General "mass killings" thread

[Anacybele]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't even get why the drinking age is so high in America. Practically everywhere else it's 18 or lower (or banned completely if you're Muslim run) and it has not correlation to how problematic alchol addiction is. Of course America also still uses the imperial system which is even more inane.

Health reasons. A human's brain is not fully developed until around the age of 21. Alcohol affects the brain. So drinking before the brain is fully developed can have worse effects than drinking after. Which is perfectly valid.

I'm honestly more confused at why some countries have their drinking age so low.

However, being able to get a gun at a lower age than an alcoholic drink is rather dumb imo.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Anacybele

[Arcanite]

33 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Health reasons. A human's brain is not fully developed until around the age of 21. Alcohol affects the brain. So drinking before the brain is fully developed can have worse effects than drinking after. Which is perfectly valid.

Actually your brain finishes developing at 25, not 21 

Also I think only drinking in heavy amounts causes permanent damage to the brain. Otherwise it's just temporary/only while you're actually drinking that it does something to your brain.

Just wanted to uh... make sure that fact is straight heh

[Johann]

Yeah, alcohol in moderation isn't too big of a deal. Hell, your brain can recover from mercury poisoning.

Anyway, in an effort to re-rail this topic, went to a local march this past Saturday. The students who spoke did a waaay better job than the adults who were running for office, incidentally.

[Excellen Browning]

I think it's kind of stupid that the NRA and MAGA warriors are trying to portray survivors of mass shootings as irrelevant because some teens tried to eat tide pods, and also because they weren't the ones who got killed.

It's a good thing then that the more moderate crowd is going fuck the NRA and leaving in drives.

[Shoblongoo]

On 3/21/2018 at 5:05 AM, Excellen Browning said:

I'd actually argue better gun laws >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>nothing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> armed guards in schools.

Afaik there's already significant problems with guards/police abusing their position of authority, and in case of police they don't even answer to the school. Let's not skew the power dynamic even more.

This is something that often gets glossed over, but it's an important and timely point to be raised now with what's happening in Sacremento. School shootings and police casually gunning down unarmed civilians without reprimand are two sides of the same coin, when it comes to America's fetish for gun violence. Given that we live in a country where police officers can see a black man holding a cell phone. Immediately fire 20 shots at him. Then have the resulting death deemed "reasonable" and lawful conduct, by testifying that they believed the cell phone was a gun. It's not unreasonable to believe putting armed officers in every school can have some rather horrific unintended consequences. Like I distinctly remember: 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Jotari]

43 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

This is something that often gets glossed over, but it's an important and timely point to be raised now with what's happening in Sacremento. School shootings and police casually gunning down unarmed civilians without reprimand are two sides of the same coin, when it comes to America's fetish for gun violence. Given that we live in a country where police officers can see a black man holding a cell phone. Immediately fire 20 shots at him. Then have the resulting death deemed "reasonable" and lawful conduct, by testifying that they believed the cell phone was a gun. It's not unreasonable to believe putting armed officers in every school can have some rather horrific unintended consequences. Like I distinctly remember: 

 

I don't like the idea of armed guards at a school for all those reasons. But I also feel that at this point Something Has To Be Done. A platoon of armed guards might make things worse, or it might make things better. Even if I don't agree that it's the besy solution, I still hope it works, and, of course, fear that won't. But holy cow something needs to be done, because the problem isn't going away and more children are dying each month. I'd of course rather they implement stricter gun laws (and encourage taser use over guns among the police force), but that's simply not happening yet. Maybe when an armed guard shoots someone we can have varifiable proof that it's a bad idea and pull the plug on the idea and maybe get closer to making some changes (police in America don't even need to record how many bullets they discharge in most states!). Or, in otherwords, it's a solution, maybe not a good solution, very probably a solution that will make the situation worse, but it is a solution and the current status quo is unacceptable.

[Anacybele]

9 hours ago, Arcanite said:

Actually your brain finishes developing at 25, not 21 

Also I think only drinking in heavy amounts causes permanent damage to the brain. Otherwise it's just temporary/only while you're actually drinking that it does something to your brain.

Just wanted to uh... make sure that fact is straight heh

We were taught in school that it was 21, but maybe that's a bit outdated now and further studies have changed things a bit. So I see. Even so, it's still a perfectly valid reason for the drinking age to be what it is. And if the brain does finish at 25, that means even the US has given its people a little leeway, so not much to complain about there.

And generally in this country, teens and teen drinking are the leading cause of vehicle accidents and vehicular manslaughter. That's also along with using a phone while driving. I can't believe that's not entirely illegal in this country! It should be! Drinking while driving is illegal and people raise awareness for how dangerous that is.

But why isn't the same done for talking on a phone/texting while driving? This is just as dangerous, if not more! It only takes a second or two for something to happen.

And something that's out there even less are the (potential) dangers of elderly driving. I'm not saying the elderly shouldn't drive at all. But as you're getting into those years, certain functions of the brain can slow down, like reaction time and such, and that can affect your ability to drive. I've seen/heard of two, possibly three instances where an elderly driver caused an accident.

First time, at a convenience store I used to work at, a guy had a stroke while in the parking lot and went extremely close to plowing into the store. He could've hurt a lot of people and nearly took the building down with him! I'm not sure if he was actually elderly, as I never got that detail, but given how much more likely elderly folks are to have strokes than younger people, it's pretty likely he was.

Second, at the same store, I was nearly hit by an elderly man while he was pulling out of his parking space at an insane speed.

Third, I saw a video on Facebook about this lady who was hit by an 87 year old driver. She might never walk again! She's trying to point out that elderly drivers should be retested. And I'm agreeing.

Back to the gun thing though, why do you people insist on not having school security guards just because one or two of them didn't handle things properly? You DO realize that for like every bad cop, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of good ones? Also, maybe instead of asking for fewer guns, you could also ask for police to be better trained and thoroughly checked out before officially being put on duty.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Anacybele

[Dark Holy Elf]

The reason you'll see less legislation against "elderly driving" than drunk driving or driving while using a phone is because banning someone from driving period is a significant infringement on their rights so the burden of proof should absolutely be on the authorities trying to show this person should not drive. By contrast, saying "don't drink/phone/text and drive" does not meaningfully remove rights in the same way, as it is something anyone is capable of doing.

13 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Back to the gun thing though, why do you people insist on not having school security guards just because one or two of them didn't handle things properly? You DO realize that for like every bad cop, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of good ones? Also, maybe instead of asking for fewer guns, you could also ask for police to be better trained and thoroughly checked out before officially being put on duty.

For the record I absolutely do support the latter. The problem is, it costs money (essentially, you have to pay your cops more and make them a more prestigious position in society, so that you attract better people to the job) and many American states are allergic to using money to solve social problems.

That said I don't think armed security guards in schools are a good idea generally (there may be specific cases where it's justified, but they should be extreme) because they're extremely unlikely to stop a shooting (which are already rare events to start with) and even a low chance of a undertrained/poorly behaved security guard could lead to a bad incident. In Canada the idea of an armed guard in a school is completely alien to me and we have way fewer school shootings per capita than you.

[Anacybele]

5 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The reason you'll see less legislation against "elderly driving" than drunk driving or driving while using a phone is because banning someone from driving period is a significant infringement on their rights so the burden of proof should absolutely be on the authorities trying to show this person should not drive. By contrast, saying "don't drink/phone/text and drive" does not meaningfully remove rights in the same way, as it is something anyone is capable of doing.

For the record I absolutely do support the latter. The problem is, it costs money (essentially, you have to pay your cops more and make them a more prestigious position in society, so that you attract better people to the job) and many American states are allergic to using money to solve social problems.

That said I don't think armed security guards in schools are a good idea generally (there may be specific cases where it's justified, but they should be extreme) because they're extremely unlikely to stop a shooting (which are already rare events to start with) and even a low chance of a undertrained/poorly behaved security guard could lead to a bad incident. In Canada the idea of an armed guard in a school is completely alien to me and we have way fewer school shootings per capita than you.

I didn't say to ban all elderly drivers. I said to just get them retested. If in any way they can pose a threat to other drivers or pedestrians because their brains are no longer up to speed, so to speak, then shouldn't they not be allowed to drive?

Yeah, I do agree that some states do seem to be too allergic to using money to solve problems. It's dumb and kind of greedy.

Why are they unlikely to stop a shooting? Didn't one just save a lot of lives by killing a shooter who merely injured two people and didn't kill anyone?

Edited March 29, 2018 by Anacybele

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Also, maybe instead of asking for fewer guns, you could also ask for police to be better trained and thoroughly checked out before officially being put on duty.

I highly doubt anyone's going to object to the idea that police should be trained and qualified to do their job. And equally so, is it really that unreasonable to request that a private citizen be trained and qualified to handle a weapon that can easily kill multiple people? Because that's all stricter gun law advocates are looking for. A comprehensive background check to ensure a gun owner isn't a criminal and mentally fit to carry the weapon, and a licence to prove they know how to use it without shooting themselves or someone else by accident.

 

[Anacybele]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I highly doubt anyone's going to object to the idea that police should be trained and qualified to do their job. And equally so, is it really that unreasonable to request that a private citizen be trained and qualified to handle a weapon that can easily kill multiple people? Because that's all stricter gun law advocates are looking for. A comprehensive background check to ensure a gun owner isn't a criminal and mentally fit to carry the weapon, and a licence to prove they know how to use it without shooting themselves or someone else by accident.

Yeah, I'm fine with both too.

[Shoblongoo]

 

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I highly doubt anyone's going to object to the idea that police should be trained and qualified to do their job.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh you'd be surprised...

For some reason policing is the only profession where if you demand that people be held to high professional standards and punished in clear cases of egregious wrongdoing, people act like you're the asshole and you have an irrational hatred of the entire profession. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Moblin Major General]

21 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh you'd be surprised...

For some reason policing is the only profession where if you demand that people be held to high professional standards and punished in clear cases of egregious wrongdoing, people act like you're the asshole and you have an irrational hatred of the entire profession. 

It sickens me that people are so trusting of an authority that is so easily swayed to abuse and corruption as policing. I hold the idea that the internal affairs officer is the paragon of police work, even though so many of their peers openly jeer and devalue them. It's almost as if they think that because they are the law, they are above it. Without internal affairs, many police crimes and offenses will go unreported and unpunished.

[Comet]

7 hours ago, Anacybele said:

We were taught in school that it was 21, but maybe that's a bit outdated now and further studies have changed things a bit. So I see. Even so, it's still a perfectly valid reason for the drinking age to be what it is. And if the brain does finish at 25, that means even the US has given its people a little leeway, so not much to complain about there.

And generally in this country, teens and teen drinking are the leading cause of vehicle accidents and vehicular manslaughter. That's also along with using a phone while driving. I can't believe that's not entirely illegal in this country! It should be! Drinking while driving is illegal and people raise awareness for how dangerous that is.

But why isn't the same done for talking on a phone/texting while driving? This is just as dangerous, if not more! It only takes a second or two for something to happen.

And something that's out there even less are the (potential) dangers of elderly driving. I'm not saying the elderly shouldn't drive at all. But as you're getting into those years, certain functions of the brain can slow down, like reaction time and such, and that can affect your ability to drive. I've seen/heard of two, possibly three instances where an elderly driver caused an accident.

First time, at a convenience store I used to work at, a guy had a stroke while in the parking lot and went extremely close to plowing into the store. He could've hurt a lot of people and nearly took the building down with him! I'm not sure if he was actually elderly, as I never got that detail, but given how much more likely elderly folks are to have strokes than younger people, it's pretty likely he was.

Second, at the same store, I was nearly hit by an elderly man while he was pulling out of his parking space at an insane speed.

Third, I saw a video on Facebook about this lady who was hit by an 87 year old driver. She might never walk again! She's trying to point out that elderly drivers should be retested. And I'm agreeing.

Back to the gun thing though, why do you people insist on not having school security guards just because one or two of them didn't handle things properly? You DO realize that for like every bad cop, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of good ones? Also, maybe instead of asking for fewer guns, you could also ask for police to be better trained and thoroughly checked out before officially being put on duty.

of course teen drinking and driving will be terrible. it's the natural result of giving people cars and THEN giving them alcohol, especially since US culture treats alcohol as a thing to "get drunk".

[Anacybele]

4 minutes ago, Comet said:

of course teen drinking and driving will be terrible. it's the natural result of giving people cars and THEN giving them alcohol, especially since US culture treats alcohol as a thing to "get drunk".

I wouldn't say that's our culture. Anybody anywhere can go get drunk if they want to. It's not limited to the US.

[Lord Raven]

It's interesting, because Las Vegas has enacted some policies in place to make sure police were specifically trained to de-escalate rather than shoot first ask later or something. Shoots have gone down 36% since 2010 until around 2017.

However, the LVMPD (las vegas metropolitan police department) is actually understaffed as a result of some of the rigor that is required to become an officer. I think what stands in the way is funding and staffing issues, and I'm not sure if the state prefers an oversized police staff to an undersized one.

[Shoblongoo]

On 3/31/2018 at 3:17 PM, Lord Raven said:

It's interesting, because Las Vegas has enacted some policies in place to make sure police were specifically trained to de-escalate rather than shoot first ask later or something. 

De-escalation training is all well-and-good, but what I want to see is policies in place to make sure that police who shoot first and ask questions later actually face some form of legal consequence. 

The training is toothless if a police officer knows that if he disregards best practice and just goes straight for his gun, his failure to behave as he was trained to behave carries no real risk of punishment.

And any conversation on gun violence, cultural attitudes towards gun rights, and the response of law enforcement is--again--incomplete without confronting the reality that we live in a racist country, where we bend over backwards to accommodate the "second amendment rights" of white people walking around with assault rifles.

...but black people...

(balls-of-steel on the black guy who had the guts to participate in this little experiment--he's lucky he isn't dead)
 

 

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

De-escalation training is all well-and-good, but what I want to see is policies in place to make sure that police who shoot first and ask questions later actually face some form of legal consequence. 

The training is toothless if a police officer knows that if he disregards best practice and just goes straight for his gun, his failure to behave as he was trained to behave carries no real risk of punishment.

And any conversation on gun violence, cultural attitudes towards gun rights, and the response of law enforcement is--again--incomplete without confronting the reality that we live in a racist country, where we bend over backwards to accommodate the "second amendment rights" of white people walking around with assault rifles.

...but black people...

(balls-of-steel on the black guy who had the guts to participate in this little experiment--he's lucky he isn't dead)
 

 

Oh wow. That's absolutely horrifying.

[euklyd]

9 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

And any conversation on gun violence, cultural attitudes towards gun rights, and the response of law enforcement is--again--incomplete without confronting the reality that we live in a racist country, where we bend over backwards to accommodate the "second amendment rights" of white people walking around with assault rifles.

...but black people...

(balls-of-steel on the black guy who had the guts to participate in this little experiment--he's lucky he isn't dead)

Reminder that then-Governor Reagan was all for gun control after the Black Panthers showed up to protests carrying guns.

[Tetragrammaton]

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/teacher-explains-why-passion-has-been-wrung-completely-out-of-me/news-story/520ea8cd67192233fdf84b8df56682d6

More teachers quit because of stress.

And you expect them to carry guns in schools.

What if one day a parent gets shot by the teacher that fail their kids?

[Etrurian emperor]

While the speed of which Policemen start shooting seems kind of reprehensible I'm also finding myself sympathizing with those policemen a lot. 

I don't feel they are so quick to fire because they are malicious but because they are deeply terrified of the people they are forced to approach. And why wouldn't they be? By law any one of those persons could possibly have gun which they can then use to kill the policemen with. If your life can potentially be at stake whether you have to deal with the toughest black guy or the tiniest Asian grandma because they may all own a device that can kill you then that's surely going to wear you down. And then one day you panic and make a terrible mistake. 

[Jotari]

15 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

While the speed of which Policemen start shooting seems kind of reprehensible I'm also finding myself sympathizing with those policemen a lot. 

I don't feel they are so quick to fire because they are malicious but because they are deeply terrified of the people they are forced to approach. And why wouldn't they be? By law any one of those persons could possibly have gun which they can then use to kill the policemen with. If your life can potentially be at stake whether you have to deal with the toughest black guy or the tiniest Asian grandma because they may all own a device that can kill you then that's surely going to wear you down. And then one day you panic and make a terrible mistake. 

The problem is that there's basically no punishment for shooting an unarmed civilian. So subconsciously, the decision to shoot first becomes an easier one. Pulling the trigger becomes the instinctual response over telling someone to drop their weapon. And I think any police officer that does make that mistake should have their career ended. They've proven to be more damaging to society than beneficial by shooting so quickly at someone holding a mobile phone. If they can't actively identify a threat, then they can't be trusted to do the job. Harsh? Maybe, but there should definitely be some kind of repercussions for literally killing an innocent person.

[Excellen Browning]

9 hours ago, hanhnn said:

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/teacher-explains-why-passion-has-been-wrung-completely-out-of-me/news-story/520ea8cd67192233fdf84b8df56682d6

More teachers quit because of stress.

And you expect them to carry guns in schools.

What if one day a parent gets shot by the teacher that fail their kids?

teachers get shot by angry parents with some regularity.

and yea, a lot of people probably need to be told to stop being assholes. Or get punched if they don't.

[Moblin Major General]

29 minutes ago, Excellen Browning said:

a lot of people probably need to be told to stop being assholes. Or get punched if they don't.

Except that's the problem. Violence begets violence. Intolerance begets intolerance. If assholes are forced to become the aggressor and not the victim, their view will be invalidated because they took went too far. If you attack someone because their worldview is distasteful, someone might defend them because you were the aggressor, and that reflects poorly on you because you reacted and not them.

[Life]

I took a nice long break to do a lot of reading and evaluation so here's my two cents.

 

1) A lot of people (on all sides of the debate) seem to misunderstand the purpose of the 2nd amendment. The point of it is to say "right, the government has no right to disarm me and if the people want to create a militia, the government is going to need to crush it by force if they want to stop it". It doesn't give anyone the right to bear arms; it simply denies the government a legal way to disarm the citizenry, technology be damned.

It's similar to the 1st amendment in that respect. It's not that I have the right to free speech; it's that the mandate on violence has no legal ability to silence me, no matter how heinous the words I say are. It may seem like a small word-game but it's much bigger than that.

Now, just because I can bear arms doesn't mean I should do so. But it is important for people to at least understand the principle behind the 2A before piping up (and this is extended to those who are against guns altogether).

 

2) I spent 3 years sleeping with an M16A1 under my pillow. I've been shooting rifles since the age of 10. And I think I know why most city people (being that I grew up in a big city) don't understand why there is far more gun crime in areas that have far stricter gun laws.

It's the culture. When you grow up around guns in a controlled manner (and I mean by culture, not by laws), you learn to respect the gun for what it is: a killing tool. You don't fuck about with it and you're far less likely to pull the trigger when aiming at another person (because rule number 1 is to never aim even an empty weapon at something that you're not going to shoot 100%). These are not ideas that friends of mine understand about guns... because they never grew up around weapons. And when you don't grow up around weapons, you don't learn to respect them.

 

3) There is no "right" or "wrong" solution here. The UK has to ban knives and restrict acid sales because those are the weapons of choice there. Israel has guns everywhere due to a mandatory draft and our violent crime rate is relatively low (if you're not in South Tel Aviv). No one answer is going to work everywhere.

But I will say this: You cannot claim that the police are indiscriminately shooting blacks and that Trump is a Nazi... and then ask for them to be the only ones armed. Because if those statements were true, I'd want the black community armed to the fucking teeth as some sort of protection.

Are there issues with the US police? Absolutely. But why would you claim to be victimized by the government... and then ask them to disarm you? It makes no sense.

 

Just a few thoughts I have.