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 djones520 wrote:

His recent rant about how killing white people was such a black thing to do, not with standing, yes I believe whole heartedly he's a racist.

You mean the joke about Django Unchained in his SNL monologue?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djones520 wrote:

Tell that to the Kramer guy who had his career ruined by making a joke along those lines.

That wasn't a joke, he specifically used a racial slur to accost a heckler.

 djones520 wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Bottom line, I think the anonymous authors of this letter are just as qualified to speak on gun policy and constitutional principles as Jamie Foxx is.

Except these are folks who routinely put their lives in danger for our constituion for chicken scratch, and Jamie Foxx is a raving racist who makes millions.

Jamie Foxx is racist?

His recent rant about how killing white people was such a black thing to do, not with standing, yes I believe whole heartedly he's a racist.

I don't know he might have intended that as a joke, I can't imagine that being a serious statement although I need context.

Tell that to the Kramer guy who had his career ruined by making a joke along those lines. Yet people just yawned when Jamie Foxx did it.

But this is getting way off topic.

He was definitely getting some milage from the whole killing the whiteman line of talk.

 dogma wrote:
I also like the implication that, while media producers are exploiting something they know nothing about, these Special Forces soldiers are qualified in social psychology regarding media consumption by children.

It's at least within the realm of possibility. Most 18x/180A's are pretty well-educated.

 djones520 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Bottom line, I think the anonymous authors of this letter are just as qualified to speak on gun policy and constitutional principles as Jamie Foxx is.

Except these are folks who routinely put their lives in danger for our constituion for chicken scratch, and Jamie Foxx is a raving racist who makes millions.

What about routinely putting their lives in danger makes them experts in domestic policy?

I've been using a keyboard for 20 years, and I'm not an expert in network security.

If we were having a discussion about the best way to destroy a bridge, or to kill an insurgent from 1500 yards, or fast rope from a helicoper, then their experience would lend weight to their arguments. Since this is not within their purview, it does not. They simply do not have any more expertise on the topic of gun violence in the United States or constitutional law then do I, or Jamie Foxx.

Hell, at least Jamie Foxx is willing to put a face to his opinions. This is hardly better then one of those internet petitions.

 Seaward wrote:

 dogma wrote:
I also like the implication that, while media producers are exploiting something they know nothing about, these Special Forces soldiers are qualified in social psychology regarding media consumption by children.

It's at least within the realm of possibility. Most 18x/180A's are pretty well-educated.

So are most Hollywood producers, directors, and executives.

Though, for what its worth, neither group really has the high ground here. At best I would guess that whoever prepared the letter did some cursory, directed research with the intent to find supporting opinions within academia; as that's usually as far open letter producers tend to go. In large part because what you would actually need to do in order to establish academic consensus is a comprehensive review of existing research, something that requires a lot of time and effort even if you have a background in the field.

Kind of upset that someone cited Total Biscuit as an authority on desensitization caused by video games. I mean that's well... kind of... umm.

From a psychological standpoint we know for facts that kids are excellent at observational learning, it's how they learn to do a lot of what they do. In fact one of the best arguments to have is whether a child is learning to mimic specific behavior or if the child has learned to mimic all of the behaviors for a reward. This is where we get the whole concept of kids learning to swear from their parents, how children can learn to become racist, or how they live their lives.

We know that if a child does watch a violent act and such an act is rewarded, then the child has an increased chance of recreating that behavior. Of course this was done by Bandura in what is commonly known as the BoBo Doll experiment. Then they watched two adults in a room and noticed that when one adult beat up the other and stole the toys the other had, the violent adult was announced the winner. In this case children were also increasingly likely to attempt to recreate the acts or to act similarly to the adult who had "won". Children will do what they think produces the best outcome and if they see the best outcome then they decide to copy it.

Now one thing that is incredibly laughable is the thought of banning all firearms, this is impossible. May it decrease the number of homicides with firearms, yes it might. Or it could backfire like it did in Chicago. I'm not just talking about their ban, but the fact that some confiscated weapons end up on the streets again. Not saying Chicago is corrupt, but it is. Unfortunately as long as there is a gun on the planet, someone will use it as a weapon. Doubly unfortunately the worlds' governments feel that guns are the best thing for their soldiers to have pending a war or some sort of conflict. Let's face it, guns are great at doing what they were designed to do. As long as guns are used anywhere in the world, they will find their way into someone's hands.

So we have proven studies that show that children model their behaviors based on the success of a model and the fact that guns will always exist and will always be present where we don't want them to be.

Now on to Australia, it's a shame that the decrease in firearm homicides coincided with a decrease in overall homicides which includes those done with anything besides a gun. It's easy to say that gun control caused the overall homicide rate to go down, but the homicide rate had been in decline since the 80's and gun laws were passed in the 90's. On another note, firearm suicide rates decreased, shame the overall suicide rate jumped up.

Whenever one looks at an increase or decrease in homicide rates it is very important to look at the overall picture, no matter the side you take. The crime rate in the US is high in regard to other nations and we have similar rates of violent crimes compared to the Australians. We just plain have a high crime rate.

The United States is in a pickle of a pickle because we seem to be utterly slowed when it comes to fixing certain problems such as gun violence or teen pregnancy, both of which we're very high in. The proposed fix for teen pregnancy is education about everything to do with sex, not just an abstinence only approach. This practice has been shown to help cause a decrease in unwanted pregnancies and has helped prevent the spread of STDs amongst teens in areas that use it.

Why can we not do the same with firearms? There is a large amount of accidental death caused by mishandling of firearms and I will personally say that guns are something people should know how to safely interact with. I could not care less if an individual knows how to fire it, I care about the individual knowing how to store it safely, how to make sure it does not go off and injure another on accident, and most importantly knowing that they are not toys to be played with.

Children are susceptible to mimicking behavior and lord knows how many times a teenager has actually said that they could snipe in real life because they play CoD. They may want to act it out, they may want to seem cool and mess with a gun, they go out and buy airsoft guns that look like the real thing. Most importantly they do this without any sort of formal education about the weapons. Much like sex, most kids learn about guns from peers or the media because guns aren't something that most people talk about with their children. It's hard to explain to your 8 year old that if he shoots a person they may not ever come back so some parents just completely ignore the situation.

One day we will discover proper education techniques for this situation.

Out of all this it's important to note that demographics may play a key role in this. Ultimately we are products of our environment and low social status increases exposure to such crimes and acts of violence. That's something that needs to be fixed and unfortunately cities find a way to actually fix crime rates. It's actually amazingly simple, all they do is tear down the low-income housing. All of a sudden the poor, who have a higher chance of being criminally involved, disappear because they can't afford to live in those areas.

The worst argument anyone can propose is that we should pass a law that prevents gun ownership because it may save a life. We do lot's of things to potentially save lives, we install fire dousing systems in our schools, we have fire escape, evacuation routes, and we have also interred people based on their ethnicity because they may be spies, we have prosecuted an entire race of people because they may be terrorists, we have allowed the government to listen in on us, and we have given up liberties and rights for the sake of keeping that one hypothetical person alive.

I think Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said that any society willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserves neither and will lose both.

side notes:
Azazel, liberals also contributed to the limitations provided towards media. Things like the ESRB were championed by the likes of Hillary Clinton for example. Both sides have fought against the media in some shape or form.

 halonachos wrote:
Kind of upset that someone cited Total Biscuit as an authority on desensitization caused by video games. I mean that's well... kind of... umm.

If it makes you feel any better, his real name is John Bain. Either way, a quotation isn't necessarily cited because the argument from which its drawn is profound, but because the sentiment expressed within captures the meaning of what the citing party is attempting to express.

 halonachos wrote:

Children are susceptible to mimicking behavior and lord knows how many times a teenager has actually said that they could snipe in real life because they play CoD. They may want to act it out, they may want to seem cool and mess with a gun, they go out and buy airsoft guns that look like the real thing. Most importantly they do this without any sort of formal education about the weapons. Much like sex, most kids learn about guns from peers or the media because guns aren't something that most people talk about with their children. It's hard to explain to your 8 year old that if he shoots a person they may not ever come back so some parents just completely ignore the situation.

One day we will discover proper education techniques for this situation.

The two issues aren't really comparable. I highly doubt that ignorance of the possible effects of firing a gun at someone is the primary contributor that motivates someone fire, or even point, a gun at someone. Compare this to teen pregnancy where ignorance of how pregnancy occurs, and what can be done to prevent it without simple abstinence, is almost certainly a major contributor.

As for education techniques, we already know what they are in both cases. Its simply that in the former case the problem (accidental firearm related deaths) isn't seen as significant enough to warrant concern, and in the latter there is significant opposition to sex education in general, and comprehensive sex education in particular.

 halonachos wrote:
Kind of upset that someone cited Total Biscuit as an authority on desensitization caused by video games. I mean that's well... kind of... umm.

The application of common sense doesn't take much more than common sense, so I guess really I'd advocate Total Biscuit as an authority on common sense. It doesn't take much logical reasoning to realize that if video games and violent movies were a major factor in causing violent crime as some 'experts' continually claim, it would be a world wide epidemic afflicting everyone but Australia and countries that don't have electricity. Which it isn't so at worst, they can only have some indirect link in causing violent crime, which no one has been able to definitively prove and numerous studies have suggested could be false.

So in the end, blaming the media is just some facade thrown up by people who really don't want to deal with actual issues. If it helps I think the entire gun debate is such a facade. It's easier to argue a gun problem than to argue poverty, mental illness, or drug war problems.

If it makes you feel any better, his real name is John Bain. Either way, a quotation isn't necessarily cited because the argument from which its drawn is profound, but because the sentiment expressed within captures the meaning of what the citing party is attempting to express.

And I'll explain it for those who missed it: The idea that a violent video game like Call of Duty can be equated to representing actual violence is absurd. Call of Duty is like a game of paint ball with red bloches shooting out.

What John Bain actually said was that fictional violence desensitized viewers to fictional violence (which in the case of FPS games and Horror/Slasher films, actually makes a lot of sense considering the trend in those genre's towards increasingly brutal fictional violence). I merely took the idea and expressed to point out the stupidity in claiming someone who is exposed to this fictional violence will somehow be emotionally and morally immune to the horrors of actual violence. I doubt I'd be able to stomach the scene of a suicide bombing, uncensored by a computer programmer who him/herself has probably never seen one. Because frankly, for a video game commentator, his statements make quite a bit of sense.