The Old School Otaku Lounge

Well, I will agree with you Dave, at least on the point that a gun in your hand makes it far easier to kill people much faster and more efficiently. Without a gun, unless you're clever enough to build a bomb, your best bet is to get a knife and run around poking holes in people until they stop moving. The problem with that is, if you are such a person who hates society that much, do you really enjoy running at all? And if you're a scrawny, autistic puke like this kid last week, isn't there a chance that somebody may be stronger than you and take your knife away, and possibly start poking holes in you, too? If it was me, I may hesitate to do something that drastic. But whether it's a mass murder by firearm or a mass murder by a knife, even though the gun kills more people, I say that a mass murder is still a mass murder. So, you must look at the intent alone to "make people pay."

I just found this website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... world-list
You can sort the list however way you'd like.

So here are facts from there:
• The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world - an average of 88 per 100 people. That puts it first in the world for gun ownership - and even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer - 54.8 per 100 people
• But the US does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the US is number 28, with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people
• Puerto Rico tops the world's table for firearms murders as a percentage of all homicides - 94.8%. It's followed by Sierra Leone in Africa and Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean

According to this, gun ownership in the USA is 88.8% Pretty darn high. Our percentage of firearm homicides is only 60%---just over half of all murders. Switzerland and Finland have about half that amount of gun ownership, at about 45%. There seems to be a disparity with the percentage of gun homicides between these two countries though, since Switzerland's is 72% murder by guns rate (significantly higher than America's) while Finland is just under 20%.

So when you sort it by the percentage of homicides by firearm, Puerto Rico does indeed have a way higher percentage of homicides by guns. Unfortunately, the data does not include the percentage of ownership. So instead, look at other high gun murder rate countries. Sierra Leone? I don't even know where that is. Okay, so let's look at Guatemala. 84% homicide rate by gun, with only a 13% gun ownership rate. Honduras has about the same % of gun murders, with only a 6% gun ownership rate. So this may show that guns in the hands of a few people means that they are the ones doing most of the killing. However, this also shows that even when gun ownership is vastly limited as compared to the USA or Switzerland, people still do a lot of killing with guns. Perhaps this indicates that even with limited gun ownership, gun-related murders are still rampant. I agree that it is terrible gun ownership for someone who buys a gun to let their dumbass kid have access to it. But, unfortunately, that can't really be stopped, unless you get every gun owner to wear a shock collar or something that will zap them whenever they do something irresponsible.

So Dave, I really agree with what you say... except that I don't. I hope that makes sense. What we're talking about here is spontaneous murder (or mass murder) perpetrated by individuals (or a few individuals) with guns. Comparing this to the actions of invading armies of governments, communist usurpers, cultists, and the sort is just comparing apples to oranges. Yes, they're both fruit, but it seems to be more of an emotional argument than anything. As such, I typically don't care for topics that encourage political and/or religious debates online since I'd rather focus on what brings everyone together.

But yes, I do think violent rap music is a part of it. But I think it's more of a symptom, not the actual problem. Much of American's humor is based on racism, insults, and cynicism. Look at American sitcoms. It's no longer The Cosby Show or Growing Pains. Now sitcoms are called Everybody Hates Chris, I Hate My Teenage Daughter and South Park entails little children constantly insulting and denigrating each other in each episode. Look, I enjoy watching South Park too, but you have to admit that much of our culture has the pendulum swinging in the wrong direction. (Although to that show's defense, at least it has a moral to the story in each episode, unlike most other stuff on TV). Americans thrive on conflict, whether in YouTube comments or the nightly news. I moderate my YouTube channel every day, and I am always weeding out trolls and name-callers. People online no longer have the maturity to point out another's mistakes without resorting to calling them an "idiot" or a "moron" anymore. And look at who is doing it: it's mostly younger online users.

Instead of comparing gun crimes within the USA to other countries, I think it's far more effective to compare the USA now with the USA back when times were simpler and more innocent. The Colombine massacre happened in April of 1999, when I was in my final year of college. Such incidents were unheard of until just before then. I graduated in 1994, and while there were school shootings, those were mostly in inner-city schools and they were gang related. Now, anywhere seems to be possible, from kindergartens to even Christian medical schools like what was linked to above. I'm curious about the gun ownership statistics of America in the 1940s or '50s, and the number of homicides back then. I make a bet that it was a lot fewer then. Sure, there was racial turmoil then, but there is still a lot of racial turmoil now. I still say that it is the breakdown of American families, and the fact that people just don't give a crap about others or their own kids anymore. I worked at this one place and this woman was telling me that her brother in law allows his 5 year old son to watch those gruesome Saw movies, to the point where the boy even idolizes the antagonist in those horror films. We no longer live in a society where video games meant Space Invaders or Pac Man. Now it's about head shots and sawing people in half with chainsaws. I'm not saying that playing video games, listening to death metal, or coming from a family torn apart by divorce (or multiple divorces) is going to make someone into a murderer. However, all of these point to the deterioration of society, resulting in these mass murders. I blame it on that rather than the idealization of the cowboy Old West that is not popular anymore these days (look at how many Western movies come out these days as opposed to 50 years ago).

I think it is worth pointing out, however, that crime---and violent crime as well---has been on the decline over the past 20 years. So America isn't quite as doomed as it may seem. However, shocking mass murders by people who want to lash out at society and "make them pay" seems to be the USA's specialty.

In Japan here at least, there are some gruesome murders, even if murder is far fewer than in the USA. I think it says something about just pointing a gun at someone and shooting them to subduing a victim's flailing arms and legs while trying to saw their head off with a sharp object. With a gun, it's possible to quickly kill somebody and have selected your next target without much thought. But when you're face-to-face with someone, struggling with their arms and their blood is spraying you in the face, you'd think that there would be more time to consider, "Hey, this is wrong. What am I doing?" than with a gun. When it comes to mass murder though, it doesn't happen a whole lot like it does in the USA.

greg wrote:I still say that it is the breakdown of American families, and the fact that people just don't give a crap about others or their own kids anymore.

Can NOT agree with this statement more. It is basically just "hearsay" at this point, but a friend of the family says that the kid was about to be committed to a mental institution (probably the right course of action) but shot his mother and then went to the school (where she volunteered) because he thought that she loved the kids at the school more than him. I'm not saying that's accurate or even justification IF true, but we REALLY need to do something about the disintegration of the family in this country.

I had that exact same theory. We know that the mom was a very generous and friendly person, but she never talked about her family---that was always off limits. I figured that she was finally going to do something about him. Still, she's foolish for letting him have access to guns, but I don't think ANY parent would ever suspect that their kid would become a mass murderer. Even the Korean kid who shot everyone at Virginia Tech... in the 8th grade, when Columbine happened, he was saying how he wanted to repeat it himself. There were so many warning signs all along, but his parents still obviously believed that he'd do the right thing. It's foolishness, it's bad parenting, but apparently it's proliferating.

My other theory is that she told him that her kindergarten students were more mentally competent than he was, so he shot them all. But the first theory seems far more likely.

America has seen a rise in moral relativism, and a lack of instruction in what is right and wrong. Schools expect the parents to do this, and parents expect the schools to do this. The same problem exists in Japan, but the so far the repercussions in Japan are not so severe---most likely because of the social "glue" that holds people together and social collectivism keeps people in line. But as I was saying, the modern tendency is for American parents keep expecting their kids to figure things out for themselves and to become self-reliant.... because OBVIOUSLY doing otherwise requires them to be more involved in their kids' lives, and they just can't be bothered to do that. Add to that the apparent evidence that most people who are having children these days in America are the far least competent in parenting, and those who would make good parents aren't having kids. Although America would only be lucky if it turned out to be like the movie Idiocrasy. The future as depicted in that movie seemed like a nonviolent utopia compared to what would more likely happen.

I'm having trouble with the whole "things were great back in the old days" position. Because they weren't. I don't even know where to begin. There never was a magical golden age of America (or, indeed, the world) when people weren't committing horrible atrocities with whatever tools were handy. I mean, you got your H. H. Holmes in Chicago in the 1890s (speaking of 'Saw'), you have your Ed Gein, you got your Al Fish. You've got your Ted Bundy and your Son Of Sam. You have the Luby's massacre in Texas in 1991 (23 killed, 20 wounded), you have old Charlie Whitman in Austin, the San Ysidrio McDonalds massacre in 1984, 13 people shot in Camden NJ in 1949, the Clutter family made famous by "In Cold Blood", innumerable postal workers whose tireless efforts have made the phrase "going postal" a byword for carnage... Yeah, I do have a lot of back issues of the "Murder Can Be Fun" fanzine. You should see the one that's all about kids killing other kids. Some of the cases date back to colonial times. The one about Mormon "blood atonement" killings is fascinating stuff as well.

Certainly I believe that kids ought to be brought up by loving parents in loving homes, taught respect and decency and the pledge of allegiance, etc. But until we invent the Good Parenting Ray and start jazzing the world with it, or until we start making prospective parents take tests and get licensed, bad upbringing will always have its consequences. The thing is that when you're hip-deep in firearms, the consequences of bad upbringing can reach out and touch many more people.

There are terrible parents and horrible, hateful, disrespectful popular culture in Canada. Canada gets all of America's TV and movies, and in fact grows its own irresponsible television - the most popular comedy was about three drug dealers who live in a trailer park and frequently abuse drugs and alcohol, menace each other with firearms, and are in and out of jail. Canada can match America sleaze for sleaze. What Canada doesn't have is the gun violence. (Except for last summer in Scarborough.)

At this stage of the game I have to look at firearms proliferation in the United States as a public health issue. In fact, it's actually cheaper to get a gun than it is to get health care. It's certainly easier to get a firearm than it is to get the mental health care that might prevent some of the gun-related tragedy we're seeing.

Didja know there are more gun stores than GROCERY STORES in the United States? It's a fact!

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2 ... ical-look/

When I talk about corporate firearms marketing creating and perpetuating the gun culture, this is kind of what I'm talking about:

http://gawker.com/5969150/bushmaster-fi ... is-revoked

The Bushmaster .223, recently used in the Sandy Hook massacre, here sold as a masculinity-enhancer Man Object that Men Need to Be Men. Sadly, not quite as subtle as the Thompson submachine gun magazine ad that portrayed a cowboy using his Thompson to mow down (presumably) marauding banditos.

Well, I won't deny that those advertisements are not only sickening, but incredibly stupid. I would fully support a total ban on assault weapons. However, I still think it's obvious that even if they were banned, the bad guys will still get their hands on them. And if not assault firearms, then regular firearms. If not regular firearms, then bombs or something.

As for the murders you listed, again, I thought we were talking about school shootings and such. Cultists like Mormons, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, etc don't really fit into the discussion. I never said there was never a golden time when America never had murderers and such. I'm talking about the current age of school massacres and such. And I was talking when people were far more polite to their neighbors (segregation and such aside).

I'm sure Canada does not have the same amount of gun murders. Canada is also a far more racially homogenous society too. Sorry that sounds bad, but it does help. Canada does not have the same terrible history of slavery that the USA does either.

Look, I'm not really a gun advocate. If I failed to make that clear in the beginning, I apologize. But if we're comparing the USA to other countries, the stats I quoted above seem to show that a considerably limited percentage of gun ownership would not decrease the number of gun murders. On the contrary, they seem to be worse than America's. It should also be pointed out that these statistics only represent legal gun ownership, and I imagine that a great number of the actual crimes are committed by guns bought on the black market.

davemerrill wrote:Didja know there are more gun stores than GROCERY STORES in the United States? It's a fact!

Yeah, this doesn't really say anything. Saying that there are more independent firearms dealers than grocery stores doesn't really prove a point. It's like saying that there are far more eBay sellers than there are grocery stores. Of course even Wal Mart can't even come close to that. I remember being drug to a gun show once by my dad and saw row after row of gun dealers. Boring. Like I said, my uncle has an AK-47. He isn't a macho type of guy. He's just fascinated with firearms. Well, I can't get him to be fascinated with comic books, so I just respectfully leave that issue alone. Typical gun advocates are not the murderous types though, is what I'm saying. I think that's an unfair stereotype that is unfairly portrayed by media and media bias.