There were a lot of talk-radio-heads yesterday and today stating that the Virginia Tech Massacre is the “worst mass shooting in U.S. history”. Admittedly, it is horrific. In particular, the methodical way in which Cho Seung-Hui went about chaining all the doors shut during class in order to prevent escape is chilling. I cannot conceive how one person can be capable of such monumental evil.
I do not wish to trivialize the awful experience there, but the distinction of the “worst mass shooting in U.S. history” does not belong to yesterday’s incident. The worst civilian mass-shooting in US history belongs to the Mountain Meadows Massacre here in Utah.
On the morning of September 11, 1857, the 137 members of the Fancher party, enroute to California from Arkansas, were detained by a lage party of local Mormon men and a handful of local Paiute Indians. The local militia leader, John D. Lee, explained that the local Mormons had arranged a treaty between the Paiutes and the Fancher party in exchange for the party giving up their guns and livestock to the Indians. There had been some conflict between these groups before resulting in injury to quite a few members of the party, and the Fancher party acquiesced to a request to surrender their arms and be escorted to the nearest town.
A mile from their campsite, the shouted order “Do your duty!” was called, and every male member of the Fancher party was executed by his accompanying Mormon escort. The remaining party members were summarily hunted down and shot by the attending Paiutes, all save seventeen children under the age of 8 who were spared. Their several hundred cattle and other possessions were taken and distributed to locals as booty from the “siege of Sebastopol”. Some surviving children later recounted that locals were seen wearing clothing from their dead parents.
Admittedly, this act was not as random as the Virginia Tech shooting. Tensions had been running high between the Utah Territory and the Federal Government. The governor, Brigham Young, had declared a state of emergency and asked the Saints to protect the Territory from invaders. Additionally, apostle Orson Pratt had recently been killed in Arkansas by the estranged husband of his most recent plural wife, and the Fancher party was rumored to be harboring the killer.
Regardless, 120 people were murdered in cold blood — by a gun (though some were bludgeoned to death rather than shot) — that September dawn. And knowing this fact causes me to shake my head and sigh at the posturing of US politicians arguing for or against gun control and other issues unrelated to this tragedy.
Gun violence, as demonstrated by the story above, has been with us our entire national history. Just four short years after the Mountain Meadows Massacre, we started fighting among ourselves with an ultimate body count of nearly 1 million people. We are capable of terrific cruelty to one another, made even worse when we think we are doing the right thing.
I’m not saying nothing should be done to prevent these kinds of tragedies, but pundits are missing the target. After the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Territorial government realized that a position of aggressive defense would lead to more tragedy and death of this sort, and adopted a conciliatory stance in order to eventually progress toward statehood.
Similarly, some measures should be taken to directly address the risk of a lone madman going on a shooting spree in a school. But a widespread curtailing of the liberties of citizens, or expanding gun availability, is a stupid off-topic response. It’s colored by a political agenda which does nothing to solve the problem, but a lot to inflate the rhetoric surrounding this event.
Other mass deaths in the US…
Additional thoughts:
You can come up with all kinds of categories for this stuff. The Virginia Tech incident was the largest mass shooting by a single perpetrator, which I think — now that historians are protesting that the media has mis-applied other titles to it — will stand as correct. The Mountain Meadows Massacre stood as the largest massacre of American citizens in the US outside of wars until the Oklahoma City bombing. If you count massacres of American Indians, of course, then you have Wounded Knee and Sand Creek to “compete” for the terrible title.
I sometimes wonder how American history books would read if written from the perspective of an American Indian. Or a black slave. Or an indentured servant. Or a Chinese immigrant forced to work on the railroad.
Sometimes being a human is depressing.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Had trouble deciding
I had trouble deciding where to add commentary on yesterday’s shooting event.
I was contemplating adding the media’s augmented misportrayal here but you beat me to it. Actually, the gross hyperbole was extended by many media fronts, including talking heads, print and radio. By this morning, the majority of news reports had started to retract their prior overstatements and qualify the event as the “worst school shooting in modern history.” Sorry for not being able to provide links. I think it’s important for people like us to detail this observation, so we can see the knee-jerk reaction of those purportedly reporting events, as opposed to those who rush instantly to historically categorize the event so as to sell more viewers and readers.
I also thought about adding a new comment here but these school shootings are getting routine and I’ve already made my point…
Firearms and whatnot
Although I am — and plan to remain — a strong proponent of gun liberties (and the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights), it’s sobering to realize that personal firearms do nothing to protect against random bombings which are the predominant tactic of the current civil war in Iraq. And the only good personal firearms did against the night the Shiites raided a Sunni neighborhood to execute every male in the household (or was it the other way around? I forgot…) was to raise the body count a bit on both sides.
Federal gun-control being revisited as a result of the Virginia Tech massacre is sickening to me. The participants in the media are using the corpses of the slain to prop up their failing arguments. The fact is that personal firearms are here to stay… and some moderate limit on what type of firearms, and who is allowed to acquire them legally, is required for a sane society. The debate should be over enforcement and crafting sensible laws, not this all-or-nothing idiocy I’m hearing on talk radio.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Corpses of the slain to prop up their failing arguments
Usually you’re so logical.. wow.. nice imagery, even if it does undercut your argument a little.. Do I hear a song in there?
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Parrots…
For an example of people parroting the myth that this is the worst mass shooting in US history, check comments like:
At least ABC revised their description from when it first appeared to insert the word “modern” to try to stave off this kind of criticism:
And the AHN gets it wrong, too:
And the same type of verbiage here. Interesting that they parroted the same line in their headline for the link, but changed the verbiage inside the story to avoid the controversial claim:
I think I figured it out. Somebody, somewhere, decided this was the “biggest mass shooting in US history”, and said it, then everybody else decided to re-use the same erroneous phrase.
Yeah, I know, in light of the events, this is a trivial concern. But it bugs me because by focusing only on recent events, we ignore similar events which occurred only a few generations ago. And the following quotes show why this is a concern:
and…
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Hm
Forgive me, but does it really matter whether it was the worst mass shooting in US history, the worst school shooting in US history, the worst shooting by a single perpetrator in US history, or whatever?
It was a horrific event and people are still reeling. Why parse what the media calls it?
— Ben
Because I can…
Well, I thought I got this point across, but apparently I didn’t. By inflating the impact of current events, they are minimizing a historical event which was far deadlier in scope while similar in technique.
History teaches us that this kind of cruelty is not new. It also teaches us that it is not occurring more frequently or in greater numbers per capita today than yesterday. History teaches us that we have the same problems now that we did then, but with new faces and new innovations to exacerbate the situation.
The obvious inflation of the incident and sensationalism by the media bothers me, thus I watch it. While this incident waas horrific, the death toll doesn’t even come close to that of an average day in Iraq at this point… and we taxpayers paid for that to happen.
(Yeah, yeah, that last bit is a red herring. But the comparison is useful… on the same day of the tragedy, twice that number died violently in Baghdad alone.)
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Practicality
I’m simply trying to be practical here. Imagine the response if the media said, “Well, this is bad, but there have been worse massacres in history. And things are way worse in Iraq.”
It would be disrespectful to the people who died. Any senseless death is a tragedy. Yes, they’re exaggerating the nature of the incident, but they have to at this point.
— Ben
Sixes…
Meh, six of one, half a dozen of the other, I give.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Why
Why? This tragedy can’t stand on its own two legs, it needs to be hyperbolized?
My $.02 Weed
Here’s Why
It matters to me because people make decisions based on data. And when a plotted decision path is skewed by bad data, then the whole experiment goes bad. In this case, we’re talking about the human experiment, in which history is forgotten and people jump to the latest change in reports. This is Orwell’s nightmare prophecy in 1984, when the mass media changes reports quickly and frequently to manipulate public perception and historical memory.
You write it’s disrespectful to the people who died. Fair enough. How many other people died that same day in the U.S. by gun-related homicide? I’m guessing it was more than 32.
Gun Control
I’m sorry. I heard someone spew “well, should we outllaw knives?”
I’m sorry again.. but when a knife kills someone, it is usuall a knife meant for some other purpose being used as a weapon. It is rarely a dagger or sword. And bricks and ropes, tools for something else, misused to kill. TNT, the OK bombings, 9-11 – all purchased tools to do something else.. used to kill.
A handgun, an assault rifle, an uzi – all have one purpose: to end the life of another human being. that’s right. They don’t protect you from bullets. And maybe.. MAYBE one day that random robber with the intention of harming you will enter your house and you’ll be glad for the gun.. but its more likely that you’ll shoot yourself, shoot the wrong person, end up losing your gun to the robber, or killing someone in the heat of the moment that you otherwise would not have.
So, give the 2nd amendment its due. Everyone can own a musket. Everyone can have a hunting rifle if they pass an exam and get a license. And, if you want a handgun you have to pass a mandated class, psych eval, and exam. Then you wait 30 days. Your gun must be registered to you, and if it is sold to someone else it needs to be registered to them. If you commit even a misdemeanor, your gun may be confiscated. If you have a restraining order or a pending civil case, you must give up your gun. Short of that.. ban them. Ban the sale of all handguns. Make non-lethal defenses more affordable.
Matt, I’m sorry.. school shootings, shootings at clubs thathit the wrong people, arguments at 7-11 that become homicides.. almost every murder I hear about is now accompanied by “they had an argument ealier”.
Blast away.
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Gun Control…
I have been hearing tons about banning guns lately. I am completely against it. Why should I not be allowed to own my own AK-47? My own Sniper Rifle? Because they assault weapons? I think that is a thin argument at best. The argument that I fall back on is that it is not the guns but the people behind them that kill. I agree that there needs to be more stringent process for obtaining a weapon. I relate it to the work I have been doing lately. I recently started a new job. The customer I am working for (the IRS) requires me to obtain a new security clearance besides my DoD clearance. This one is for public trust (oh joy more paperwork). The government knows more about me then I do. I do not see why someone who wants to own an AK-47 or any other weapon for that matter cannot go through the same process. The application requires me to cover my life for the last 10 years. You go into detail where you work, went to school, people who know you, knew you, prior drug use, criminal history, etc. You should have to go through courses and lic. To obtain specific kinds of guns. If you want an “assault rifle”, you have to take the appropriate classes and receive the appropriate clearances.
But okay… let’s go along with the argument that you cannot own an assault rifle because you do not need it. Why should we sell cars that can go in excess of 150+ mph? There is nowhere in the US that speed is allowed on a public road. Speed has been studied and determined to be a factor for road fatalities. Where are the groups who are out to ban the Lamborghini or Ferrari (or the like)?
I think my views are I am against the government telling me what I can and cannot do – I would rather them tell me the parameters that govern those desired actions.
Banning Doesn’t Remove Guns
The government had made drugs are illegal. How well does that work?
The government had made underage drinking illegal. How well does that work?
So if the government were to make guns illegal, or even assault weapons illegal, do you think anyone who really wanted one would not be able to get one?
All you’d be doing is allowing the criminals to possess such weapons while preventing normal, law-abiding citizens from doing so. And the only good is would do is to throw a charge of illegal gun-possession on top of whatever else they charge someone with AFTER THEY GO ON THE RAMPAGE!.
“Hey, we noticed you used an illegal weapon when you shot up those 33 students. We’re going to have to charge you with that as well, you know.”
Because if you think for a second the government is going to be able to prevent a psycho from getting any weapon they want before they go on a rampage, you’re out of touch.
Guns are designed to kill. However, the dirty truth is that we live in a world where killing is sometimes necessary, because some people are just crazy.
My answer is to go the other way. Train EVERYONE in gun use. Make it a mandatory class everyone had to take. Make it legal and easy to carry a gun. Then at least the victims have a chance to fight back.
Depending on law enforcement to protect you is a fallacy. Law enforcement just cleans up the mess and punishes the perpetrator after the crime is committed.
My $.02 Weed
My $.02 Weed
You’re missing the point
My point is not the correlation between the VT shootings and legal guns..
It is the unbelievably frequent situation that would have ended with words or fists that now end in bullets because someone has a 9mm in their belt.
Over and over again you hear “There was an argument, it escalated, someone pulled a gun and both parties are dead as well as 2 random people on the other side of the room.”
How does your proposed scenario fix that? Its not crazy.. there have been times that I was angry or scared.. especially between the ages of 12 and 18 that if I had a gun, people would have been dead.
Likewise, my family has had domestic situations with a person who, if they had a gun available before they went and cooled down, we all would have been dead.
Maybe you can’t stop the 33 deaths (although this and Columbine used legally obtained weapons) but you can stop the moman dtwo kids plus the suicide dad we hear about every couple of months.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Stolen weapons
This incident used legally-obtained weapons. Columbine’s weapons were stolen from a grandfather of either Harris or Klebold (I forget which). A better example would be the Amish school shooting, which if I recall correctly used legally-obtained weapons.
It’s kind of beside the point, but it’s a useful qualification that people — including minors — can find the guns, even if they cannot do so legally. However, raising the legal bar for obtaining a weapon might prevent the lazy, crazy people from shooting others.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Stolen..
If I go to my Mom’s and get a plate from her cupboard.. its not stolen. Seems like the Columbine thing is splitting hairs.
Either way.. its the impulse kill that concerns me.. cuz its the most common form of handgun violence.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Suicide deaths
I seriously doubt banning guns would prevent any domestic murder suicides. In that situation, if you want to kill your family, you can do it easily without a gun.
Secondly, if there’s an argument, and the two people involved have guns, plus those around are also armed, then those around have better ability to defuse the situation.
Finally, anecdotal evidence isn’t a reason to ban guns. As Matt has said, these things have happened forever, not just now. Slaughters like this occurred before guns were invented. Matt’s saying he doesn’t think people need to be armed now because they’re not able or trained, but I say we make it a mandatory rule to train them. Guns are a fact of life, Pandora’s box opened. Teach people how to use them and respect them. Don’t have the government ban them so that only the criminals have them. Because whatever the government does, guns aren’t going away.
My $.02 Weed
Its so weird..
Weird that you are arguing the Republican side and me the democrat..
Let me be clear.. I am just proposing a handgun ban if they cant come up with other options..
That being said.. let me once again say that my reasons are not the VT shooting scenario.. which is unbelievably rare.
Also unbelievably rare.. the scenario where a gun crime is taking place and another person with a gun intervenes successfully.
Thirdly.. do you really stand by the statement that a person who has lost their temper is just as likely to successfully murder their entire family with a knife or a brick as with a gun? A gun is easy, it distances you from your victim, and there is little to no defense against it.
Also, do you really think that in a crowded scenario, if two people have an argument, and one starts shooting, the introduction of many more guns by scared bystanders is going to decrease the loss of life factor?
Finally, everyone I know who has committed suicide has done so with a legal gun. The VAST majority of murders are gun murders, and the vast majority are not rampages or home entry.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Unbelievably rare…
There had seventeen separate school shooting incidents in the US in the past twelve months. I think this statistic just made the leap from “rare” to “common”.
Firearms are used defensively 2.4 million times per year in the USA. In 98% of cases, the firearm is not fired. Out of those who used firearms defensively, one in six — 17% — believed doing so saved someone’s life. If the statistic is to be believed, somewhere between 0 and 400,000 lives are saved annually through defensive use of a firearm.
Sorry, Justin, I call baloney on defensive firearm usage being “unbelievably rare”.
Source: Gary Kleck, Criminologist, Florida State University, “Guns, Crime, and Self Defense”, 1993.
My bet is that those numbers are down significantly from fourteen years ago, as the US crime rate has plummeted… while gun ownership has dramatically increased in the same period.
Interesting you phrase it that way, because that sounds a lot like balance discussions in PvP computer games. If there is an overpowering ability, there are two ways to deal with it: Beef up other abilities to counter the overpowered thing, or else nerf (reduce in power, like making it a Nerf gun instead of the real thing) the overpowered thing.
Sometimes, rarely, you can come up with successful strategies to counter the abuse. Usually, they require much more skill than the easy-to-use, overpowered ability. Life imitates art. Or is it the other way around?
The handgun you purchase is far more likely to be used on you or someone you know than to be used in self-defense against a stranger. That’s a sobering fact, and a respectable reason for personally opting out of gun ownership, or ensuring that guns are stored safely.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
My gut feeling
According to the Department of Justice (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/intimates.htm), the number of intimate relationship homicides has fallen for both males and females from 1976 to 2004. For males, it’s dropped from 965 to 179. For females, it’s dropped from 1119 to 607.
So your murder/suicide example is simply anecdotal.
As Matt has said, simply owning the gun is enough to prevent a crime from occurring in the first place. If you make it publicly known you have a gun, and you keep it safely in the house, it may save your life without you ever using it.
Actually, just over half of suicides are by gun (http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html). And if that 55% who killed themselves didn’t have a gun, do you think that would have stopped them? As you’ve stated before, the primary purpose of a gun is to take a life, so it makes sense that most suicides occur with guns. However, the suicide would have taken place without the gun.
I’m saying that in a crowded scenario, knowing that people have guns all around you will prevent you from using the gun in the first place.
You are correct that the vast majority of murders are committed using handguns. However, did you know that the number of gun homicides during arguments has decline drastically since 1976? Gang related gun homicide has risen drastically over that time.
The fact is, even with all the media hype going on about guns being out of control, murders by guns have been dropping ever since 1976. It happens less, you just hear about it more.
My $.02 Weed
Violence against women
Here’s what’s telling about this figure for me: men have apparently figured out, in large part, how to settle their differences with other men without the use of a gun. But men are still killing women at an alarming rate.
I don’t know what to do about that factoid.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Two points
Two points:
1) Cho Seung-Hui bought his guns legally. Had there been a mandatory psych eval, a waiting period, a background check, it’s possible that he would not have been allowed to purchase those weapons. He was a resident alien with psychological problems – in a post-9/11 world, isn’t that exactly the sort of person we’re supposed to be looking out for?
2) Suppose everyone in the classroom had guns. If you heard somebody shooting, and everyone pulled their guns and panicked, how would you know who the original shooter was? It would just take one person (even with a lot of training) to overreact and shoot and innocent person. And when the cops arrive, how do they know who to take out if everyone has guns?
— Ben
Cops and multiple armed citizens…
Simple. You order everyone holding a gun to drop their weapon and lay face-down on the floor. Those who comply are law-abiding citizens. If the shooter complies, guess what? You’ve got the shooter under control, and ballistics and eyewitness accounts can prove who was the bad guy.
If you are carrying a concealed weapon, you must recognize the fact that you have a special obligation to disclose in all situations. In Utah, if you have a CCW permit, if you interact with police forces you are required to disclose that you are a legal permit holder and are currently packing. Yes, this means that you, the permit-holder, will probably be handcuffed and booked along with the perpetrator if there is an incident. It goes with the territory.
A license to carry a concealed weapon is a hefty responsibility. They are easy to get in many states, but at least in Utah, you are required to go through regular training and obtain affidavits from people — not relatives — aware that you will be carrying concealed who will affirm your ability to carry responsibly.
I’m no longer an advocate of arming every American. I think a substantial percentage of the population lacks the training, discipline, and interest in defending themselves using a firearm. However, I am an advocate of educating every American and encouraging those who are mentally and physically capable of doing so to exercise their rights to make a safer and more civil society.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
simple
I think that’s a huge oversimplification. You have an academic building with several hundred people in it (if not thousands). One of those people is a crazed madman who is killing people. Everyone else is being shot at, and is likely to be panicked, confused, freaking out. They may not be in a mental state to immediately comply with a police officer running around with a megaphone barking orders.
And this gets more complicated if everyone is shooting at each other.
— Ben
How About This
You’re in a classroom. Someone bursts in with an automatic weapon and starts firing. You drop to the floor. In this situation, would you rather:
A) Hope and pray the police get there before you get shot – or – B) Pull out your personal weapon and take your chances on defending yourself?
Now I know this is a strawman or some sort of illegal logical device, but think about it. Do you think any one of those students in the classroom wished they had a gun when the shooter walked in? I’d take my chances getting hit by a stray bullet from people shooting back than having no choice but to take a bullet from the shooter. I bet everyone else in that room would have chosen the same thing.
It’s a nice pipe dream to hope that this type of thing can be prevented. However, the truth is that it can’t. Society is just everyone promising to play nicely with each other, and someone is always breaking that promise. All the police can do is punish that person after the fact.
My $.02 Weed
answers
I don’t have a problem with individual gun ownership. If there were one person in the classroom with a concealed weapons permit, and a gun obtained after a thorough background check and psych eval, who was well trained in firearm usage and was able to take out the shooter without collateral damage, great.
But I don’t agree with those who say that “more guns” is the answer. Then you just have a bunch of scared, armed people, and that to me sounds more dangerous rather than less dangerous.
— Ben
You Didn’t Answer the Question
We’ll try again:
If you’re that scared person in the classroom with the VT shooter walks in, do you want to be the scared, armed person, or the scared, unarmed person?
My $.02 Weed
Answering the question
Me? Personally, I don’t like guns. I’d rather be the unarmed guy. I’d rather take the risk of being gunned down by some lunatic like Seung-Hui Cho than take on the responsibility of owning a dangerous weapon capable of hurting anyone in my family.
So there you go.
— Ben
My opinion has shifted…
My opinion has shifted. I do not believe we will ever “answer” the threat of violence from crazy people. The brain is an organ, and like any other organ in the human body, it is prone to premature failure in some segments of the population.
I know this suggestions sounds off-the-wall, but what about health care? We all know our health care system is broken in the USA. Well, that is, we all know it unless we are rich or exceptionally healthy. What if mental health examinations and physicals were part of the requirement for elementary and secondary public school education?
Right now, we treat the human brain as a special case. I personally suspect this is because of the overwhelming religiosity of US society, combined with our emphasis on free will. Many of us perceive a mind/body duality, and think that people are fully responsible for their own actions. We often think the “spirit” or “soul” controls the body through some supernatural link. I see the body existing as a heterogeneous whole of interlinked parts with the brain inextricably tying it all together in coordinated action.
I see diseases of the mind all around me. We are all familiar, of course, with viruses and bacterial infections. We are aware that blunt trauma to the head can cause irreversible brain damage in individuals, radically altering their behavior or resulting in a persistent vegetative state. But I suspect there are diseases of the mind which have no viral component, and for which we have no current tests.
These diseases can be transmitted from person to person. Humans have evolved to pick things up in this fashion. Particularly as children, our minds are shaped by the perceptions, actions, and words of those around us. Most of these “diseases” are benign or even helpful. The word some people use to identify these mind-viruses is “memes”.
If we could identify destructive memes which lead to this kind of violent behavior, we can immunize against them. To some extent, we all understand how this works. By and large, you can prevent infection by a meme by first installing a competing one. Of course, this doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it’s effective enough that books on child-rearing talk about instilling certain values in your child by certain ages.
We need more money and more focus placed on mental health in the USA, and I think that this can only come as part of a comprehensive nationwide health awareness, education, and possibly treatment plan.
Of course, people hear “universal health care” from that statement, and we end up with a totally different sort of freak-out.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
That makes sense. But don’t
That makes sense. But don’t spin it as health care. Spin it as education.
To most folks, myself included, the process of instilling values and skills in children that raises the probability of them becoming stable adults is primary in the educational field.
Not because there’s no medical science involved; I’ve been on anti-depressants for the past few years and they’ve been a tremendous help. But if we’re talking about modifying human behaviour… well, we’re still so many light years away from being able to really understand what’s going on inside the human mind (at least from an empirical standpoint) that we’d probably end up doing more harm than good if we tried to enforce any nationwide policies based on our scientific understanding. Maybe in a few decades, but not now.
But that being said, I think better education would cut down tremendously on homicide. I also think it would cut down on the abortion rate and on the amount of debt the average American gets into, among much else.
“Education is the silver bullet.” -Sam Seybourn
Quote..
“They say that guns don’t kill people.. people kill people. But you;ve gotta admit, the guns help.” – Eddie Izzard.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Education Starts With Parents
The problem isn’t with the educational system, the problem is in the home.
If I’m replying on teachers to do that instead of handling it at home, my kids are all but lost, unless they’re lucky.
To fix the problems you listed, I would tackle poverty first, then education. If you make it easier for people to get the basic necessities of life, then they can concentrate better in school.
My $.02 Weed
Just to muddy the waters…
I live right down the road from what I understand is the location for the bloodiest day in American History.
Ha ! Beat That… lol
Sorry I don’t mean to make light of the situation, I just find it funny sometimes 🙂 – On the anniversary of the battle, the Battlefield in Antietam is lined with 23,000 luminaries. An Amazing site if you are ever in the area.
The Civil War
The Civil War is certainly in a category all its own. 970,000 US citizens dead over a four-year period. Oy.
I’ve heard it said that the history of Communism is the sad tale of man exploiting man. Capitalism is the other way around.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
The answer,
if I may be so bold with my title, is $80 bullets. Or $500 bullets. If you own a gun for defense, one or two will last a lifetime. Any ammunition would be serialized and applied a VAT by the government to manipulate the end price. Posession of illegally obtained ammunition would be severely penalized. I don’t think there are many ammunition manufacturers, making this easier. People would have to turn in any old ammunition or face the same penalties. Hunting would get more expensive, but wouldn’t be illegal. Own any gun you want. Mass murder wouldn’t go away, but it would be harder. And the realization that many of the people around you might have one or two bullets of their own would probably be a good deterent as well.
Just an idea.
Like the thought process
Like the thought process, but I’m not sure the answer is having the government artificially set the market. First, it would get sunk on the issue of constitutional legality for impairment of individual rights and collusion (everyone can have abortions — they just cost $10,000 each!). Yes, collusion. Who do you think is the biggest buyer of bullets in the U.S.? Between the combined shoot-em-up needs of the DoD and the ATF, it has to be the feds. The government would be setting the price for a product it buys more than any other domestic entity? At a high price entry? Damn, if your idea was enacted, we’d all be setting up ammo shops. There’d be a black market big enough to welcome all sellers.
Here’s another idea: The Australia Method. We start off by determining an area of the country 1) physically separated from access to major urban areas and transit hubs and 2) evincing the highest density of gun owners and enthusiasts. We’ll call it…Arkansas. Or Lancaster. A major federal pen is opened to house U.S. persons who commit violations of gun laws. As part of their sentence, rehabilitation comes in the form of public release furloughs. Given what is known about criminals having a higher propensity to commit repeat offenses, the knowledge of a civilian majority packing heat will deter furloughed convicts from continuing their heinous pursuits. Regardless, by making any gun-related possession crime or tort, anywhere in the U.S., swing to the federal level, and by shuffling these criminals to an isolated part of the U.S., we as taxpayers create a new breed of terrifying prison (Arkatraz?) while reducing the economic burden of social justice. Meanwhile, we give those ready and willing civilians living nearby the chance to defend themselves with armed force.
Expensive bullets…
“Expensive bullets” is the solution often touted by the left-wing to curb gun violence. I hear it repeated all the time.
Do you know how cheap and easy it is to reload a discharged shell? Pennies. You can obtain lead from many sources. Saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur are also extremely common and easily combined. Attempting to set artificially-high prices on shells will do little except drive a vast and thriving black-market. It would be like Prohibition all over again.
Ammunition is cheap, not because there is so much competition to sell it, but because it is extremely easy to make. The only thing which requires a great deal of skill is the brass shell. Artificial markets — as you know, and have advocated against before, Daniel — don’t do any favors to the citizenry.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Lots.. to.. say..
And I wrote a well worded retort.. but when I hit post earlier.. the server didnt respond and i lost it..
grr..arrgg..
Perhaps its just as well.. I like y’all too much and its getting too heated..
plus I know you all like guns. 🙂
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Server outages
My hosting provide is aware of the problem. It is not a problem with my server, apparently, but on the OC-48 uplink for the entire data center. If I understand correctly, they believe they have resolved the issue. Contact me via IM or email if you notice further momentary outages of that sort.
I’m indifferent towards guns. They are an expensive hobby in which I have little interest, they smell funny, and they aren’t particularly attractive. That said, they are kind of fun to use against targets every so often. I do, however, like to exercise as many of my rights as often as possible, if for no other reason than to remind myself and others that I have them.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Guns?
I do not own a gun, although I entertain the idea every now and then. I know I won’t get one until my boys are old enough to be taught the proper respect for a gun.
I also am King Devil’s Advocate 🙂 I believe we need the right to own guns simply to counter the power of the police forces and the military. Most law-abiding people simply do not like to realize the tenuous peace we live in. If a true national catastrophe ever occurred, where the standard of living for the people of the United States was severely impacted, then that peace could very well shatter. We are such a rich people that there we own more TVs than there are households in our country. We have the luxury to assign American Idol and NFL football to places of importance in our lives.
And since we do, the idea of having to fight to survive gets further and further away, but for the majority of the world, that’s what they do every day.
Do I really think everyone should have a gun? Probably not, because there’s no infrastructure to teach everyone how to properly use a gun. I don’t trust parents to do it, I don’t trust the overburdened and over-politicized educational system to do it, and I don’t trust the “what’s the right decision to get me re-elected” government to do it. However, because of that last sentence, I strongly feel I should have the right to own a gun, because the same parents turn out kids who never had good role models, the same educational system churns them through because that’s the way the government make them play the game of funding, and the government is too worried about feeding itself and maintaining it’s image to protect me.
And the media feeds these children the 5% extremes of human behavior over and over again, until those kids start to believe that those extremes are normal behavior.
My $.02 Weed