Another Mass Shooting

[Gonzo]

A highly trained Jedi with a lightsaber could kill just as many people, if not more, as a Storm Trooper with a blaster. I think we are losing sight over whether or not the weapon holder is on the Light side of The Force.

[Adam]

Well, it is a more elegant weapon, for a more civilized mass murder.

So, seriously, Kashmir or whoever else is making the "but guns aren't the sole factor" argument, are you familiar with the concept of low hanging fruit? Tackling the parts of a difficult problem that are addressable with the least effort and impact? If I'm supporting an application that's performing poorly, I don't throw up my hands and declare that, since I don't have the budget to rewrite it from the ground up, I guess I can't do anything at all to improve it. I look for the specific problems that are either cheapest and easiest to fix or are causing the largest impact.

[Ymir's blood]

and as we learned from the parable of the fox and grapes, the low hanging fruit is the sweetest.

[ChuckF]

Just returning to a theme referenced earlier, I don't even

There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers.

Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel.

Yeah! Male aggression was a thing missing from this elementary school massacre.

God, women, why did you shoot all those kids with your equal pay and birth control? I bet you sluts feel super guilty now, because it is your fault, like most things.

[livius drusus]

They don't call it Bushmaster for nothing.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

Guns were adopted because though inferior were easy to learn and yet shooting a gun is something that takes alot of practice.

To become a top-notch archer (they didn't have compound bows with high-tech sights) took around 6-10 years. A gun takes a few weeks or months of training to become decent with it.

Is either easy? No. Is one much hard than the other? Yes. Please, everyone keep thinking I'm a know-nothing idiot talking out of my ass. Weapons history happens to be a subject I am well read on.

Originally Posted by beyelzu

Have you shot a gun before?

Post #164

Back in the Summer, most recently.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

On top of this - apart from shooting at targets, what else is a handgun FOR other than shooting people?

Some people hunt with large caliber handguns. They're a lot lighter and smaller, so easier to carry around in the wilderness, like when backpacking.

My dad has one for shooting poisonous snakes and killing pesky turtles in his pond.

How many reasons are required before handguns are valid?

[Clutch Munny]

Also, this one guy? He washes dishes with his handgun. So they're not basically for shooting people, not really.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

People in this thread, or anywhere for that matter, who have argued that guns are the sole factor in the occurrence of mass shootings, and that gun control would not only eliminate mass murders, but would remove all evil from the universe and prevent bad shit from happening: you have been gainsaid.

Everyone else can consider the question, "Kashmir, can you be something other than a fucking moron?" to be asked and answered.

Ah, lucky you. You have never seen someone claim this.

I get greeted with it in my facebook feed after every mass shooting from at least one friend, who is otherwise intelligent.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

Also, this one guy? He washes dishes with his handgun. So they're not basically for shooting people, not really.

Guess the logical fallacy here.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Kashmir

Ah, lucky you. You have never seen someone claim this.

I get greeted with it in my facebook feed after every mass shooting from at least one friend, who is otherwise intelligent.

Hey, cool! I guess the best way to reply to the droolingly stupid things (you think) your facebook friend is saying is by replying to totally different things that altogether different people on a whole other forum are writing.

I wonder how a know-nothing idiot talking out his ass would handle it?

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Kashmir

Guess the logical fallacy here.

Why guess? Why don't you explain, very precisely, what the fallacy is? First note the argumentative role of your post about hunting game and shooting turtles with handguns, in the larger dialectic. Then clearly outline the logical fallacy of my post! Easy, huh? There is some possibility you will find the exercise instructive.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

Why guess? Why don't you explain, very precisely, what the fallacy is? First note the argumentative role of your post about hunting game and shooting turtles with handguns, in the larger dialectic. Then clearly outline the logical fallacy of my post! Easy, huh? There is some possibility you will find the exercise instructive.

Appeal to ridicule.

You created an absurd use for a handgun, which "invalidated" reasonable uses for handguns that I supplied in response to what handguns can be used for besides target shooting, and shooting people.

[lisarea]

Oh, hey.

Why Won’t We Talk About Violence and Masculinity in America? : Ms. Magazine Blog

[Clutch Munny]

Ridicule, or "horse laugh", is not a logical fallacy. It is an evidential fallacy. And it is important to distinguish it from reductio ad absurdum and argument by analogy. The failure of an inference to follow is often demonstrated by the use of parallel reasoning that very clearly fails to follow. So, for instance, if someone offered the fact that their father indulges in turtle-shooting as a rationale sufficient to undermine the thought that handguns are (here, today; not in 1500 or in V for Vendetta) fundamentally for shooting persons, then the completely anecdotal, insignificant, and idiosyncratic nature of that attempted counterexample could be illuminated by giving a (only somewhat) more idiosyncratic example, couched in terms that highlighted its anecdotal character.

That you felt ridiculous doesn't make the refutation a fallacy of ridicule. It means only that your reasoning was ridiculous.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Oh, hey.

Why Won’t We Talk About Violence and Masculinity in America? : Ms. Magazine Blog

That is not what this thread is about, dumbass.*





* Not actually the claim that this is not what this thread is about. Not actually the assertion that lisarea is a dumbass. Actually ways of copping to and highlighting the absurdity of my focusing on the stupidity of stupid posts.

[Kashmir]

Hunting with handguns (my main example, which you conveniently ignored) is not anecdotal.

Many people use handguns for the same purposes as my father does, vis. shooting pests.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Oh, hey.

Why Won’t We Talk About Violence and Masculinity in America? : Ms. Magazine Blog

“Among the world’s 23 wealthiest countries, 80 percent of all gun deaths are American deaths and 87 percent of all kids killed by guns are American kids.” This is 42.7 times greater than the rate for all the other nations combined.

So, what is the 2nd Amendment crazies' explanation for this, do you think? All the freedom? Gangs? Socialism?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

So you are compairing 'gun deaths' in America with 'gun deaths' in other countries where guns are not avalable?

[LadyShea]

Our competitors are 3rd world countries.

The gun ownership and gun homicides murder map of the world | News | guardian.co.uk

[thedoc]

I would be curious to see a map of homicides by all means, other than firearms.

[Qingdai]

Well I'm pretty fucking sure, "Death by drones, driven by Americans in countries we're not technically at war with" would be pretty fucking high. Especially in the "wedding party" and "going to school" faction..

"Chickens coming home to roost" enjoy your mindless violence.

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by thedoc

So you are compairing 'gun deaths' in America with 'gun deaths' in other countries where guns are not avalable?

Why yes, yes he is, in a way - many of those countries ban guns. Actually the level of gun restriction varies, but all these countries have one thing in common: higher levels of gun restrictions. And guess what the "compairison" shows? By golly! Those guns are used to shoot people with. Whod'have thunk it.

If you are wondering if the US has a higher overall murder rate, then why yes, indeed it does. Most countries in western Europe, for instance, have a murder rate between 0.7 and 1.5 per 100.000 citizens. The US has 4.2 murders per 100.000. roughly 3-4 times as many.

[Gonzo]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

and as we learned from the parable of the fox and grapes, the low hanging fruit is the sweetest.

I saw a fox cross the road today.

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by Kashmir

Some people hunt with large caliber handguns. They're a lot lighter and smaller, so easier to carry around in the wilderness, like when backpacking.

My dad has one for shooting poisonous snakes and killing pesky turtles in his pond.

How many reasons are required before handguns are valid?

That is a non-typical use of a handgun. A rifle is far better suited for such a job. I can say that I use c-4 to fish with... but that does not mean that this is a good reason to allow the public to buy the stuff.