone did an evil act and is crazy is fine with me. But Manchu clearly seems to think that mental illness is an excuse that we give to obfuscate evil. Which I find to be a ridiculous stance because this isn't the Spanish fething Inquisition.
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Post by: Manchu
Yet more bad faith argumentation from DarkTraveler777. This time he's willfully ignoring this exchange: Manchu wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:Which to me says more about your need to pass judgment than really understand what motivated a person to be "bad".
That's a fair distinction. I am talking about criminal justice, which is why the subject is the need to pass judgment. For the purposes of adjudging guilt, I need to know that the accused committed the act willfully and had the general capacity to comprehend the consequences. None of this is in doubt here. What brought the murderer to the point of committing the murders, the evil acts, is a subject for biographers.
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Post by: HiveFleetPlastic
"He was just crazy" does often seem like a way of abdicating responsibility, but I don't think it's as much about taking it away from the shooter. It's more like mental illness as uncontrollable event, like the weather. If the shooter is just crazy then the rest of us don't have to think about anything else that might have caused him to act that way.
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Post by: DarkTraveler777
Manchu wrote:Yet more bad faith argumentation from DarkTraveler777. This time he's willfully ignoring this exchange: Manchu wrote: DarkTraveler777 wrote:Which to me says more about your need to pass judgment than really understand what motivated a person to be "bad".
That's a fair distinction. I am talking about criminal justice, which is why the subject is the need to pass judgment. For the purposes of adjudging guilt, I need to know that the accused committed the act willfully and had the general capacity to comprehend the consequences. None of this is in doubt here. What brought the murderer to the point of committing the murders, the evil acts, is a subject for biographers.
I actually missed that post of yours on the bottom of page six.
Looks like it happened to both of us in this discussion, so kindly walk back your claims of my arguing in bad faith. I doubt you will, as you often toe the line of appropriate posting behavior.
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Post by: Manchu
Honestly? You just accused me of trying to impose some kind of Spanish Inquisition, which frankly I didn't expect. All jokes aside, that's bad faith purely as matter of hyperbole. I understand that you missed that post but even so you went straight off the deep end.  HiveFleetPlastic wrote:If the shooter is just crazy then the rest of us don't have to think about anything else that might have caused him to act that way.
I agree that's a problem but I think it is separate from the issue of moral responsibility. "He was crazy" is dismissive of your "anything else" (from his perspective, racism and homophobia) as well as the fact that he, him, no one else, is the guy who pointed a gun at three people intending to murder them, and was successful as to two of them.
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Post by: Psienesis
 kronk wrote:Maybe he was crazy.
Maybe he was just an angry, angry donkey-cave.
Maybe it was a little of both.
The more I read about this guy, the more and more it seems like option C here. Rather, seems like rather a lot of Option C.
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Post by: Spetulhu
Manchu wrote:"He was just crazy" does often seem like a way of abdicating responsibility, but I don't think it's as much about taking it away from the shooter. It's more like mental illness as uncontrollable event, like the weather. If the shooter is just crazy then the rest of us don't have to think about anything else that might have caused him to act that way.
That too ofc. But it's also about the US meme of declaring yourself insane to get out of legal trouble. It's some sort of urban legend there that you can get off scot free if you're insane.
Funny thing is most US defense lawyers advise against claiming insanity (because it seldom works), and when someone IS found to be crazy enough to not be responsible he'll be locked up in a mental institution. An institution where he'll on average spend more time than if he'd gotten prison for his crime, and with fewer chances to get out on parole.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
Spetulhu wrote: Manchu wrote:That too ofc. But it's also about the US meme of declaring yourself insane to get out of legal trouble. It's some sort of urban legend there that you can get off scot free if you're insane.
Funny thing is most US defense lawyers advise against claiming insanity (because it seldom works), and when someone IS found to be crazy enough to not be responsible he'll be locked up in a mental institution. An institution where he'll on average spend more time than if he'd gotten prison for his crime, and with fewer chances to get out on parole.
A defendant can declare himself insane to try and run that defense, but there needs to be evidence that he is suffering from a mental illness.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
So it looks like more bodies are joining the gun control crowd..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34077174
The father of Alison Parker, one of two journalists killed live on air, has appealed to US President Barack Obama to push through tougher gun laws.
"You need to do this... I will help you do this and the press is with you on this because they just lost one of their own," Andy Parker told the BBC.
Staff at WDBJ TV in Virginia have been mourning the loss of his daughter, a reporter, and cameraman Adam Ward.
They were shot dead live on air by a disgruntled ex-colleague on Wednesday.
The attack has reignited the debate about gun control laws in the US.
Mr Parker acknowledged it would be an uphill battle to change the law, but said the president could take on the challenge as he had with other issues including healthcare reform.
"Mr President, you need to do this. Please do it. Please do it for us and for other people so they're not going to lose their Alisons and their Adams," he said in an emotional message.
President Obama supported legislation to extend background checks for gun buyers and a ban on rapid-firing assault weapons after 26 people were killed at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, but it was rejected in 2013.
Last month, he told the BBC the failure to pass "common-sense gun safety laws" was the greatest frustration of his presidency.
On Wednesday, he said the US needed to do "a better job of making sure that people who have problems, people who shouldn't have guns, don't have them."
Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said she would "take on" the issue of gun violence, while admitting it was "a very political, difficult issue in America".
She said: "I want to reiterate how important it is we not let yet another terrible incidence go by without trying to do something more to prevent this incredible killing that is stalking our country."
Republican presidential hopefuls Jim Gilmore and Ben Carson have warned against any rush to introduce tougher gun controls.
Although the issue has stalled nationally, gun control measures have gone ahead in the last two years in several states.
'We will heal'
WDBJ Roanoke news director Kelly Zuber said in a news conference on Thursday that none of her news teams had been doing live shots for the last two days "out of an abundance of caution".
She said the gunman, Vester Flanagan, may have discovered the location of the news crew after watching them in an earlier TV appearance at Bridgewater Plaza in Moneta on Wednesday, and had enough time to drive to the area before their second live appearance.
The station's general manager, Jeff Marks, also said Flanagan had vowed to make "a stink" soon after he was fired from the station two years ago.
Earlier on Thursday, the station held a minute's silence on air in memory of the two slain journalists. "We will, over time, heal from this," WDBJ7 anchor Kim McBroom told viewers, holding hands with two colleagues.
Bunches of flowers and black ribbons have been placed outside the channel's headquarters in Roanoke.
Flanagan, who posted online a video he had filmed of the attack, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound later on Wednesday.
Memos from the station reveal Flanagan, who used the on-air name of Bryce Williams, had been ordered by the station's bosses to seek medical help and expressed "aggressive" behaviour toward colleagues.
WDBJ's former news chief Dan Dennison said on Wednesday Flanagan had complained of racial discrimination but "all these allegations were deemed to be unfounded".
Flanagan had to be escorted from the building by police when he was fired "because he was not going to leave willingly", he added.
In a 23-page fax sent to ABC News, Flanagan said his anger had been "building steadily" and a recent attack on black church-goers in Charleston, South Carolina, had driven him to "tipping point".
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
And yet support for gun control remains at an all time low. So what gun control measures would you like to see? Will your proposals affect millions of law abiding Americans?
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Post by: cincydooley
Which is absurd. He could done what he did with a knife. Easily. And the visual would have been MUCH worse.
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
cincydooley wrote:Which is absurd. He could done what he did with a knife. Easily. And the visual would have been MUCH worse.
Given the fact that he appeared with a gun and went away and came back I believe you could be right. His victims were focused on the task at hand rather than him.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
cincydooley wrote:Which is absurd. He could done what he did with a knife. Easily. And the visual would have been MUCH worse.
True, but bullets travel faster than someone swinging a knife at you. Gives you less time to react to the threat.
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Post by: Ouze
Manchu wrote:Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
No. I think we're calling him crazy for several reasons, foremost being that sane, rational people do not resolve their feelings of anger via ambush murdering them.
Mostly, however, calling someone evil is sort of useless. The United States tolerates a level of gun violence that is unparalleled among first-world nations, so clearly this is not just the way people be. As such, we must try to find a way to remediate this. If someone is mentally disturbed, there is at least the possibility that more intensive screening prior to being able to purchase a firearm* might assuage the problem somewhat. It at least offers a constructive approach.
Deciding that someone is evil sort of just helplessly resigns us to the status quo, well: "he was evil, can't do anything about, with that supernatural pull on his moral compass being more downward than upward and all."
*that the political realities of this passing being unlikely this being set aside for this discussion.
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Post by: cincydooley
 angelofvengeance wrote: cincydooley wrote:Which is absurd. He could done what he did with a knife. Easily. And the visual would have been MUCH worse.
True, but bullets travel faster than someone swinging a knife at you. Gives you less time to react to the threat.
Not convinced it would have mattered. Kill the dude. Women are easy. And it's silent. That camera man would be on the ground bleeding out before the women knew what happened.
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Post by: Ouze
cincydooley wrote:Which is absurd. He could done what he did with a knife. Easily. And the visual would have been MUCH worse.
Should we issue the army knives instead of M4's? The idea that gun regulation doesn't matter because violent people will always do violent things is sort of silly, because it's going to be fairly difficult to kill 30 people in a movie theater or a school with a kitchen knife. Although I believe one Chinese fellow made a go of it a few years ago.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
cincydooley wrote:Not convinced it would have mattered. Kill the dude. Women are easy. And it's silent. That camera man would be on the ground bleeding out before the women knew what happened.
Did you even think before typing that??
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Post by: Goliath
Ouze wrote: cincydooley wrote:Which is absurd. He could done what he did with a knife. Easily. And the visual would have been MUCH worse.
Should we issue the army knives instead of M4's? The idea that gun regulation doesn't matter because violent people will always do violent things is sort of silly, because it's going to be fairly difficult to kill 30 people in a movie theater or a school with a kitchen knife. Although I believe one Chinese fellow made a go of it a few years ago.
The example you're referring to is probably the Chenpeng Village School attack, as it happened within a few hours of the Sandy Hook attack. There have actually been a few stabbing attacks in china over the past few years, all of which seem like they would have been much more deadly with a gun, so I find the argument that 'it would have been just as bad with a knife' to be silly.
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Post by: Ouze
Yeah, that's the one. Looks like no one died.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Medical evidence is conclusive that guns create nastier wounds than knives.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
I'm sorry, did no-one here pick up on cincydooley's comment that women are easy??...
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Post by: cincydooley
angelofvengeance wrote: cincydooley wrote:Not convinced it would have mattered. Kill the dude. Women are easy. And it's silent. That camera man would be on the ground bleeding out before the women knew what happened.
Did you even think before typing that??
Yes. I did. Unless you want to purposefully and ignorantly take it out of context.
Ouze - I agree with you, but my comments are very specific to this incident. That father could have given a fat feth about gun cntrol until his kid was murdered. I don't say that with the intent to be callous, but rather to respond to the reactionary claim about this particular incident. Crazy dude was going to kill them. Crazy dude, in this instance, didn't need a firearm to do it. Automatically Appended Next Post:
Be more obtuse?
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Post by: angelofvengeance
cincydooley: I imagine you're popular with the ladies then.... also it's not being obtuse. What you said was so blatantly chauvinist.
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Post by: CptJake
Kilkrazy wrote:Medical evidence is conclusive that guns create nastier wounds than knives.
And you generally don't get quite as messy when you shoot someone as when you stab/hack them to death.
Bonus!
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Post by: cincydooley
angelofvengeance wrote:cincydooley: I imagine you're popular with the ladies then.... also it's not being obtuse. What you said was so blatantly chauvinist.
I get that critical thinking may not be your strong suit. Maybe you're one of the boards resident 15 year olds. I don't know. But you have to purposefully take my comment out of context to come to that inane conclusion. Bravo on doing so.
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Post by: kronk
I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].
We're just shocked you said it.
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Post by: Vash108
kronk wrote:I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].
We're just shocked you said it.
It does kind of give some insight into how they really are though.
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Post by: cincydooley
kronk wrote:I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].
We're just shocked you said it.
With claims of misogyny, I don't think so.
A large angry man with purpose subduing a tiny female and an old female should be pretty objectively easy.
Especially when they're not expecting it.
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Post by: MrDwhitey
And it's a large angry man who is intent on killing said women, so he isn't holding back.
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Post by: whembly
cincydooley wrote: kronk wrote:I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].
We're just shocked you said it.
With claims of misogyny, I don't think so.
A large angry man with purpose subduing a tiny female and an old female should be pretty objectively easy.
Especially when they're not expecting it.
Hence why guns are a great equalizer.
51889
Post by: Vash108
whembly wrote: cincydooley wrote: kronk wrote:I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].
We're just shocked you said it.
With claims of misogyny, I don't think so.
A large angry man with purpose subduing a tiny female and an old female should be pretty objectively easy.
Especially when they're not expecting it.
Hence why guns are a great equalizer.
But knives Whembly. KNIVES!!!
67097
Post by: angelofvengeance
cincydooley: that's how you should have worded it in the first place lol.
However, size matters not. For all we know, any of those 3 might have kicked the crap out of him. Plus the fact he chose to kill himself after doing the deed, says he's a coward with a gun. He more than likely chose to use a gun to avoid a fight.
34390
Post by: whembly
Vash108 wrote: whembly wrote: cincydooley wrote: kronk wrote:I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].
We're just shocked you said it.
With claims of misogyny, I don't think so.
A large angry man with purpose subduing a tiny female and an old female should be pretty objectively easy.
Especially when they're not expecting it.
Hence why guns are a great equalizer.
But knives Whembly. KNIVES!!!
Indeedeo!
www.zombietools.net
I'll have two of each, please and thank you!
38860
Post by: MrDwhitey
angelofvengeance wrote:cincydooley: that's how you should have worded it in the first place lol.
However, size matters not. For all we know, any of those 3 might have kicked the crap out of him.
And cincy is probably going by what we now know, and even if he weren't, on average I would expect a man to be able to beat a woman in a fight if he was actually fully intent on doing so.
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Post by: CptJake
angelofvengeance wrote:
However, size matters not. For all we know, any of those 3 might have kicked the crap out of him. Plus the fact he chose to kill himself after doing the deed, says he's a coward with a gun. He more than likely chose to use a gun to avoid a fight.
Bull crap. Size very much does matter, which is why things like pro boxing or olympic wrestling have weight classes. Add in the typical difference in strength due to differences in muscle mass between women and men even at the same weight and a bigger size of an angry guy against a smaller woman makes even more of a difference.
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Post by: Vash108
Uh... is this about to become a thread of how easy it is to kill a woman? Because that is pretty messed up IMO.
67097
Post by: angelofvengeance
Not really. It was discussing the likelihood of the victims surviving if the guy had a knife instead of a gun.
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Post by: Relapse
What the crap new depths is this thread plumbing?
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Post by: kronk
<-------------Topic
How easy people are to kill with knives based on gender and weight classes ------------>
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
angelofvengeance wrote: cincydooley wrote:Which is absurd. He could done what he did with a knife. Easily. And the visual would have been MUCH worse.
True, but bullets travel faster than someone swinging a knife at you. Gives you less time to react to the threat.
I think that, in this exact situation, he's right that the visual image of a knife attack would be worse. As he came up behind the cameraman, if he'd slashed the throat of the cameraman, there'd be a blood spray going toward the women... Shock and disbelief, which would most likely cause inaction, which would give him all the time he needed to go the 3-5 feet from the cameraman to the woman he hated.
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Post by: Manchu
Ouze wrote: Manchu wrote:Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
No. I think we're calling him crazy for several reasons, foremost being that sane, rational people do not resolve their feelings of anger via ambush murdering them. Mostly, however, calling someone evil is sort of useless. The United States tolerates a level of gun violence that is unparalleled among first-world nations, so clearly this is not just the way people be. As such, we must try to find a way to remediate this. If someone is mentally disturbed, there is at least the possibility that more intensive screening prior to being able to purchase a firearm* might assuage the problem somewhat. It at least offers a constructive approach. Deciding that someone is evil sort of just helplessly resigns us to the status quo, well: "he was evil, can't do anything about, with that supernatural pull on his moral compass being more downward than upward and all."
I know the thesis of your post was "no Manchu you're wrong" but honestly you actually brilliantly succeeded in demonstrating how/why contemporary Americans feel the need to replace the concept of evil with the concept of insanity. As you point out, we have no idea what to do about evil; more specifically, we don't know how to "fix" it. And that's our paradigm: everything is a machine that can break but that can also be fixed, including human beings -- or more importantly, human society or even the human species. There are of course other paradigms: for example, that society has the right and obligation to punish those who commit evil acts. I think people eventually got confused about the purpose of punishment, probably because they started thinking about it from a kind of parental viewpoint. We punish our kids (and pets) to "teach them a lesson" -- to improve and fix them. Somewhere down the line, we started to confuse adult criminals with kids and puppies. So punishment was more and more considered a therapeutic tool, not only to reform the convict but also to deter others. The logical conclusion is that the criminal becomes the patient. What is the patient's malady? In the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, the learned experts might have called it moral deficiency. These days, we just call it irrationality and/or insanity. We need a diagnosis in order to select the appropriate course of treatment, otherwise the patient will not recover. I think this sort of thinking is why the death penalty has become less accepted: it is hard for people to see the point in killing the patient. To continue the metaphor of pathology, it's also important to point out (as you kind of do Ouze) that we also see individual criminals as symptoms of social diseases. In this light, the criminal isn't even a patient (or even a person) anymore; he and his victims are statistics. It isn't uncommon to hear politicians talk about, with regard to the criminal justice system, treating the causes rather than the symptoms. Generally, this is in the context of sentencing reforms but in this kind of example it's about gun control. After someone commits a violent crime, by virtue of doing so, it becomes evident to us that he was crazy. The answer, therefore, is to create some way to screen crazy people out of gun ownership. It's all very neat! Except when it comes time for concrete policy: what exactly does this screening look for? If someone got fired from a job, and HR wrote "anger issues" on their file, is that enough to take away their constitutional right? What if it happens twice? I don't want to get too far down that path; the point is just to show how we have been conflating criminal justice with psychiatric treatment and social hygiene. That's one paradigm. Another paradigm is: The overwhelming majority of people, including people who commit violent crimes, are not crazy. At the time they committed their crimes, they were fully capable of choosing not to commit their crimes. They did so anyway out of bad intent. They therefore deserve punishment. The purpose of the punishment is not to make them better, prevent others from similar malice, or even to improve society. The purpose is to create moral consequences for evil -- to reaffirm the social order by enforcing it. Yes, that probably seems useless to most contemporary people. I would go further and posit that it also scares them. The thing that paradigm of punishment really lacks is a sense of social control. Unlike the paradigm of pathology, it does not create buttons and levers we can push and pull to fix people and communities. And for our culture, not having this kind of control is terrifying.
42342
Post by: Smacks
cincydooley wrote:Not convinced it would have mattered. Kill the dude. Women are easy. And it's silent. That camera man would be on the ground bleeding out before the women knew what happened.
When you say things like this, I'm not convinced you are arguing honestly. It's a little bit like saying that you're not convinced seatbelts make a difference, because sometimes people die regardless. Even if the result were the same, it doesn't mean the chances of survival weren't better. Assailants with knives are much easier to escape, and the injuries are likely to be more survivable too. That's without even discussing whether he would have had the inclination to attack at all, had he not had a gun to hide behind. A gun is a very powerful weapon, that I'm sure does make people feel like they have god like power over life and death. I am convinced that that power at someone’s fingertips does empower would-be attackers to do things that might not occur to them with other weapons.
34390
Post by: whembly
Manchu wrote:Ouze wrote: Manchu wrote:Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
No. I think we're calling him crazy for several reasons, foremost being that sane, rational people do not resolve their feelings of anger via ambush murdering them. Mostly, however, calling someone evil is sort of useless. The United States tolerates a level of gun violence that is unparalleled among first-world nations, so clearly this is not just the way people be. As such, we must try to find a way to remediate this. If someone is mentally disturbed, there is at least the possibility that more intensive screening prior to being able to purchase a firearm* might assuage the problem somewhat. It at least offers a constructive approach. Deciding that someone is evil sort of just helplessly resigns us to the status quo, well: "he was evil, can't do anything about, with that supernatural pull on his moral compass being more downward than upward and all."
I know the thesis of your post was "no Manchu you're wrong" but honestly you actually brilliantly succeeded in demonstrating how/why contemporary Americans feel the need to replace the concept of evil with the concept of insanity. As you point out, we have no idea what to do about evil; more specifically, we don't know how to "fix" it. And that's our paradigm: everything is a machine that can break but that can also be fixed, including human beings -- or more importantly, human society or even the human species. There are of course other paradigms: for example, that society has the right and obligation to punish those who commit evil acts. I think people eventually got confused about the purpose of punishment, probably because they started thinking about it from a kind of parental viewpoint. We punish our kids (and pets) to "teach them a lesson" -- to improve and fix them. Somewhere down the line, we started to confuse adult criminals with kids and puppies. So punishment was more and more considered a therapeutic tool, not only to reform the convict but also to deter others. The logical conclusion is that the criminal becomes the patient. What is the patient's malady? In the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, the learned experts might have called it moral deficiency. These days, we just call it irrationality and/or insanity. We need a diagnosis in order to select the appropriate course of treatment, otherwise the patient will not recover. I think this sort of thinking is why the death penalty has become less accepted: it is hard for people to see the point in killing the patient. To continue the metaphor of pathology, it's also important to point out (as you kind of do Ouze) that we also see individual criminals as symptoms of social diseases. In this light, the criminal isn't even a patient (or even a person) anymore; he and his victims are statistics. It isn't uncommon to hear politicians talk about, with regard to the criminal justice system, treating the causes rather than the symptoms. Generally, this is in the context of sentencing reforms but in this kind of example it's about gun control. After someone commits a violent crime, by virtue of doing so, it becomes evident to us that he was crazy. The answer, therefore, is to create some way to screen crazy people out of gun ownership. It's all very neat! Except when it comes time for concrete policy: what exactly does this screening look for? If someone got fired from a job, and HR wrote "anger issues" on their file, is that enough to take away their constitutional right? What if it happens twice? I don't want to get too far down that path; the point is just to show how we have been conflating criminal justice with psychiatric treatment and social hygiene. That's one paradigm. Another paradigm is: The overwhelming majority of people, including people who commit violent crimes, are not crazy. At the time they committed their crimes, they were fully capable of choosing not to commit their crimes. They did so anyway out of bad intent. They therefore deserve punishment. The purpose of the punishment is not to make them better, prevent others from similar malice, or even to improve society. The purpose is to create moral consequences for evil -- to reaffirm the social order by enforcing it. Yes, that probably seems useless to most contemporary people. I would go further and posit that it also scares them. The thing that paradigm of punishment really lacks is a sense of social control. Unlike the paradigm of pathology, it does not create buttons and levers we can push and pull to fix people and communities. And for our culture, not having this kind of control is terrifying.
There's so much win here... I can't even exalt this enough. I would also add that in addition to... The purpose is to create moral consequences for evil -- to reaffirm the social order by enforcing it.
That punishment (incarceration) is to take the convict out of the public sphere.
51889
Post by: Vash108
Manchu wrote:Ouze wrote: Manchu wrote:Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.
No. I think we're calling him crazy for several reasons, foremost being that sane, rational people do not resolve their feelings of anger via ambush murdering them.
Mostly, however, calling someone evil is sort of useless. The United States tolerates a level of gun violence that is unparalleled among first-world nations, so clearly this is not just the way people be. As such, we must try to find a way to remediate this. If someone is mentally disturbed, there is at least the possibility that more intensive screening prior to being able to purchase a firearm* might assuage the problem somewhat. It at least offers a constructive approach.
Deciding that someone is evil sort of just helplessly resigns us to the status quo, well: "he was evil, can't do anything about, with that supernatural pull on his moral compass being more downward than upward and all."
I know the thesis of your post was "no Manchu you're wrong" but honestly you actually brilliantly succeeded in demonstrating how/why contemporary Americans feel the need to replace the concept of evil with the concept of insanity. As you point out, we have no idea what to do about evil; more specifically, we don't know how to "fix" it. And that's our paradigm: everything is a machine that can break but that can also be fixed, including human beings -- or more importantly, human society or even the human species.
There are of course other paradigms: for example, that society has the right and obligation to punish those who commit evil acts. I think people eventually got confused about the purpose of punishment, probably because they started thinking about it from a kind of parental viewpoint. We punish our kids (and pets) to "teach them a lesson" -- to improve and fix them. Somewhere down the line, we started to confuse adult criminals with kids and puppies. So punishment was more and more considered a therapeutic tool, not only to reform the convict but also to deter others.
The logical conclusion is that the criminal becomes the patient. What is the patient's malady? In the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, the learned experts might have called it moral deficiency. These days, we just call it irrationality and/or insanity. We need a diagnosis in order to select the appropriate course of treatment, otherwise the patient will not recover. I think this sort of thinking is why the death penalty has become less accepted: it is hard for people to see the point in killing the patient.
To continue the metaphor of pathology, it's also important to point out (as you kind of do Ouze) that we also see individual criminals as symptoms of social diseases. In this light, the criminal isn't even a patient (or even a person) anymore; he and his victims are statistics. It isn't uncommon to hear politicians talk about, with regard to the criminal justice system, treating the causes rather than the symptoms. Generally, this is in the context of sentencing reforms but in this kind of example it's about gun control. After someone commits a violent crime, by virtue of doing so, it becomes evident to us that he was crazy. The answer, therefore, is to create some way to screen crazy people out of gun ownership. It's all very neat! Except when it comes time for concrete policy: what exactly does this screening look for? If someone got fired from a job, and HR wrote "anger issues" on their file, is that enough to take away their constitutional right? What if it happens twice?
I don't want to get too far down that path; the point is just to show how we have been conflating criminal justice with psychiatric treatment and social hygiene. That's one paradigm. Another paradigm is: The overwhelming majority of people, including people who commit violent crimes, are not crazy. At the time they committed their crimes, they were fully capable of choosing not to commit their crimes. They did so anyway out of bad intent. They therefore deserve punishment. The purpose of the punishment is not to make them better, prevent others from similar malice, or even to improve society. The purpose is to create moral consequences for evil -- to reaffirm the social order by enforcing it.
Yes, that probably seems useless to most contemporary people. I would go further and posit that it also scares them. The thing that paradigm of punishment really lacks is a sense of social control. Unlike the paradigm of pathology, it does not create buttons and levers we can push and pull to fix people and communities. And for our culture, not having this kind of control is terrifying.
So then what is your answer? I for one am hoping we get to a point to where we find the reason to stop things before they happen. It sounds like yours only deals with the aftermath. I am all for punishment to fit the crime, but we could also use it to learn the Why.
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Post by: Manchu
Vash108 wrote:So then what is your answer? I for one am hoping we get to a point to where we find the reason to stop things before they happen.
My answer? A group of child mutants floating in a pool of glowing liquid. They can predict crimes before they are even committed!
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Post by: Vash108
Manchu wrote: Vash108 wrote:So then what is your answer? I for one am hoping we get to a point to where we find the reason to stop things before they happen.
My answer? A group of child mutants floating in a pool of glowing liquid. They can predict crimes before they are even committed!
Childish and useless responses are always welcome, instead of debating for realzies.
GG Manchu
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Post by: SagesStone
I've built up a mental filter for stupidity I guess. Thanks OT
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Post by: Manchu
Did you think I would give you a medal for misunderstanding and dismissing my thoughts?
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Post by: SagesStone
Vash108 wrote: whembly wrote: cincydooley wrote: kronk wrote:I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].
We're just shocked you said it.
With claims of misogyny, I don't think so.
A large angry man with purpose subduing a tiny female and an old female should be pretty objectively easy.
Especially when they're not expecting it.
Hence why guns are a great equalizer.
But knives Whembly. KNIVES!!!
Why fight when you can just have both.
10097
Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Vash108 wrote: Manchu wrote: Vash108 wrote:So then what is your answer? I for one am hoping we get to a point to where we find the reason to stop things before they happen.
My answer? A group of child mutants floating in a pool of glowing liquid. They can predict crimes before they are even committed!
Childish and useless responses are always welcome, instead of debating for realzies.
GG Manchu
Well, honestly that's about as good an answer as you should expect. The other option is that we have WW3, and eventually start up the United Federation of Planets...
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Post by: Dreadclaw69
I did. I just didn't take it out of context.
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Post by: Manchu
Ensis Ferrae wrote:Well, honestly that's about as good an answer as you should expect. The other option
Nope, full stop, there is no other option. Humans do not live in societies by choice. We do so because that is who we are. There is a natural limitation on our freedom. Similarly, society is naturally limited in the amount of control it can exert over its members, if nothing else purely as a matter of economics. Even Big Brother left the plebs to their own devices (Orwell used irony to achieve realism). This natural balance or compromise between submission to society and individual freedom is what every theory of criminal justice is about. As long as there are laws, there will be crime. And there will always be laws unless there is no society. And if there is no society, then that means there are no humans. Okay but so what? Obviously crime rates can go down, after all. Sure -- but here's the issue: we assume the question is "how can we (society) reduce the crime rates?" without ever wondering whether crime rates are something we can actually control. After all, just because the incidence of, for example, violent crime decreases doesn't mean that a certain policy or any policies caused that. Now of course, such things can be investigated but the point is, in terms of our cultural assumptions and our political rhetoric, we skip that. Because we want control: Daughter shot to death, dad vows to fight for gun control. His reasoning is, if more gun control laws were in place then my daughter would not have been killed. Another, similar response would be, we need better mental health ... er, systems? well, mental health somethings anyway, because only crazy people do this. If crazy people were effectively treated then my daughter would not have been murdered. Well, except that ... no, I'm sorry. Because sometimes people kill others out of malice (definition of murder btw) and malice is not the same thing as insanity. Now obviously some amount of violence in our society is perpetrated by folks who have greatly diminished capacity to understand or even choose what they are doing, i.e., the mentally ill. Before anyone stuffs more strawmen, I am not suggesting such people are evil or that society should ignore their need for treatment and care. But Seung-Hui Cho, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, Elliot Rodger, Vester Flanagan, etc., don't seem to me to fall into this category.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Manchu wrote: Ensis Ferrae wrote:Well, honestly that's about as good an answer as you should expect. The other option
Nope, full stop, there is no other option.
Humans do not live in societies by choice. We do so because that is who we are. There is a natural limitation on our freedom. Similarly, society is naturally limited in the amount of control it can exert over its members, if nothing else purely as a matter of economics. Even Big Brother left the plebs to their own devices (Orwell used irony to achieve realism). This natural balance or compromise between submission to society and individual freedom is what every theory of criminal justice is about. As long as there are laws, there will be crime. And there will always be laws unless there is no society. And if there is no society, then that means there are no humans.
Okay but so what? Obviously crime rates can go down, after all. Sure -- but here's the issue: we assume the question is "how can we (society) reduce the crime rates?" without ever wondering whether crime rates are something we can actually control. After all, just because the incidence of, for example, violent crime decreases doesn't mean that a certain policy or any policies caused that. Now of course, such things can be investigated but the point is, in terms of our cultural assumptions and our political rhetoric, we skip that.
I agree... however, I was responding to someone saying that the plot for Minority Report was childish... Really the only other "future society" movie that really stands out to me, is Star Trek
As I've gone through more and more education, the more I tend to agree with certain people who say that the most sure (it's not guaranteed) way to reduce crime rates overall, is through better education, better economics (less disparity/economic despair), and I'll add in better treatment of mental health (whether it's fighting the stigma, better access, what... probably a combination of many factors).
Personally, I think that many people, when talking about ways to legitimately reduce crime take the army's "drink water and take motrin" approach... it treats the symptoms, not the "causes" of crime.
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Post by: Ahtman
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Really the only other "future society" movie that really stands out to me, is Star Trek
You've never seen Blade Runner? If you haven't you should, I mean, you aren't going to live forever. Then again, who does?
42342
Post by: Smacks
Manchu wrote:After someone commits a violent crime, by virtue of doing so, it becomes evident to us that he was crazy. The answer, therefore, is to create some way to screen crazy people out of gun ownership. It's all very neat! Except when it comes time for concrete policy: what exactly does this screening look for? If someone got fired from a job, and HR wrote "anger issues" on their file, is that enough to take away their constitutional right? What if it happens twice?
It occurs to me that if you've reached the stage where you're concerned about anyone who has ever been fired or divorced (whatever) from being trusted with a gun, then you've reached the stage where you're concerned about people in general being trusted with guns.
I don't think it's possible to distinguish who is and is not going to "lose it" at some point in their lives. Which then leaves us with the question, do we just resign ourselves to living in a world where people occasionally meltdown and go on killing rampages? Or do we resign ourselves to accepting that people in general can't be trusted with guns.
I know there are people who will argue that gun related deaths are just acceptable losses, but how can they make the decision for other people? If other people don't personally want to take the risk of being gunned down while shopping or at the cinema, what are they supposed to do, other than ask for more control?
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
 Ahtman wrote: Ensis Ferrae wrote: Really the only other "future society" movie that really stands out to me, is Star Trek
You've never seen Blade Runner? If you haven't you should, I mean, you aren't going to live forever. Then again, who does?
Yes, BR is one of my favorite movies... however, it doesn't stand out as a paragon of "virtuous future society" the way Minority Report and Star Trek do
20243
Post by: Grey Templar
 Smacks wrote:
I know there are people who will argue that gun related deaths are just acceptable losses, but how can they make the decision for other people? If other people don't personally want to take the risk of being gunned down while shopping or at the cinema, what are they supposed to do, other than ask for more control?
You could put it all in perspective perhaps?
There is a huge list of causes of death that get way ahead of anything possibly related to firearms. Firearm deaths are insignificant enough to be rounding errors.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Smacks wrote:
I know there are people who will argue that gun related deaths are just acceptable losses, but how can they make the decision for other people? If other people don't personally want to take the risk of being gunned down while shopping or at the cinema, what are they supposed to do, other than ask for more control?
I think the problem here is... there's a middle ground group here that worries about slippery slopes and all that. If we (America) decide it's OK to legislate away this Right (a right which, some would argue is "God Given"), what's to say that a few years down the road, the DoD needs to save a bit of coin and house soldiers inside civilian houses*? Or what if "we" decide that the Press is a really pesky thing that we'd rather have more control over, so we'll just legislate away the freedom of the press.*
*Yes, both of these "examples" are extremely far fetched.
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Post by: CptJake
Smacks wrote:
I don't think it's possible to distinguish who is and is not going to "lose it" at some point in their lives. Which then leaves us with the question, do we just resign ourselves to living in a world where people occasionally meltdown and go on killing rampages? Or do we resign ourselves to accepting that people in general can't be trusted with guns.
I know there are people who will argue that gun related deaths are just acceptable losses, but how can they make the decision for other people? If other people don't personally want to take the risk of being gunned down while shopping or at the cinema, what are they supposed to do, other than ask for more control?
By advocating taking my guns and the guns of millions of other lawful owners, are you not 'making the decision for other people'?
And by 'making the decision' I mean curtailing a constitutional right?
Where the heck does our constitution give anyone the 'right to not fear'? Folks can live scared and piss themselves when they see scary strangers or Lord Forbid A GUN! for all I care. If they take just a bit of time from cleaning their pissed in drawers to look at the actual odds of being gunned down while shopping or at the cinema perhaps they would decide the odds are slim enough, especially if they choose to exercise a modicum of situational awareness, that they do not actually need to live in fear.
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Post by: Grey Templar
You are more likely to get run over by a car or get cancer than get shot by someone, including yourself accidentally.
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Post by: Manchu
Smacks wrote:It occurs to me that if you've reached the stage where you're concerned about anyone who has ever been fired or divorced (whatever) from being trusted with a gun, then you've reached the stage where you're concerned about people in general being trusted with guns.
Sure that is exactly the point I was trying to make -- although I meant it sardonically whereas you seem to be earnest.
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Post by: Smacks
Grey Templar wrote:You could put it all in perspective perhaps?
...
There is a huge list of causes of death that get way ahead of anything possibly related to firearms. Firearm deaths are insignificant enough to be rounding errors.
And that's just a completely BS argument from deflection. Burglary homicides are also insignificant enough to be rounding errors, yet they are continually banded about as a justification for gun rights.
Very few people are killed by serial killers, that doesn't mean serial killings are acceptable, or should be ignored.
As I said before, you are posting your graph here trying to argue that because the deaths are few (relative to heart disease) that these are somehow acceptable losses, but it's just a nonsense comparison. Heart disease doesn't just march into a school one day unexpectedly and kill a classroom full of healthy 10 year olds. Just because that might be acceptable to you, as the price for you getting to own your gun, doesn't mean it is acceptable to other people.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Its certainly not justification for infringing on the Constitutional, and basic human, rights of hundreds of millions of people. Just so you can possibly claim you saved a few people. Especially when no proposed legislation would have prevented any of these school shootings.
And I was referring to people being afraid of getting shot while shopping at a mall or watching a movie. If you go watch a movie you are more likely to die of a heart attack in the theater than be a victim of a shooting. You are more likely to slip and fall on a wet floor at the mall than to be a victim of a shooting there.
People being scared of getting shot is no justification for anything when it is so incredibly rare.
You seem under the delusion that in order for me to own a weapon, someone is going to walk into a school and shoot children. Thats just grade A bullgak from an ignorant foreigner.
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Post by: Ensis Ferrae
Smacks wrote:And that's just a completely BS argument from deflection. Burglary homicides are also insignificant enough to be rounding errors, yet they are continually banded about as a justification for gun rights.
In 2012, there were an estimated 2,103,787 burglaries, a decrease of 3.7 percent when compared with 2011 data.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/property-crime/burglary
Burglaries in themselves are significant enough to warrant having a "preventative measure" on hand. "Burglary homicide" is some gak you just made up to justify your rage against guns.
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Post by: Manchu
Smacks wrote:continually banded about as a justification for gun rights
I grant that this happens -- and it is unfortunate. It gives foreigners the impression that Americans need to justify their constitutional rights in order to keep them.
20243
Post by: Grey Templar
Manchu wrote: Smacks wrote:continually banded about as a justification for gun rights
I grant that this happens -- and it is unfortunate. It gives foreigners the impression that Americans need to justify their constitutional rights in order to keep them.
Darn, I guess we need to justify freedom of religion, speech, press, and all our other rights too.
And while we are at it, why don't you Brits justify your rights as well?
42013
Post by: Sinful Hero
Smacks wrote: Grey Templar wrote:You could put it all in perspective perhaps?
...
There is a huge list of causes of death that get way ahead of anything possibly related to firearms. Firearm deaths are insignificant enough to be rounding errors.
And that's just a completely BS argument from deflection. Burglary homicides are also insignificant enough to be rounding errors, yet they are continually banded about as a justification for gun rights.
Very few people are killed by serial killers, that doesn't mean serial killings are acceptable, or should be ignored.
As I said before, you are posting your graph here trying to argue that because the deaths are few (relative to heart disease) that these are somehow acceptable losses, but it's just a nonsense comparison. Heart disease doesn't just march into a school one day unexpectedly and kill a classroom full of healthy 10 year olds. Just because that might be acceptable to you, as the price for you getting to own your gun, doesn't mean it is acceptable to other people.
So do you think that if Americans were not allowed to own guns, school shootings wouldn't happen?
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Post by: kronk
Manchu wrote: Smacks wrote:continually banded about as a justification for gun rights
I grant that this happens -- and it is unfortunate. It gives foreigners the impression that Americans need to justify their constitutional rights in order to keep them.
The great news is that we don't have to justify it! If it weren't for GW and the other founding fathers, we'd all be speaking English right now!
Viva le Tejas!
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Post by: Manchu
I'e heard of Games Workshop fanboys but that is taking it a bit far! Grey Templar wrote:Darn, I guess we need to justify freedom of religion, speech, press, and all our other rights too.
"But those don't hurt people!" LOL
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Post by: Relapse
Smacks wrote:
I know there are people who will argue that gun related deaths are just acceptable losses, but how can they make the decision for other people? If other people don't personally want to take the risk of being gunned down while shopping or at the cinema, what are they supposed to do, other than ask for more control?
What about the equal number of people a year killed by drunk drivers as those who are murdered in gun related incidents? Are we to argue for more control over alcohol and limit it in a similar fashion to guns so people won't have to worry about being out for a drive with their family and getting into a fatal wreck with a drunk? Are these deaths acceptable losses?
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Post by: Kanluwen
Sinful Hero wrote: Smacks wrote: Grey Templar wrote:You could put it all in perspective perhaps?
...
There is a huge list of causes of death that get way ahead of anything possibly related to firearms. Firearm deaths are insignificant enough to be rounding errors.
And that's just a completely BS argument from deflection. Burglary homicides are also insignificant enough to be rounding errors, yet they are continually banded about as a justification for gun rights.
Very few people are killed by serial killers, that doesn't mean serial killings are acceptable, or should be ignored.
As I said before, you are posting your graph here trying to argue that because the deaths are few (relative to heart disease) that these are somehow acceptable losses, but it's just a nonsense comparison. Heart disease doesn't just march into a school one day unexpectedly and kill a classroom full of healthy 10 year olds. Just because that might be acceptable to you, as the price for you getting to own your gun, doesn't mean it is acceptable to other people.
So do you think that if Americans were not allowed to own guns, school shootings wouldn't happen?
How often do you see "Students killed in mass school knifing"?
Guns, quite bluntly, are a very real enabling factor in these kinds of situations.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
Grey Templar wrote:You seem under the delusion that in order for me to own a weapon, someone is going to walk into a school and shoot children. Thats just grade A bullgak from an ignorant foreigner.
Sorry but that's bull. The UK brought strict firearms controls into effect in the 1960s and it's done very well here. The number of firearms massacres here are tiny when compared to the USA's track record.
Look how often this kinda stuff goes on over in the US. It's ridiculous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers
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Post by: Manchu
Relapse wrote:Are we to argue for more control over alcohol and limit it in a similar fashion to guns ... ?
It's time to have a serious discussion about driving and alcohol consumption in this country. Until we have mental health screening for people who want driver's licenses or who want to purchase and consume alcohol, this terrible death toll will continue. Automatically Appended Next Post: angelofvengeance wrote:The UK brought strict firearms controls into effect in the 1960s and it's done very well here.
And if it works in the UK it should definitely work in the US, right? Give us our Queen back Obama!
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Post by: Kanluwen
Manchu wrote:Relapse wrote:Are we to argue for more control over alcohol and limit it in a similar fashion to guns ... ?
It's time to have a serious discussion about driving and alcohol consumption in this country. Until we have mental health screening for people who want driver's licenses or who want to purchase and consume alcohol, this terrible death toll will continue.
Biggest fallacious bunch of bullcrap that gets bandied about.
There isn't however any real comparison between the two, as Relapse and many others who bring this stupid argument up already know. Mass shootings or revenge shootings like this case are not the same thing as someone driving while impaired and plowing into a school bus.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
I think this is pretty relevant...
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Post by: Manchu
 Kanluwen wrote:Mass shootings or revenge shootings like this case are not the same thing as someone driving while impaired and plowing into a school bus.
The difference is vanishingly small in terms of the explaining criminal behavior as insanity/irrationality. Getting hammered and then climbing into a 2-ton contraption made of plastic, glass, and steel that hurtles down the road crowded with innocent bystanders at 40-80 mph is flying rodent gak insane.
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Post by: Sinful Hero
angelofvengeance wrote: Grey Templar wrote:You seem under the delusion that in order for me to own a weapon, someone is going to walk into a school and shoot children. Thats just grade A bullgak from an ignorant foreigner.
Sorry but that's bull. The UK brought strict firearms controls into effect in the 1960s and it's done very well here. The number of firearms massacres here are tiny when compared to the USA's track record.
Look how often this kinda stuff goes on over in the US. It's ridiculous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers
What's the difference in population size between the UK and the US?
Kanluwen wrote: Sinful Hero wrote: Smacks wrote: Grey Templar wrote:You could put it all in perspective perhaps?
...
There is a huge list of causes of death that get way ahead of anything possibly related to firearms. Firearm deaths are insignificant enough to be rounding errors.
And that's just a completely BS argument from deflection. Burglary homicides are also insignificant enough to be rounding errors, yet they are continually banded about as a justification for gun rights.
Very few people are killed by serial killers, that doesn't mean serial killings are acceptable, or should be ignored.
As I said before, you are posting your graph here trying to argue that because the deaths are few (relative to heart disease) that these are somehow acceptable losses, but it's just a nonsense comparison. Heart disease doesn't just march into a school one day unexpectedly and kill a classroom full of healthy 10 year olds. Just because that might be acceptable to you, as the price for you getting to own your gun, doesn't mean it is acceptable to other people.
So do you think that if Americans were not allowed to own guns, school shootings wouldn't happen?
How often do you see "Students killed in mass school knifing"?
Guns, quite bluntly, are a very real enabling factor in these kinds of situations.
It's happened a couple times in China I believe.
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Post by: Manchu
Could you please stop dropping vids into the thread without making any meaningful commentary? Thanks.
Also I will put them in spoilers for you.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
Manchu wrote:Could you please stop dropping vids into the thread without making any meaningful commentary? Thanks.
Also I will put them in spoilers for you.
Apologies. But I think the videos speak for themselves really.
And thanks for spoilering them.
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Post by: Kanluwen
Manchu wrote: Kanluwen wrote:Mass shootings or revenge shootings like this case are not the same thing as someone driving while impaired and plowing into a school bus.
The difference is vanishingly small in terms of the explaining criminal behavior as insanity/irrationality. Getting hammered and then climbing into a 2-ton contraption made of plastic, glass, and steel that hurtles down the road crowded with innocent bystanders at 40-80 mph is flying rodent gak insane.
Except "drunk driving" isn't just getting hammered and then climbing into a 2-ton contraption made of plastic, glass, and steel that hurtles down the road crowded with innocent bystanders.
Drunk driving--and some of the cases where fatalities have been the end result--can be as simple as someone having a beer or two and then driving, thinking that they "know their limits" to the example you gave of someone just getting flatout plastered and screaming down the road like a bat out of hell.
There are varying degrees of intoxication and alcohol doesn't necessarily affect each person the same way.
What's more?
Police are actually allowed to proactively set up checkpoints in potential/known problem areas in an attempt to catch drunk drivers and the justice system is empowered to restrict people's usage of things they own in the name of public safety by revoking driver's licenses.
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Post by: Manchu
Kanluwen wrote:What's more? Police are actually allowed to proactively set up checkpoints in potential/known problem areas in an attempt to catch drunk drivers and the justice system is empowered to restrict people's usage of things they own in the name of public safety by revoking driver's licenses.
Are you trying to imply the same (restrictions on ownership and usage) is not already true of gun ownership? Also I don't think you carry your point about alcohol and driving. It is well known that drinking and driving can dramatically increase the probability of causing an accident, including fatal accidents. People who decide to put themselves in the position of driving while intoxicated are being irrational. It's a crazy thing to do. If you do it, we know you must have been crazy. Just like when somebody murders a reporter and cameraman, we know he's crazy. So if the answer to the latter is to make gun ownership contingent upon some kind of mental health screening to keep guns out of the hands of crazy people, then why not also do something to keep alochol and driver's licenses out of the hands of crazy people? Mind you, I know this is dumb. That is the point I am trying to make. Fortunately our criminal justice system doesn't buy into the mental health paradigm of criminal behavior, which is why we have different charges, like for first degree murder or for vehicular manslaughter.
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Post by: Kanluwen
Sinful Hero wrote:Kanluwen wrote:
How often do you see "Students killed in mass school knifing"?
Guns, quite bluntly, are a very real enabling factor in these kinds of situations.
It's happened a couple times in China I believe.
One of which was mentioned in this very thread.
24 non-fatal injuries, 0 deaths. Automatically Appended Next Post: Manchu wrote: Kanluwen wrote:What's more?
Police are actually allowed to proactively set up checkpoints in potential/known problem areas in an attempt to catch drunk drivers and the justice system is empowered to restrict people's usage of things they own in the name of public safety by revoking driver's licenses.
Are you trying to imply the same (restrictions on ownership and usage) is not already true of gun ownership?
If it were actually true, we wouldn't keep having all these shootings now would we?
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Post by: Manchu
Kanluwen wrote:If it were actually true, we wouldn't keep having all these shootings now would we?
Nice example of why inductive argument is unreliable.
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Post by: Howard A Treesong
Sinful Hero wrote:angelofvengeance wrote: Grey Templar wrote:You seem under the delusion that in order for me to own a weapon, someone is going to walk into a school and shoot children. Thats just grade A bullgak from an ignorant foreigner.
Sorry but that's bull. The UK brought strict firearms controls into effect in the 1960s and it's done very well here. The number of firearms massacres here are tiny when compared to the USA's track record.
Look how often this kinda stuff goes on over in the US. It's ridiculous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers
What's the difference in population size between the UK and the US?
The UK population is about a fifth of the US, gun related injuries, suicides, crime, shootings and rampages are not proportionally a fifth of those in the US, and a significant factor is that access to firearms are heavily restricted, that causal relationship is just common sense.
The pie chart way above showing causes of deaths in the US shows a small proportion of deaths caused by fire arms, but that doesn't logically mean something shouldn't be done. The majority of people will die in bed of some health condition or another. But years ago, far more people died in industrial accidents and in traffic accidents. These were never that high in the grand scheme of things, but people didn't deem them acceptable because far more died of cancer. Action was taken and work places are safer and road deaths are much lower. You are far less likely to die at work or on the road than your parents, and I think that is something we should be pleased with even if it does mean that you have inconveniences like wearing seat belts.
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Post by: Kanluwen
Manchu wrote: Kanluwen wrote:If it were actually true, we wouldn't keep having all these shootings now would we?
Nice example of why inductive argument is unreliable.
Nah, it's a good example of how you cannot really compare two wildly different circumstances to another--and why Relapse's continual garbageposting about drunk driving in threads about gun violence should be considered trolling at this point.
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Post by: Manchu
No stop, pause for a minute -- YES it is an example of why inductive argument is unreliable. You argued that all these shootings demonstrate we don't have restrictions on gun ownership. But actually we do in fact have restrictions on gun ownership. This literally shows that the structure of your argument is unreliable. A similar argument would be, there must be no law against murder given that all the murders keep happening. Now, you will probably tell me what you really meant was that all these shootings mean that the restrictions already in place are inadequate. The same problem crops up. This kind of argument can produce nonsensical conclusions. Go back to our example: all these murders keep happening because our existing laws against murder are inadequate. The trouble with this kind of argument is that it can seem convincing in an evidentiary sense, leading us to mistake it as proof. But it does not in fact render proof.
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Post by: Vaktathi
angelofvengeance wrote: Grey Templar wrote:You seem under the delusion that in order for me to own a weapon, someone is going to walk into a school and shoot children. Thats just grade A bullgak from an ignorant foreigner.
Sorry but that's bull. The UK brought strict firearms controls into effect in the 1960s and it's done very well here. The number of firearms massacres here are tiny when compared to the USA's track record.
Legal questions and issues of fundamental rights aside, the UK introduced strict firearms controls much earlier than the 1960's, they began licensing in the 1870's and active restrictions in 1903, and declared that self defense was not a legal reason to own a firearm in the 1930's. Likewise the firearms ownership per capita was never what it was in the US, while both the population and area of the UK are significantly smaller than the US. Cultural attitudes towards firearms are also different. This made control of firearms an infinitely more simple proposition than in the US. Different circumstances, different outcomes.
Even setting gun crimes aside, the US have a violence problem the UK doesn't.
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Post by: Kanluwen
Manchu wrote:No stop, pause for a minute -- YES it is an example of why inductive argument is unreliable. You argued that all these shootings demonstrate we don't have restrictions on gun ownership. But actually we do in fact have restrictions on gun ownership. This literally shows that the structure of your argument is unreliable. A similar argument would be, there must be no law against murder given that all the murders keep happening.
Now, you will probably tell me what you really meant was that all these shootings mean that the restrictions already in place are inadequate. The same problem crops up. This kind of argument can produce nonsensical conclusions. Go back to our example: all these murders keep happening because our existing laws against murder are inadequate. The trouble with this kind of argument is that it can seem convincing in an evidentiary sense, leading us to mistake it as proof. But it does not in fact render proof.
You understand what "throwaway statements" are, right?
If I were to seriously have argued that stance, I would have done so. I wouldn't have made a snarky comment about how these shootings keep happening.
If you want me to realistically argue that stance based on the statement I made about how police can proactively set up checkpoints in potential/known problem areas to attempt to catch drunk drivers and that the justice system is empowered to restrict people's usage of things they own in the name of public safety by revoking driver's licenses?
Then I would post this statement:
How often have we seen people that realistically should not have been able to acquire firearms via legal means(mental health issues that should have been reported by a psychologist, criminal charges that should have been reported, etc) have legally owned firearms?
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Post by: Manchu
Kan if you want me to agree that all your arguments ITT have been throwaway statements, I will gladly do so.
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Post by: Kanluwen
Manchu wrote:Kan if you want me to agree that all your arguments ITT have been throwaway statements, I will gladly do so.
Sure, that's what I'm saying.
Just keep pretending that's what I was saying, and not that the kinds of measures which could potentially reduce gun violence aren't ridiculously opposed by a lobby which pours an obscene amount of money into making people believe that without their guns, violent criminals are going to murderrape them in their sleep!
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Post by: Manchu
So you think I am misrepresenting your argument and you object to that. But then you immediately deploy this strawman: Kanluwen wrote:making people believe that without their guns, violent criminals are going to murderrape them in their sleep!
Mediocre. As to your claim that I am misrepresenting your argument, here is your argument (by implication): Kanluwen wrote:How often have we seen people that realistically should not have been able to acquire firearms via legal means(mental health issues that should have been reported by a psychologist, criminal charges that should have been reported, etc) have legally owned firearms?
which I anticipated here: Manchu wrote:Now, you will probably tell me what you really meant was that all these shootings mean that the restrictions already in place are inadequate.
And then explained why it was just as unreliable as what you yourself called a "throwaway statement": Manchu wrote:The same problem crops up. This kind of argument can produce nonsensical conclusions. Go back to our example: all these murders keep happening because our existing laws against murder are inadequate.
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Post by: whembly
Kanluwen wrote: Manchu wrote:Kan if you want me to agree that all your arguments ITT have been throwaway statements, I will gladly do so.
Sure, that's what I'm saying.
Just keep pretending that's what I was saying, and not that the kinds of measures which could potentially reduce gun violence aren't ridiculously opposed by a lobby which pours an obscene amount of money into making people believe that without their guns, violent criminals are going to murderrape them in their sleep!
This is obscene?
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000082
For reference:
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2014&indexType=s
Chamber of Commerce spent about 37x as much as the NRA.
Comcast & Google spent 5x as much.
Regardless...
What new laws do you propose that would've stopped Flanagan from killing those reports?
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Post by: Kanluwen
Just keep telling yourself that drunk driving and shootings are parallel situations.
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Post by: Vash108
Kanluwen wrote:Just keep telling yourself that drunk driving and shootings are parallel situations.
Man you are looking in the wrong place for sense. Figured that out a few pages ago. You have a Mod that will complain about meaningless responses as he makes them himself.
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Post by: Spetulhu
Manchu wrote: Go back to our example: all these murders keep happening because our existing laws against murder are inadequate. The trouble with this kind of argument is that it can seem convincing in an evidentiary sense, leading us to mistake it as proof. But it does not in fact render proof.
Aye. But one thing seems quite certain. Heavy prison sentences and the death penalty doesn't seem to help in reducing crime. People that would be let off with a fine in Europe (possession of drugs for personal use, for example) are instead put in prison with real career criminals where they can learn things from professionals. Sure, we have soft-ass sentences for crimes - but the rate of repeat offenders is also way lower here where prison is partly about making you a good citizen again rather than punishing the bad guys. And it also costs a lot of dollars that private prison companies shave off from the tax payers.
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Post by: Jihadin
Who wants to take my fire arms away? I'm a law abiding citizen. I own weapons of multiple calibers and weapon makes. I've been up range and down range when no warning was giving. Except the one time the idiot stepped out and shot a RPG at us with a wall behind him....
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Post by: Manchu
Vash108 wrote:You have a Mod that will complain about meaningless responses as he makes them himself.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him read for comprehension. Spetulhu wrote:But one thing seems quite certain. Heavy prison sentences and the death penalty doesn't seem to help in reducing crime.
I'm not sure how this connects to the topic at hand but sure I have no problem with sentencing reforms, I think it's a great idea and urgently needed.
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Post by: Smacks
Grey Templar wrote:Darn, I guess we need to justify freedom of religion, speech, press, and all our other rights too.
Sure, why not? Nothing should ever be above criticism. If you aren't able to justify those rights then it would imply that you don't understand why they exist, and if that is the case then how can you be sure they are still serving society.
It's always good to question things. I would think free speech and freedom of religion should be relatively easy to justify. However, in the future when culture and technology moves on, those things might stop making sense too.
You seem seem to be hoping that by lumping gun rights in with other easier to defend rights, that they will somehow be justified by association, but gun rights are actually quite different. Free speech, for example, is in the international declaration of human rights, it's a right in almost every developed country, and it stands up pretty well on its own. Gun rights are a really American thing. A lot of similar countries don't consider them and right at all, and life goes on (arguably with less gun violence).
So yeah, stop trying to deflect the conversation to other rights.
And while we are at it, why don't you Brits justify your rights as well?
Stop trying to make it about Britain versus America. My opinions are in no way affiliated with Britain as a political entity. Aside from being born in the geographical area (which wasn't my choice) I've really had very little to do with Britain, historically or governmentally.
There are lots of full blooded American citizens, who feel the same way I do. My opinion is not any more or less valid because of where I happen to be from.
Grey Templar wrote:You seem under the delusion that in order for me to own a weapon, someone is going to walk into a school and shoot children. Thats just grade A bullgak from an ignorant foreigner.
You have advocated gun ownership being a human right. Which would imply that even people such as convicted fellons should have the right to own a gun (as they do the right to a fair trial). The more people like you insist on owning guns, and body-blocking sensible precautions, such as background checks, because they "infringe your rights" the more the chance of a massacre approaches 1.
I don't hold you personally responsible, as I think your personal contribution is probably negligible. But collectively the gun rights lobby is a significant contributing factor, in people (such as Vester Lee Flanagan or Roger Elliott) having almost unrestricted access to guns.
Ensis Ferrae wrote:In 2012, there were an estimated 2,103,787 burglaries, a decrease of 3.7 percent when compared with 2011 data ... Burglaries in themselves are significant enough to warrant having a "preventative measure" on hand. "Burglary homicide" is some gak you just made up to justify your rage against guns.
I don't have rage against guns. On the contrary, being an "foreigner" I have very little emotional investment, and can afford to be much more objective. Unlike people who own guns and want to keep them, who have a clear conflict of interest when it comes to analysing data.
As it happens we've looked at those figures before. In a lot of those cases the person wasn't even at home. So owning a gun is not a "preventative measure". If you are worried about being the victim of a burglary then there are about 100 ways to secure your home and your possessions. Having a gun to shoot burglars would put you on quite shaky ground legally. A review of so called "self defence" cases involving guns, found that many were actually illegal when scrutinized.
Sinful Hero wrote:So do you think that if Americans were not allowed to own guns, school shootings wouldn't happen?
I wouldn't say it's quite that simple, but essentially, yes. If you had tighter gun controls and worked to remove easy access to firearms, then eventually you would see a reduction in gun violence.
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Post by: Jihadin
Seems the link is bad or something going on with The Altlantic
so......
For the better part of a century, the machine most likely to kill an American has been the automobile.
Car crashes killed 33,561 people in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Firearms killed 32,251 people in the United States in 2011, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control has data.
But this year gun deaths are expected to surpass car deaths. That's according to a Center for American Progress report, which cites CDC data that shows guns will kill more Americans under 25 than cars in 2015. Already more than a quarter the teenagers—15 years old and up—who die of injuries in the United States are killed in gun-related incidents, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
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Post by: Manchu
number of car-related deaths = X
number of gun-related deaths = Y
Generally, X > Y
But what if X = Y or X < Y?
Uh, I don't see the point ...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Smacks wrote:being an "foreigner" I have very little emotional investment, and can afford to be much more objective
That's a rather old-fashioned notion, very British Empire. Being an outsider also means you misunderstand or simply cannot perceive a lot of things about other people's culture and experience.
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Post by: Smacks
 Jihadin wrote:Who wants to take my fire arms away? I'm a law abiding citizen. I own weapons of multiple calibers and weapon makes. I've been up range and down range when no warning was giving. Except the one time the idiot stepped out and shot a RPG at us with a wall behind him....
Vester Lee Flanagan was also a law abiding citizen, right up until he blew a news reporter away on live TV.
Personally, I don't want to take your guns away. In fact, I'd like you to have more guns (especially rifles). But if you had to go maybe jump through a few extra bureaucratic hoops to get the guns, in the hope that it would stop guns falling into the wrong hands more often, would that be so disagreeable to you?
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Post by: Jihadin
Under 25? No idea if X, Y, Z, ABC, 1234, or EMCsquaretoroot69whatever is related.
But they predict(?) that more are killed who are under the age of 25 are by fire arms then by vehicle......
wait
Those who are to be killed will exceed those who are killed by vehicle
wait
Those under 25 are expected to be killed by fire arms
Those over 25 are expected to be killed by vehicle
So
Question is.....how old are you and how it is expected you die?
So
My reading comprehension is off or something....I'm over 40.....does that mean I die of old age?
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Post by: whembly
Smacks wrote: Jihadin wrote:Who wants to take my fire arms away? I'm a law abiding citizen. I own weapons of multiple calibers and weapon makes. I've been up range and down range when no warning was giving. Except the one time the idiot stepped out and shot a RPG at us with a wall behind him....
Vester Lee Flanagan was also a law abiding citizen, right up until he blew a news reporter away on live TV.
Personally, I don't want to take your guns away. In fact, I'd like you to have more guns (especially rifles). But if you had to go maybe jump through a few extra bureaucratic hoops to get the guns, in the hope that it would stop guns falling into the wrong hands more often, would that be so disagreeable to you?
Depends on the bureaucratic hoops.
In this Flanagan case, what specifically are you proposing that would prevent him from legally buy his handgun?
Keep in mind... these background check systems is NOT designed to be A FAILSAFE.
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Post by: Vash108
Jihadin wrote:Under 25? No idea if X, Y, Z, ABC, 1234, or EMCsquaretoroot69whatever is related.
But they predict(?) that more are killed who are under the age of 25 are by fire arms then by vehicle......
wait
Those who are to be killed will exceed those who are killed by vehicle
wait
Those under 25 are expected to be killed by fire arms
Those over 25 are expected to be killed by vehicle
So
Question is.....how old are you and how it is expected you die?
So
My reading comprehension is off or something....I'm over 40.....does that mean I die of old age?
Dude you are using the old math, you need to switch to the new one.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Smacks wrote:
There are lots of full blooded American citizens, who feel the same way I do. My opinion is not any more or less valid because of where I happen to be from.
Umm, yes. The fact you are British does indeed say your opinion is not valid in this instance. You have no more say in this than you have any right to vote in a US election. You can have an opinion about a US candidate, but its not a valid one as you are not able to vote in the election.
No Americans are going around saying how rights in other countries are dumb and should be changed. Why do foreigners feel the need to do that to the US?
And yes, I can damn well lump the 2nd amendment in with all the rest of the Bill of Rights. They're all equally important rights. If I don't need to justify Freedom of Speech I don't need to justify the Right to bear Arms.
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Post by: Smacks
Grey Templar wrote:Umm, yes. The fact you are British does indeed say your opinion is not valid in this instance. You have no more say in this than you have any right to vote in a US election. You can have an opinion about a US candidate, but its not a valid one as you are not able to vote in the election.
Being able to vote, has no baring on whether or not I am correct. It is my opinion that the US boarders the Pacific ocean,it also a fact. The fact that I am not able to vote on it doesn't make it any less true. It also my opinion that gun control measures would be a good first step in reducing gun violence in the US, my being able to vote in the US does not change the truth of that statement. No Americans are going around saying how rights in other countries are dumb and should be changed.
Are you sure? And yes, I can damn well lump the 2nd amendment in with all the rest of the Bill of Rights. They're all equally important rights. If I don't need to justify Freedom of Speech I don't need to justify the Right to bear Arms.
Well you can if you want to have a flaccid wang of an argument. As I said before, nothing should ever be held dogmatically above criticism. The whole idea of free speech is that it entitles people to question stuff, even free speech, and free speech is easy to defend. If you are only able to defend gun rights by firstly equivocating it with free speech, and then boldly stating "I don't need to defend it"... Well, don't worry... It happens to all guys sometimes... 
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Post by: Manchu
Smacks, do you think there is some kind of hierarchy or priority of rights in the Bill of Rights? I am curious why you think it is a bad argument to say that private gun ownership rights are not legally equivalent to free speech rights.
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Post by: Vash108
Grey Templar wrote:
No Americans are going around saying how rights in other countries are dumb and should be changed. Why do foreigners feel the need to do that to the US?
Uhhh, what is all this crap I hear about Sharia Law around the Bible Belt?
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Post by: Smacks
Manchu wrote:Smacks, do you think there is some kind of hierarchy or priority of rights in the Bill of Rights? I am curious why you think it is a bad argument to say that private gun ownership rights are not legally equivalent to free speech rights.
I did not say "legally" equivalent, now you are twisting my words. There is a difference between something being legal or illegal and something being right or wrong. When discussing whether a law is right or wrong, it's actually completely farcical to try and define right and wrong along legal boundaries, but gun rights people often seem to do this. Gun rights are in the constitution = good, good = should be in the constitution. It's completely circular. If you want to compare gun right to free speech. Free speech is in the international declaration of human rights, gun rights are not. Free speech is also considered a human right in most EU countries and Australia... Gun rights are not. We have seen what happens when freedom of speech is taken away, it's really bad. Gun rights don't exist in EU countries or in Australia and no ones "freedom" was affected. Also about ~50% of Americans are in favour of gun rights being limited, I don't have the figures for people wanting to limit free speech, but I bet it's a lot lower than 50% So to say that these two "rights" are equally legitimate and equally good for society is just not true.
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Post by: whembly
Smacks... your opinion is duly noted.
It's just that most Americans would disagree with you and don't need that self-affirmation that other countries does things differently.
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