The Problem is Not Guns

Glas Ridire · Dec 17, 2012

Archaeopteryx said:
Some people want to pretend that the availability of particularly destructive means of killing has nothing to do with the deaths that follow.

For sure, but there is always some excuse to keep cars around right? That was your point right? Well, it was the point you made, intentions aside.

Received · Dec 17, 2012

Archaeopteryx said:
Some people want to pretend that the availability of particularly destructive means of killing has nothing to do with the deaths that follow.

I just sure don't understand why we're getting onto Iran for wanting a nuclear weapon. I mean, nuclear weapons don't kill people; people kill people. And if we try to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon, they're just going to kill the same amount of people anyways.

usexpat97 · Dec 17, 2012

Actually, I wholeheartedly support Iran getting nuclear weapons, and for exactly the same reason as why people support gun ownership.

Received · Dec 17, 2012

usexpat97 said:
Actually, I wholeheartedly support Iran getting nuclear weapons, and for exactly the same reason as why people support gun ownership.

Tell that to Israel.

Archaeopteryx · Dec 17, 2012

Glas Ridire said:
For sure, but there is always some excuse to keep cars around right? That was your point right? Well, it was the point you made, intentions aside.

It's interesting that you should mention cars, given all the regulations that come with them.

Macky92 · Dec 17, 2012

This makes sense. It's just as hard to subdue someone who's holding a knife as it is someone holding an automatic rifle. What about "turning the other cheek" ? Doesn't sound very Christian to have people in our society armed with military grade weapons capable of killing 20 small children.

JGG · Dec 17, 2012

Glas Ridire said:
For sure, but there is always some excuse to keep cars around right? That was your point right? Well, it was the point you made, intentions aside.

Well, I had to take a driving course for a year, pass three tests, and take an eye exam to get my license. I have to maintain a certain standard on my safety record to use my license, pay for insurance in order to drive my car, and I am required to maintain my car and safety status, and I have to renew my license every 5 years.

Furthermore, a car's primary purpose is not killing people but to trasnport people and things from point a to point b effectively and safely. The excuse for using them is that we would have a very difficult time getting by without them.

Fencepost · Dec 17, 2012

People say guns don't kill people. Well I disagree they sure do where did that bullet come from. I know it is just a machine but it sure does make killing convienent. Wait before you get your dual on. I do not think disarming law abiding citizens is the way to save us from the violence of a criminal mad man. First off most people who kill others to do not go and buy a gun at walmart. However if you want to stop gun violence the first thing you have to ask is how come the Gov't gives all the gun manfactures so much room to sell them.

Before guns it was a sword, before the sword it was a rock. Just ask Cain what he thinks then perhaps you will find that all guns do is make killing easier. I mean now we got Nuclear missile and a virus that can wipe out a whole city in minutes.

I say lock up all the white coats. How come they are not accountable let's just blame mental illness.

crimsonleaf · Dec 18, 2012

Lots of defence in favour of guns from both sides. Shame on the Christians here.

The thing is, America comes top of the Western industrialised democracies when it comes to gun-related deaths. The problem is either guns or people. There's a strong contingent here who thinks guns aren't the problem. I don't get that, but to go with the flow, that just leaves the people. I'm not sure which is the more worrying admission: our guns are a problem, or our people are a problem.

I know one thing for sure - if a country has a higher proportion per capita of people who are potentially homicidal lunatics don't make life easier for them by giving them guns... :idea:

Blackguard_ · Dec 18, 2012

I'm not sure which is the more worrying admission: our guns are a problem, or our people are a problem.

I know one thing for sure - if a country has a higher proportion per capita of people who are potentially homicidal lunatics don't make life easier for them by giving them guns...

Thing is, we're not the Collectivists you are. The people that are the problem are the criminals, not the general populace. There is a common "just snap" many of those believe in judging the populace as a whole by the actions of the few seem to have, but most gun murders are committed by people who couldn't legally have a gun in the first place, people with long criminal histories. Many were even on parole or some other conditional release at the time. People don't just wake up one day and decide to knock over a liquor store.

There is also the issue of the drug trade (very many murders are drug/gang related) and the glorification of the gang culture.

crimsonleaf · Dec 18, 2012

Glas Ridire said:
No true Scotsman

No true Scotsman doesn't apply here - please clarify. While you're at it look up Christian + Guns on Google and find me a site which isn't American.

Glas Ridire said:
For sure. Logic? Evidence? Lets look at your IRA. Guns hard to get, bombings. . . how have things gone historically in that conflict?

Answered elsewhere.

Glas Ridire said:
Did you have a source for this mishmash of misinformation and assumption? Yes guns are legal, bomb making materials are often legal, guns abd bomb materials are available. Bombs (especially car bombs) are portable (imagine a bomb that can be driven to the target!) as are guns. .. . . guns can be manufactured (a hobby of mine) as can bombs (not a hobby of mine). Can hit targets from significant distances (gun) can operate from significant distances (bomb). . . ..

If you can't tell the difference in usage between a bomb and a gun, I can't help you. As for the fact you can manufacture a gun, so what? You don't need to when you can buy one. Now go and buy a bomb, which might possibly make your point.

Glas Ridire said:
Woah stop right there, the absence of evidence is now a clear indicator supporting a hypothesis? When did scientific method change to make that valid?

But. . .. that opposes the point you were attempting in the rest of your post. Why are you arguing with yourself?

Yeah sure, cars are easy too. . . . and kill more people every year.

Yup, I think you lost yourself a bit there. Re-read and either try again or don't bother. My point is that legal availability makes the process simpler. Others have read the post and seem to understand it, so perhaps the problem isn't mine. You're the one using "scientific method" so go figure.

crimsonleaf · Dec 18, 2012

Blackguard_ said:
Thing is, we're not the Collectivists you are. The people that are the problem are the criminals, not the general populace.

Circular argument. It is members of the populace who become criminals by dint of their crimes.

Blackguard_ said:
There is a common "just snap" many of those believe in judging the populace as a whole by the actions of the few seem to have, but most gun murders are committed by people who couldn't legally have a gun in the first place, people with long criminal histories.

Or, people with no criminal history at all who have easy access to family owned weapons. Just like our current killer.

Blackguard_ said:
Many were even on parole or some other conditional release at the time. People don't just wake up one day and decide to knock over a liquor store.

Maybe they wake up one day and decide to do in their mother and a school full of kids though.

Blackguard_ said:
There is also the issue of the drug trade (very many murders are drug/gang related) and the glorification of the gang culture.

Agreed.

Gxg (G²) · Dec 18, 2012

AvilaSurfer said:
If a madman wants to kill innocent people, he will find a way. Killers don't need guns to kill people.
Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer.

9/11 terrorists used box cutters and planes.

Nazis used cyanide gas.

Taking guns from innocent people will not protect innocent people. The problem is NOT guns, it's the Godless in a society.

Terrible that the the price of the freedom to bear arms seems to be paid by the most innocent so often.[/quote]I'm thankful that there are others taking time to show why knowing history can help in keeping negative historical events from repeating themselves - as it's a trip how often people act as if teachers having guns to protect is a new issue and don't keep track of the the times teachers with guns saved the day/stopped others who had them.

Mad props to the example set by the assistant principal in Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi, who stopped a shooter from doing a mass shooting at a junior highschool by using his own gun...and for other places for some good review:

The principal did a great thing, IMHO, especially having the foresight to be prepared, just in case. Law breakers by their very defintion defy the law. So, no amount of gun laws, for or against possession, will "stop" law breakers from doing what they are commited to doing. Very interesting to see that this event happened 15 years ago, and has happened again.

But even with that in mind, no child is ever safe simply because guns aren't present. The same day kids were killed in the school shooting, there were knife attacks by a man on 22 children in China while 26 (including 18 children) dead in Connecticut - and people either still saying there's no such thing as evil in the world (as if it's relative) or ignoring the children harmed daily all around us that we'd never shed tears about because it's part of the system (i.e. child trafficking, working in sweatshops and slavery to produce American goods from coffee to chocolate to clothing to diamonds, etc.).

Children of the Fourth World
This World Child Slavery
The Secret Ingredient of Chocolate
The Dark Side Of Chocolate

I'm seriously hoping that there'll be serious discussion that takes place on the ways that things probably could've been avoided like the shooting if some of those teachers had guns themselves/were able to shoot back. ...and the ways that experiences are becoming more universal (Sadly) rather than limited to one group. For it's fact that there're kids that've have experienced most of the things that've happened for those kids today who lived to witness violence - as it concerns inner-city kids who grow up seeing a culture of violence breeding death of family/friends all the time and are used to it..and used to seeing no one grieved over that. Others like Geoffrey Canada have been a voice of remembrance for what no one can afford to forget in our days...as seen in his book entitled Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence. Fist Stick Knife Gun is also available as a graphic novel adaptation by Jamar Nicholas....and one can read chapter 20 from Fist Stick Knife Gun on Scribd.

Geoffrey Canada is profiled by NY Times

One of my friends noted the following when it came to seeing the reactions others seem to have with certain communities in comparision to others:

Whether it is the deaths of the kids in Newton, Connecticut or the death of the thousands of kids in Chicago; there has to be some action toward stopping the continuance of senseless death. I have read quote after quote, story after story, theological perspectives, thoughts on gun control but I am still just kind of numb.

It is not hard to decipher the motive behind some of the statements. Many folks have used this incident as an opportunity to agenda push. They want to get their point of view out in order to push their agenda more so than to bring solace to the masses. I wanted to be clear minded and focus when I spoke about the tragic incident in Connecticut. There is the one mind-set to push an outcry for the numerous of children killed in Chicago on a nightly bases that has topped 20-30 in a weekend. The same level of attention is not given to those kids as much as the kids in Newton, Connecticut. Newton was the place where this type of thing should not have happen-the idyllic place. It was the place where folks take their kids to remove them from such utter madness. It was supposedly a safe haven of a school zone. Chicago on the other hand is prime real estate for such a phenomenon. Kid should expect to be killed on those mean streets without much thought at least that is how the media portrays it. The coverage is not highlighted with lament but attacked with contempt for those in Chicago. (I guess by not doing it I have done it anyway)

Some were a little disheartened to hear that the president wants to take action to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. The truth is he cannot prevent this kind of thing, if someone wants to kill a group they will find a way to do. Whether that's with a knife or trying to run people over with you car the goal is still going to be accomplished. Taking away a gun from someone like me is not going to help prevent murder. We live in a fallen world, this kind of thing is inevitable.

Taking action is good - but in order to take action wisely, you have to address the root of the issue - and remember that no solution is truly "perfect" in an imperct world. For in a culture of violence and selfishness (which is where we live in - on top of a morally relativistic society), evil can be done easily and with a lot of justfication irregardless of laws made against it or appeals to others not to do so. And guns are but one way evil spirits express themselves - with guns used by others to take out evil men not being the way to end evil since you can kill the body but not the spirit. The same spirit driving that man to kill himself/others with guns can easily find something else to use as a weapon - be it cars/drunk driving (which kills more than guns, according to many), drugs, knives, clubs, bats, gangs or any other means for destruction

As another sister in CHrist noted to me:

Jesus is truly the need in every instance of evil. Events such as Connecticut and China are blatant reminders of this need. On the issue of what leadership can do, gun control can be enacted in many ways. In America, it seems we like to remove temptation, which is not necessarily the best course of action because then people do not know how to use a tool like a gun. I am quite a fan of how Switzerland handles their gun laws by requiring people to train for the militia for two years, giving them their weapons when their training is over and are ready to serve if necessary. This is also a form of gun control. You can google Switzerland's gun control to see what I am talking about.

Gxg (G²) · Dec 18, 2012

Received said:
The US is the most Christian nation in the world, yet has for industrialized nations the highest rate of death by guns. If it was true that a lack of God was the problem, you'd expect the US to be the least Christian nation in the world. Other societies with very low rates of religious belief compared to America, such as Britain, also have rates of firearm-related homicide that dwarf our numbers. Oh, and most of them (but not all) have pretty rigid gun controls.

Many have often said that the reasons these things happen is solely due to allowing prayer in school to be taken out and not having the Evangelical heritage that used to be dominant in schools no longer allowed - as Mike Huckabee and others have noted. But as another said wisely:

I get a bit frustrated with those who make comments like: "this is what happens when prayer is taken out of schools" That's a twisted view of prayer, anthropology, and theology. If this is your process of thought then explain to me why these things still happen IN places of worship. There's prayer there. This is a murderous act of demonic proportions. Men's hearts are evil. Jesus changes hearts. I'm heartbroken. As pastors, we MUST address this tomorrow.

On the side of my cousins, one of their aunts were killed in church by her spouse - who proceded to kill the pastor and others in the church as well. And we already had it recently where someone was killed in Creflo Dollar's church (a deacon). Moreover, there was one time where A Living Church of God meeting was gunned down by 44-year-old church member Terry Michael Ratzmann at a Sheraton hotel in Brookfield, WI. Ratzmann was thought to have had religious motivations, and killed himself after executing the pastor, the pastors 16-year-old son, and 7 others. Four were wounded. Additionally, Larry Gene Ashbrook opened fire on a Christian rock concert and teen prayer rally at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX. He killed 7 people and wounded 7 others, almost all teenagers. Ashbrook committed suicide. and there are acounts of others killed in church have also occurred ()...be it here or elsewhere around the world

For examples, one can go here or here:

My dad/cousin and I were just talking on this recently when it comes to others often saying "If only when we were in the good ol days when guns/shootings didn't occur because we had prayer in school!!" - for there can often be a false narrative that occurs because one type of evil isn't seen in a specific era and is taken to mean all evils were not there. At the same time prayer was in schools and 10 commandments were there, you had segregation in the classrooms and prejudice - alongside hatred in differing forms, even for people who could pray the Lord's prayer in the classroom and knew all the commandments. There were still others sleeping around and doing messed up things with organized crime/mob violence to others - and even if it may've been less in other areas, it was still worse in others.

And for others around the world at Christian schools that were not protected from violence and yet seeking to glorify the Lord, what of it? Was God not with the little girls who were bombed in the church MLK taught at in the 60s? Were children not protected by the Lord in Sunday school when it came to things like Rosewood and other examples of violence on communities? What about the children harmed in genocides around the world by dominant groups - even though they know of/Love Jesus? Moreover, for those who did not follow the Lord and yet they never had any history of school violence, what of them? Are we to say that they automatically are responsible for school violence because they do not have God in the classroom? I do wonder.
__________________

jgarden · Dec 19, 2012

AvilaSurfer said:
If you disarm the public, does anyone really think criminals and psychopaths will comply?

Do Americans really think that they have a monopoly on the criminals and psychopaths of this world - its just that these other nations don't make it easy for them to obtain to obtain handguns and assault rifles to act out their fanatasies!

Glas Ridire · Dec 19, 2012

jgarden said:
Do Americans really think that they have a monopoly on the crimminals and psychopaths of this world - its just that these other nations don't make it easy for them to obtain to obtain handguns and assault rifles to act out their fanatasies!

one legally owned assault weapon has been used in one murder, once since 1934. . . . that doesn't seem like we are making it easy or that they have been a problem. The murderer, incidentally, was a cop.

Yes I have seen a stabbing in London, I know there are muggers there too . . . I just think it woulda been nice if the nice guy that got gut stabbed could have defended himself instead of handing over his valuables and then getting gut stabbed.

AvilaSurfer · Dec 19, 2012

Did you know.....
A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
A ...2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon. 2500 times last year alone legal gun owners stopped violent crime when confronted with it long before any police assistance.

These are true occurrences not "data" manipulated or otherwise. Tighter Gun control won't take guns off the street. The only thing that is going to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Lindsay Waldron Myers

LittleLambofJesus · Dec 19, 2012

Glas Ridire said:
one legally owned assault weapon has been used in one murder, once since 1934. . . . that doesn't seem like we are making it easy or that they have been a problem. The murderer, incidentally, was a cop.

Yes I have seen a stabbing in London, I know there are muggers there too . . . I just think it woulda been nice if the nice guy that got gut stabbed could have defended himself instead of handing over his valuables and then getting gut stabbed.

Lucky for the mugger he wasn't in New York and come across this guy

That's A Knife - Crocodile Dundee (4/8) Movie CLIP (1986) HD - YouTube

Gxg (G²) · Dec 22, 2012

It all comes down, it seems, to a question of whether true protection from evil can even be avoided - and if so, whether that protection comes from using the same means as evil men to do violence...or if it comes from a spiritual/encompassing perspective..

wintermile · Dec 23, 2012

Easy G (G²);62000962 said:
Children of the Fourth World
This World Child Slavery
The Secret Ingredient of Chocolate
The Dark Side Of Chocolate

To add to the list of evils targeted at children is child inappropriate content/rape. Not reported enough is the alarmingly high member accounts for child inappropriate content establishments. Using the hidden wiki, one child inappropriate content site had over 70,000 members.

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