Las Vegas mass shooting

I wouldn't say Friedman at the NYT is my favorite writer but he has a point.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/if-only-stephen-paddock-were-a-muslim/ar-AAsRwk3?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP

Quote:

"If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he had been a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another …

If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and “politicize” Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.

No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour “I told you so,” as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then we’d be “weighing all options” against the country of origin.

But what happens when the country of origin is us?"
 
knapplc said:
Here are the first-world nations which are basically America's peers.  The citizenry of these nations are not armed.  Which of these are being brutalized by their government?

 Belgium
Canada
Denmark
France
Germany
Greece
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
Click to expand...
Well...France eats snails, does that count?

 
schriznoeder said:
John Thune’s suggestion for minimizing the number of lives lost in mass shootings: Try to make the killers miss. SMH...
Click to expand...
Today we've quoted Inholf (my Senator), Delay, and now Thune (from my former birth state) and they all display lazy thinking.  Again if the NRA pays your bills, you have to speak non-sense to overcome the obvious to side with the unfathomable. 

 
dudeguyy said:
So the GOP advice on gun safety (get small) is about as effective as their advice on birth control (abstinence).

What a collection of intellectuals we're blessed with.
Click to expand...
This reminds me of the nuclear bomb drills we used to do when in grade school in the 70s cold war.  They would tell us to get under our desks.

WTF???  Like this flimsy little desk is going to save me from a nuclear bomb?  I had that part figured out in second grade.

 
BigRedBuster said:
This reminds me of the nuclear bomb drills we used to do when in grade school in the 70s cold war.  They would tell us to get under our desks.

WTF???  Like this flimsy little desk is going to save me from a nuclear bomb?  I had that part figured out in second grade.
Click to expand...
Ha!  That is so funny!

 
Good Read with which I agree with.  It's not as easy as just de-arm the citizens imo. And what do we become as a country if we just start taking away our freedoms and constitutional rights? We become every other country. Now, the arsenal of guns people are allowed to amass is ridiculous. But honestly, with 2-3 guns and enough full clips this lunatic could have caused quite a bit of damage, not as much as we are seeing, but still quite a bit. Yes, there needs to be some gun control and better tracking of people and gun buying habits and abilities of stocking large arsenals, but I don't believe de-arming is the answer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html

 
ColoradoHusk said:
The assistant principal and a social studies teacher at my son's school was at the concert on Sunday night.  The AP got hit with some shrapnel in his back, but his injuries aren't expected to be serious.  It hasn't been reported, but I have heard the AP held a woman in his arms as she died.  I couldn't fathom experiencing that.
Click to expand...
I saw an interview with a woman who had a similar experience. She said there was a man next to her dying who grabbed her hand and squeezed it for a short time. And then, slowly, the grip loosened until his fingers went limp.

I don't know how I would handle that.

 
Enhance said:
I saw an interview with a woman who had a similar experience. She said there was a man next to her dying who grabbed her hand and squeezed it for a short time. And then, slowly, the grip loosened until his fingers went limp.

I don't know how I would handle that.
Click to expand...
I saw that same interview.  Extremely sad to watch.

 
C N Red said:
And what do we become as a country if we just start taking away our freedoms and constitutional rights? We become every other country
Click to expand...


Every other first-world country has as many or more freedoms as America, yet they don't have remotely the same numbers of homicides. We will not diminish in greatness because we have fewer guns.  Americans do not need guns to be great.

 
knapplc said:
Here are the first-world nations which are basically America's peers.  The citizenry of these nations are not armed.  Which of these are being brutalized by their government?

 Belgium
Canada
Denmark
France
Germany
Greece
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
Click to expand...


Some of those countries actually have a relatively high number of guns per capita (especially Scandinavia), but still maintain manage to maintain a relatively low gun homicide rate. For example, Norway is 10th in the world in gun ownership at 31.6 per 100 people. But they're 64th in gun-related homicides at 0.10 per 100. The US on the other hand is 1st in the world in gun ownership at 112 per 100 people. Surprisingly, we're "only" 18th in gun-related homicides at 3.6 per 100,000 people. Countries like Honduras, Venezuela, South Africa, and Brazil rank above us.

 
"Relatively high number of guns per capita" is still not remotely close to America's guns per capita, we can agree, right?

Honduras, Venezuela, South Africa, and Brazil are not first-world countries and are therefore not great comparators (at least, not for the pro-gun crowd).

 
knapplc said:
"Relatively high number of guns per capita" is still not remotely close to America's guns per capita, we can agree, right?

Honduras, Venezuela, South Africa, and Brazil are not first-world countries and are therefore not great comparators (at least, not for the pro-gun crowd).
Click to expand...


I totally agree about the "guns per capita" comment - I was just a little shocked that countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Germany had as many guns as they did. But yet, for the most part, their citizens don't go around shooting each other.

And I realize that Honduras, Venezuela, South Africa, and Brazil are poor comparisons - I was just making the point that (surprisingly) the US wasn't first in gun homicides per capita, despite having the most guns per capita by a large margin. 

 
Back
Top