So there's been another school shooting in the US

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AEmer
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by AEmer »

...and that's also why the argument 'lets not politicize the tragedy' has some objective credence.

There's all sorts of wacko's trying to use the tragedy for spreading religion, or hatred of video games. Regardless of how you feel, the gun control discussion is precisely using the tragedy to try to spread gun control. Certainly the causal relationship between gun control and mass shootings is much easier to see than the one between violent videogames and shootings, at least for most people, but it's the same basic concept: You have an agenda which you hold to for whatever reason, a relevant tragedy happens, and you try to advance your agenda on the back of the tragedy, saying that if things just were as you said, it would have been less likely to happen, or it wouldn't have happened at all.

Nomatter how you try to square it, this approach has a distinct moral cost. Even using mental illness as some kind of proxy for the cause of the problem, the fact is this: Emotions are really riled up after a tragedy, and while we should try to prevent the next one from happening, the immediate aftermath of the tragedy is simply toxic to good discourse. It just doesn't give us what we want, and worse yet, it makes enemies out of people simply for being on the other side of one issue or another because suddenly, they're a little bit responsible for the tragedy.
DDL
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DDL »

Where do you draw the line, though? You could apply that argument to almost ANYTHING.

"Hey, look: a fuckton of smokers are getting lung cancer. Oh, and look at that, the incidence correlates really nicely with the amount smoked."

"FUCK YOU, MAAAN: YOU JUST HATE SMOKING. STOP POLITICISING CANCER DEATHS"

At some point presumably it has to switch from being a "politicised" argument to one based on factual merit, agenda or not. In this case, even the fucking NRA are getting behind changes to gun law, so "an agenda which you hold to for whatever reason" seems less universally applicable.
DDL
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DDL »

Oh my god.

Is that where you get your arguments from?


Just...christ that was bad. CARS KILL MILLIONS AND ARE A MERE CONVENIENCE, GUNS KILL THOUSANDS BUT ARE VITAL FOR SAFETY. ALSO FAST FOOD AND SMOKING KILL.

That's basically his argument. For a start I'd love to see what he'd pick if the options were "car or gun: choose one", since despite his arguments that cars are a mere convenience, outside of major cities the US is really, really really not designed for pedestrians. But, hey: at least he'd be able to shoot anybody, right?

Secondly, cars are used by billions, every day. Guns are not. If you compared "deaths per hours of driving" to "deaths per hours of shooting", I think you'd find that guns are a tad more lethal than cars. Could this be because cars are designed for a purpose other than killing? Gosh, who fucking knows.

Thirdly, are guns vital for safety? Really? According to the stats, more than half of gun deaths in the US in 2007 were suicides, so if we're going by the numbers (and HAY WHY NOT: NUMBERZ!) you're actually safer NOT having a gun. Nothing helps impulse suicide like a nice quick tap to the head. This (as DaveW noted) was something that declined enormously once Israel stopped letting IDF members take their guns home at weekends.

He mentions switzerland, and neglects to mention that the gun ownership stats for switzerland are actually highly misleading: people don't have a gun at home, they keep the town's guns in a central, locked and controlled, store......Because when they had guns at home there were more gun crimes. For fuck's sake.


Finally...fast food and smoking? WHY DON'T WE BAN FAST FOOD AND SMOKING INSTEAD OF GUNS

Well, aside from the fact that we kinda ARE (there are a ton of legislations in place and in process to regulate the amount of fat, sugar and salt that goes into fast food....BECAUSE IT WAS FUCKING KILLING PEOPLE, and likewise for smoking), you also have the issue of self-harm vs other-harm: if I carry a gun, I can shoot and kill people. If I carry a burger, I cannot launch it at someone and cause them to die of heart disease (no matter how fucking funny that would be, conceptually). I CAN increase someone's risk of lung cancer if I smoke next to them, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT LOOKEE: we have restrictions on where people can smoke. BUT BUT MY GOD GIVEN RIGHTS!!!

About the closest analogy you can draw is that overeating crap food could possibly maybe have some slender parallel with shooting yourself, since both are effectively suicide kinda possibly maybe. Except eating crap keeps you alive for years and years and years until kills you, whereas shooting yourself is ACTUAL SUICIDE.


I just....dear god, his arguments are terrible.
AEmer
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by AEmer »

@ DDL

I am actually kindof in the camp of 'fuck the morals of it. Say whatever the hell you want on top of a tragedy'. It's just that context is important; here the context is the tragedy. It's simply not possible to say what you want to say without the tragedy; it's there. In effect, the tragedy changes what you're reasonably able to say.

Because as you say - it gets absurd if you can't try to say stuff in the context of a tragedy. It's just that, well, it very easily looks like you're using the tragedy rather than simply speaking in its context.

Ahem, anyway. VectorM. Your link is ridiculous: The idea that we could outlaw motorvehicles even if we wanted to is ludicrous. That's why his argument fails. We couldn't do it worldwide; it gives too big of an economic advantage for people not to use them. We couldn't do it nationally; it gives too big of an economic disadvantage if the rest of the world uses cars. Many people can't do it personally; they depend upon their car to sustain their way of life, and regardless, not owning a car would have a minimal impact, just as not owning a gun has a minimal impact, in the grand scheme. Guns are distinct. His parallel breaks down when you think it over.
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VectorM
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by VectorM »

He mentions switzerland, and neglects to mention that the gun ownership stats for switzerland are actually highly misleading: people don't have a gun at home, they keep the town's guns in a central, locked and controlled, store......Because when they had guns at home there were more gun crimes. For fuck's sake.
How about you actually confirm if your info is true, before you go on a rage fests?
AEmer
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by AEmer »

@ Vector
You're not really interested in discussing the merits of that video, are you?
DDL
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DDL »

No, I've checked, and on this one I'm wrong and he's right: it's NOT guns that the swiss keep locked in a central store, it's .....all the ammunition for those guns. So yeah: TOTALLY DIFFERENT

:/

(and he's not going to discuss the merits of that video because...it doesn't have any)
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VectorM
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by VectorM »

AEmer wrote:@ Vector
You're not really interested in discussing the merits of that video, are you?
I've actually done that TOO MUCH in the comment section of that video so not really at this point.
No, I've checked, and on this one I'm wrong and he's right: it's NOT guns that the swiss keep locked in a central store, it's .....all the ammunition for those guns. So yeah: TOTALLY DIFFERENT
Which is for military ammo only. Anyone can still buy ammunition at one of the MANY (like 3000 of em') shooting ranges, and technically, you are supposed to only use the ammo at said shooting ranges, but people don't actually enforce that law.
Last edited by VectorM on Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
DDL
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DDL »

....you comment on youtube videos?

Dear god, man: why?
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VectorM
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by VectorM »

Well, for one thing, I preffer to actually address these people directly, rather than rage at them in private forums :P :mrgreen: SWAGYOLO%^#$
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by bobby 55 »

DDL wrote:....you comment on youtube videos?

Dear god, man: why?
VectorM wrote:Well, for one thing, I preffer to actually address these people directly,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJh6U3Kv90 :P
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DDL
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DDL »

VectorM wrote:Well, for one thing, I preffer to actually address these people directly, rather than rage at them in private forums :P :mrgreen: SWAGYOLO%^#$
Heee! Well, I guess I should put it this way: I'm not trying to address the youtube dude (since like 97% of everyone on youtube, he's a fucking loon), I'm trying to address you, since the very fact you're on these forums automatically places you in the "possibly salvagable" category.

Commenting on youtube videos is like the chat equivalent of joining a crowd hurling coins at windmills: it wastes everyone's time, achieves nothing, and you feel like an idiot for having participated.....

......

....what a shame.
AEmer
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by AEmer »

"
I've actually done that TOO MUCH in the comment section of that video so not really at this point.
"
Fair point, but we can't just take arguments like the one he made seriously, without analyzing and dissecting them....and this particular car argument is ludicrous.
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DaveW
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DaveW »

Seriously, I told you to read this blog before and yet you're still supporting these flawed arguments. It seems like you're just repeating typical pro-gun arguments without a care for factual accuracy.
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