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cincydooley: I imagine you're popular with the ladies then.... also it's not being obtuse. What you said was so blatantly chauvinist.

 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!

 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.

I think we all understood that you meant Women are easy [-er to kill with a knife].

We're just shocked you said it.

 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.

 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.

And it's a large angry man who is intent on killing said women, so he isn't holding back.

 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.

 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!!!

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.

 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!

 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.

 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.

Uh... is this about to become a thread of how easy it is to kill a woman? Because that is pretty messed up IMO.

Not really. It was discussing the likelihood of the victims surviving if the guy had a knife instead of a gun.

What the crap new depths is this thread plumbing?

<-------------Topic

How easy people are to kill with knives based on gender and weight classes ------------>

 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.

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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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!

 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

 angelofvengeance wrote:
I'm sorry, did no-one here pick up on cincydooley's comment that women are easy??...

I've built up a mental filter for stupidity I guess. Thanks OT

 Vash108 wrote:
GG Manchu

Did you think I would give you a medal for misunderstanding and dismissing my thoughts?

 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.

 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...

 angelofvengeance wrote:
I'm sorry, did no-one here pick up on cincydooley's comment that women are easy??...

I did. I just didn't take it out of context.

 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.