Are school shootings simply the result of capitalism?

[RerouteToRemain]

Maybe not.


It would have mattered if he had zero though.

You live in a place with 0 gun ownership?

 

[oldshadow]

Yes, we have state governments. But the federal government has higher authority than the states. If an armed insurrection against a state government happened, nobody should have any doubt that the federal government would bring force to bear. Give American citizens 10 full auto rifles a piece, won't make a damn bit of difference. 1000 people can fire their ak47s at a fighter jet or high altitude attack chopper all they want. They would be a crater all the same.

And yet it has happened not long ago.

 

[PEDS Help me Post]

Automatic loading, not automatic firing.

... and automatic loading makes it possible to kill people faster.

 

[RerouteToRemain]

... and automatic loading makes it possible to kill people faster.

Yes, auto loading is faster than bolt, lever or pump.

More the reloading aspect, you can shoot levers and pumps extremely fast as well.

 

[Mark Cutting]

Kids are coddled so much today that they have no coping skills when they need them the most. Thats whats going on in this country.

That coupled with all their social media addictions essentially rendering real human contact obsolete... Makes for a very unhinged type. We hope they have impulse control but as we've seen its not always the case.

 

[Trotsky]

I was actually making the case today with someone that in the instance of the gun lobby, it’s actually democracy at work. Is there another lobby that truly represents grassroots politcal desires more than the NRA? I mean I am no fan at all, but in this case supply is following demand rather than the other way around. Plenty of market economies exist without a gun culture.

Well, in sociological analyses, capitalism exceeds the bounds of the mere existence of a market economy. In terms of culture and attitudes toward governance, the US is distinctly more capitalist than the likes of Germany, UK, France, etc. in its perpetuation of social strata and obsession with austerity, both of which breed crime. For instance, Reaganomics, even at the height of the war on drugs/crime, was able to spawn violent crime increases after Reagan in his ultra-capitalist anti-wisdom slashed public benefits and programs for the needy, nearly doubling the homeless population in a mere decade.

Anyways, I agree that democracy plays a role as well, although I cannot say whether economic controls would temper the output. But I certainly disagree that the NRA is a truly representative grassroots lobby - it absolutely isn't. It's funded largely, and to extents virtually unknowable, by gun manufacturers and operates not as a democratic interest group but as a politician itself, attempting to scare voters into opposing policies that they actually support using horrifying dog whistle tactics and playing on prototypically capitalist anxieties (poor blacks coming on your land and demanding your money when they don't work for their living, etc.). While the NRA may sit at the intersection of the worst of capitalism and worst of democracy, I obviously think the former shares the most blame.

 

[PEDS Help me Post]

You live in a place with 0 gun ownership?

I wish.

We do, however, have far better gun laws.

 

[Mark Cutting]

Easy availablity of powerful guns,
+
high wealth disparity
+
weak/patchy social safety net
=
America

Define "easy."

 

[RerouteToRemain]

I wish.

We do, however, have far better gun laws.

What country?

 

[RerouteToRemain]

Define "easy."

Has money and access to Craigslist or backpage.

 

[PEDS Help me Post]

Yes, auto loading is faster than bolt, lever or pump.

More the reloading aspect, you can shoot levers and pumps extremely fast as well.

So the point remains.... why allow the public to have incredibly efficient killing machines?

 

[PEDS Help me Post]

What country?

Canada.

 

[Scheme]

They're the result of a political party who refuses any and all gun regulations, and the NRA. That is who it's on.

How has the gun regulation helped Chicago?

 

[RerouteToRemain]

So the point remains.... why allow the public to have incredibly efficient killing machines?

I believe in the 2nd amendment and what it stands for. I don't see the conversation going anywhere from this point as we have vastly different beliefs.

 

[Scheme]

I wish.

We do, however, have far better gun laws.

Maybe you just live in an area with better people?

 

[hillelslovak87]

And yet it has happened not long ago.

I will leave it to you to figure out the difference between the military capability of the USA in 1946 in comparison to 2018.

Also, your quote of Jefferson is shit. The actual quotation, translated, states:

"A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility who considers particular more than general conveniencies, who had rather command the sentiments of mankind than excite them, who dares say to reason, "Be thou a slave;" who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons."

A quibble, yes. But the actual quote serves Jefferson and Beccaria far better and precise.

 

[oldshadow]

You know locking the door and a cop in the school would help with this type of thing.

 

[hillelslovak87]

How has the gun regulation helped Chicago?

I'll do you the service of thinking you can sufficiently answer this question, alongside it's variables, and placement within the larger body of data, for yourself. Otherwise, I'll think you're cherry picking one piece of data in an overall trend that goes the opposite direction.

 

[PEDS Help me Post]

I believe in the 2nd amendment and what it stands for. I don't see the conversation going anywhere from this point as we have vastly different beliefs.

The 2nd Amendment was written in 1791.

Here, check out this mass shooting video with a weapon from that era. Very scary stuff!

 

[AtomicPanther]

You'd think after a while, bullying would slow down. Not that they deserved to die, but I wonder how many were actual targets of revenge.