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A gunman fired upon thousands of people attending a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip Sunday night, in a brutal attack that is blamed for at least 58 deaths, police say. In the mass shooting and panic that ensued, 515 people were injured. At least one of the dead is an off-duty police officer who was attending the concert.
Editorializing: Interesting how media always emphasize ISLAMIC terrorists, but downplay domestic terrorism as psychologically disturbed individual lone-wolfs.
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Over 50 dead in mass shooting in Las Vegas
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Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected.
-- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 02 2017, @10:41PM (50 children)
My motives are saving thousands of American lives every year. What are yours, keep your shiny toy? You fancy holding back your government, what have you done for the last 16 years? Keep dreaming of being a hero.
In the meantime, I need to start going to outdoor concerts with a flak jacket and FGM-148, just in case the next asshole exercises his 2nd amendment rights to mow crowds with an M1A2. Nice civilization you got there!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 02 2017, @10:58PM (3 children)
I used to lean more heavily towards gun control, but recently I've started to realize just why the founders put in the 2nd amendment. Also, no amount of gun control will stop someone hell bent on killing a large number of people.
I liked the other AC's response "Freedom is simply more important than safety."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:05AM (2 children)
And yet, after 9/11, Americans allowed their freedoms to be taken from them because "scary ragheads".
Now will you have to fight to get those freedoms back? Can they be brought back simply with voting? Can you actually have candidates offered to you as a real choice instead of the choice of orange turd and lying turd (who is trying to rewrite history with "Wha happen?"
I can actually see why some people would want to old onto guns: as long as your vote REALLY means nothing, why not guns?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:15PM (1 child)
The only reason people had freedom or autonomy in the past is because the government simply didn't have the resources to monitor, categorize, and surveillance them. Thanks to the advances of the Information Age, they now have those capabilities. 9/11 helped move them along legally, but the framework had been in place decades if not centuries.
Personally Columbine was a much bigger catalyst than 9/11, since it was what got schoolchildren to accept surveillance and a breach of their rights for so long that thanks to stockholm syndrome they would be in support of their captors in the 18ish years since.
And now we have panopticon rolling through with all those kids bowing down to authority, because hey, they have nothing to hide, and they've been under the microscope their whole lives, right? Additionally, it wasn't social media that lead to the current lack of privacy, that was just an enabler after they decided to 'rebel' after those grade school/high school years without rights, where now they can show whatever they are up to with impunity (even though it has consequences, just like it did then.)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:29PM
Yeah, it's crazy what people will accept when they aren't paying attention to what 'evil' is doing.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 02 2017, @11:25PM (45 children)
Those same motives could be used to justify locking each person inside their own coffin-sized cell, intubated for food and waste, and left inside for the course of their natural lifespan.
Their lives would all be safe. You would find little support for your life savings.
Freedom is more valuable than safety.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 02 2017, @11:43PM (39 children)
> Freedom is more valuable than safety.
Read that a few times, already. Repeating it doesn't make it true.
Tell me what freedom you will likely lose if you give up the assault-style weapons.
The rest of the world is baffled that your "greatest country/democracy on Earth" would apparently instantly collapse into a dictatorship if you did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:20AM (38 children)
Not until you acknowledge or counter my assertion that locking people in coffin-sized cages for their entire lives would make all locked-up people safe.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:34AM (37 children)
Why would I bother to ack something absurd (yet technically correct) thrown out as a response to a suggestion that just about any non-American finds perfectly reasonable?
If we nuked everybody, we would achieve complete freedom and no more violence.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:41AM (36 children)
Because that is the logically consequence of your argument. One of the tools of reason is to understand when things lead to absurd conclusions, like a willingness to sacrifice the freedoms of many hundreds of millions of people for a few thousand lives a year.
Oh look, yet another absurd consequence. Maybe it's time to start thinking instead of complaining.
And what of these non-Americans makes their opinions worth considering more than the people subject to the situation in question?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:59AM (35 children)
> And what of these non-Americans makes their opinions worth considering more than the people subject to the situation in question?
Last time you waved around your automatic guns like teens with a power tool, they did warn you not to invade Iraq...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:07AM (26 children)
Not very hard, I noticed. The Colin Powell show was enough to overcome that advice. And gun control laws do nothing about aggressive military actions.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:24AM (18 children)
Gun ownership has nothing to do with excessive actions by the executive?
I suspect you're trying to say that "gun owners don't do squat about government overreach".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:34AM
So are you supporting the use of firearms in an armed coup to overthrow the federal United States government?
Note that I am not condemning nor supporting that viewpoint, but merely asking for clarification on your views as they regard your paraphrased response.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:19PM (16 children)
Why would you "suspect" that? To answer your question, bob_super insinuated that greater gun control laws would result in less military adventurism. There's no conceivable mechanism by which that could happen. If I were thinking that gun owners do something about government overreach, then taking away firearms (as would happen under a gun control law) would reduce their ability to do something. It is an irrational red herring, tying together two separate issues.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:05PM (15 children)
> bob_super insinuated that greater gun control laws would result in less military adventurism.
You misread my intent. You questioned why the opinion of non-American matter, in the context of a decision about guns.
I pointed out that your friends tried to dissuade you to do something wrong because you felt you could do anything you want with your army (and you did anyway).
Didn't listen; treated your friends like shit for disagreeing; got hurt in the end (still dealing with that mess).
When everyone else points out they don't have the specific problems that come with your lifestyle, take a minute to wonder whether they are all wrong.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:56PM (14 children)
Maybe, but sounds like I didn't misread your intent, to be honest. "Decisions about guns" is a ridiculously fuzzy connection to make between gun control and US military activity (which let us note is not about such "decisions" at all), and your original rhetoric was silly. If the US had gone into Iraq "waving around your automatic guns like teens with a power tool", there'd be a more lot dead on all sides (particularly, since automatic guns are notoriously ineffective against tanks and airplanes, both which Iraq had a fair number of).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:48PM (13 children)
Not all rhetorical tricks produce the intended result.
Back to the original point:
http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-prevent-says-only-nation-where-regularly-ha-57086 [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/shooting-isnt-about-gun-control-we-refuse-pass-its-57095 [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/article/americans-hopeful-will-be-last-mass-shooting-they--57093 [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/article/those-close-nation-say-it-showed-dozens-warning-si-57101 [theonion.com]
Which is pretty much what the rest of the -easily dismissed- world thinks...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:44PM (12 children)
Indeed. Now do you have something useful or interesting to talk about?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:12AM (11 children)
> Now, we're quoting The Onion?
Go ahead and tell me that the first and third of these are not right on the money.
If more people stopped to think about what the Onion says, maybe the shame at the stupidity therein exposed would help change it.
The first one is apparently re-edited for every single US massacre, just by changing the circumstances.
This discussion now has over 400 posts. 59 people are dead, over 500 injured. Earlier, 20 elementary school kids died. This year, 11000 Americans have already been gunned down by someone else, which is more than 9/11 and the ensuing wars combined (or will be, by the end of the year). And the third Onion article is right: Nothing's gonna change, it ain't gonna stop.
Enjoy your freedom ... to hope you'll draw faster than the other guy.
"Stuff happens", because of you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:47AM (4 children)
About what? It might describe a non-US stereotype, but we've already established that I don't respect those. It trivializes the problem and insinuates that all we have to do is adopt some other countries gun control regulations, ignoring that we aren't that other country.
And I have yet to see or hear of anyone "hoping" that this is the last shooting. Third link presents a bogus straw man argument.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @06:11AM (3 children)
> ignoring that we aren't that other country.
You're not your dad, your mom, your teacher or your friends. Yet, when you did something wrong, and they pointed out that you would stop hurting yourself by doing it differently, you learnt.
The second amendment is your religion. If you won't consider that civilization evolves and absolutes from hundreds of years ago can hurt you, you ain't better than Daesh.
> And I have yet to see or hear of anyone "hoping" that this is the last shooting. Third link presents a bogus straw man argument.
I have yet to see or hear anyone who is not negatively responding to the massacre.
The point of the Onion isn't that people believe they could instantly stop it. The point is they are not doing a single thing to start addressing the problem, which everyone agrees is terrible, before it happens again. Learn to read satire.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:29AM (2 children)
And again, you're just making noise. The Onion piece was simple-minded and irrelevant (as so much satire is). There's no easy fix and really, there's not much reason to fix things either. Mass shootings of this sort just don't happen that often. 59 dead people every few years sounds like a lot, until you realize that any such fix will trample on the rights of 340 million, which for the innumerate is a much bigger number, and they're all going to die of something too.
I get that you are running on pure emotion, but it's time for the child bob_super to shut up and the adult bob_super, assuming there is one, to speak.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:36PM (1 child)
Go drive your tank and prep your anthrax, since preventing you from getting any lethal toy you feel like is "trampling your rights". Who's the child ?
There are ten times more gun murders in the US than in Canada, 15 times more than most of Europe. Keep dreaming of the day you'll heroically stop the government from taking your gun, while innocents get massacred because of your childish dreams.
You're the problem.
You've got all that blood on your hands, which you then put in your ears and on your eyes, because it's inconvenient how it doesn't fit your "freedom" bullshit narrative. Who's the child?
It's your fault. Cling to your toy. You're an accessory to those murders, so you want to dismiss them as a detail. Who's the child?
Other people are free, without clinging to guns. Without access to high-power semi-auto long-range killing tools. Yet you refuse to even consider it? Who's the child?
I'm being logical. Don't call me a child, when you can't justify any of your arguments, or counter mine, except by shouting "freedom" as if holding on to a gun was the only answer. Like a prayer to a blood God.
I won't change your mind. It's religious. Have fun washing the innocents' blood of your soul/karma/whatever. Keep your useless toys. You are the root of the problem, and will never admit it.
Over and out. /thread
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:42PM
Referring only to "gun murders" is blatant deception, since a murder victim is dead regardless of the tool used. Why should anyone pay attention to you if you use such obvious deceit?
Ah yes, the old "declare yourself correct, attempt to end communication" saw. It's the functional equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shrieking "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
As much as you don't like to hear it, free people by definition must have the ability to possess and carry any type of weapons they can build or buy. This absolutely includes armored vehicles and tanks (of which many are indeed privately owned in the USA), chemical and/or biological weapons, and thermonuclear weapons. Where do you think governments get the authority to have such weapons? They are either slaveowning governments, or they derive their authority from individual people. Look up that word "derive" if you're confused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:47AM
You failed statistics, didn't you, bob.
Oh, if only we could trade in a little essential liberty for some saaaaafety...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:05AM (4 children)
I noticed elsewhere a talking point that seems to be going around the pro-firearm ownership blogs these days. If you're going to suggest a gun control policy in response to a mass shooting, show it would have fixed the mass shooting. Seems a reasonable thing to ask here.
Maybe we'll learn differently, but right now, we have a guy who apparently went to extraordinary effort to collect some nasty weapons and prepare the scene, yet doesn't belong to any of the traditional classes of people who would be denied ownership of firearms by law. With what has bounced around so far, he doesn't seem to have exhibited signs of serious mental illness or committed felony crimes in the past, for example.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @06:01AM (3 children)
> If you're going to suggest a gun control policy in response to a mass shooting, show it would have fixed the mass shooting.
I proposed earlier that regular citizens shouldn't be allowed to possess weapons which can deliver tens to hundreds of bullets per minute which are still lethal at a quarter mile or more. You don't kill 59 people from 200 yards away with a handgun, a Winchester, a hunting rifle, or a pump-action shotgun (all of which were the NRA's bread and butter, until the popularity of the Black Gun forced them to change their narrative to protecting your right to an insurrection).
The semi-auto version of a weapon of war, easily converted back to full-auto, should be treated like other weapons of war: missiles, tanks, nukes...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:10AM (2 children)
Yes, you can. The "bump stock" is not particular to guns that are painted black nor is it the only technology for making guns shoot faster. Rich guys with no prior record who pick the best weapons at the time and a venue in which to massacre people aren't going to be well handled by any sort of gun control law. It's quite irrational to even try.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:19PM (1 child)
> It's quite irrational to even try.
It's totally irrational to do nothing, just because some people will find a way around the rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:47PM
I agree, let's not "do nothing".
Let's take the time to rip away all ~20,000 of those laws that blatantly and directly violate the "shall not be infringed" directive of the legally-enshrined acknowledgement that individual people are free to arm themselves with whatever weapons they can dream up.
Counter-attack sniper rifles! Armed drones! Gas grenades! Smart rifles! [npr.org] All available over-the-counter at your local hardware store.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:02AM (6 children)
> The Colin Powell show was enough to overcome that advice.
No. It wasn't. Not even close.
Not that it prevented W from doing what he wanted, anyway.
(Score: 1) by rylyeh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:21AM
Yes - CIA gave Powell the polluted info about Saddam's WMD.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:10PM (4 children)
And yet there was no significant resistance to the invasion at the country level. A fair number of countries had positions opposing the US invasion, but they didn't act on those positions. Still haven't.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:11PM (3 children)
W took to insulting and threatening anyone getting in the way of his Saddam feud. Remember the French UN veto, Freedom fries and Jokes about Germans not wanting war?
When the elephant starts charging, you get out of the way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:39PM (2 children)
So what? Insults and threats aren't noticeably effective against a large nation-state especially when they are toothless (freedom fries and jokes about Germans didn't come from Dubya BTW).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:25PM (1 child)
"punish France, ignore Germany, forgive Russia", already forgotten Condi Rice?
The point of "punish France" being to send a message to anyone of smaller size...
When you wield the biggest economic stick, threats from the president's cabinet do matter.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:40PM
How well did she do on that? There's a reason I used the word "toothless".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:16AM (7 children)
The misdirection of your (valid) criticism of the international stupidity of the US government has no direct bearing on the point of this sub-thread, that being that freedom is superior to safety and that small arms in the hands of individual people is a right recognized by the US Supreme Court as one pre-existing government and existing regardless of whether or not a government exists.
If anything, your highlighting of the stupidity-cum-criminality of the US government emphasizes the usefulness of a heavily-armed populace as a counterbalance to an increasingly-criminal government. For examples of direct applications of these, see the Battle of Athens [constitution.org], and for a more recent example, the Battle of Bunkerville [tenthamendmentcenter.com]. Both are examples of armed private individual USians arming themselves and standing up against blatant criminal actions by agents of US government.
(Score: 1) by evk on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:08AM (6 children)
Guess I'm late to the show, but I find this argument about pre-existing rights strange. Isn't the the point with just about all goverments to regulate the peoples rights? Take some away and guarante others.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:22PM
Well, that and guarantee less and less as time goes on and the public becomes more accepting of the taking away of rights. You don't move to totalitarian police state instantly, the frog needs to be boiled slowly.
The point of rights is that they are freedoms that the governments can't take away. When they can, then they aren't rights any more.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:18PM (4 children)
That is absolutely not the idea upon which the US was founded. Our "founding fathers" believed that "rights" were things inherent in men which the government could never legitimately restrict. Which is why the Bill of Rights wasn't an original part of the Constitution and was instead added as amendments -- many even argued that it should not be included precisely because by defining rights in law you risk creating the belief that the law is what creates those rights -- as you just demonstrated.
See "Natural Rights": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights [wikipedia.org]
See also Federalist No. 84: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/bor/federalist-84/ [teachingamericanhistory.org]
(Score: 1) by evk on Wednesday October 04 2017, @10:18AM (3 children)
I think I understand what you say, but I find it difficult to agree. There's two different issues here.
1. Is the right to bear arms a natural right and what do we do if this right contradict other rights. The issue here isn't really guns, it is safety. It could be argued that guns are an essential part of the right to saftey (i.e. self defence). It could also be argued that a society without restrictions on lethal weapons isn't a safe society. Not even the U.S is completly without restrictions and I find it extremly unlikely that less restrictions would make the country safer.
2. Should the law define rights. This is to me more interesting and also where I found it very difficult to agree with your(?) point of view. If the law doesn't define the rights. Who should? And who will ensure that these rights are actual rights and not just a dream. People will never have a fully shared idea about what the rights should be.
It sounds to me like what you describe would lead to an anarchistic world view. I tend to like anarchy (I'm not using the general meaning of the word but refers to the ideologic idea see e.g. Robert Nozick) but find it extremly difficult to implement. The U.S is very far from anarchistic so I suspect that that's not what your ralking about.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:15AM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:32PM
Well, I don't personally believe in the magical sky fairies (although I otherwise do tend to agree about this), but it was the view of the US founders that rights essentially came from God:
I'd agree mostly in the sense that most "rights" are things that you really can't take away no matter how hard you try. Free speech...you can pass all the laws you want, people will say what they think in the privacy of their own home. Freedom of religion...you can't control someone elses' thoughts or beliefs. But the right to bear arms fits that pattern as well -- if people think they need weapons, they will find a way to arm themselves. We've got people building rail guns and tazers out of disposable cameras. We've got 3D printed pistols. Before that, we had zip guns. Before that, we had people beating plowshares into swords.
Yeah, I'm definitely sympathetic towards an anarchist view...I lean towards Anarcho-syndicalism generally. Difficult to implement because it's a social structure as much as a political one -- unlike most governments, it's not something a core group of politicians could impose by force. Essentially, people should act cooperatively in the interest of society without someone forcing them at gunpoint to do so.
I will say that I'm not *entirely* opposed to gun control under our current system, but it would need to be done in a way that applies equally to everyone. The point of the US government was supposed to be that it is "of, by, and for the people" -- ie, the government is not separate from the citizenry. So you can't say that the government gets weapons but the citizens can't. If you want a licensing exam similar to how we regulate driving, that's fine...but every cop with a gun and every soldier must pass that same exam. If you want a blanket ban on certain weapons, fine, but that ban must apply to government agents as well (a pistol ban would actually be a pretty good policy IMO...not much use in war; far from the only or even best option for home defense; mostly good at being small and easily concealed. But that won't stop these mass shootings...)
The other thing to consider is that mass *homicides* in general don't seem to correlate entirely with gun control. China has pretty strict gun control, but they've had some mass stabbings with a body count that exceeds all but the worst US shooting incidents. My feeling is that one has to be extremely desperate to turn to this kind of crime, and the reason much of Europe sees less of it is simply because they have better social programs to prevent people from reaching that point. The US, on the other hand, has a very large and vocal faction saying that your problems are your own, deal with it or die. So I think gun control is totally irrelevant if the real cause of these incidents is that inability to get help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @09:06PM
Where does law come from, if not from dictators at gunpoint? Can its authority be sourced from somewhere else? It can - but doing so comes with some drawbacks and limitations [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:00PM (4 children)
Neither the state of absolute freedom, nor the state of absolute safety, is achievable. Civilisation always involves compromises. I lose the freedom to walk anywhere I want by a civilisation allowing private ownership of land. A driving license is a good example of such a compromise: the utility of private ownership of motor vehicles is clear, as is the danger of people who have no idea how to drive safely being in control of a ton or two of metal near other humans. The compromise is to allow anyone who has demonstrated basic competence and then not demonstrated dangerous incompetence to drive. The bar is a bit higher if you want a pilot's license, because the amount of damage that you can do crashing a plane is a lot higher than the damage from crashing a car. When someone commits a violent crime, we often take away their right to liberty to protect the safety of others.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:36PM (3 children)
You do not comprehend the meaning of "freedom". A free person is the sole and exclusive owner of his human body. He has 100% ownership of his body (and thus ALL property acquired by said body) and 0% ownership in any other person's body. Any interaction between two free humans must be mutually voluntary; if not, trying to force such interaction regardless is a trespass on the victim's right to life and therefore criminal.
I know of no government on Earth that tolerates freedom. "Government" does not civilization make. Freedom is civilization. Anything less is just slavery by a different name.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:57PM (2 children)
And all property required to maintain said body? Does he, purely by dint of existing, own the rights to enough land to grow crops to feed him? A supply of fresh water?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:55PM (1 child)
Yup. A free man could choose to use his body and mind to learn a skill, trade the use of that skill in mutually-voluntary trade for resources (money, barter, etc.), and then use those saved resources to buy land, crop seed, access to water (or rain cisterns, etc.).
In the event of unclaimed resources, Lockean principles and logic also detail the reasoning that supports taking ownership of such wild resources by using one's own labor to improve and manage it. It holds true of acorns in a forest to an asteroid out in space.
You are ENTITLED to nothing from others. Assuming you to be a free person, you have 100% ownership in your own body and 0% over anyone else's.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:41AM
sudo mod me up