Ongoing US Mass Shooting Thread

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I thanked posts that said you were off the edge a little bit. I thought you made some good points, but you also made some bad posts in that thread (no offence).

Sure bud. You know why I was off the edge? People were excusing the actions of a child rapist. You would be to if you took the same stance that a 16 year old was a child which you're trying to pretend to do now.

Teacher charged with sexual assault after his former student reveals that she was taken advantage of at 16.

One argument: At 16 she had the ability to consent and might have wanted it, therefore just because they had sex doesn't automatically make the teacher a pervert.

My (and Canadian law) argument: As the teacher was in an authority position, this was rape. She had no ability to consent and trying to argue she was asking for it was victim blaming and disgusting.

You thanked the people making the first argument. I'm sure you wouldn't be thanking that if you replaced 16 with 6 in that first argument. Or at least I pray you wouldn't be, so no you can't take the hard line stance that a child is a child regardless of whether they are 6 or 16. You've already shown your thoughts on that.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

1300 kids. That's all you need to know to know it's a travesty. Let's let child rapists and dirty teachers keep the "well, 16 year olds aren't really kids" argument.

There are all kinds of reasons to make a distinction between 7 year olds and 17 year olds. When it comes to guns, a 15 or 17 year old can be charged as an adult for shooting and killing someone, while a 7 or 9 year old can't. So our laws and institutions recognize intermediary levels of responsibility and vulnerability between child and adult.

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Almost as unnecessary as throwing out the whole "it's just gang members" argument to try and minimize the issue?

Putting facts into context and recognizing degrees =/= minimize.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Interesting that you're challenging a "plainly stated" argument that PepsiFree never actually made, Corsi. He never said there is "no moral difference" between our hypothetical 16-year-old drug dealer and 6-year-old Sally. He said there is no difference in how he views the outcome: a child (youth, underage citizen, whatever word you wish to use) is dead, in part, because of US gun culture.

He said: "I don't care any more if a 6 year old year gets accidentally shot or a 16 year old gets shot in a drug deal". That is a moral judgment that treats the two deaths as equivalent.

I don't think I've misrepresented his view in any way here - in fact he's subsequently repeatedly doubled down on the view that there is no distinction among the individual cases and no further information or detail (which he's tried to characterize as "spin") is relevant:

Originally Posted by Pepsifree

1300 kids is 1300 kids. Spin it however, but 1300 children aged 0-17 die every year.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Sure, I agree. But there are can be more than one problem at a time, and more than one contributor to a problem. If you'll look, I wasn't saying there wasn't a problem with US gun laws. There pretty obviously is. I take issue with the plainly expressed notion that there's no moral difference between a 16 year old dying in a drug related shootout and a six year old finding her dad's gun in a dresser drawer and blowing her own head off.

Let's not get carried away in our zeal for justice and righteous anger and lose sight of reality. The facts, without any "packaging" or dressing up to make them look worse than they are, are adequately terrible to demand a solution. An honest and frank assessment of them is the best path to solving what is, in the case of the USA, an incredibly difficult problem. It would be even if Congress outlawed all gun sales tomorrow, full stop and with no exceptions.

I think that we're talking the impossible solution here. Outlawing guns won't do much, I don't know much about the US, but in terms of a cohesive fire arms registry where the police would be able to "Encourage" people to give up their weapon if there was a ban would be impossible.

On top of that would there be a grandfathering of fire arms if Guns were made illegal. Well hell man, if you already have a gun there's not much we can do.

On top of it, I doubt that a outlawing of guns would unfortunately never get passed the supreme court, even if you put the most liberal judges ever in the Supreme Court, they're not going to take out the 2nd Ammendment, they might alter it, but taking away gun rights would be equivalent to stepping on the third rail in a new york subway tunnel.

As well, you outlaw gun sales that you can control. But until the American's gain control over their borders the Chinese for example sell 42% of the rifles sold in the States or something like that. That;s not counting shipping containers that just show up and fuel the underground gun sales, same with the Philippines and Eastern Block countries.

Its a sadly unsolvable problem unless there's a will to solve the problems, and American's no matter what the cost in lives and in crime statistics will never give up their right to access firearms.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Outlawing guns won't do much, I don't know much about the US, but in terms of a cohesive fire arms registry where the police would be able to "Encourage" people to give up their weapon if there was a ban would be impossible.

I'm not sure if you're saying a centralized, robust firearms registry would be impossible or that it wouldn't be effective. I see no reason why it would be practically impossible. I see lots of reasons why it wouldn't be effective.

On top of that would there be a grandfathering of fire arms if Guns were made illegal. Well hell man, if you already have a gun there's not much we can do.

Probably there would be, yes. But even if there weren't, and turning in your guns was mandatory law, it would be very difficult to collect them or even any significant portion of them, practically speaking. I mean, if you thought (rightly) that Trump's asinine idea of rounding up illegal immigrants would present a law enforcement debacle...

On top of it, I doubt that a outlawing of guns would unfortunately never get passed the supreme court, even if you put the most liberal judges ever in the Supreme Court, they're not going to take out the 2nd Ammendment, they might alter it, but taking away gun rights would be equivalent to stepping on the third rail in a new york subway tunnel.

Of course this is the case, barring a constitutional amendment which is itself incredibly unlikely to happen. There are a number of hurdles, but the point is that even if you cleared them all, and the second amendment magically vanished overnight, you'd still have a huge snafu in the form of several hundred million firearms in public hands, and no clear way of dealing with it.

As well, you outlaw gun sales that you can control. But until the American's gain control over their borders the Chinese for example sell 42% of the rifles sold in the States or something like that.

This would be part of the snafu. Presumably some additional controls could be implemented at ports, but given that drugs get in despite the expenditure of billions of dollars, I suspect you're right.

Its a sadly unsolvable problem unless there's a will to solve the problems.

I'd argue that there is a will to solve the problem and it's still unsolvable, at least no one has come up with a silver bullet (pun intended) so far. More than half of the population wants stricter gun laws, and that number's going to go up. But even if it were 75% (and good luck getting 75% support for anything), I still don't really know how they'd pull it off.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

He said: "I don't care any more if a 6 year old year gets accidentally shot or a 16 year old gets shot in a drug deal". That is a moral judgment that treats the two deaths as equivalent.

I don't think I've misrepresented his view in any way here - in fact he's subsequently repeatedly doubled down on the view that there is no distinction among the individual cases and no further information or detail (which he's tried to characterize as "spin") is relevant:

Yeah, you fundamentally misunderstand the point. 1300 kids are dead. I'm not arguing there is no moral difference, or that there is a difference of agency, I'm arguing that those differences are irrelevant when looking at the problem:

1300 kids dead, 100% due to American gun culture and ease of access. Whether a gang banger or a kindergartener, they both gain access to guns in a way that is far easier than it should be and exist in a culture that celebrates that access instead of condemns it.

I don't care if the 1300 is 1300 infants or 1300 17 year old neo-nazis, 1300 kids is an accurate number, right? 0-17, they're kids, yes? And 1300 died from gun violence, yes? Sounds like a pretty straightforward and meaningful statistic to me.

If anything, it seems like stricter gun control would actually stem gun violence from low-level gang bangers a lot more effectively than it would from little Sara shooting her brother in the head with Dad's legally acquired hunting rifle.

[sun]

Do you guys enjoy this?

[Zevo]

...You've been Corsied

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

If anything, it seems like stricter gun control would actually stem gun violence from low-level gang bangers a lot more effectively than it would from little Sara shooting her brother in the head with Dad's legally acquired hunting rifle.

I would argue that the effect would be opposite.

If you were to ban legal gun sales for example, the dad might not have that hunting rifle.

But gang bangers aren't exactly buying legal guns for the most part, I would argue that the majority of weapons used by gang members come from illegal and probably untrackable means.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Sure bud. You know why I was off the edge? People were excusing the actions of a child rapist. You would be to if you took the same stance that a 16 year old was a child which you're trying to pretend to do now.

Relax and let it go. 16 year olds are kids, but they're also kids that can legally have sex with adults if they want to (outside of a relationship of authority, which was violated in that situation).

I agree with Cliff and Corsi that 16 year olds have greater levels of agency but I don't think it's relevant to addressing the problem of 1300 kids being dead. If you want to continue to obsess about who thank-insulted you in a sex scandal thread, go do it there. I'm not taking a hard line stance that all kids are equal in the eyes of society and the law, I'm arguing that all kids are equal in the term "kids" and 1300 kids dead from gun violence, regardless of situation or age, is a severe issue.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I would argue that the effect would be opposite.

If you were to ban legal gun sales for example, the dad might not have that hunting rifle.

But gang bangers aren't exactly buying legal guns for the most part, I would argue that the majority of weapons used by gang members come from illegal and probably untrackable means.

Suppose it's in how you do it. Hunting hasn't vanished in places with exceedingly low levels of gun violence.

Gang bangers my not by them by legal means, but they come by them because they're available. Making handguns and automatic weapons unavailable would impact gang bangers more than hunters by an extreme margin, it just might take a while.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

1300 kids dead, 100% due to American gun culture and ease of access. Whether a gang banger or a kindergartener, they both gain access to guns in a way that is far easier than it should be and exist in a culture that celebrates that access instead of condemns it.

Sure, but there are separate problems here that may call for separate solutions that are easier or harder to implement. What leads to six year olds being killed by guns? What leads to 17 year olds being killed by guns? They're fundamentally different. Taking the extreme example I just raised, the sudden outlawing of all gun sales overnight and the reclamation of guns by police, I suspect you'd see a significant drop in gun deaths of six year olds, but a far smaller decrease in the 17-year-old death rate, because of the relative impact of that law. The people killing 17 year olds are less likely to see their practical access restricted by such a law. How can you solve a problem if you don't look into the nuances and fully understand it?

I don't care if the 1300 is 1300 infants or 1300 17 year old neo-nazis, 1300 kids is an accurate number, right? 0-17, they're kids, yes? And 1300 died from gun violence, yes? Sounds like a pretty straightforward and meaningful statistic to me.

It is if you want to make a poster about gun control or proclaim your own adherence to the virtuous standard you've selected for yourself. It's not as useful a statistic if you actually care about solutions.

If anything, it seems like stricter gun control would actually stem gun violence from low-level gang bangers a lot more effectively than it would from little Sara shooting her brother in the head with Dad's legally acquired hunting rifle.

FFS, finally, Helen Lovejoy moves past the moral grandstanding to something interesting.

Why do you think this the case, that it would have a more significant impact on gang violence than accidental deaths? As I said above, I have the opposite intuition. Also, does your view hold for suicides (which are a large proportion of annual US gun deaths)?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Suppose it's in how you do it. Hunting hasn't vanished in places with exceedingly low levels of gun violence.

Gang bangers my not by them by legal means, but they come by them because they're available. Making handguns and automatic weapons unavailable would impact gang bangers more than hunters by an extreme margin, it just might take a while.

I think that I fundamentally disagree with your argument. Just by their core nature and even their mission statement. These gangs would very quickly move into the illegal gun trade even heavier if legal gun sales were outlawed.

Guns and ammunition sales out of stores in the US is a $3.1 billion dollar business with a $500 million dollar profit. There were also 21 million firearms background checks performed in the US in 2014. These figures don't include untrackable firearms markets.


If a vacuum is created by making fire arms illegal, someone will step in to fill that need, America's gun obsession will demand it. The irony would be that people would be buying guns from criminal organizations to protect their own homes from criminals. Just let that little bit of irony sink in for a second.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Sure, but

Ok, I dunno x2, ok, easy, ok, handguns, ok, yes

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Relax and let it go. 16 year olds are kids, but they're also kids that can legally have sex with adults if they want to (outside of a relationship of authority, which was violated in that situation).

So wait...there is a difference between an innocent 6 year old and a 16 year old gang member afterall?

Funny that just an hour ago you were saying this, when someone brought up the difference:

Let's let child rapists and dirty teachers keep the "well, 16 year olds aren't really kids" argument.

[octothorp]

While a 16 year old typically has moral agency, it's might be relatively new to them in terms of real-world decision-making. If they end up in a drug and gang lifestyle by that early age, it's possible (I'd argue even likely) that they did not have a well-developed moral agency during many of the events and choices that led them to that point in time. When did they get involved in that lifestyle? At 14? at 10? To what degree were those choices, and did they have moral agency then? To what degree were those early choices made on moral grounds?

There are a lot of kids growing up in environments where the moral decisions they are faced with are way more complicated, with far higher stakes, than anything I (and I imagine most of us) had to deal with when I was young. I think it's really problematic to try and label anything as more or less of a tragedy, or even weigh moral culpability, when we're talking even about teenagers. They might have moral agency, but they still have the potential to be tied up in situations either beyond their control or situations caused by choices they made before they had moral agency.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I think that I fundamentally disagree with your argument. Just by their core nature and even their mission statement. These gangs would very quickly move into the illegal gun trade even heavier if legal gun sales were outlawed.

Aren't they pretty much already there, in large part? Or is the illegal market currently mostly south of the border running guns to Mexico?

There's just such sketchy information about all of this (partly because the NRA and its bought and sold representatives won't even allow the required research to take place).

[CaptainCrunch]

I read a study that theorized that more weapons came in by overseas transports into LA then weapons coming over the border from Mexico.

There was a report a few years back that stated the same thing for Canada and that there was a fear that the dock workers in Vancouver were completely infiltrated by criminal gangs.

Its probably easier to smuggle a large amount of guns in by sea then to go with smaller shipments coming over the border in legitimate looking transports.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

So wait...there is a difference between an innocent 6 year old and a 16 year old gang member afterall?

Funny that just an hour ago you were saying this, when someone brought up the difference:

This helpful guide might help:

Kids means 0-17 =/= There is no difference in ages 0-17
The difference isn't relevant to the issue =/= There is no difference in ages 0-17
16 year olds are still kids =/= 16 year olds are 6 year olds
A 16 year old having sex with a 40 year old =/= a 16 year old dying by gun violence

I can be bad with nuance, but it appears you wouldn't know it if it indirectly implied a hit to your head.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Its probably easier to smuggle a large amount of guns in by sea then to go with smaller shipments coming over the border in legitimate looking transports.

I was talking about them going the other way. My understanding is that thousands of illegal, unregistered weapons - whether from inside the USA or manufactured elsewhere and then brought in through US ports - are then transported down to Mexico. In the event that gun ownership was subject to significant restrictions or gun sales outlawed altogether, I was wondering if all of that supply would just be diverted to the domestic black market, or if there's no need because it's already so easy to buy an illegal gun in the USA that the people who would want one already get them without any difficulty.