School Shooting in Connecticut

[ambermonk]

I appreciate the info but not planning on returning.. site was fun while it lasted but i'm leaving it for the same reason I left facebook- In the end, it is all a distraction and I would rather be spending my time speaking with and seeing actual friends who share the same interests and have the same values as me. I apologize to anyone who I have offended along the way.

 

No offence taken. As far as the "same interests" thing goes though, that's kind of why I joined WATMM in the first place - to commune with folks who enjoy the same music as I do.

 

Anyway, farewell I guess

[goDel]

Hey did you finally succeed in scaring members away with a different opinion? Good for you and your likeminded totalitarian people.

 

Is watmm occupied territory now? Are we allowed to have guns in this place, or should we build our own, illegally? Can we still play duck hunt on our NES or is that off the table?

[gmanyo]

So am I the only one here who is not entirely against getting rid of, or at least changing, the second amendment? I keep hearing people say "we're not trying to take away your right to own a gun, we just want stricter control". But I actually kinda do want to take away the right to own a gun. Still a bit undecided about hunting and collectibles, though.

[joshuatxuk]

so this is circulating:

 

 

 

Well, usually if you aren't an officer you aren't allowed to carry a sidearm and most rifles were probably kept in an armory of some sort minus the people using them for exercises and security. If security wasn't close by and there weren't any officers who were able to return fire or were in close proximity it would have taken a minute to get any weapons aimed at this guy. So, it probably would have been much worse had he done this in an area with a decent population of unarmed people. Also, this guy is trained to use a weapon and probably got the drop on a few people...

 

Well the image is kinda right/kinda wrong.

 

"Surrounded by guns" - no, not in this case, which isn't a surprise for anyone who has been on a large military installation. I grew up on military bases and rarely saw any personal beyond MPs/security personal with any firearms on them, usually handguns and very rarely automatic weapons (usually just for "high alert" drills). I've seen more AR-15s and semi-automatic pistols at the Texas State Capitol where I've worked for 3 years than as a kid on USAF bases.

 

"People trained to use them" - well there's a legitimate point here, especially since the army servicemen and servicewomen either attempted to tackle (the first of him tried was killed in his attempt) and disarm him or managed to shield themselves and others and find escape routes. As AdieuErsatzEnnui pointed out, this guy was well-trained in firing guns, so it was virtually impossible for anyone to do so with hand to hand combat. Medical personal got a lot of victims out of the building before armed security arrived. So yeah, if highly trained soldiers can't easily disarm a committed shooter, then one can't even sincerely argue that an average "good citizen" with a firearm could do the same.

 

Actual details: the massacre occurred at an admin building where soldiers about to be deployed undergo medical screening. It was crowded with military personal and civilians, much like say, a DMV building. Two civillian police officers stationed at Ft. Hood (the base is huge, so much so they augment MPs with civilian police officers) are the first people who arrived armed. The first arrived and was shot, injured and actually had her handgun kicked out of her hand. The second to arrive shot and disarmed Hassan and placed him in handcuffs. In an interesting and frustrating side-note, the female officer was credited first initially in the media as the one who "took him down" whereas the actual officer who disarmed Hassan, a black male, was overlooked in the first days of reporting.

 

Another irony - the perpetrator at Fort Hood bought his weapons legally from a gunstore off-base and not from some arsenal of army issue personal arms. He visited multiple times to pick up cases of ammunition and in the initial buying asked for a pistol with the biggest magazine capacity possible.

[LimpyLoo]

So am I the only one here who is not entirely against getting rid of, or at least changing, the second amendment? I keep hearing people say "we're not trying to take away your right to own a gun, we just want stricter control". But I actually kinda do want to take away the right to own a gun. Still a bit undecided about hunting and collectibles, though.

 

It's not a matter of changing it, it's a matter of not interpreting it as "assault rifles should be available at Wal-Mart."

[Guest]

real edit: :incredibly pretentious laugh, hi-5s Judith Butler:

 

lol

[gmanyo]

So am I the only one here who is not entirely against getting rid of, or at least changing, the second amendment? I keep hearing people say "we're not trying to take away your right to own a gun, we just want stricter control". But I actually kinda do want to take away the right to own a gun. Still a bit undecided about hunting and collectibles, though.

 

It's not a matter of changing it, it's a matter of not interpreting it as "assault rifles should be available at Wal-Mart."

Or just getting rid of it. I mean, why not? Do we really need well regulated militias? And frankly, people in militias should be able to get assault rifles. What's the point of a militia without good firepower?

[joshuatxuk]

So am I the only one here who is not entirely against getting rid of, or at least changing, the second amendment? I keep hearing people say "we're not trying to take away your right to own a gun, we just want stricter control". But I actually kinda do want to take away the right to own a gun. Still a bit undecided about hunting and collectibles, though.

 

To clarify my past posts, over the years I've progressed from some libertarian ideal of preserving the 2nd amendment to concluding it's an utterly archaic and irrelevant amendment that needs to be altered to a modern legal statute. It's just not even remotely in line with reality. Just read it verbatim - it doesn't even imply an individual right to own a gun (which is something most states have added to their own constitutions)

[joshuatxuk]

Or just getting rid of it. I mean, why not? Do we really need well regulated militias? And frankly, people in militias should be able to get assault rifles. What's the point of a militia without good firepower?

 

What's the point of militias when they exist as the US National Guard, various US reserve forces, and an array of state defense forces? The National Guard alone had 467,587 personal in 2009 - and an arsenal more powerful than any other country. Just the US National Guard. I just find it so statistically staggering that we're so militarized in general and yet our populace so detached from any sense of being involved as a citizen in actual national defense. No other country that isn't a dictatorship or in a state of quasi-state of emergency (South Korea, Israel) comes even close to the degree of military deployments and defense spending.

[joshuatxuk]

Rick Perry: Teachers should have ‘access to weapons in their school’

 

 

[syd syside]

Too many people would freak out in America if you simply announced all guns are illegal and they need to turn them in. Long term is a good goal but it must be done gradually while also going after the root of violence in usa. End drug war, ban assault rifle crap, eliminate profit driven media, health care other stuff I mentioned in last post etc.. Outright banning guns would be much worse than the violence that happened after banning booze... plus if Obama did it, oh man

[LimpyLoo]

Too many people would freak out in America if you simply announced all guns are illegal and they need to turn them in. Long term is a good goal but it must be done gradually while also going after the root of violence in usa. End drug war, ban assault rifle crap, eliminate profit driven media, health care other stuff I mentioned in last post etc.. Outright banning guns would be much worse than the violence that happened after banning booze... plus if Obama did it, oh man

 

Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo

[joshuatxuk]

Outright banning guns would be much worse than the violence that happened after banning booze... plus if Obama did it, oh man

 

Man this is sadly a valid point. Gun sales shot up with his re-election. Seems the same is occurring now that 20 kids were murdered in a shooting spree. Fucking A', this is almost too fucking depressing to even type out.

[gmanyo]

Outright banning guns would be much worse than the violence that happened after banning booze... plus if Obama did it, oh man

 

Man this is sadly a valid point. Gun sales shot up with his re-election. Seems the same is occurring now that 20 kids were murdered in a shooting spree. Fucking A', this is almost too fucking depressing to even type out.

Yeah, this is an unfortunately valid point. Like, if we'd started off without guns it'd be fine but at this point it might be unfeasible.

[keltoi]

Randy, how can I trust you with a gun if you need to be banned just to keep yourself from visiting a web forum that you no longer want to visit?

 

is he gone? i hope he remembered to eat and go to the toilet while neglecting everything for watmm.

[Friendly Foil]

Man, 47 guns under my bed would make me feel so much safer. Just look at all them scandinavian countries! So much violence and crime because of the lack of guns. It' bullcrap! )

[Blir]

 

 

Hang on a fucking second! I thought he needed sunlight to survive!? If there's a nuclear strike then the sun gets blocked out by ash, technically he should be fucking dead. This comic book cover is logically flawed.

[Guest Iain C]

Superman can fly above the ash, clearly.

[Blir]

Oh enough with your fucking leftie flying over the earth rhetoric

[jhonny]

To an outsider who doesn't know much about US politics, getting Biden to lead the review seems pretty smart from Obama.

[DerWaschbar]

The thing is that violence is everywhere, as evidenced by this thread. As long as people can't exchange different ideas without being honest with themselves and how little they actually know and without having an open mind people will be getting killed. The problem imo is that everyone is so cheesed and self righteous all the time because they really have no idea what the fuck is going on so they adopt ideals to give themselves a sense of identity and worth. Really no one is an expert on much of anything and everyone just wants to be heard and feel that they have some idea of what is right so that they can move through life without constantly having to ask themselves 'holy fuck what is happening?'.

Violence is a way for people to express themselves and it is especially affirming because it is so simple and appears to be so final. It doesn't really matter if it is a guy capping (shooting) people all over the place or if it is people getting up in each others faces on the internet, it's the same thing. The difference is that death appears to be more of a big deal than it actually is because we think life is more of a big deal than it actually is.

[keltoi]

The difference is that death appears to be more of a big deal than it actually is because we think life is more of a big deal than it actually is.

 

eh?

[Blir]

I think he's saying as people we make a huge deal out of death because it marks the end of our individual existence, whereas in the grand scheme of things it means nothing.

 

Maybe.

[keltoi]

I think he's saying as people we make a huge deal out of death because it marks the end of our individual existence, whereas in the grand scheme of things it means nothing.

 

Maybe.

 

you mean in a nihilistical sense? lol tell it to the grieving parents.

[Friendly Foil]

So deep.