[Vision2020] The Petition
Sunil Ramalingam
sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
Thu Dec 20 06:55:41 PST 2012
Paul,
Just like Roger you are building your argument on a defective premise or on assumptions. You don't know how much planning 'they' put in. You say, 'If the
people that commit these atrocities didn't have guns readily
available, they would have stolen them or bought them on the black
market.'
How do you know? How do you know it would happen every time? Let's pretend one could not legally buy an AR15 variant (or any other high capacity semi-automatic). Would this kid's mother have gone out and bought one illegally? You don't know that. And in this world I just made, these guns are going to be a whole lot more expensive on the black market. How many of 'them' are going to be priced out of that market?
How do you know they're going to make car bombs? It's a lot easier to pick up the gun in the other room, or to take it our of the safe, than it is to build a car bomb.
Why should we accept your assumption, 'If these guys had really wanted to make their statements
or whatever they thought they were doing, they could have made
pipe bombs or a few molotov cocktails from common household
chemicals. They could have ran their victims over with a
vehicle. They could have terrorised them with a chainsaw, or set
the school on fire.'
Well, maybe some of those things might happen, but I think it's more unlikely than not.
I'm not advocating banning gun ownership, but I think we need to be thinking intelligently about how to control access to them by the folks who shouldn't have them. I don't think we can absolutely prevent all such access, but we can certainly improve on what we're doing now. And I think part of thinking about it intelligently is by not accepting bad premises for arguments.
Sunil
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:04:42 -0800
From: godshatter at yahoo.com
To: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] The Petition
These shootings don't just happen spur of the moment. They are
planned and prepared for for a long time beforehand. If the
people that commit these atrocities didn't have guns readily
available, they would have stolen them or bought them on the black
market. If these guys had really wanted to make their statements
or whatever they thought they were doing, they could have made
pipe bombs or a few molotov cocktails from common household
chemicals. They could have ran their victims over with a
vehicle. They could have terrorised them with a chainsaw, or set
the school on fire.
The sad fact is that the price we would have to pay to truly
protect ourselves from these kinds of incidents is just too damned
big. We would have to give up too many of our liberties for too
little gain. Meanwhile, orders of magnitudes more people will die
from cancer, heart attacks, traffic accidents, and other common
causes.
The same thing goes for protecting ourselves from terrorists.
It's too costly, both in money and in civil liberties, and all
we've done is made it worse.
I don't know what the answer is. I just have an ugly feeling that
whatever gestates from this current climate of fear and outrage
will be worse than the current situation. The Law of Unintended
Consequences is real and should be given due respect. We
shouldn't just jump at the nearest boogie man, whether it's
assault weapons or large magazines, without giving it the careful
thought it requires. I doubt we are in a position to have that
conversation on a national stage right now.
In both cases (school shootings and terrorist attacks) the root
causes are complex and are for the most part being ignored.
Another sad fact is that in this world of sound bites and instant
Internet memes no politician is going to look at the real causes.
They will look for the low-hanging fruit, and pretend it's more
than just putting a bandaid on a gaping wound.
Paul
On 12/18/2012 09:20 PM, Joe Campbell wrote:
Matt,
This sounds sensible. Again, I don't have a "plan" about what to
do. More interested in exploring solutions -- and this does just
that. I like the idea of stronger background checks.
Note too that if you think of the latest episodes of gun violence
-- the ones we've all heard about at least -- gun theft did not
play a role. Most of the shooters were young, as well. In general,
the school shooters were young and required their guns from family
members, or purchased them themselves. These are not folks who are
stealing guns.
Joe
On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 9:06 PM, Matt
Decker <mattd2107 at hotmail.com>
wrote:
Joe,
I believe some want to ban these guns but allow current
owners to be grandfathered in. This could allow these guns
to be on the streets for years to come. I agree with
stronger regulation into the future owners of guns. Maybe
a longer waiting period along with stronger background
checks. Classes or prior military would help as well.
Matt
From: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:06:10 -0800
To: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] The Petition
This makes no sense. Just to use an example, if you
banned assault rifles, no one could steal them. I'm
not saying that's what we should do. But we should
look at ALL possible solutions. Again, research
Australia and gun control. Best, Joe
On Dec 18, 2012, at 7:58 PM, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
wrote:
They steal the guns. So I don't think
the laws would change the situation, unless
you ban their production.
Donovan J. Arnold
From:
Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
To:
Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
Cc:
Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com>;
Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent:
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 7:49 PM
Subject:
Re: [Vision2020] The Petition
Some form of gun control has got to
be part of the solution. And I believe
all the guns used in recent shootings
were legally purchased. That's why some
form of gun control has got to be part
of the solution. Australia did it, so
can we
On Dec 18, 2012, at 7:11 PM, Donovan
Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
wrote:
Gun laws are not the
answer to this problem. Not
allowing for the public release
of the gunman's name would go
further then gun laws, as they
usually do it for fame.
Education of staff, students,
and community members, and
better protection of schools
would also help. This kid did
not get the guns legally, and no
reasonable restrictive gun law
would have prevented it. There
are a host of other things that
would have helped though.
Donovan
J. Arnold
From:
Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com>
To:
Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent:
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
6:54 PM
Subject:
[Vision2020] The Petition
<image.jpeg>
Seeya
round town, Moscow, because . .
.
"Moscow Cares"
http://www.MoscowCares.com
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
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http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
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