Quote from: tekla on April 13, 2008, 10:50:09 AMBut guns are the great equalizer, as they say. Its the gun that makes the bully back down. Its the threat of protection that keeps things from happening . So sayth the NRA. And there is some truth in the equalizing power. And in most gun related school shootings, the victims are almost always the 'normal' kids, being gunned down by someone who feels 'outside' the group. A good bully does not need, nor want a gun.
If someone who is bullied brings a gun, they run into trouble at school, namely because they are not allowed to bring guns to school. As such, all the kid can do is show up one day and vengefully kill as many people as school as they can as they feel to be responsible (typical bullying is of the clique variety, so you're looking at many targets), and in practice a lot of those killed will be innocents who get in the way or were judged guilty by affiliation. And even those "justly" killed will be paying too steep a price. And at the same time, the bullied child throws their life away. In reality, most of the bullied kids aren't willing to ruin their life, so guns do nothing for them.
And allowing kids to bring guns would be hundreds of thousands of times worse, because then the bully would be able to bring guns, too. Cliques will overpower individuals in the minority.
QuoteChange the culture to get people to actually use those weapons responsibly. -- I have to laugh everytime someone says "change the culture." Yeah, I'm going to get right on that after I'm done cleaning the Augean Stables and done rounding up the Mares of Diomedes. Changing the culture (any culture) is hard work. It only rarely succeeds. And the gun culture in the US is huge. I know rich people and poor people with guns. Hippies and rednecks with guns. Hippie rednecks have guns too. When I taught my professors had guns, my students had guns, I had guns, my kids had guns, their friends had guns. (rural Iowa, FYI)
Don't misunderstand... I don't think any one person is going to massively change things on this front. However, if someone is going to speak glowingly about guns, they at least have to make some kind of effort to actually show they care about protecting people from gun violence and accidents, rather than just stiffen penalties a little bit when it's a hate crime. The hate crime part is important from a perception standpoint, but it's probably going to do about zero in reducing violence (besides keeping the criminals off the street a little longer).
QuoteThis is total B.S. Nobody cares less about safety. There are fewer restrictions on the manufacture of guns than any other product. The restrictions on sales are a joke. Whenever any call goes out to require a few standards the NRA shuts it down. Gun manufactures have less than zero product liability. A unique situation in the US. I don't think they are going to be moving off that any time soon. They would be sued out of business on the very first day that they had to be liable for their products and use.
I claimed nothing about sales, but I'll concede the point on NRA. As for manufacturers, I suppose mileage may vary. My aunt's boyfriend bought me a target pistol, and the instruction manual was extremely thorough when it came to warnings about proper weapon storage, maintenance, and use. However, admittedly, the instruction manual is only as good as how much time a person spends reading it -- a manufacturer can't force a person to heed the safety warnings, much less read them. And outside of an instruction manual, there isn't much else you can do other than slap on safety locks.
I don't think there is even a possible solution for a manufacturer to turn a deadly weapon into something actually safe. I question whether we should blame them much for that.
QuoteThis may also require generally banning the sale of the deadlier classes of guns. -- I'm all for less deadly guns. Foam rubber bullets perhaps? There are groups of guns, some have more killing power - in being able to kill more people faster, or as they say in the trade, more bang for the buck, and that's exactly why they were developed in the first place - but all guns kill. Come on. The trademark Mafia hit weapon is a .22 pistol.
I'm actually for the general curtailment of guns. I just don't know how enforceable it will be. Heavy weapons bans and waiting periods seem solid, but overdoing restrictions will spawn a (more) robust black market that will make things even more dangerous. We have to the find the sweet spot and do our best to nudge ourselves there. And then hopefully shore it up with getting people less interested in having guns, particularly outside the context of food/sport.
Quote from: tekla on April 13, 2008, 11:41:37 AM
Its hard to imagine a time when our nation needed a leader more and got such a pathetic choice.
The sad thing is that she is still better than McCain 2.0, who is in turn better than about the entire Republican field and our current two-term President. The good news is that she's probably trailing Obama too much to win the nomination, and if she knows what is good for her, she'll fall in line to support him during the general election.
