…and no. I did not suggest that doing terrible things made him a child, nor that being a child made him do terrible things. Or at at rate, I certainly did not intend to, and I apologize unreservedly for giving you that impression. I called him a child because of his age.
Fair enough. I have a wacky idea that someone doing horrible, irrational things means that there is something very wrong with that person. I cannot provide much in the way of evidence for that position. I fully accept that you might see this as simplistic. I disagree.
.
(Although that he was a human being was not a given, according to some.)
Normal people do “irrational” things all the time. Normal people do horrible things all the time. There is, from what I’ve seen, no evidence he was suffering from a mental illness or some kind of severe emotional trauma that would indicate he wasn’t fully capable of making his own decisions. I don’t find incredible narcissism, disregard for human life, wanting to settle a score, resorting to violence, or even suicide after taking those actions to be automatically irrational or an indication of terrible damage.
And I can provide countless examples of normal, rational human beings doing horrible acts to their fellow human beings and to themselves. To me, assuming someone who does a horrible act must be “terribly damaged” is just that, a simplistic assumption.
Ok, no worries. I understand entirely where you’re coming from, and there’s certainly merit to your viewpoint. I think it’s probably a discussion for a different thread, and a nice long discussion about the nature of rationality and the existence of evil. Suffice it to say that I do not entirely agree.
On the contrary; I think it’s extraordinarily complicated, dealing as it does with the nature of the human mind, society and culture, and the breadth of biopsychosocial development. And once more, I fail to see how “damaged” is more inherently simplistic than “evil.”
But again, probably best suited to another thread. I think we’ve hijacked a hijack here, and I’m not sure how much recursion I can handle.
All of which is ignored when you simply posit that a person who does these acts is “terribly damaged”.
Again, it’s not the word “damaged” that is simplistic, it’s the conclusion that doing horrible acts must mean someone is "terribly damaged’ that is simplistic.
I’d invoke Og, the Marianas Trench, and Dio by Duran Duran, but I think you’re right about stopping here.
If I am ever about to shoot someone, then that person is as much a danger to you as they are to me. You’re welcome.
Or it protects everyone. Lets just say for the sake of argument, that only cops had guns. And there were cops everywhere. Are you safer or less safe? So doesn’t it matter WHO has the guns? The anti-gun position is alrgely based on the fact that it doesn’t matter who has the guns, guns are bad. End of story. Unless its cops or soldiers (as if they draw the pool of cops and soldiers from a different population than gun owners).
Its ignored because its bullshit.
How am I risking your life?
Well, its bullshit. Outlawing 30 round magazines won’t take them out of the hands of criminals.
Yeah with licensing and registration. We haven’t banned them (and we didn’t even stop the sale of new machine guns until the 1980’s, how many machine gun murders do you think there have been since the NFA passed?). I can buy a machine gun tomorrow if I want but I have to register the machine gun with the federal government.
I don’t think its likely that this happens to me but you said:
“The notion that we have to allow you to own something because of an eventuality that you can dream up but isn’t going to happen is silly to the extreme.”
In context, you meant that silly to think that someone might need a gun for self defense.
I don’t know anyone that can run fast enough to outrun a bullet. I don’t persoally need or even want large capacity magazines for self defense but if you think that outlawing magazines is going to reduce the stock of large capacity magazines in criminal hands, you’re crazy.
and the drug dealer wouldn’t have cocaine if we’d just make that illegal :rolleyes:
perhaps, perhaps not. The worst school shooting, Virginia Tech, was perpetrated with a couple of run-of-the-mill handguns and quite a few 10-round magazines.
“Often ignored” because it’s been thoroughly discredited.
If he has a mental illness, then he didn’t choose shit. The whole point of a mental illness is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do. The guy committed suicide afterwards. He obviously regretted his actions. Duh!
And you don’t have a mental illness, but are okay with dehumanizing this guy instead of treating him like a human being who needs help. That’s what’s monstrous. The scary people are not crazy people but people sane enough to actually convince other people to share their views.
Monsters are things you go out and kill because they cannot be redeemed. Very few human beings are monsters.
It may be simplistic, but it’s pretty accurate for the precision level offered. There are just certain actions that mentally healthy people don’t do. Either the kid didn’t learn that these things were wrong, which makes him really messed up, or he knew they were wrong but felt the need to do it anyways, which means his mind was messed up.
People do irrational things all the time because people in general have slightly messed up brains. It’s just that the mistakes are small and don’t cause significant problems. The defining difference between someone who is mentally ill and someone who is not is if their mental problems cause themselves or others harm.
This kid may or may not have had an official mental illness, but his actions prove there was something wrong there, and “terribly damaged” is a fair simplistic summation of that concept. Unlike monster, which is a metaphor for a non-human beast and thus doesn’t describe the situation at all.
Well, aren’t you enlightened. Technically nobody chooses shit.
Right, like a lot of things do, like poverty, jealousy, anger, drugs, beers…
Great, so the shooters are the real victims?
I think if you shoot a 17 year old girl in the face with a shotgun, you put yourself in the monster category. Were you guys doing backflips for Adam Lanza?
Why does suicide necessarily imply regret, rather than simply being a way to escape the consequences? Was Hitler suddenly sorry for everything he’d done when he killed himself? Were the Columbine shooters? Every jackoff in a custody dispute who kills his ex-wife and kids and then himself? Every suicide bomber? Suicide can be just as calculated as murder.
Hahahaha. What a hoot. He chose to murder people. That was his choice. That’s what he wanted to do. That makes him a mentally ill monster, as far as I’m concerned, and there is no way you are going to be able to sugar-coat his actions.
Did he understand right from wrong? Was he legally insane? I have no idea. I can only view the aftermath of his actions and wonder why “the system” (his friends, family, counselors, teachers, doctors, etc) weren’t able to help him OR why he couldn’t have killed himself before he entered the building with his murderous intent.
Do you actually think this dead monster is “a human being who needs help”? Serously? He’s dead. What kind of help did you have in mind?
You claim to know that this mentally ill monster “regretted his actions”. What else can you tell me about his feelings that day and how did you uncover/divine his inner most thoughts?
Take away the citizens right to bear arms, and only the criminals will have weapons ?
Did this kid come from a criminal family, or any of the other school shooters ?
If you must have the right to bear arms, at least have a psychiatric test before you get a licence, and a locked container that only the licence holder can access, not their family, not burglars, not friends…
The SCOTUS tossed out the requirement that the government can force anyone to keep their “arms” under lock and key or dismantled in the home.
Perhaps your government has decided for you that you can not be trusted with firearms? My government put the “right-to-bear-arms” in writing and made it clear that the “right-to-bear-arms” preceded the creation of the U.S. Constitution. We have an inalienable/unalienable/god-given/natural right to defend ourselves including the use of firearms. Apparently, you must not have that choice.
But then again I’m very unlikely to be shot accidently by an untrained/semi trained idiot who is under the impression that they know what they are doing, and I’m unlikely to to get shot by a nut job.
Judging by by the shooting incidents in the U.S. it would seem that your governments trust in your bearing arms as a right is misplaced, as opposed to the Bill of Rights saying that it should only occur in a well regulated Militia .
Though saying that I’ve seen some of your Militias training and they’re more of a danger to themselves and passers by, then anyone that they’d actually be fighting .
The Second Amendment doesn’t say that, at least not in so many words; if that is what was meant it should have been put a lot more clearly. Given the context and the history of how that provision ended up in the Constitution, the most reasonable interpretation is that it meant a personal, individual right to own and carry weapons, and the SCOTUS seconded this.
Judging by the incidents where armed citizens have defended themselves from criminal acts by miscreants, I wouldn’t say their trust was misplaced at all. It’s not as if you have a choice in our decision or your governments decision.
And as Lumpy noted, the 2nd does not say “only” occur in a well regulated militia.
