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At least 27 People Dead, 18 of them children.
- Thread starter Kermit
- Start date
Richard Blonoff
Make America Rassle Again
As far as I know Stormy you don't hate me. I know that I don't hate you, as you have given me no direct reason to do so. Fuck I remember that Jar Jar debate a while back, I tried to side with you initially before it got way out of hand. I think you overreact and take things way too personally but as far as one on one interactions go, you have never done anything ill toward me, so I'm not saying this to be a dick to you.
That said, while offering condolences is a nice sentiment, it isn't going to change anything. Saying a quick prayer isn't going to bring those kids back, nor will it prevent further tragedy. No one is saying to drag the parents to Capital Hill today and make them tell their stories, but those of us who are fortunate enough to not be victims have to do something to prevent this from happening again. It shouldn't be a matter of politics, it should be a matter of humanity. We have to stand up and be outraged and demand change. No one should ever have to go through what those kids and their parents did, so it is up to the rest of us to make sure no one else has to again.
Point in my book for this. Not everyone can admit mistakes.
I'm too tired to even read your entire post right now, but I had to address one thing you said.
http://www.famous-speeches-and-spee...-w-bush-speech-9-11-address-to-the-nation.htm
You are so completely wrong it's not even funny. And it's not funny because this could have been easily fact checked by you had you only taken a moment to do so.
At the end of the day, after 9/11, we grieved as a country, even as we did what was necessary to prevent it from happening again. And there were a whole hell of lot more people killed on 9/11 than there were on Friday. As for the other things you posted, I'll read them tomorrow. I'm sure you're just going to be repeating the same inane arguments about some arbitrary set amount of time before we address what needs to be done to protect Americans, but I'll read it anyways.
No, it's not. Protecting children is a safety issue that people like you try to turn political. On its own, it's not a political issue.
Bull-shit. Bush was convening security meetings as soon as they could round them all up. The military went to Defcon 3 mere hours after the first plane hit. Bush held a press conference to the American public that night and said, "The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them. "
http://www.famous-speeches-and-spee...-w-bush-speech-9-11-address-to-the-nation.htm
You are so completely wrong it's not even funny. And it's not funny because this could have been easily fact checked by you had you only taken a moment to do so.
At the end of the day, after 9/11, we grieved as a country, even as we did what was necessary to prevent it from happening again. And there were a whole hell of lot more people killed on 9/11 than there were on Friday. As for the other things you posted, I'll read them tomorrow. I'm sure you're just going to be repeating the same inane arguments about some arbitrary set amount of time before we address what needs to be done to protect Americans, but I'll read it anyways.
Moon Knight
Original Prince of Darkness
Mike Huckabee's logic for why the shooting happened? Those damn atheist and no god in our schools!
http://now.msn.com/huckabee-blames-school-shooting-on-no-god-in-classroom?ocid=ansnow11
http://now.msn.com/huckabee-blames-school-shooting-on-no-god-in-classroom?ocid=ansnow11
Stormie's right, we really should wait until the next mass shooting to talk about how we shouldn't be discussing this right now.
And fuck a bunch of Mike Huckabee, man realizes he'll never be a serious presidential candidate and goes from 60% lunatic to total fucking lunatic.
And fuck a bunch of Mike Huckabee, man realizes he'll never be a serious presidential candidate and goes from 60% lunatic to total fucking lunatic.
In Feburary 1996, we had a shooting in a school. Immediately they started the ball rolling on banning handguns in this country, and within two years all privately owned handguns were off the streets. I forget, who has had more shootings per capita than the UK since then? Take a look for yourself - essentially the answer is most of the world. Where does the USA rank? Below only the countries where the drug barons shoot the fuck out of each other all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
That's not political, that's the cold hard truth. Whenever we have an event like this, which is rare, we do something about it and it doesn't happen again. I don't want to turn this into a US vs UK debate, because it's pointless, but the fact is it's not really suitable to maintain a law from the 1700s at all costs when kids are dying year in year out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
That's not political, that's the cold hard truth. Whenever we have an event like this, which is rare, we do something about it and it doesn't happen again. I don't want to turn this into a US vs UK debate, because it's pointless, but the fact is it's not really suitable to maintain a law from the 1700s at all costs when kids are dying year in year out.
Moon Knight
Original Prince of Darkness
We can't take all the guns off the street, last time I checked we had over 80 million registered gun owners and over 200 million guns. Also you need to take into account the weak border with Mexico and the illegal weapons trade, it is not as simple as banning guns. The situation between the UK and US is way different, and our problem is way deeper than just how easy it is to get a gun.
We are going to have to take a hard look at every aspect of our society to truly fix the problem. Reminds me of the show gangland, how the largest Cambodian gang in the US which kills people all the time got started because of racism. Yes, the first gang members immigrated here and got treated like crap, spit on and jumped in schools so they formed a gang to protect themselves. See how violence can start? How much at fault if our brutal prison system? The whole country needs an overhaul.
I'm not saying if you enact legislation you'll be down with Azerbaijan and Chile overnight. What I'm saying is that the ease at which guns are available is clearly part of the problem. You do need an overhaul of attitude, but there's a pretty easy manner in which you can start right here.
Moon Knight
Original Prince of Darkness
I try to keep the discussion from being too focused on gun control, because one of the biggest problems this country has is always looking for a quick fix. If you allow the discussion to stray too far from the bigger problems that cause deaths everyday, Americans will just forget until more kids die. Kids shouldn't die because some people are lazy.
The fact remains though its part of the puzzle. If a guy walks into a hospital with cancer, a broken leg and AIDS, the doctor doesn't ignore the broken leg and say "well there's no cure for AIDS or cancer, so you're fucked, we'll treat you when we can cure it all". Because that seems to be the plan you're suggesting.
Moon Knight
Original Prince of Darkness
What? I have no idea how you got that out of we need to address the whole problem instead of ignoring the whole and just taking the quick fix.
Gun control in this country wouldn't be a "quick fix". Like you said, there are 80 million registered gun owners and 300 million firearms in the US. This is a long-term problem. We can't flip a switch overnight and say "turn in your guns!" We can work towards the day where we have much stronger firearm restrictions, to make the availability of firearms more difficult. There are always going to be mass murders, especially in our 24-hour news cycle world, but we can surely bring the frequency down quite a bit, can't we? Firearms seem to be above and beyond the weapon of choice for this.
Please don't get me entirely wrong on firearms. I grew up shooting .22's. I'm damn glad that my brother-in-law has a handgun living with my sister and any-day-now nephew in Baltimore. I enjoy shooting on a range still. But the purpose of having a firearm at home is typically self-defense, from other people with firearms. I see a common problem here that can be worked on.
Start by having police authorities destroy stolen or unregistered firearms. If you aren't keeping it secure enough to avoid having it stolen, you don't deserve to keep it. Restrict firearms production, and require new sales to be secured at gun clubs when not in immediate use. Later, start requiring people to secure classes of weapons at gun clubs (which would become much more prevalent- I'm looking for a central point of administration, rather than having to enforce law over millions of individual people.) Start with assault rifles, move up to handguns and later rifles.
Reduce the supply of firearms in circulation. Be sure that the firearms available to law-abiding citizens are secure. Someone obviously could still check out their firearm, drive to a college campus, and start shooting. But you're going to cut down on these kinds of incidents sharply.
Yes, I'm aware that this probably violates the Second Amendment, unless personal possession can be construed as to mean in someone else's care, which I really doubt. We can change the Constitution, we've done it several times in the past (which is what the Amendments are.) I'm sure the UK has some mentally unstable people- fuck, just look at these boards. The US averages 2.9 firearm murders per year per 100,000 people. The UK averages 0.04 firearms murders per year per 100,000 people. They didn't make the problem go away, but they did a shitload of a lot about it.
Please don't get me entirely wrong on firearms. I grew up shooting .22's. I'm damn glad that my brother-in-law has a handgun living with my sister and any-day-now nephew in Baltimore. I enjoy shooting on a range still. But the purpose of having a firearm at home is typically self-defense, from other people with firearms. I see a common problem here that can be worked on.
Start by having police authorities destroy stolen or unregistered firearms. If you aren't keeping it secure enough to avoid having it stolen, you don't deserve to keep it. Restrict firearms production, and require new sales to be secured at gun clubs when not in immediate use. Later, start requiring people to secure classes of weapons at gun clubs (which would become much more prevalent- I'm looking for a central point of administration, rather than having to enforce law over millions of individual people.) Start with assault rifles, move up to handguns and later rifles.
Reduce the supply of firearms in circulation. Be sure that the firearms available to law-abiding citizens are secure. Someone obviously could still check out their firearm, drive to a college campus, and start shooting. But you're going to cut down on these kinds of incidents sharply.
Yes, I'm aware that this probably violates the Second Amendment, unless personal possession can be construed as to mean in someone else's care, which I really doubt. We can change the Constitution, we've done it several times in the past (which is what the Amendments are.) I'm sure the UK has some mentally unstable people- fuck, just look at these boards. The US averages 2.9 firearm murders per year per 100,000 people. The UK averages 0.04 firearms murders per year per 100,000 people. They didn't make the problem go away, but they did a shitload of a lot about it.
For the same reason Frederick Douglass did, to educate, to motivate, to drive to action. The more people who know and understand, the more people who realize this is a problem which needs a solution sooner rather than later...the more people who are tired of children being killed, the sooner something will be done about it. I cannot come to each of your homes and make my plea, so I do it here, where there are many people around the country. I do it in my everyday life to people I talk with. You have no point, and you're completely wrong.
False. The more people know, the more that can be done.
Yes, they are.
Handguns and assault rifles are though. They serve no other purpose. Whether you think you'll use them in aggression or in defense, either way, it's about shooting another person. And this person? He used handguns and assault rifles.
And who pays for the guard/company genius? What qualifications must he/she have? How many do you need per student ratio? Where do you keep them? Are bag checks to make sure there are no weapons a violation of the 4th Amendment?
Like hell, that's not political.
But it's not the day of the fucking tragedy. So why are you still trying to keep people from talking?
I'm not going to wait to figure out a way to keep this from happening again, because every day that we wait, is another day closer to the next shooting. If you don't like it, then don't participate, but I'm going to keep saying it because it needs to be said. It needs to be said by every American, every day, until it gets fixed.
No, I'm talking about safety. I'm talking about common sense. It's only political when people wish to eschew safety and common sense just because they want to keep their pistols.
Safety is not political. Arguing for keeping guns despite their obvious role is so many deaths is what's political.
This really isn't that difficult.
How the fuck do you not understand that gun control IS child safety? Whether or not you have the right to own a gun is political. Restricting the ability of people to kill is not political.
I've said a couple times in this thread I'm not arguing for gun bans, just gun control. That's not political, that's a safety argument. I really don't understand how you have so much difficulty with this.
Fair enough, I appreciate this.
It's now been two days, so why are you still arguing?
I've done no such thing.
I have done nothing but advocate for American safety in this thread. You said I'm being political.
So safety is important, but discussing ways to be safe should wait.
Wow...that's a great philosophy. It's worked really well for us so far, hasn't it?
Wait a second...let me see if I have this right.
Bringing up a safety issue to prevent more people from being murdered is disrespectful, but refusing to abide by your own suggestion and not talking about it because of some ridiculous notion of your Internet honor, honor you feel was tarnished after you willingly chose to jump into the discussion, is okay?
That's seriously fucked up.
I'm one of the few people around here who doesn't dislike you and enjoys reading your posts (even when I disagree with them and you say stupid things, like now). Your name had nothing to do with me addressing you, it was the content of your message. I replied to Shocky in the very same post as I did you, and there's probably not a single poster on the forums I have more respect for than Shocky.
You need to get over yourself.
Then shut the fuck up about some arbitrary timetable you wish to impose on everyone else, and start advocating.
We don't feel we need to adhere to your personal timetable, we have timetables of our own. We're not advocating gun control as a political measure, we're doing it as a safety measure. We're not turning these children into a political pawn, we're trying to prevent more children from being murdered.
If you want to wait, you go ahead. I didn't feel as if this discussion should wait, and neither did many other people. So don't put your personal arbitrary timetables on other people, and then criticize them for not playing by your rules...especially when it seems as if we're mostly on the same side.
If I understand you correctly, you're saying you absolutely believe gun reform is necessary, but that we shouldn't see it as a cure all. You're not arguing we shouldn't reform gun laws though, right?
Just trying to cut to the chase between you and Tasty.
Before we ban guns, I wouldn't mind if some psycho decided to make his final impact by going on a rampage at Westboro.
Seriously though, something needs to be done about these people. I've always found the protesting at a soldier's funeral unforgivable, but this is an entire new low. Hopefully there's something that can be done to stop them.
Before we ban guns, I wouldn't mind if some psycho decided to make his final impact by going on a rampage at Westboro.
Seriously though, something needs to be done about these people. I've always found the protesting at a soldier's funeral unforgivable, but this is an entire new low. Hopefully there's something that can be done to stop them.
Okay, okay...perhaps I'm not totally against gun violence.
In all seriousness, how incredibly disgusting does someone have to be to do something like this? I understand they are attention ****es and all that, but this is simply a new low.
Before we ban guns, I wouldn't mind if some psycho decided to make his final impact by going on a rampage at Westboro.
Seriously though, something needs to be done about these people. I've always found the protesting at a soldier's funeral unforgivable, but this is an entire new low. Hopefully there's something that can be done to stop them.
What Gelgarin said. These people live and die by the amount of attention they get, and that's why they were assholes after 9/11, and that's why they're being assholes after this. The best thing to do is to completely and totally ignore their existence. The counter-protest is nice since it shows support for the families affected by this tragedy, but I'm sure they already know that WBC is a group of lunatics that don't reflect the opinions of anyone in this country except themselves.
I wish nobody followed the WBC people on Twitter and the news just pretended that they didn't exist. If people just saw them turn up at events and completely ignored them, they wouldn't have anything to live for and they can go back to the hole they came from in Kansas and try to figure out other ways to get attention. Hopefully they pull a page from Jim Jones' playbook.
Serious Mozzarella
Special Victims Unit
I should be able to talk about gun control in the aftermath of this incident, regardless of whether I, or anyone else believes this is a political issue, because I don't feel an overwhelming need to mourn a bunch of children I didn't know. It doesn't mean I don't care about whether or not children die - I just don't want shit like this happening again. So fuck you Stormy, the conversation will continue.
That being said, tighter regulations, everybody in agreement?
That being said, tighter regulations, everybody in agreement?
How are the grieving parents supposed to ignore them though when they're having obscenities yelled at them during their children's funeral?
We just need to let the cops loose on them like we do on big protest, and let them show no remorse. Who will complain about it other than WBC? When they file charges or take it to court, that's the time to ignore them.
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/...utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed
Further proof that not all hacking is bad.
Holy cow, that was one emotional speech from President Obama, as he listed off the names of the 20 children killed at the elementary school a couple of days ago, as well as earlier referring to the adults who were killed as well.
Awesome to see the the President refer to the fact that four tragedies of this type have occurred in recent times, and that it is time to take steps to prevent further tragedies of this nature in the future. I guess it is possible after all to be both respectful of the victims and mourn their loss, while discussing things from a "political" and practical standpoint. I'm sure some of our Wrestlezone members were annoyed by Obama using this time for "political" discussions.
Awesome to see the the President refer to the fact that four tragedies of this type have occurred in recent times, and that it is time to take steps to prevent further tragedies of this nature in the future. I guess it is possible after all to be both respectful of the victims and mourn their loss, while discussing things from a "political" and practical standpoint. I'm sure some of our Wrestlezone members were annoyed by Obama using this time for "political" discussions.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Petition to the White House to introduce legislation for gun control.
Petition to the White House to introduce legislation for gun control.
Bernkastel
Reaper of Miracles
Before we ban guns, I wouldn't mind if some psycho decided to make his final impact by going on a rampage at Westboro.
Seriously though, something needs to be done about these people. I've always found the protesting at a soldier's funeral unforgivable, but this is an entire new low. Hopefully there's something that can be done to stop them.
That's fucking terrible. I don't even feel surprised by those people any more.
klunderbunker
Welcome to My (And Not Sly's) House
I still don't get how uninvited bigots are allowed at private funerals and it's called freedom of speech. That really qualifies as their right? They can't be told they're not wanted there by the people who are there for the funeral? As in like the family?
Bernkastel
Reaper of Miracles
I believe that they have to stay a certain distance away from the funeral; but it's still a nuisance - especially for the police trying to protect them from all the pissed off people around them.