Call Goes Out For Shooter Cease Fire

[namewon'tfitin]

Videogames are one of my venting spaces and without them I'd be even more depressed and stressed than I already am.
So, thanks but no thanks.

 

[Nieroshai]

The problem is that those are more linked to social issues more than anything. Poor people, drug and sex trade, things like that.

That's been debunked time and again.

To sound cliche, guns don't kill people, people kill people.

But they are made a whole lot easier by guns, which is where that specious statement starts to break down.

Seriously, when is the last time someone used a hammer to directly kill dozens of people? Or, since cars almost inevitably come up, when's the last time someone drove a car into a school or movie theater and used it to kill people? Hell, contrast it to the 22 stabbings at a school in China. Most were not seriously injured, none died.

Besides, why facilitate murderers? The logic of "they're just going to do it anyway" is ridiculous. shouldn't murder be harder? Should we make it easy for someone to kill 27 people?

Do we oppose seatbelts because people are going to die anyway? We even say "seatbelts save lives," even though steabelts don't save people, people save people.

Are we against food safety because some people will invariably get sick?

When a natural disaster happens, do we just shrug and say "what are you going to do?"

It's pretty damn hard to massacre with a hammer. Or a bowling ball. Or even a knife.

I have never seen social issues causing crime and murder debunked. People seem under the impression that if someone has a gun they are going to kill someone. That is simply untrue.

You can't dictate the rules for an entire society because psychopaths exist. Seat belts do save people, just not everyone. And occasionally cause someone to die. My issue is that all the gun control nuts out there say that the world would be better off if guns didn't exist. That is completely true, but they do exist. I'm not saying no gun rules. But he could have had the same "success" in his endeavor if he had a small snub nose pistol. So the type of gun is irrelevant. The ease of killing is not particularly relevant because if someone has the will to do it, then they will do it. No one is against gun safety, but you and I have very different idea of what that actually means. For me it's about education and experience. For the vast majority of people, this is enough. For some people it's about no one being allowed to have them, but criminals will have them, which is the impetus for people who aren't criminals to have them.

Given the amount of preparation he went through, it isn't unreasonable to say he could've taken the time to whip up homemade explosives and stuffed them in the car. Guns are by no means the most deadly, devastating, or easy-to-obtain weapons out there. The first WTC bombing cost the bomber less than the price of a Glock. A man in China committed a similar slaughter to Newtown, but he did it with a knife. Just as many casualties, with an even more hardcore police force simply not arriving on time. Should we ban knives? Knives were invented by our ancestors to hunt and to wage war, and then they tied them to sticks and called them spears. Surely we live in a society where knives are obsolete? I see cooking shows where scissors are used instead to cut meat, and Cuisinarts are used to dice vegetables. Of course not, but you see where this is going.

 

[Nieroshai]

I mainly play jrpgs, platformers and dating sims <_< . I can feel the hate coming way right about .... now

Oh noes, he's a pedophile! Get him before he stomps on a hand-drawn Asian girl of questionable age!

Oh wait... damn, they'd have to lock me up too. RUN!!!

 

[Sylveria]

The problem is that those are more linked to social issues more than anything. Poor people, drug and sex trade, things like that.

That's been debunked time and again.

To sound cliche, guns don't kill people, people kill people.

But they are made a whole lot easier by guns, which is where that specious statement starts to break down.

Seriously, when is the last time someone used a hammer to directly kill dozens of people? Or, since cars almost inevitably come up, when's the last time someone drove a car into a school or movie theater and used it to kill people? Hell, contrast it to the 22 stabbings at a school in China. Most were not seriously injured, none died.

Besides, why facilitate murderers? The logic of "they're just going to do it anyway" is ridiculous. shouldn't murder be harder? Should we make it easy for someone to kill 27 people?

Do we oppose seatbelts because people are going to die anyway? We even say "seatbelts save lives," even though steabelts don't save people, people save people.

Are we against food safety because some people will invariably get sick?

When a natural disaster happens, do we just shrug and say "what are you going to do?"

It's pretty damn hard to massacre with a hammer. Or a bowling ball. Or even a knife.

As far as guns - We have gun laws, we have permits, we have back-ground checks. There are laws. This guy broke every single one of them by stealing a gun, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, etc. It wasn't his gun. He stole it from his mother. Having more laws or control would not have deterred him. If anything, he likely would have used explosives or found a much more deadly fire-arm though illegal means.

Saying that "They will find away" is not facilitating. It's speaking an obvious truth.

We have food safety. Will some people get sick? Yes. That doesn't mean we abolish food safety laws cause there are unavoidable eventualities but it also doesn't mean we ban all food cause someone might get sick from it.

Natural disasters happen. You can't stop them. You can work to minimize the damage they cause and plan ahead but they are going to happen. But, we don't all live in reinforced steel bunkers 500ft under-ground away from all fault-lines cause a natural disaster may happen some-day.

Where's the ban things that people do bad things with logic lead? Okay banned guns but I still wanna kill people. I could make a bomb from house-hold supplies. Oh, they banned gasoline, fertilizer, copper wire, clocks, etc, etc. Hm, well, I could just drive my car in to the building. Let's ban cars. Darn. Okay, no guns, no bombs, no cars hmm. Oh crap, someone's breaking in to my house with a an illegally acquired gun to kill me, darn him, he's not following the rules cause he's a criminal and he is by his very actions doing something there are already laws against. Maybe we need some more laws against breaking laws.

On topic. I don't like this gesture. This makes it look like gaming, especially fire-arm based games, are some- ow at fault for this and I'm sure there's people at Fox and other right-wing-fanatical media outlets drawing the same connection. Wonder how long till someone starts saying that WWII wouldn't have happened if Hitler didn't play Risk as a kid.

 

[Brad Calkins]

I refuse to change my lifestyle just to appease idiots.

 

[Panicky]

Things were exacerbated by the fact that the shooter was psychotic. I'm not saying his wants and desires did not more easily come to fruition because he had a gun.

No, "things" were initiated by the assailant's mental condition. Your insistence that this entire atrocity can be blamed solely on "psychopathy" is absurd; the guns allowed him to kill more people more efficiently. Far fewer deaths would have occurred had he not been armed, so it is simply delusional to not at least acknowledge the contribution firearms made.

But the vast majority of people who own guns do not commit murder with them. Some hunt, some compete in competitions with them, some own them because they have small penises. But most people who own guns do not run around shooting people. The analogy is about tools, so it's very appropriate. If I like to target shoot with a gun for fun, then I should not be restricted from it by people killing other people with guns. Every gun shoots different, so the experience had is very different from gun to gun.

I described guns as instruments for killing, not "murder". A very important distinction that apparently went over your head.

You can use a gun to scratch your back, dig a hole, or as a paper weight, and it still won't change the fact that its primary purpose -- what it was designed for and what it is most effective at -- is killing. Your analogy falls apart because it tries to lump everyday household items like hammers, which are designed to pound nails, with machines that are specifically engineered to kill. It also facetiously implies that hammers and guns are on equal standing in terms of killing potential.

You want to blame guns, but user reason and accept that guns aren't to blame for this, that there was other underlying issues and the person is to blame.

Incorrect. The difference between you and I is that I acknowledge both mental illness and guns as significant factors in this shooting, whereas you try to place all the blame on the former, out of some vested interest for the latter.

If he had run up in the classroom with a hammer and killed his mother and one six year old, it's still not acceptable to me that it happened.

Your reaction is irrelevant. Two deaths are still preferable to twenty-eight deaths.

And it shouldn't be OK with anyone if that was all that happened. And, to take it one step further, imagine if one of the adults in the room was allowed to be armed, then it still would have turned out very different and a gun could have saved the day. But no, only murderers own guns right? They are only meant to kill children and innocent people, correct?

I never even remotely suggested those things and your hypothetical school shootout is a fantasy. In the real world, twenty-eight people were shot -- not hammered -- to death.

 

[Cpu46]

The 21st will not be the day I skip attempting to beat Metro 2033 on ranger hardcore. I don't mean to be disrespectful of this event, it's just that I'll pay my respects in my own way.

Sounds like you're already doing some serious self-flagellation there, that skill level is BRUTAL.

Well thats why I said trying. To be honest Metro 2033 RH will probably take me a few months to beat at this rate.

 

[Dogstile]

First: One article about a guy with a knife doesn't prove anything. Also, he clearly meant to maim and not kill. No one would sever a finger or an ear for any other reason. You have not provide proof at all of what you say.

I've provided my evidence, which is still plenty more than yours. There's also empirical evidence (the actual shooting) and common sense evidence (it's easier to kill with a gun than with a knife - if you want to dispute this, let's imagine a scenario in which I have a gun and you have a knife, see who wins 10 out of 10 times).
You have done nothing but rejected all of it with such amazing arguments as "It'd be just as easy if he had a knife".

Ok, so aside from having to get closer to people who would fight back (I assume people would fight back if you have a gun too, but less effectively of course, you have range) do you know how easy it is for someone to die from a knife wound? One that actually is meant to kill?

In fact, here, read the answer chosen by the asker. This about sums up what I was told about some of the multitude of things that can happen from a knife wound, just to the chest. Go on, read.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080329100231AAftA28

Note: I am not arguing for or against the gun laws, I just think its silly that anyone would believe knives are not horribly dangerous. An untrained guy stabbing someone with a knife is actually more likely to kill than a guy with a gun, simply due to all of the other factors involved (knife being more accurate, damages a larger area, moving targets harder to hit at range) (Also, my source on this is a police officer, not official, sorry about that). The only problem is of course, getting to the guy you would want to kill.

 

[Souplex]

I get the idea, but it would still send the message that "Games are to blame".

 

[Grape_Bullion]

"Not sit back and ignore the lives lost"? Eat a bag of shit. What a pompous thing to insinuate, that gamers have ignored what happened, or that they don't care and that a day where no one plays an FPS will show the world that we care. We obviously care about what has happened, and you're a terrible human for saying that we've taken a back seat to this subject.

Aside from the beyond retarded comment, it's kind of a cool idea, but I doubt even 20% of players will do it.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

"Not sit back and ignore the lives lost"? Eat a bag of shit. What a pompous thing to insinuate, that gamers have ignored what happened, or that they don't care and that a day where no one plays an FPS will show the world that we care. We obviously care about what has happened, and you're a terrible human for saying that we've taken a back seat to this subject.

Aside from the beyond retarded comment, it's kind of a cool idea, but I doubt even 20% of players will do it.

And another 20% will boot up FPS games just to spite everyone else.

The whole abstinance idea would have been a smart one, if there was any link between games and the shooting. Otherwise it just looks like gamers are feeling guilty over something we or our hobby had nothing to do with.

(That and the haters aare going to jump on this like they do with anything that smacks of guilt or wrongdoing).

Captcha: zombie attack

 

[Akytalusia]

eh, i dunno. do single player games count? is shooting demons ok? i don't think i can beat doom 3 by then. i'm only like 1/2 way through currently.