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Re: Florida School Shooting [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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JSA wrote:
Finally, don't kid yourself. Australia has as many guns now as it did pre-ban: http://www.abc.net.au/...s-as-in-1996/4463150
My Dad handed in his semi-auto Winchester shot gun during that buy back. I only ever saw it a couple of times and never actually saw him use it (him and his mates used to go duck and wild boar hunting).

I used to sit in his closet in a case. No idea where the ammo was, but Im sure I could have found it if I looked for it. After all, I found his stash of Penthouse :-)

Anyway, I digress.
Yes, we now have as many guns as before the ban, but they are very tightly controlled.
For example, you can't just walk into a store and buy a gun, even if you are licensed. Checks are made before you can purchase (correct license category, etc) and Police will do random checks of license holders to make sure their guns are stored correctly (must be in a locked gun case).
Wave your gun around at someone (even in a life and death situation) and expect to lose your licence and all your guns.
One of my contractors is an avid shooter and I know he alone has around 20 guns including a couple of different Glocks (which require a special license).
His immediate family (wife and sons) would own in excess of 100 guns.
The number of guns is not the problem. Its the guns getting into the hands of those that cannot handle that responsibility (for whatever reason).
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Re: Florida School Shooting [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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JSA wrote:
big kahuna wrote:
Also, I've noticed that as threads here in the LR lengthen, more people start hurling personal insults at each other. So far no Godwin's Law violations, though. So far. ;-)

A large part of that is because, as the thread grows, there are multiple "conversations" between two or more posters. Some jackinate will see one post in that conversation and try to call out the poster, having not bothered to even attempt to follow the conversation, thus taking the single post of context. Most often, that jackinate takes the single post out of context and attempts to challenge a point made, again, out of context. When that occurs, the poopy-head needs to be called out for the jackinate he is.

I am going to prove your point somewhat.

It’s “Jackanape”, you poopyhead.

===============
Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)
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Re: Florida School Shooting [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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The FBI's part in permitting this slaughter to happen (due to bureaucratic incompetence, it looks like) becomes a little clearer:

"The FBI released the details in a statement conceding their employees did not follow protocol to follow up on this tip. "Under established protocols, the information provided by the caller should have been assessed as a potential threat to life," the statement said. "The information then should have been forwarded to the FBI Miami Field Office, where appropriate investigative steps would have been taken."

The tip was not forwarded to Miami, and "no further investigation" was conducted into Cruz."

And another initial misstep is particularly glaring when it comes to the Bureau. In their first attempt at ducking any culpability in the massacre they claimed they didn't have any justification to seek out the IP address of the shooter, who apparently wrote on a YouTube vlogger's comments section "I intend to be a professional school shooter," because -- wait for it: there were two other people calling themselves by the same name on YouTube, despite the vlogger going directly to the FBI to warn them that this particular named-person (I don't want to name the shooter) was basically telegraphing his intent to shoot up a school.

Think about it: the vaunted US intelligence community (the IC, in government-speak) can apparently pick out a single word among millions and billions of internet posts or cellphone conversations and tie it back to the terrorist baddies that wrote or uttered it, yet we're supposed to believe it was impossible for the Bureau to discover the IP address of a fellow on YouTube who was giving his actual name? Really? (From the Washington Post):

"FBI officials declined to say what precise searches were used to try to identify the owner of the account or to possibly link it with other social media profiles. Cruz had two Instagram accounts that also contain his name: cruz_nikolas and nikolascruzmakarov.

A law enforcement official said the FBI will review the steps it took in responding to the tip to determine whether anything could have been done differently or if practices should be changed for the future.

A search of the public records database Nexis for people with the name “Nikolas Cruz” returns 22 results, three of which use different spellings. It was not immediately clear if the FBI attempted to contact any of those people.

Without more to go on, officials felt there wasn’t enough legal justification to issue a subpoena to YouTube for the underlying information about the “nikolas cruz” who had threatened a school shooting, a law enforcement official said."

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
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Re: Florida School Shooting [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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Good op-ed piece in the New York Times (The Things We Know About School Shooters):

"Studies have shown, for example, that in school shootings, the killers virtually always “leak” their intentions, leaving a trail of clues behind them. Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old who the police said has confessed in the Parkland shooting, apparently was no exception: Students reportedly avoided him and joked that if anyone were going to shoot up the school, it would be him.

Researchers have also found that in many, if not most, cases of school violence, the perpetrator has done extensive research on previous school shootings, studying them in detail, often with special attention to the killings at Columbine High School in 1999. A study of nine school shootings in Europe conducted by J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist in San Diego who consults on threat assessment for schools and corporations, found that a third of the killers had “consciously imitated and emulated what had happened in Columbine.”

Finally, there is nascent, but increasing, evidence that violence begets violence, with one school shooting — especially if it receives a lot of publicity — leading to others, a phenomenon that researchers refer to as “contagion.”"

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
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Re: Florida School Shooting [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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I don’t think anyone is realistically talking about a complete confiscation of guns. I don’t have any problem with people owning guns for hunting, self-defence or because they just like guns. I don’t think you need the kind of weapon used in this attack so there should be controls on the weapons available, much tighter background checks, proof that you know how to handle a weapon etc. Obama was also right to restrict sales to people with problems and the fact that Trump reversed it shows they are not serious.

The reason nothing gets done is simple, the NRA has it’s money and influence in both sides of the aisle.
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Re: Florida School Shooting [Sanuk] [ In reply to ]
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Sanuk wrote:
I don’t think anyone is realistically talking about a complete confiscation of guns. I don’t have any problem with people owning guns for hunting, self-defence or because they just like guns. I don’t think you need the kind of weapon used in this attack so there should be controls on the weapons available, much tighter background checks, proof that you know how to handle a weapon etc. Obama was also right to restrict sales to people with problems and the fact that Trump reversed it shows they are not serious.

The reason nothing gets done is simple, the NRA has it’s money and influence in both sides of the aisle.

It's strange that we live nowadays in a culture which defends and celebrates gangstas and 'transgressive art' and antifa thugs and other 'counterculture' exemplars, but when the shooting starts we all rush to blame guns. Or maybe it's not so strange? Hmmmm...

Anyway, the National Rifle Association has power, no doubt about it. But according to the Vox website, it's not because of money, because it's nowhere near the top contributor to any single politician's coffers (usually the ones on the right, meaning Republicans, though it has donated to some on the left, meaning some conservative Democrats who support gun ownership or "gun rights").

Other observations by Vox: "NRA reflects a tiny fraction of the Republican fundraising apparatus." There's also this to consider: "Research shows money doesn't factor in the highest-priority congressional votes."

And Vox goes on to cite this observation by someone experienced in the way politicians (in this case, Republicans) vote as well as the politics behind their votes:

"The way you rise up in Republican politics is by supporting gun rights issues, and you do that because there a lot of Republican voters in the coalition who care very deeply about gun rights,"...

Face it: Americans like their guns and they like politicians who like the fact that Americans like private ownership of guns, and the NRA -- which is a lobbying and advocacy group like any other -- knows this and can mobilize and excite large numbers of voters.

So if there's a problem here, it's not with the NRA, per se. It's with the American people who, on the one hand, have created a culture which glorifies the thug life -- including gangstas and antifa -- and who on the other hand want guns to protect them from the very thugs they've otherwise helped create. It's a real dichotomy. Or duality. Or both.

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
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Re: Florida School Shooting [CaptainCanada] [ In reply to ]
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CaptainCanada wrote:
JSA wrote:
big kahuna wrote:
Also, I've noticed that as threads here in the LR lengthen, more people start hurling personal insults at each other. So far no Godwin's Law violations, though. So far. ;-)


A large part of that is because, as the thread grows, there are multiple "conversations" between two or more posters. Some jackinate will see one post in that conversation and try to call out the poster, having not bothered to even attempt to follow the conversation, thus taking the single post of context. Most often, that jackinate takes the single post out of context and attempts to challenge a point made, again, out of context. When that occurs, the poopy-head needs to be called out for the jackinate he is.


I am going to prove your point somewhat.

It’s “Jackanape”, you poopyhead.

I knew I got that wrong as soon as a typed it! And YOU are the poopyhead!

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Florida School Shooting [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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JSA wrote:
CaptainCanada wrote:
JSA wrote:
big kahuna wrote:
Also, I've noticed that as threads here in the LR lengthen, more people start hurling personal insults at each other. So far no Godwin's Law violations, though. So far. ;-)


A large part of that is because, as the thread grows, there are multiple "conversations" between two or more posters. Some jackinate will see one post in that conversation and try to call out the poster, having not bothered to even attempt to follow the conversation, thus taking the single post of context. Most often, that jackinate takes the single post out of context and attempts to challenge a point made, again, out of context. When that occurs, the poopy-head needs to be called out for the jackinate he is.


I am going to prove your point somewhat.

It’s “Jackanape”, you poopyhead.

I knew I got that wrong as soon as a typed it! And YOU are the poopyhead!

I tried to give you an assist with that word, partner, back when I replied to your post where you used it. I used the word "jackanapes" TWICE in my response, hoping you would go back and edit your post. But, stubborn mule that you are, you refused to do so.

Reap what you sow, buddy. Reap what you sow! ;-)

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
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