No mental health issue in america.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Any so why aren't they used in mass shootings? Is it because they don't have the killing power afforded all those "cosmetic" options or perhaps as Jim says just don't have the sex appeal a killer is looking for?

Nadal Hasan killed, in a few minutes, 13 and wounded more than 30 with a handgun. That's a lot of killing power. Don't know if getting a hard on creates more killing power. In close quarters such as schoolrooms a handgun has plenty of killing power.

The notion that the supposed sexiness of a weapon is the motivation for mass killing is weak and superficial thinking. A killer may think a particular weapon has deadlier "optics," may think that his slaughter will look more powerful with weapon A than with weapon B, but there is no evidence nor argument that the motivation for the slaughter is the appearance of the weapon that is used.

Easy access to assault weapons is but part of the problem but it is part of the problem.

Eliminating something that is considered by some to be a contributing "part" of a larger complex problem because it is easy to access is not a solution if eliminating that something imposes on the rights of everyone else.

And if the problem exists due to specific causes that don't depend on all of the reputed "parts" of the problem, not only would it be unjust to eliminate all those peripheral parts, it would not solve the specific problem.

Since the 1960's our American society and culture has become less certain and more fragmented. There has been a huge loss of confidence in the values that predominated before the mid 20th century. That confidence had been degraded by smaller degrees before that, but the slow onslaught of academic relativism slipped into hyperdrive in the 1960's. It was modeled by Post Modern Cultural Marxism which denies any certainty and sees only power as the end and aim of existence, and which fuels the romance of class warfare and the disintegration of the founding American structure.

New heroes were made of younger identity splinter groups such as the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, etc.. Anti-war pacifists railed against American military might and exposed us as imperialists and rapists of the third world. America was painted as a racist, sexual and religious oppressive force in the world. College campuses became the high court of social justice and the battlefield against American oppression. And that has progressed since then into the right to censor any thought or speech that is counter to their intellectual rules of global order. Even to the point of justifying physical attacks on those who don't agree with them.

Notions of gender, freedom of speech or religion, rights to property, individualism in general, must all to be destroyed. Individual identity is subservient to group identity, or is irrelevant altogether. We are reduced to the struggle to gain power. That struggle is armed through force and violence. Notions of "reasonable discussions" are actually occasions to eliminate opposing ideas. Language has been inverted to Orwellian opposites. Justice is force. Government is power. Equality is mandated sameness. Freedom is granted and prescribed limitation. Reason is consensus or state edict. Life is meaningless and qualified only by social construct.

What once was considered a power and source of good, America, is now an antiquated notion of white supremacy and a retrograde imposition on the progress of world justice. It is the center of capitalist domination of the world's masses, a barrier to the equality of the world's people. And it must be made to feel guilty of its past and present transgressions. And so must Europe and all white societies. Justice cries for all the oppressed non-whites to have their equal share of "white privilege." And if the means to that end requires violence--so be it.

The present Progressive model of there being no power greater than the state, facilitated by state force and coercion, is a godless model that inspires renegades to take all power to themselves. If a renegade seeks notoriety, he must do so within the norms that will recognize his power as something to be admired. In a world that sees power as the ultimate end to existence, what greater admiration can there be than gaining power over the lives of others.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Nadal Hasan killed, in a few minutes, 13 and wounded more than 30 with a handgun. That's a lot of killing power. Don't know if getting a hard on creates more killing power. In close quarters such as schoolrooms a handgun has plenty of killing power.

A single incident doesn't make a very good case. And someone who's trained to use a weapon?

The notion that the supposed sexiness of a weapon is the motivation for mass killing is weak and superficial thinking. A killer may think a particular weapon has deadlier "optics," may think that his slaughter will look more powerful with weapon A than with weapon B, but there is no evidence nor argument that the motivation for the slaughter is the appearance of the weapon that is used.

Nobody has said people kill simply because of looks. But to argue there isn't a cult like following around deadly weapons that has an influence is crazy.

Eliminating something that is considered by some to be a contributing "part" of a larger complex problem because it is easy to access is not a solution if eliminating that something imposes on the rights of everyone else.

And if the problem exists due to specific causes that don't depend on all of the reputed "parts" of the problem, not only would it be unjust to eliminate all those peripheral parts, it would not solve the specific problem.

This is just a bunch of circling nonsense. It's a systems problem, you can't cherry pick single elements in an effort to discredit the entire thing.

Since the 1960's...

Yea, let's go back to a time when women knew their place, gays stayed in the closet, the poor starved and minorities knew better than to mingle with the white folk.

Fess up. Is detbuch really Jeff Sessions?

The present Progressive model of there being no power greater than the state, facilitated by state force and coercion, is a godless model that inspires renegades to take all power to themselves. If a renegade seeks notoriety, he must do so within the norms that will recognize his power as something to be admired. In a world that sees power as the ultimate end to existence, what greater admiration can there be than gaining power over the lives of others.

Funny, most real progressives I know, and I don't know a lot of them believe in a democracy and liberty.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

A single incident doesn't make a very good case. And someone who's trained to use a weapon?

It makes the case that semi-automatic weapons (and virtually all guns in civilian use are semi-automatic) no matter the size or appearance, have rapid fire capability. And have what you called similar "killing power" in close quarters such as a school room.

Nobody has said people kill simply because of looks. But to argue there isn't a cult like following around deadly weapons that has an influence is crazy.

You're trying to make your "case" by throwing in an unproven supposition, and one which is not the reason for mass killings. A sort of pile on technique used to strengthen a weak argument.

This is just a bunch of circling nonsense. It's a systems problem, you can't cherry pick single elements in an effort to discredit the entire thing.

You throw in a single element (which if taken out of the "system" would not alter the result) and then accuse me of cherry picking. Actually, you are cherry growing, throwing in as many elements that might color your argument as more full, but in actuality it clutters your thesis with irrelevant odds and ends.

Yea, let's go back to a time when women knew their place, gays stayed in the closet, the poor starved and minorities knew better than to mingle with the white folk.

Fess up. Is detbuch really Jeff Sessions?

Every time and place has its good and bad, even the wonderful world of here and now. The subject is mass killings. It is the now, the today, not the pre-1960's that causes us to fear mass school shootings. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater doesn't make for a better world. Your oversimplified and slanted view of another time overlooks what was once good and what is now bad. And worse, it overlooks similarities. What fundamentally motivated people then, and what basically motivates us now. Why did people kill then, why now. What glue held society together then, what does so now. Are we a more cohesive people now than then? Has our "diversity" fragmented us or made us more united? And what is it that will unify us more as a society, or "village."? And will that unification be one of consent or coercion?

There are basic, fundamental problems involving human nature that will go a lot farther if solved than bickering about what a gun looks like. Changing or eliminating guns does not change human nature.

Funny, most real progressives I know, and I don't know a lot of them believe in a democracy and liberty.

Apparently, the whole world, today, believes in democracy. Whoopee!! But Progressives view of liberty . . . well . . . let's put it this way . . . Progressives have a new view or definition of the old language. Liberty is, like all other words, what Progressivism says it is. The historical record and current practice of Progressive ideology says that "liberty" is whatever government and its experts allows it to be.