Americans Hopeful This Will Be Last Mass Shooting Before They Stop On Their Own For No Reason

a reply to: SlapMonkey

“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787

This letter?
founders.archives.gov...

Where does that quotation occur?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Because guns are legal here.

Guns are legal here and other developed countries as well.

Again: www.abovetopsecret.com...

And because we do not address the fact that 43% of those deaths come from a demographic representing only 7.3% of the population taking their own lives.

Fair enough. However, the OP topic is mass shootings. How come America experiences MORE FREQUENT mass shootings than any other developed nation...?

It is guaranteed that this is the last mass shooting before the next one.

And the next one won't occur until this presidential term is complete.

I've noticed a pattern.

Every President of these United States has to go through the same set of tests:

1) tested by a mass shooting under his watch
2) tested by a major natural disaster
3) tested by a major war or conflict somewhere around the globe
4) tested by threats of impeachment
5) tested by a major Financial Scandal during his watch
6) tested by having many of his friends and acquaintances being arrested and charged with various crimes
7) tested by having his own personal character debased by mostly false claims and fake news
8) tested by having the White House security breached by some crazy during his term
9) tested by high turnover of staff in the White House
10) tested by some local civil disturbance like a riot or act of terror
...

it is almost, like a hollywood script, as if some screen writer has laid out the framework for being president, deciding ahead of time what his challenges will be.

It is almos as if these tests are designed "to make a good man better" , for on entering the White House and passing all these tests, the Candidate emerges a better and stronger individual at the end of his term.

In fact, if you're planning to run for President of the United States, you can just sit down now, and write all the speeches you'll have to make, in response to these individual challenges as they come up during your term. Then you'll be well prepared ahead of time, just needing to fill in the particular names and places involved in the particular circumstances when they come up, having laid out the basic foundations of your speech in template form.

If you do these things, you'll be the most prepared president ever, and people will marvel at how well you handled all these events when they turn up.

I don't know who wrote the "script" for the standard "Presidental Term", but I can harbor a guess who tries to make good men better by testing them and trying the brother to see if they are worthy.

a reply to: AMPTAH

There have already been 3 mass-shootings since Las Vegas in America.

a reply to: Involutionist

Do other countries track that as a stat (or have someone doing it for them)?

Who picked the number 4 for the amount involved to make it a "mass shooting"? When did that term even start being used? Where did it come from?

Its a dog whistle political term that has replaced "massacre". Cuz guns. Theres no consensus for what it means statistically because its a new, made up political catch phrase.

Why are there more maasacres, or murders of 4 or more, in the US? I dont know if there even are. If there are, i can only point my finger at the government. Theyre the ones orchestrating the whole thing.

a reply to: SudoNim

Minority report justice = trying to predict criminal actions in someone. Under the concept of indidivual rights there is no impetus to leguslate what ifs.

We dont need laws about crashing planes into buildings. Murder is already illegal.

So by your theory everyone who is or ever will become a criminal is already a criminal. Nice thinking.

Don't call you names? And i'm just going to hide behind your 1st amendment, if i see an idiot i'm going to call them an idiot.

The first paragraph....what??? That is the opposite of what i said.

You second paragraph....you habe no first amendment rights here. You have a TAC, which youve agreed to not call names and insult.

The rest of your reply is being obtuse. Ill likely not bother replying any further with someone who cant be civil.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan


Texan, when they run out of logical-sounding things to say, their violent and degrading tendencies start to show.

I have always tried to maintain a higher level of discourse with other posters here on ATS (as the TAC surely aims for), but the outright hostility and provocation coming from the left has basically caused that to blow right out the window. Never in my ~13 years here have I personally "attacked" others like I have in the past several weeks. Nor have I ever been attacked here in such ways, until very recently. No longer is it limited to politics either, as you now have people attacking posters simply for supporting the Constitution in its most literal sense. Very sad to see.

Political discourse in this country has become rude, provocative and the absolute opposite of civil. It is a shame we can't have the ~2005-2010 era ATS back again, but I suppose this is just a symptom of the much larger problems facing our nation and culture as a whole. The fact two people can no longer agree to disagree without resorting to name-calling and illogical insults is very worrisome.

Now, I have thick skin (and I have a feeling yourself and many others here do as well) but the point is equally valid. You should be able to disagree with someone politically/culturally without that person accusing you of intolerance or lacking intelligence. The fact that every disagreement has to turn into personal attacks does not give me much hope for the future.

I also find it disturbing that an entire political division would support minority-report style pre-crime legislation. Laws are designed to punish lawbreakers, after the crime has been committed. I have no problem increasing penalties, but murder already carries very harsh penalties. Other than enforcing the existing laws, there really isn't much else to be done. Some people need to recognize that others will always break the law, regardless of how severe the consequences are. If they feel unsafe, perhaps they should change their stance on the second amendment and start carrying. Attempting to criminalize certain activities prior to a crime being committed is never the solution though.



/Rant

a reply to: Involutionist


Because our freedom has a price, that's why. Unlike those other countries, our government has no right to legislate away the Bill of Rights. There is always going to be a risk in that. The risk that one criminal out of ten million might do something illegal does not justify tearing up the Constitution.

In reality, firearms are involved in something like 0.001% of non-justified homicides each year (suicide/accident and justified homicide don't count). The point is generally that there are other things out there taking way more lives, so why not target them? If you're truly interested in saving lives, why ignore obesity/heart disease/cancer/automobile accident/drowning/suicide/electrocution/allergic reaction/traumatic fall/terrorism, etc?

Once again, having inalienable rights comes with a price. If that price is too high for you (or anyone), there are plenty of countries that treat "rights" as mutable gifts from the government in power. In the US, "rights" are something not given by any government - therefore unable to be taken away by said government.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I think that your points about the VA, etc. are actually pretty important to the whole topic. Scope and scale of very large concepts is also at play. We really struggle to accurately comprehend very large numbers. Instead, we automatically "convert" it into a scale that is more familiar, while still maintaining we are talking about the Very Large Number. There's an interesting psychology there.

It also goes to show just how influential the media is when it comes to shaping public opinion. The fact that incidents like LV have happened throughout human history, including long before firearms were even an idea, goes to show how targeting firearms may not be an effective course of action. At all. And, that's without even bringing the constitution into it.

Using typical arguments like "automatic weapons weren't around when the constitution was written" also seem to examine the subject in a vacuum in order to come to specific conclusions. I'm sure they suspected that technology would advance..

Overall, I feel that anything that actually makes a difference will tackle violence in general. That's a pretty broad scope, to be sure, but I believe there are still effective actions we can take. I think its easy to assume this is a simple problem with a similarly easy solution (messing with the 2nd), but it isn't. The argument that something must be done tends to be approached from a similarly myopic view. While I maintain that it is critical to examine and take action in order for us to have much of a future as a species, we are talking about sweeping societal changes at the very core of the global human civilization. Those are shifts that can not be legislated, and span not only all of human history, but far beyond the topic of "guns."

Then, if we tie in issues of scale perception and media manipulation.. its fairly easy to see why some latch onto "gun control" as some sort of panacea, or even a working solution. All of the alternatives would take time, effort, introspection, and most importantly, personal participation.

a reply to: Phage

So, cherry-picking and arguing a single mistake in citing the letter while avoiding the broader point.

Got it.

Thanks.

And if you really actually care, it was in a letter to William Smith on November 13, 1787. It's a simple mistake in citing the wrong letter, but Thomas Jefferson did say it, and it was in context talking about a citizen's right to rebel against an overbearing government.

Any other nit-picking that you want to do, or would you prefer to discuss the broader point at hand concerning the true intent of the 2nd Amendment?

You know, if you Google the actual words in the quote, the magic of the internet will take you to the proper letter and you could have seen for yourself what I'm noting in response.

Here, for the lazy among us (from the above link...and I capitalized the sentences for easier reading):

The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? [And] what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.

I italicized the last two sentences because they are quite famous words.

Bottom line, Jefferson said what is quoted and they mean what I noted them to mean.

So, is your true argument against my substance, or are you just attempting to look smart because you found an error? I am more than happy to debate you on the 2nd Amendment if you're willing to focus on things that actually matter in the debate.

Can we just revisit this thread for a moment...

A month ago 58 people killed in mass shooting:

When asked at Monday’s White House press briefing whether Trump would consider gun reforms in response to the shooting, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it was not appropriate to discuss the matter.

“There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country,” Sanders said, before offering her “thoughts and prayers.”

She also said it was “premature to discuss policy when we don’t know all of the facts.”

5 days ago 8 killed in apparent terrorist attack:

...Trump said he would consider sending the suspect, identified by authorities as Sayfullo Saipov, to the military prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama tried but failed to shut. No detainee has been sent to the Guantanamo prison since 2008.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders later told reporters that Trump considers Saipov an “enemy combatant,” a designation that would curtail his legal rights. Trump called the suspect “this animal” and lambasted the U.S. justice system for terrorism suspects as “a joke” and “a laughingstock.”

Since taking office in January, Trump has sought to increase deportations of illegal immigrations and limit legal immigration.
...
“I‘m going to ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“We have to get much tougher,” he said. “We have to get much smarter. And we have to get much less politically correct. We’re so politically correct that we’re afraid to do anything.” ...

And today?

26 dead in shooting at church in Sutherland Springs, Texas

Let me guess - now is not the appropriate time to discuss the matter?

Let's just quote from this thread's opening post again:

Americans are... hopeful this would be the last mass shooting before all such occurrences stopped on their own for no reason at all.

Awesome, consistent leadership there...

a reply to: jimmyx

When they gas up, you destroy the logistics..DUH.

Like with many of the issues afflicting our world these days, the simple act of trying to understand the mind of the perpetrator, would go a long way in making progress on rectifying things. Sadly, this is something that is rarely brought up, let alone employed. In regards to these mass shootings, the fact that the perpetrator almost always ends up dead, does create a barrier to this strategy.

If we don't take the time to understand what drives these people to commit the crimes they do, how can we ever hope to combat them? Too many knee-jerk reactions and not enough consideration over whether or not the changes implemented will actually address the problem, not to mention other problems they may create.

So that's my proposal. Make meaningful attempts to understand what drives people to commit these acts of violence. What are they hoping to achieve? What is their motivation? Why are they so upset? Is there some failing in society that is triggering these responses from the perpetrators?

Just on the whole gun control argument - Wasn't today's shooter only stopped because he was confronted by an armed neighbour, which caused him to flee?

To reiterate - We need to understand the motivation behind these events, and we need to make sure that changes we introduce actually address the problem without creating new problems.