Masked gunman kills 14 at Batman premiere in Denver

*post deleted because just thinking about this stuff gives me a headache.

  On 7/21/2012 at 3:11 PM, goDel said:

Perhaps you need some explanation from my side before you make a judgement? Here in Holland, where I happen to live, we had a couple of similar instances. In a recent case it was someone who had been hospitalized for a while and was actually hearing voices. In his notes he described it as a God directly talking to him.

 

So, from my clueless position I gather: no, this James probably isn't in that category.

 

And from my experiences at the Uni and the mathematics faculty in particular: there were quite a number of borderline paranoids there. Some of who I still consider to be friends.

 

But lets keep on being passive aggressive by having no argument and tell each other we're being clueless mindless jerks. Sorry for having stepped on your toes by talking about "hearing voices types". I actually agree with you on that one, but feel free to keep on calling me a clueless jerk if that makes you feel any better.

O_o

I must be having a stevie G moment...

Don't mind Mesh Gear Fox, he's just... wait, who are you?

I think I'm going to fall back to the Dan C tactics:

And I admit about being clueless about the bags, btw. But the irony gets lost in threads like these pretty quick. So there. I think I miss a couple colors, but that could be me...

Also, he dyed his hair red instead of green. Wasn't he supposed to be the joker? No wonder he didn't make his phd.

edit.: thanks robert, you shouldn't have deleted your post!

Some term the patriarchy use innit.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Handbags%20at%20dawn

LOL

There's lots of smug losers around here.

edit.: apparently

Watmm is all smug losers arguing endlessly about shit.

edit: Perhaps we should stop derailing this thread with petty name calling and take this to a knife fight?

  On 7/21/2012 at 5:00 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 7/20/2012 at 6:14 PM, auxien said:

i only browsed over most of these posts, so forgive me if someone else brought this up. but the constitutional right to bear arms in America will never be changed. it may be restricted more over time, but it will never ever be illegal for a general citizen to own a gun. the reasoning behind this, as someone brought up, is partially a logistics issue. enforcing a ban would be about as useful as enforcing the illegality of marijuana...anywhere in the US it can be found, despite the fact that it's been illegal for a very long time. the issue of enforcing a ban was already discussed though.

 

what i hadn't seen discussed is the fact that the main reason for our right to bear arms is so that the citizens can keep the government in check, if it were to ever overstep its bounds. this is one of the main arguments that America as a nation is founded on. this is exactly what happened during the Civil War; a group of states thought the federal government was imposing too much control by trying to ban slavery and other reasons, so they acted by seceding from the union and protecting their borders with their own weapons. now i'm not arguing the validity of that, because fuck slavery, but the option of action by the people when its government doesn't listen to it anymore is why personally owned arms will always be legal in this country.

 

i'm not a militia supporter or anything of the sort, so don't get the wrong idea. but there's been this uneasy line we've been treading for a few decades now...where there are groups of people who think the government is already crossing that line or soon to cross it, and these groups are arming themselves heavily in case. that's their right, but the government has been keeping these groups in check for the most part. when they get too big, they go in and break it all up. the incident at the Koresh compound in Waco, TX (while not entirely about its militia leanings) is the most public, and perhaps the most upsetting, of these skirmishes. but i bring that all up because THAT is what gun ownership is about for Americans. not just personal protection (guns generally aren't useful in many personal protection situations) but more so about protection of the people, the citizens and their rights, as a whole.

 

technically speaking the Waco incident is not really related to the right to bear arms. They wanted to arrest david koresh and instead of taking him in when he was out shopping, they made their announcement to the mainstream media and intended to have a standoff to make an example of him. In no way am i defending Koresh, but I think the Ruby Ridge incident is probably the most notable 'militia' type vs federal law enforcement

technically the Waco incident began because of the types of weapons on the Branch Davidian compound. the search warrant the ATF were supposed to be serving when the siege began was related directly to their weaponry. supposed explosives, machine gun conversion kits and so on.

yes they were interested in many other things, Koresh himself being made an example, possible child abuse, etc., but the initial legal reason they were there was dependent (as far as i can find) entirely on the weapons being stockpiled and modified there.

Ruby Ridge doesn't seem to have caused as much of a stir as the Waco siege. Ruby Ridge is however much more a clear militia incident, where the Branch Davidians were more of a cult with militia leanings. i mentioned Waco because it's been more covered in the press and would likely be the more recognizable incident of the two. both are sad fucked incidents though.

  On 7/21/2012 at 5:13 AM, usagi said:

  On 7/20/2012 at 6:14 PM, auxien said:

what i hadn't seen discussed is the fact that the main reason for our right to bear arms is so that the citizens can keep the government in check, if it were to ever overstep its bounds. this is one of the main arguments that America as a nation is founded on.

 

this idea doesn't hold up in the 21st century though. is it possible to seriously argue that, if a civil uprising type situation were to happen in the US today, civilians would actually be able to hold their own through personal arms against the massively overpowered and overfunded US military? or National Guard, or whoever else would get involved?

 

I'm honestly interested in hearing the logic for this because I'm amazed that people still have this notion.

yes civilians would be able to hold their own. people currently in the military account for approximately 1% of the population, if that much. yes the people in the military (assuming they would each and every one continue following orders handed down by their superiors) have, in general, more advanced weapons, and surely many at their disposal. not many tanks owned in the private sector (unless RDJ wants to bring his over here to fight for the American people!). not many missiles or large explosives either. but the sheer number of people who could take up arms would be able to at least put up a hell of a fight.

in the end victory would likely be dependent on a couple of things. mainly, if the military, and particularly the members of that military, saw issues with killing thousands of American citizens. which i think would be very possible. it would also be dependent on how many citizens would die in order to overpower their government in that fight. if you really are in Australia i think it's safe to say i know more Americans than you do, and if it came down to such a terrible confrontation, many would lay down their lives for what they believe was right for America as a whole. the Civil War only happened about 150 years ago....3% of our population at the time died. the spirit that sent all those people to combat, many of them to death, is still in many of the people in America, despite what it may seem at times.

whether the notion we still have would truly work in that situation, who knows. i hope we never have to find out. but that's one of the main points of logic for personal arms ownership nonetheless.

Yeah, what that audience needed was 9 or 10 George Zimmermans. Then everybody would be dead and the NRA could promptly eat a bag of dicks.

Just brilliant politicizing. A robbery and a massacre are just so similar. Are people really this dumb?

How is a robbery comparable to a guy going on a kill frenzy?

  On 7/21/2012 at 5:25 PM, Dan C said:

How is a robbery comparable to a guy going on a kill frenzy?

Exactly. Fact is pulling a gun to stop a robbery is a pretty good way to escalate it.

  On 7/21/2012 at 5:23 PM, The Overlook said:

Yeah, what that audience needed was 9 or 10 George Zimmermans. Then everybody would be dead and the NRA could promptly eat a bag of dicks.

the shooter was white though, Zimmerman wouldn't have done anything!

Meh Gean Fox show us your tits

  On 7/21/2012 at 5:30 PM, auxien said:

  On 7/21/2012 at 5:23 PM, The Overlook said:

Yeah, what that audience needed was 9 or 10 George Zimmermans. Then everybody would be dead and the NRA could promptly eat a bag of dicks.

 

the shooter was white though, Zimmerman wouldn't have done anything!

True, but there had to be at least a dozen people in the audience eating skittles or drinking iced tea.

...BADA-BING!

  On 7/21/2012 at 4:06 PM, goDel said:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

too soon?

 

 

I thought it was funny.

Too soon 2

  Quote

Many recent atrocities could have been handled by one well prepared person, Dunblane, 9/11, Anders Brevik, this Batman screening shooting. All it would have taken was one prepared, capable individual to stand up against somebody that felt they would simply take control of a situation and kill at will and challenge them.

  Quote

All it would have taken was one prepared, capable individual to stand up...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/07/hbc-90008724

  Quote

Compare that to the coverage and conversation after Anders Behring Breivik murdered sixty-nine people on the island of Utøya in Norway, a year ago next Sunday. Nobody focused on the gun. I had a hard time learning from the news reports what type of gun he used. Nobody asked, “How did he get a gun?” That seemed strange, because it’s much harder to get a gun in Europe than it is here. But everybody, even the American media, seemed to understand that the heart of the Utøya massacre story was a tragically deranged man, not the rifle he fired. Instead of wringing their hands over the gun Breivik used, Norwegians saw the tragedy as the opening to a conversation about the rise of right-wing extremism in their country.

  Quote

It’s true that America’s rate of violent crime remains higher than that in most European countries. But to focus on guns is to dodge a painful truth. America is more violent than other countries because Americans are more violent than other people. Our abundant guns surely make assaults more deadly. But by obsessing over inanimate pieces of metal, we avoid looking at what brings us more often than others to commit violent acts. Many liberal critics understand this when it comes to drug policy. The modern, sophisticated position is that demonizing chemicals is a reductive and ineffective way to address complicated social pathologies. When it comes to gun violence, though, the conversation often stops at the tool, because it is more comfortable to blame it than to examine ourselves.

Well, one way to think about it is look at how effective the US forces have been in Iraq/Afghanistan. Yes, they're very good at killing civilians, but fighting the actual insurgents? And the insurgents are probably less better armed than a lot of the militia groups in the States.

Additionally, many of the militia groups in the states contain ex-military (and if they can get John Rambo, they're golden), who would have had some training and have knowledge of how basic combat tactics work.

Finally, there's the psychological factor - yes the US military could win, if they use all of their technological superiority (and I don't mean nukes) - much like the only way they were beating the Vietnamese in the end was by using scorched earth sort of tactics. Now it's one thing to do that against "gooks" or "towel-heads", but how many of the military would be willing to turn those advanced weapons against their fellow US citizens? Sure there would be some (the US military is a great place for psychopaths to hide), but would there be enough?

So while I think the military could win in a civil war, I don't think it would be as clear cut a victory as it seems. And of course, the possibility of a long, drawn out affair is very real, with no clear winner emerging.