The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting

[TheGlyphstone]

If that was directed at me, here's the data I was citing:

http://www.haveninsights.com/just-37-percent-name-representative/

(Representative, not senator).

And perhaps to clarify if my point was unclear, this data is why I find the idea that 'kids' automatically aren't eligible or qualified to have political opinions ludicrous. Age is clearly no indication or qualifier of the validity of opinions, compared to the desire and motivation to be educated and informed about the issues at hand.

[TheHighwayHitman]

Look at this for a second.

Almost all of you who have responded to me have given up on debating about the guns and instead have been less than subtle about trying to turn the debate into the morality of dismissing the opinions of kids. Teenagers. Whatever.

Debating the guns, the value of them is a losing argument. All but one has failed to even remotely touch the notion of what would be acceptable legislation. And the one who touched that still didn't actually give anything that would prevent the crime from happening. Some of the points covered are either already in place - like felons not being able to buy a gun, or were repealed because a higher court deemed them unconstitutional. You can't mandate when and where a person sells their private property.

People who are determined to break the law are going to do it. I bet each and every one of you who drives speeds. 10 miles over the speed limit can be ticketed for reckless driving. Reckless driving alone is responsible for more deaths in America than all firearms related deaths combined. But that doesn't stop you from speeding. And don't say you don't speed.

You're determined to do it and no amount of legislation is going to stop you.

Though the part about alcoholism is interesting. Though... isn't addiction a form of mental illness? I really don't know and frankly find it a slippery slope since by that standard being a cigarette smoker would make someone mentally ill. Very seriously, that is an area I'd go into depth with and would suggest both more research on and leading with. The alcohol part has my attention and could very easily be an area where I could see my position shifting. Maybe not from the same perspectives though. It's pretty much an established fact that alcohol brings out the worst in people. It's a depressant and people coined the phrase liquid courage for a reason. It seems like a logical step to me that criminals who commit crimes like school shootings would have a factor such as alcohol influencing them. Alright. No.guns for people with a diagnosed case of alcohol addiction. But what if they rehab? Or go undiagnosed?

Feel free to elaborate. I'm with you on that so far. But I'm moving along as well. So...Those of you who keep wanting to bring this back to the survivors of a tragedy...

No. Just being in the school when that happened doesn't make them the survivor of a tragedy. It might make them witness to something awful. But not an actual survivor. If I'm on the freeway and I witness a red pick up cut off a rig that Jack knifes and hits another vehicle, that doesn't make me a survivor of it. I had no part in it other than to witness it. Most of the teenagers speaking on the topic and marching aren't even from the same school now, let alone actually being in proximity to the shooting or having been shot at.

To say they are survivors is incorrect.

But okay. I'll give you the sympathy card this one time. They're traumatized teenagers who survived a terrible tragedy. You don't use traumatized teenagers to make a public and potentially federal policy that at It's root is still factually incorrect insofar as it isn't going to prevent crime from happening in the future. That's dumb. Nobody does that. Nobody who successfully governs does that anyway.

Who is communicating death threats exactly? Wasn't it that Hogg kid who called Dana Loesche a murderer? Didn't he also say something of the sort about the NRA, who does more for firearms education than just about every other organization in the country combined? Paraphrasing, didn't the other girl basically say that if your opinion isn't the same as hers she doesn't care, you're the enemy?

Which is it? Are they traumatized teenagers or are they mature adults who can handle it? You don't get it both ways. They're either venting teenagers dealing with trauma or They're about to be voters who said some downright nasty and insulting things to pretty much the same people who revealed they did in fact, have the ability to put Donald Trump in office and in the process drew the proverbial line in the sand. There is wisdom in not poking a stick at a pit bull or throwing stones if you live in a glass house.

I have said it numerous times. I don't care if you have an opinion. I only care whether It's right or wrong.

To the person who just ninja'd me.

Actually it is about hoops. You can't prevent people getting shot. Shootings have happened since the dawn of the bow and arrow thousands of years ago. It's evolved to guns. The simple reality is that this can't be prevented, only deterred, and the only deterrent is deploying more guns (in the form of education and security).

It hasn't been lost on me that Switzerland has the lowest gun violence rate in the world and pretty much every home has access to at least one gun. Nor has it been lost on me that Wyoming is one of the safest states in the country and it is an open carry state.

What do people say about madness? It's trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? The one thing that hasn't been tried yet is mandatory firearms training and proper mental illness treatment.

[Oniya]

What do people say about madness? It's trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? The one thing that hasn't been tried yet is mandatory firearms training and proper mental illness treatment.

I'd go along with this - requiring those people who want to use a weapon to be properly trained with it should be as no-brainer as requiring people who want to drive a car to be properly trained with it.  (I don't think we need to go completely to 'everyone must be trained to shoot', just as we don't mandate everyone learning to drive.  Those who object to personally having a gun could stick with a theory class that covers how to be safe without learning how to shoot.  Trust me, with my eyesight, you don't want me on a shooting range.  I was bad enough in archery class.)  Getting re-certified periodically, just like you do with your driver's license, would also be useful.

Proper mental illness treatment?  Please!  Roll that one out ASAP.  Don't even bother tying it to gun laws, even.  Make that a completely separate piece of legislation so that no special interest group can get a toe-hold on stopping it.

[TheGlyphstone]

Proper mental illness treatment?  Please!  Roll that one out ASAP.  Don't even bother tying it to gun laws, even.  Make that a completely separate piece of legislation so that no special interest group can get a toe-hold on stopping it.

The private health care lobby might try and sink it, depending on how much it'd cost them to insure mental health treatments.

[Oniya]

The private health care lobby might try and sink it, depending on how much it'd cost them to insure mental health treatments.

And they'd look like real - jerks - for doing so.

[Arvus23]

Do not let the government touch anymore of the healthcare system. It's buggered enough as it is.

People wanna say Europe has a good healthcare system, what people forget is that European countries have higher taxes then the US and are still going into debt.

Germany is the closest country that comes to terms with the US in GPA per capita, but that doesn't account for the billions spent by the US government to aid other nations and pay for the UN. A fifth of their budget and a fourth of their military budget coming from the US.

Now imagine adding even more UH to the our bills. Buggered doesn't even begin to describe the amount of waste we'd be in.

[Lustful Bride]

Regular reminder that the NRA are hypocrites who don't actually care about gun rights.

+1. They only care about the money and are a bigger threat to gun rights than anyone else by building up a toxic environment around gun debates and preventing any type of real discussion and compromise.

[Regina Minx]

Almost all of you who have responded to me have given up on debating about the guns and instead have been less than subtle about trying to turn the debate into the morality of dismissing the opinions of kids. Teenagers. Whatever.

I was pointing out that you were engaging in logical fallacies with my very subtle hint. I always find it interesting to see how people respond when someone else suggests that they're engaging in a fallacy. My first instinct is to go "Am I? How is it possible that what I said is fallacious? Let me reconsider the context and word choice and...oh hell. Why don't I break it down into propositional logic just to be sure," before I respond. Because I actually care if the things I believe in and argue for are true.

And the one who touched that still didn't actually give anything that would prevent the crime from happening.

So...did you click through to the book I referenced and said was a great start? Because I feel like you didn't. I understand that it's a huge volume and you couldn't have been expected to read it...but even a look at the chapter titles would have demonstrated that it has two chapters dedicated to peer-reviewed research into the efficacy of various laws on gun ownership and usage. I'll refer you to Chapter 3 (Preventing Gun Violence Involving People with Serious Mental Illness) and Chapter 12 (America's Experience with the Federal-Assault Weapons Ban, 1994-2004: Key Findings and Implications).

You can't mandate when and where a person sells their private property.

Sure you can. There are hundreds of laws restricting the where and when of sales. You need a license to sell from a cart on the street of major cities, and the hours and locations will be limited. You need health inspection to cook and sell food to patrons. If I wanted to buy a car from a private party in my state, the seller is required to have certain documentation and paperwork, and I would be obligated to ensure that the car passed relevant safety and emissions inspections. I cannot legally sell alcohol to a person under 21 in most places. The entire concept of zoning has its purpose in the notion that the development of real estate can and should be regulated.

People who are determined to break the law are going to do it. I bet each and every one of you who drives speeds. 10 miles over the speed limit can be ticketed for reckless driving. Reckless driving alone is responsible for more deaths in America than all firearms related deaths combined. But that doesn't stop you from speeding. And don't say you don't speed.

Factually incorrect. Even this study, which is skeptical of the efficacy of traffic control overall, found that increasing a speed limit from 55 to 65 mph resulted in a 3.3% increase in the total number of crashes and a 28% increase in the predicted number of fatalities.

Increasing a speed limit leads to more crashes. Why would that be? Could it be that an increased speed limit is associated with higher average speeds on that road? That means that prescriptive laws change public behavior. I'm going to say it again with the peer-reviewed literature attached. Prescriptive laws change behavior.

You're determined to do it and no amount of legislation is going to stop you.

Except in Israel, where decreasing access to firearms among Israeli Defense Forces while off-duty lead to a 40% decrease in suicide rate among that population.

Except in South Africa, where a three-pronged system of banning powerful weapons like automatic and semi-automatic weapons, a robust background check system, and licensing requirements resulted in firearm homicides in five major South African cities decreased by 13.6 percent per year for the next five years.

Except in Australia, where the National Firearms Agreement included confiscations and buybacks in addition to background checks and licensing requirements, and eight separate studies have shown strong evidence of homicide death following passage and implementation of the law.

And except in Missouri, where the repeal of a law requiring a permit to purchase a firearm resulted in an increase in homicides by 25%. The study specifically looked and found that no other change in law or circumstance is present to explain the increase.

It hasn't been lost on me that Switzerland has the lowest gun violence rate in the world and pretty much every home has access to at least one gun.

Factually incorrect. First of all, not only does Switzerland fail to make the top ten when it comes to homicides by firearm (that would be Hong Kong, Iceland, Luxembourg, Singapore, South Korea, Poland, Romania, Germany, and the United Kingdom), but Switzerland also doesn't even rank the top ten when it comes the number of guns present in the country per 100 inhabitants (both Germany and Iceland have more guns per 100 people, interestingly enough).

Nor has it been lost on me that Wyoming is one of the safest states in the country and it is an open carry state.

Factually incorrect. Wyoming has is the 11th in terms of the number of firearm-related homicides.. That is to say, it's safer to live in 39 other states if your goal is not to be killed by a gun. The safest state is actually Massachusetts, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.

Here's the thing, HH. You re-invigorated this thread with an ad hominem on the survivors of the shooting in Florida (which continues up to the last post, where you are disputing whether or not survivor is the correct term to use.) Then you make assertions of fact that are false. When provided with peer-reviewed literature, you give strong signs that you're not reading it.

When I put up this thread (and a similar one following the shooting in Las Vegas), I had the attitude of despair and hopelessness because I did not believe that the horror of yet another mass shooting would lead to any meaningful changes. Not because I did not believe in the efficacy of any changes that could be made, but because I despair that the political will is present in this country to enact any change. You are similarly presenting a kind of fatalism with regards to mass shootings and general rates of homicide by guns. But not because you doubt we lack the political will to implement those changes, but because you express skepticism about the efficacy of those changes. I've given like a dozen references which include a survey of something like a hundred scientific studies of the effects of various policy proposal with the goal of reducing gun violence in America.

A skepticism I can't see as being justified.

[TheHighwayHitman]

It is very justified. None of these studies say that homicide by firearm won't happen. You seem like a pretty intelligent person and you are coming up to the proverbial plate ready to smack it out of the park but still failing to achieve the end goal of, "How do we make this never happen again."

Well. We can't. Sooner or later we have to acknowledge that. Nothing you presented to me achieves the goal of making sure this doesn't happen again. It does however achieve the goal of making guns more difficult for everyone to get. I won't accept that. I won't even consider it until people who don't know what they are talking about actually do know what they're talking about. You can claim I'm making a logical fallacy all you want too, but that doesn't make it so. When I see and hear good ideas I am happy to acknowledge them. When I'm wrong, I'm cool with letting it go. I suck at diplomacy. I'm not somebody I would want making policies either. I'm great at intimidation which makes me a decent bluff (and subsequent storyteller) too. That's why I wrote a whole paragraph about the correlation between alcoholism and gun violence. We seemed to be getting somewhere with that, but it was left alone and instead there was an attempt to contradict my point about not being able to dictate private sales or stop people determined to break the law.

That goes right back to not being able to prevent this happening again. Sure you can make laws. Generally people will follow them. You can't stop that street vender from telling someone to come back after closing. You can't stop the cook in the diner from from using contaminated food, and you can't stop neighbors from buying and selling cars to each other with cash and a handshake. To think otherwise is itself the fallacy.

Which was one of my points that I was using to cement the notion gun violence can't be stopped, it can only be deterred. Such deterrents come at the expense of people like me, and don't actually stop someone who is truly determined.

Even when you tried to counter the speeding thing, you were more interested in trying to tell me how wrong I was that you appeared to both miss and proove my point. Raising the speed limit from 55 to 65 has nothing to do with reckless driving, it just means you're now doing 75 when you go 10 over. Of course that is going to be even more reckless. And just about everyone who drives is going to do that 75 in a 65 instead of 65 in a 55. All you need to do is get on any freeway and watch the left lanes.

No amount of laws can stop someone truly determined. And since we can't actually prevent gun violence from happening, there is no reason to put laws on the books that don't really do anything just because some people have an issue with guns.

However, putting laws in the books that do something else and bring gun violence down as a side effect (such as proper care for the mentally ill or dealing with alcoholism or keeping a father in the home and helping children to grow in a decent, stable environment) is not such a bad idea.

End of story.

[Regina Minx]

It is very justified. None of these studies say that homicide by firearm won't happen.

The title of the book I linked you was "Reducing Gun Violence in America." Not "Eliminating Gun Violence in America." The most diplomatic way I can frame my response is that I don't think you're interested in listening to the other side and actually understanding their arguments and evidence. You don't acknowledge when you're factually wrong and you don't fess to logical fallacies. Now I feel like you're straw-manning my position while at the same time giving me a false dichotomy. In essence, you're saying that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it was implemented. You're reducing a complicated issue to a pair of binary propositions: solve the problem perfectly or don't try to solve it at all.

Complete eradication of homicide by guns is not the expected outcome. The goal is reduction. Speed limits cannot 100% reduce instances where people will drive at excessive speeds, but they do decrease the frequency of it, and thereby reducing the number of accidents and the number of traffic fatalities.

Incremental solutions exist and shouldn't be rejected because they're not a golden cure-all.

[Oniya]

Do not let the government touch anymore of the healthcare system. It's buggered enough as it is.

You're completely missing the point.  The problem is making sure that the people that need help have access to help.

What happens when a rich person has a mental health problem?  They go see a mental health professional, who charges around $500 for an intake consultation and $100 per hour of therapy. 

When a poor person has a mental health problem, they find that a large number of mental health professionals don't take any insurance at all - so that money would have to come out of pocket.  If they luck out and find one that does, they still run a significant risk of having their claim denied as 'not medically necessary'.  Was that suicide attempt for realsies?  Or are you just faking it to get that insurance pay-out to your doctor?

Whether insured or scraping by out of pocket, they end up having to make choices - treatment or rent?  Medications or food?  They may 'self medicate'.  They lose jobs.  They lose homes.  They get worse.  They get desperate.  Desperate people - regardless of how they became desperate - take desperate actions.  Maybe they take their own lives.  Maybe they lash out at others.  One of the first things that the doctor asked us when my daughter went to an intake consult for anxiety and depression was 'Do you have a gun in the house?'

Mental health care needs to be treated on the same level as physical health care.  The cost in lives is too high.

[Arvus23]

You're completely missing the point.  The problem is making sure that the people that need help have access to help.

And how would you provide such help? I'm all for it, except the system as it is, isn't set up to take every call for mental help. You can't get something for nothing, in the end someone has to pay. Now a charity could be set up, but more often then not they are corrupt and miss use the money. It's an idea to try, but it'll be extremely difficult.

Just as long as the government keeps their hands off it. Through interventionism, they have the right to regulate trade, but they need to stay away from practices which don't break anybody's rights.

<Fixed quote tag> - Staff

[Skynet]

Ack, something weird's going on with the quote tags. Lemme try again so I don't put words in people's mouths:

Arvus23's post: And how would you provide such help? I'm all for it, except the system as it is, isn't set up to take every call for mental help. You can't get something for nothing, in the end someone has to pay. Now a charity could be set up, but more often then not they are corrupt and miss use the money. It's an idea to try, but it'll be extremely difficult.

Just as long as the government keeps their hands off it. Through interventionism, they have the right to regulate trade, but they need to stay away from practices which don't break anybody's rights.

My response: The system as is in the USA is made for the benefit of the health insurance industry, who is driven more by profit motive which means that poor mentally ill people do not have access to basic services.

"Someone has to pay" is pretty much the history of government. Everything costs time and resources, the question is how these things are prioritized. Just about anything can be argued to be a public good: the roads we use for travel, the military and law enforcement which in theory is supposed to protect us, jails to rehabilitate criminals, rules and regulation to prevent bad actors, etc.

It then comes down to how much you consider healthcare to be a public good. The liberal and socialist arguments for nationalized healthcare are that the welfare of citizens' health should be better than leaving it up to the "free market" which will prioritize the rich and profit-making every time. I myself do not mind higher taxes for such programs (or shifting tax dollars away from excess services like the USA's bloated military budget) if it means said resources will be properly assigned. Ensuring the physical and mental well-being of our citizens is not only moral, it's practical because less sick people =more productivity and a higher quality of life.

[Arvus23]

So you're willing to give the government control of the healthcare and foot the bill for it, even though it's well established to be a money sink and will lead to nothing more then debt and more poverty, because ya know. Taking more money from the poor to provide for a service that's not going to help everyone isn't a good thing.

You might have all the medicine you need, but guess what, you won't have food on the table, so let's give even MORE welfare to people, then raise the taxes even more to cover that. Oh wait.... Oh well, let's just increase taxes on the rich... oh now the rich people are leaving... oh now everyone's screwed because the upper class pays most of the taxes in the US.

You might be happy to pay higher taxes, but I'm not nor are most people I know. We're pretty strapped for money as it is, we don't need the tax man taking anymore of it.

You might feel that's the best thing, but facts don't care about feelings.

Don't believe me, ask why Sweden is going into debt, yet the people have good lives. Wait for their debts to be called in. I'm wondering how fast they'll turn into a third world country, if the "refugees" don't do it first.

[Blythe]

Fixed the quote tag & removed mis-attributed post; this should hopefully make it clearer who said what & who is replying to whom, etc.

[Ket]

So you're willing to give the government control of the healthcare and foot the bill for it, even though it's well established to be a money sink and will lead to nothing more then debt and more poverty, because ya know. Taking more money from the poor to provide for a service that's not going to help everyone isn't a good thing.

You might have all the medicine you need, but guess what, you won't have food on the table, so let's give even MORE welfare to people, then raise the taxes even more to cover that. Oh wait.... Oh well, let's just increase taxes on the rich... oh now the rich people are leaving... oh now everyone's screwed because the upper class pays most of the taxes in the US.

You might be happy to pay higher taxes, but I'm not nor are most people I know. We're pretty strapped for money as it is, we don't need the tax man taking anymore of it.

You might feel that's the best thing, but facts don't care about feelings.

Don't believe me, ask why Sweden is going into debt, yet the people have good lives. Wait for their debts to be called in. I'm wondering how fast they'll turn into a third world country, if the "refugees" don't do it first.

That's some major slippery-slope going on there. Can you please cite some sources to back up your claims of government healthcare being a 'money sink', and how it will lead to more debt and poverty? And how higher taxes will make the wealthy leave en masse?

If you're going to make sensational arguments, at least back them up.

[Regina Minx]

Fixed the quote tag & removed mis-attributed post; this should hopefully make it clearer who said what & who is replying to whom, etc.

Thanks, Blythe! I take back every single bad thing I ever said about you today. :D

[Deamonbane]

Don't believe me, ask why Sweden is going into debt, yet the people have good lives. Wait for their debts to be called in. I'm wondering how fast they'll turn into a third world country, if the "refugees" don't do it first.

Source, please? Living next door to Sweden, and I don't see this.

[Skynet]

So you're willing to give the government control of the healthcare and foot the bill for it, even though it's well established to be a money sink and will lead to nothing more then debt and more poverty, because ya know. Taking more money from the poor to provide for a service that's not going to help everyone isn't a good thing.

You might have all the medicine you need, but guess what, you won't have food on the table, so let's give even MORE welfare to people, then raise the taxes even more to cover that. Oh wait.... Oh well, let's just increase taxes on the rich... oh now the rich people are leaving... oh now everyone's screwed because the upper class pays most of the taxes in the US.

You might be happy to pay higher taxes, but I'm not nor are most people I know. We're pretty strapped for money as it is, we don't need the tax man taking anymore of it.

You might feel that's the best thing, but facts don't care about feelings.

Don't believe me, ask why Sweden is going into debt, yet the people have good lives. Wait for their debts to be called in. I'm wondering how fast they'll turn into a third world country, if the "refugees" don't do it first.

I said I'd be fine with higher taxes as long as they're appropriately used.

And I didn't say it would be from only poor people; if anything they should be paying the least. Tax increases, especially on the richest of the rich, would actually solve a lot of financial woes. As to said rich people moving out of the country to avoid paying their fair share, they've already done quite a bit of economic havoc as is (Goldman Sachs, military-industrial complex, etc) so I'd say that the problem is less with the government and more with them. They already have bank accounts in tax-free havens in the Caymen Islands and elsewhere, so they're effectively taking more than they give in to society and already have ways to circulate the law effectively (if by loopholes rather than outright crime).

[Lustful Bride]

I said I'd be fine with higher taxes as long as they're appropriately used.

And I didn't say it would be from only poor people; if anything they should be paying the least. Tax increases, especially on the richest of the rich, would actually solve a lot of financial woes. As to said rich people moving out of the country to avoid paying their fair share, they've already done quite a bit of economic havoc as is (Goldman Sachs, military-industrial complex, etc) so I'd say that the problem is less with the government and more with them. They already have bank accounts in tax-free havens in the Caymen Islands and elsewhere, so they're effectively taking more than they give in to society and already have ways to circulate the law effectively (if by loopholes rather than outright crime).

+1