[Parallax]

.................

(c) Remain proud of the "democratic" system that allows anybody and everybody to buy weapons of mass destruction.

So if a semi-auto firearm with a 30 round magazine is a "weapon of mass destruction", then Bush was right! There were WMDs in Iraq. I knew you were secretly on his side all along!

[stevewig]

So if a semi-auto firearm with a 30 round magazine is a "weapon of mass destruction", then Bush was right! There were WMDs in Iraq. I knew you were secretly on his side all along!

Many thanks, Parallax, for a little well placed humor on this topic!

[Parallax]

You're welcome.

[ihasa]

The way our society and laws work, we incarcerate people when their actions threaten or harm others. If a person has never done harm there aren't grounds to arrest someone because he has off the wall views. Start rounding up people who don't fit into the mold and we will become like the Soviets were under Stalin.

When people are talking about 'taking action' I think - hope! - that they mean intervening in a supportive way, possibly even clinically if things have got that bad, rather than 'rounding people up'. There could well be a lot of people who knew Jared Loughner who have that nagging thought in the back of their mind that they could have helped him get back onto the 'right track' if they had taken the time to try and work out what was going on in his mind. Spent more time with him. Discussed his issues with community / church leaders. Took advice from a mental health specialist even. It must be hard to live with that 'perhaps... perhaps... perhaps...'

There's never any justification for locking people up unless they have been fairly tried and been found guilty of a crime.

[reeftool]

There are lots of people everywhere who are a little strange and have off the wall views. They don't take guns and go on a killing spree or assassinate politicians. The proposal to round up people like this after a horrible event like Tuscon is a knee jerk reaction that will not work. It has been done throughout history in many places and has always ended in tyranny. The very thought of some bureaucrat making decisions about what behavior or talk is potentially threatening to society ought to scare people a whole lot more

[stevewig]

There are lots of people everywhere who are a little strange and have off the wall views. They don't take guns and go on a killing spree or assassinate politicians. The proposal to round up people like this after a horrible event like Tuscon is a knee jerk reaction that will not work. It has been done throughout history in many places and has always ended in tyranny. The very thought of some bureaucrat making decisions about what behavior or talk is potentially threatening to society ought to scare people a whole lot more

There are two conversations taking place on this thread and neither of these conversations has any meeting point.

I started the thread by opening a discussion about those people in our society, specifically such persons as Jared Loughner, who end up becoming mass murderers. This is a fairly regular annual occurance and therefore should warrant some serious attention by people such as yourself and myself (or one of our loved ones) who one day may well end up on the receiving end of one of these character types in the near or distant future.

At the very least it is a society problem which should be addressed by expert and (in its absense) popular opinion - just like any other type of crime.

You seem to be totally avoiding this question by putting on your Human Rights hat and talking only about that sector of society, which although containing weird or unusual characters, is nonetheless safe and those are the characters who should be left alone to their quaint and quiet mannerisms.

So lets stop patting ourselves on the back regarding our democratic and humanistic ideals and start talking about the real point of this thread - what does society need to do to protect itself from mass murderers?

Maybe the answer is NOTHING (I certainly hope not) but if it isn't looked at and discussed NOTHING will certainly remain the final answer>

[Nesster]

The other thing that is going on here is that somehow people jump to 'locking up', when a rational approach entails preventative care - i.e. catching all our troubled people as early as possible so they can get the help they need when it still may do some good. Doing so is both humane and could arguably save society money in the long run as many of these people won't need long term institutionalizing and many will be productive members of society.

Doing this will take out some potential spree killers - it won't ever take care of all of them, nor prevent any such from happening. Every society has its own symptoms and characteristc eruptions - e.g. the spree of roof-jumpers and of middle aged men attacking schools, using hammers or similar, in China...

Same thing, getting rid of all guns won't stop a spree killing - or an assassination - from happening.

In these things we have to get away from absolutes and certanities - it is a matter of percentages and probablilities.

[shooz]

Back to the OP. (amazing how many threads have devolved to the "gun" question.)

As worded it's nonsense.

Try this take.

What is meaning if words have no government?

A much more pertinent question when marketers and politicians make up words and redefine meanings all the time.

[Wheatfield]

The other thing that is going on here is that somehow people jump to 'locking up', when a rational approach entails preventative care - i.e. catching all our troubled people as early as possible so they can get the help they need when it still may do some good. Doing so is both humane and could arguably save society money in the long run as many of these people won't need long term institutionalizing and many will be productive members of society.

Doing this will take out some potential spree killers - it won't ever take care of all of them, nor prevent any such from happening. Every society has its own symptoms and characteristc eruptions - e.g. the spree of roof-jumpers and of middle aged men attacking schools, using hammers or similar, in China...

Same thing, getting rid of all guns won't stop a spree killing - or an assassination - from happening.

In these things we have to get away from absolutes and certanities - it is a matter of percentages and probablilities.

Why was the guy in Tuscon allowed to buy a gun? By all accounts he was known to be unbalanced. By all accounts, the law knew him, this wasn't his first run in with society.
Sure, we can't stop mass murderers or criminals, but why should we help them be mass murderers or criminals?
Letting Jared Loughner buy a gun certainly abetted his acts of murder.
Perhaps if he hadn't had access to a Glock he would have had to revert to a baseball bat. Perhaps he would still have managed to kill one person with it, perhaps not, but it's unlikely he would have been able to kill six people with it.
You can't lock up the harmless loonies, but you can look at the ones who show a psychological propensity to hurt people and make it harder for them to do that.

[Parallax]

..........
Perhaps if he hadn't had access to a Glock he would have had to revert to a baseball bat. Perhaps he would still have managed to kill one person with it, .........

Or a bomb (since we're speculating here) and taken out the entire crowd.

[shooz]

Purchased from the Wal-Mart bomb department?

[Parallax]

No, made at home by anybody who can read.

[shooz]

So, you spend a lot of your free time figuring out how to make them?
I would have no idea.

[Parallax]

Ever hear of a stuff called gasoline?

I guess I should defer to your judgment and position, shooz. Further research reveals that never in the history of mankind as a human being taken the life of another without the use of a gun.
If we just got rid of them nobody would ever be murdered again.

[stevewig]

So, you spend a lot of your free time figuring out how to make them?
I would have no idea.

Let me google that for you