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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132279
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | 1
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The guns/ gun laws are only part of the problem. The other part is the mental illness these killers possess. Getting stabbed isn't much more appealing than getting shot.••• In the entire history of the world, no one has ever been stabbed from across the room.
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Steven Legge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 866
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | 2
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Technically incorrect, depending on the size of the room and the length of the spear!
However, there have been very few mass-spearings in US history.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15794
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | 3
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Horrible and cowardly.
Had the killer chosen to stab one of the reporters, the likelihood is that at least one of them would still be alive.
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James Reese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 July 2015
Location: United States
Posts: 434
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | 4
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The shooter has apparently just been pronounced dead.
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James Reese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 July 2015
Location: United States
Posts: 434
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | 5
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From CNN: Gunman said in fax to ABC News that he was a "human powder keg" and that Charleston church shooting was "tipping point."
You know what fixes problems? Killing people who had nothing to do with why you are angry.
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | 6
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Guns allow people to kill from a distance, both physically and
emotionally. They are also remarkably easy to use. The toddler who can
successfully operate a handgun ("success" is defined not by intention or
moral value but by the weapon's design) would find it hard to manipulate
a spear or even a butcher knife, and more to the point, a toddler couldn't
successfully operate the guns of colonial times. A musket is like a
handgun as a horse is like a car. The men who used the former two
could not have remotely conceived of the latter two.
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Hector Baez
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 686
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | 7
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Steven, don't forget depends on the length and balance of the knife in question...
edit: meant Steven not Stephen
Edited by Hector Baez on 26 August 2015 at 7:31pm
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | 8
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CHARLES: This country is tragic for not addressing mental illness
more effectively.
SER: This reminds me that while the NRA and other guns rights group
always make these shootings about "mental illness," they don't seem
to know how to best keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
Instead, they choose to suggest that people arm themselves when
going to Starbucks or to the movies... or apparently while reporting
the news.
As a society, however, we refuse to stop and insist that purchasing
weapons intended solely for killing human beings might itself be a
sign of mental illness. We don't even recommend laws that would
require a reasonable proof of threat -- "Sir, you live in a gated
community in a suburb where the crime rate is lower than Mayberry.
You don't need a gun. Stop watching FOX News" as opposed to
"You're a female bartender who ends her shift in a Brooklyn tavern at
4 a.m. and who has to walk 10 blocks to the subway in an area with a
significant crime rate."
I often point out that forty years ago, this scene from
TAXI
DRIVER where Travis Bickle buys a gun was all the audience
needed to know that he's a seriously disturbed and dangerous man.
It's right there in the way that De Niro delivers the line, "You got a 44
magnum?" It still sends chills down the spine. Now, modern-day
Bickles can *legally* walk into a gun shop, ask "how much for
everything?" and leave with an arsenal. And months, weeks, maybe
even days later, when people are dead, everyone wonders "how did
this happen?"
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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7482
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | 9
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I hear so much of this...
it's too hard to control guns!
if we criminalize guns, only criminals will have guns.
it won't solve the problem--killers always find a way.
It's so much "we can't do anything!" bullshit. We can't try to make things better so let's just give up.
That's the American Spirit of 2015. Don't try it if it's too hard.
To hell with that.
We pride ourselves on being a country capable of doing things. Arguably that was last true in the days of the Apollo missions, but still. As JB said, if Sandy Hook didn't move the damned needle, seeing two people DIE ON LIVE TV sure as hell won't do it.
I'm so disgusted with the US today. We know we can do better, we know we can fix this--and yet we're bullied by a bunch of gun-toting jerks who insist that their rights trump everything else.
How long are we going to be bullied like this? How long do we have to tolerate the threat of gun violence hanging over our heads like the fucking Sword of Damocles?
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | 10
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The profusion of guns has helped create a strange, semi-civilized society. At any moment, without warning, you can find yourself in a kill or be killed situation (but usually just killed). A lawless environment created by the fanatical adherence ... of a constitutional law.
Edited by Joe Zhang on 26 August 2015 at 7:18pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132279
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | 11
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I get in trouble every time I say it, but from my policeman grandfather I learned one thing: if "the bad guys will still get guns" then that makes life a whole lot easier for the cops. Gun = bad guy. (My grandfather was a policeman in England, where the bobbies don't -- or didn't -- carry guns. So his attitudes toward civilians with guns was very clear cut. Zero tolerance, as we would say today.)
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Geoffrey Langford
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 December 2013
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 235
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| Posted: 26 August 2015 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | 12
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make bullets illegal
let them keep their guns
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Topic Closed)
