continuing proofs America is wacko

Interesting article with a personal perspective on mental illness in the US.

http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother

I have to say, the comment section for that article is uncharacteristically insightful.

he believes the constitution should be interpreted as originally intended- Halfwise

So would that mean the bit of the constitution that covers arms would only cover arms from that time period?

Edlo, in relation to that article- whenever I hear of a person with mental health issues acting this way and then read- 'He's been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals'- my heart sinks.
That industry is largely a sham- the truth is they dont know what the fault or casue is and they dont often even know why the drugs they make have the effects they do, and worse very few of them have been around long enough to any real idea of long term effects or sie effects.
The rest of that article is just a sad reflection on how western society in genral regards all the bits we dont want to think aboutt- like mental illness and old age- thinking about those things mean achknowledging them in ourselves, and so our own mortality. And our culture is scared of dying and obssessed with youth. We are worse than Numenor.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:he believes the constitution should be interpreted as originally intended- Halfwise

So would that mean the bit of the constitution that covers arms would only cover arms from that time period?

In a sense, yes. For this reason any thoughtful gun rights supporter would not believe that people have a right to own assault weapons, but single fire low caliber handguns and rifles would be allowable to those who meet reasonable licensing requirements.

Unfortunately the major players (National Rifle Association) among our gun rights advocates are just short of insane. The first George Bush gained high marks from me when he resigned membership in the NRA over this issue.

I saw a documentary years ago that always stuck with me, it was in Texas or one of the southern states, and the guy had a wall of assault weapons, and in his back garden, an anti-aircraft gun. The full thing.
And when asked what it was to protect himself him from he answered, "immigrants and the government.'

Now I know thats the extreme end of things- but people like that are who these smiling guys in suits at NRA are defending, defending their rights to have these extremely dangerous weapons.
And I mean, the guys reason for having them would not get you a licence in my country to have a gun. Quite the opposite, it would set off alarm bells.
What exactly are the checks in America for getting a gun?

it used to be if you were coherent enough to write a check, you were deemed competent to own a gun. Background checks have been put in place in stores within the last generation, but notorious loopholes are still being closed at gun shows (I mean, the gun shows would sell to anyone who had cash and could say "I'm a proud American". This isn't an exaggeration.).

But a requirement for training? Nope. There was an enforced waiting period, but to get that passed it had to be tied to the background check. With the internet it takes no time at all, so I believe there's no waiting period.

Right now you can buy a car without a license, but can't drive without one. I'd make it stricter with guns so you must get a license before you can buy, and the license would require training. A limit on the number of guns would be nice but i don't see it ever being implemented.

I knew it was pretty easy but seems pretty shocking.
But then as Ford Prefect said, "If I had an altarian dollar for everytime one bit of the universe looked at another bit and said 'thats shocking', I'd have six dollars by now."

halfwise wrote:

Pettytyrant101 wrote:he believes the constitution should be interpreted as originally intended- Halfwise

So would that mean the bit of the constitution that covers arms would only cover arms from that time period?

In a sense, yes. For this reason any thoughtful gun rights supporter would not believe that people have a right to own assault weapons, but single fire low caliber handguns and rifles would be allowable to those who meet reasonable licensing requirements.

Unfortunately the major players (National Rifle Association) among our gun rights advocates are just short of insane. The first George Bush gained high marks from me when he resigned membership in the NRA over this issue.

I'm not sure I agree, and here's the problem.
The complete text of the 2nd amendment is just this:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This was written at a time when the 13 states weren't really a country yet, and were all broke. Nobody realistically foresaw being able to afford a standing national army even if they wanted one, so collective state militias were seen as the only viable means of national defense.

If we were looking just at original intent, it seems reasonable to argue that citizens are guaranteed the right to own military small arms including assault rifles and RPG's and train with them regularly in order to maintain a well regulated militia. The trouble is that only the nutcases really want that.

On the other hand, it seems clear to me that interpreting the 2nd amendment to include a right to own personal small arms such as pistols for personal defense is overreaching the original intent of this particular amendment.

This is kinda why I'm so interested in seeing how Scalia reads it.

Something's starting to happen.
http://news.yahoo.com/lieberman-democrats-want-ban-assault-weapons-002100144--politics.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday that military-style assault weapons should be banned and that a national commission should be established to examine mass shootings in the United States.

The proposals were among the first to come from Congress in the wake of Friday's school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

"Assault weapons were developed for the U.S. military, not commercial gun manufacturers," Lieberman said before a vigil Sunday night in Newtown.

"This is a moment to start a very serious national conversation about violence in our society, particularly about these acts of mass violence," said the Connecticut senator, who is retiring next month.

Gun rights activists remained largely quiet on the issue, all but one declining to appear on the Sunday talk shows. Meanwhile, Democrats vowed action and said it was time to hear from voters — not gun lobbyists — on how to prevent the next shooting.

The time for "saying that we can't talk about the policy implications of tragedies like this is over," said Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who won a Senate seat in the November elections.

Obama gave a speech at the memorial service in Newtown tonight that was televised nationwide and he made a similar call. He kept the policy specifics out of it -- respectfully so, I thought -- but he seemed pretty serious about taking action. He didn't explicitly mention guns (though one can imagine that'll be on the table) but he did bring up mental health care. It'll be interesting to see what changes. I don't remember any other shooting causing quite this level of anger and determination.

I thought that Obama handled this very well, and his speech was well written and given.

The difference is the youth of the victims. Other killings were roughly the age of the gunman, often classmates. Here there's no clear revenge motive - people can't say "we have to solve bullying in schools" anymore. They can't say it's part of a criminal pattern rooted in large scale social injustice. There's no place else to look except potentially unstable people getting their hands on guns.

I'm sure the NRA is twisting themselves in knots figuring out how to address this, but recognize they will only hurt themselves by too soon of a counter attack.

I think I can guess how the NRA are going to go on this. Fox news are already slowly putting the official line out there- its not a gun law problem- its Hollywood and video games fault.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2040728357001/

Now on the video games thing- if you talk about games as if they are life- if you talk about kill sprees, and murder ect it of course sounds hoorendous- but amazingly there are no deaths in videogames- no one dies. In just the same way that when you read LotR's hundreds of thousands of people dont actually die.

The biggest problem with games like Call of Duty or Battlefield is not that they are violent but that they are shit games.

And yet I can see people wanting to re-enact video games. If that imagery wasn't put in their heads completely disconnected from any sense of morality or suffering, would they have the creativity to come up with it themselves?

Chinks in the NRA armor beginning to appear.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/nra-member-sen-manchin-says-newtown-shooting-open-141440511--election.html

High profile member of NRA saying the idea of a ban on assault weapons should be reconsidered. Maybe some light is beginning to filter in there.

would they have the creativity to come up with it themselves?- Halfwise

Is it any different from playing cowboys and indians or soldiers like I did as a kid?
Its less healthy in that its on a screen not in your garden and you arent running about- but young males will 'play' at violence- its part of our development as the human animal. Its always happened and always will.
If you look at what is going on in brains playing such games it has nothing to do with violence- its a very simple reward system (which has its dangers as its the same reward system makes gambling seem like a good idea)- but is got nothing to do with violence.

I hope they do look seriously at the least at what sort of weapons are easily available and why. Thats a good start- scapegoating the blame onto film and games is not in my view.

what would help alot is people being made accountable for failing to secure weapons , most of the time the shooter obtains the weapons illegally . Sick people will always do sick things . There is definately a problem with the way mentally Ill people are treated here .I thnk we will see high capacity clips banned soonest , then win someone with some wisdom thinks about it , the govt. will make it extremely hard to get ammo for guns here . what is called an assault weapon here is basically the same thing as a semi-automatic hunting rifle , the difference being it will accept high capacity magazines ,some have a higher rate of fire and they look like a military weapon because they are set up to accept military and tactical hardware . Even when great restrictions are put on sales here it will not have a big impact on anyone but gun manufacturers because there are so many guns in the publics hands you could never stop private sales between average citizens , Example - An elederly woman last week turned in a German sturmgyvere ( hope i spelled that right ) at a police station in a gun buyback , it had been siiting in her closet since her late husband brought it home as a souvineer , This is a very valuble FULLY AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUN , they decided not to destroy it because of its value and she allowed the police to hold it till she can sell it to a collector , it was rusted up and wouldnt fire but with a little work it would be a fully operational assault weapon, so this is what we are faced with here . You never know what is in someones closet . SO that being said we have to find a way to keep guns out of criminals and mentally unstable peoples hands , not an easy task given the situation . Determined people will still find a way to kill otheres if they really want to. It is very hard to put a genie back in the bottle .

soory bout my mis-spelling kind of under the weather here .

I'm pretty sure that in most shootings the gunmen obtained their weapons in a perfectly legal fashion, even if they weren't supposed to be able to (due to mental illness or whatever else).

the truth wrote:soory bout my mis-spelling kind of under the weather here .

No problem whatsoever. Hope you feel better soon!

Im sure alot of them are Eldo but not in this case or the Columbine shootings , at Virginia tech and colorado batman movie yes they obtained them somewhat legally but people failed to report the perps mental state because of medical privacy laws , so these nut jobs where sold guns by Gun shops even though they went through a background check . Accountabilty is still a major factor , You dont see police officers walking around in jails with guns on theyre side for this very reason , they are restricting access to them. If you cant buy one and your intent on doing somthing like this what are you going to do , steal one right . Im a gun owner and Im not against making it tough for people to get weapons in theyre hands but lets be realistic , there will always be guns in the United states unless all the gun manufacturers are shut down except for military sales . Thats just not going to happen .

If an assault weapons ban goes into effect, I'm afraid current owners will have to be grandfathered in for it to pass. Perhaps a buyback program will follow but I doubt that will get more than a fraction out of people's homes. The damn things don't deteriorate so long as they were properly maintained and stored after the last use. This is a problem that will be with us for a long time. And we will end up with a drug style black market so that a gun will only go out of circulation once it is captured due to crime.

I think you need o take the approach people in the gvt made to stop people smoking. You need to first educate and then make things uncomfortable and then make things expensive, and then you need to pass laws to make things inconvenient and not worth taking up. But not for our generation, its too late for those who already have guns, but for the next generation, whos minds are not yet indoctrinated. It will be a slow process and there will be resistance, as there was for smoking bans and taxes and scare adverts. But it works and makes it safer for everyone.

I think you're right Mrs Figg - it has worked for smoking, for drinking and driving, for birth control...long term social change via education. In this case America's addiction is to guns that are over engineered for hunting or personal self defense.

There's always the argument that the reason for assault weapons to be in private hands is that a government should be afraid of it's people. The liberal in me rebels against this line of thinking but I can't really argue against the logic, just the unintended consequences such as what happened last week. Human nature doesn't always succumb to neat political theory, and the various mountain militias we have manage to make the theory in practice look pretty scary.