JoeCool wrote on Apr 27, 2018, 18:15:

jdreyer wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 14:38:

RaTzo90 wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 07:09:
Deeply sick of people blaming everything except for the shooter and the coward cops who hid outside while kids were being slaughtered.

Democrats and idiot Lefty Progressives dancing on the graves of children make me SICK.

1. The shooter was a right wing white supremacist.

2. The Republicans and NRA have been dancing on their graves. Parkland survivors call them out. Companies are disassociating from the NRA in droves.

3. Republicans cut spending on mental health treatment.

4. Republicans cut spending on school safety.

But you just keep on blaming the liberals, k?

1. Thats actually been debunked now.

Not debunked, just unproven. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nikolas-cruz-white-supremacist-group/

jdreyer wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 14:38:

RaTzo90 wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 07:09:
Deeply sick of people blaming everything except for the shooter and the coward cops who hid outside while kids were being slaughtered.

Democrats and idiot Lefty Progressives dancing on the graves of children make me SICK.

1. The shooter was a right wing white supremacist.

2. The Republicans and NRA have been dancing on their graves. Parkland survivors call them out. Companies are disassociating from the NRA in droves.

3. Republicans cut spending on mental health treatment.

4. Republicans cut spending on school safety.

But you just keep on blaming the liberals, k?

1. Thats actually been debunked now.

Wowbagger_TIP wrote on Mar 1, 2018, 00:55:

Scheherazade wrote on Feb 27, 2018, 02:47:
**Rambling snipped**

-scheherazade

Wake me when the GOP applies your logic to any of their many bogeymen, like Muslim terrorists, or scary immigrants that are even more unlikely to ever impact anyone.

Going full retard on some subjects doesn't nullify being rational on other subjects. That goes for all parties.

-scheherazade

RedEye9 wrote on Feb 28, 2018, 08:42:
As for the murder clubs enrollment,
if anything it's dropping.
But if you feel the need to smear your hands with blood and be complicit with a millionaire like wayne lapierre, so be it.

Yeah because speaking in extreme hyperbole is how you engage people who disagree. "Smearing your hands with blood"... I'm sorry but that was the stupidest thing I've read all week.

Scheherazade wrote on Feb 27, 2018, 02:47:
**Rambling snipped**

-scheherazade

Wake me when the GOP applies your logic to any of their many bogeymen, like Muslim terrorists, or scary immigrants that are even more unlikely to ever impact anyone.

As for the murder clubs enrollment,
if anything it's dropping.
But if you feel the need to smear your hands with blood and be complicit with a millionaire like wayne lapierre, so be it.

Scheherazade wrote on Feb 27, 2018, 01:51:

RedEye9 wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 15:51:

Timmeh wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 11:09:
I joined the NRA on Friday.

I refuse to lie down and just be taken over by the leftist army of anti American neo communists.

They are the true terrorists walking amongst us.

Bummer cupcake.
The Chubb Group is no longer underwriting the NRA's Murder Insurance and you're gonna miss out on all the other benefits that continue to get dropped.
If you hadn't notice, Everyone else is leaving the NRA in droves. If you're the last one out please turn off the lights.

NRA isn't even popular with gun owners. They consider it ineffective, having managed to get a repeal of essentially zero gun laws - at best struggling to maintain the status quo.

People are flocking to organizations like the USCCA and NSSF.

It's funny how gun owners consider the NRA to be underfunded, underpowered and useless ... and non gun owners think it's an all-powerful super lobby that gets anything it wants.

-scheherazade

The NRA spent $5M on the 2016 election. That's not chump change.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 15:09:

Scheherazade wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 10:35:

Prevention is blaming the innocent for what they might do in the future. It's a dangerous philosophy. Especially when it runs amok unchecked.

I prefer a world where people are left to their own devices, and are responsible for their own actions, and no one has to worry about answering for other people's actions ... or actions that other people imagine could happen but have not.

This comment is basically a rejection of all of modern societal progress. With this attitude, you're basically rejecting regulation of anything, ever.

The reality is this :
It's practically certain that a gun will never be used to harm you.
Of all the practically certain ways that you will not die, gun are towards the top of the list.

People tend to think in aggregate, not in probabilities. With a big enough population, you can make anything sound deadly. Eg. ~450 people die each year falling out of bed (a hair more than are killed by all form of rifle).

If natural death was eliminated, the average human lifespan today, in the U.S., would be just shy us 9'000 years. That includes all forms of unnatural death. If it were only by firearm, you would be looking at a way longer lifespan. (http://polstats.com/#!/life)

Personally, I'm not worried.

-scheherazade

1. It's not certain that a gun will not harm you. We have 30,000 gun deaths a year in the USA. That's 10 times greater than other Western nations in aggregate. And that doesn't count survivors. Nor does it count the chilling effect on behavior such a high number can have. Etc. Over a lifetime that chance of being killed by a gun is around 1/300.

2. There's no point in trying to reign in drunk driving then, which causes about the same number of deaths as guns, because by your logic "It's practically certain that a drunk driver will never harm you." This applies to all sorts of things: food labeling, drug restrictions, operator licenses, or anything that's dangerous where regulation and restriction can reduce that risk.

3. The question isn't "Will I ever be killed by a gun? Chances are no, so who cares?" That's psychopathic. The question should be "Is 30,000 deaths per year a reasonable price to pay for free and open access to firearms?" The NRA certainly thinks so. Do you?

I reject modern intent-based victim-ignorant judgment processes.

Right now, you are in trouble for intent. If you intend to do harm, and in the end don't do harm, you are still guilty. If you don't intend to do harm, and you do harm, you are innocent.

Furthermore, a group of strangers with no skin in the game gets to decide whether or not to forgive someone who never even harmed them. It's very easy to practice the virtue of forgiveness when you're forgiving harms done to other people.

IMO, crimes should be based on measurable direct effects on victims, and punishment should be about restitution for victims.
Every trespass should be quantified, and owed a balance.


If a person crashes a car into me, and does 10K in damage, they owe me 10k. Drunk or sober, accident or malice, it makes no difference to the bottom line. I don't care about them being "punished" - I just want my 10k that's owed to me.

If I'm damaged physically, and can't work, then I'm owed my lost wages. Even if it's in perpetuity.

And yes, it applies to me too. As a matter of dignity and fairness, if I harm someone else to the point that they can't work, I owe it to them to support them for the rest of their life. Whether or not I intended the harm. Because it's my fault.

"You break it, you buy it"

Yeah, it sucks to be responsible for damages you unintentionally inflict. But someone has to cope with the aftermath, and if that's anyone, it should be the person who did the damage.

...

And the converse is true too. If you do zero harm, you should be left in peace.






1/300 per lifetime. Ok, so in about 200 lifetimes I'll have a 50/50 chance of dying by guns. I'll take those odds.

Living in a nation where 1 person dies per decade by murder, but there are only 10 people, that shit would be terrifying to me.
Living in a nation were 1'000'000 people die per year by murder, but there are 1'000'000'000 people, I would feel pretty damn safe.
But most people only see 1 vs 1'000'000, and that's where their judgment comes from.

Saving lives is not a good reason to do things. Almost everything in existence causes death to some degree. Carpets. Swimming pools. Stairs. You name it.

Just how much do people _really_ care about preventable deaths?
Car deaths dwarf gun deaths, and no one is marching in protest.
You could require a helmet, cage, 6 point harness, and hans device, for every driver. You can run into a wall at 100 mph, and walk away.
Result : ~Zero car deaths.
There is no constitution to get in the way. You could legislate safety equipment tomorrow.
But that would mean being uncomfortable. People would rather just be comfortable. They don't' _really_ care about lives all that much if saving them has any inconvenience factor to themselves.





The real issue : Galvanizing voters.

You need a topic that pulls at heart strings, that is far enough removed from your audience that your audience can not rely on personal experience to color their judgment.

Even gun hating libs often have a pistol secretly squirreled away in the closet "just in case". They may not like it, but they live with it.

If you rant about the dangers of pistols, too many in the liberal audience will just say :
"Dangers? I've had mine in the closet for a decade and I'm still alive, it can't be _that_ dangerous. Besides, I have one, and I don't consider myself crazy. What's the big deal with having a pistol?"
And then the argument flops and the party gets pie in the face.
So you have to focus on the whiz-bang guns that only gun enthusiasts own. They are far easier to build a straw man around.


Same thing with Reps and immigration. They appeal to people in white bred neighborhoods about the dangers of immigrants, even though most of those people have never interacted with any, or their interactions are limited to seeing 'brown people' at 7-11. Anyone who has actually had life experience with immigrants would immediately see through the propaganda.




People scream to the rooftops about rifles, the 'rounding error' of guns used in violence (So few that the gun deaths stat is practically unaffected by removing the entirety of rifles).
It makes the entire argument sound hollow and insincere.

The difficulty in convincing someone with a rifle, that the rifle is 'bad', is the very fact that this person has had the opportunity to have a rifle.
Having a rifle means they got to go about their mundane uneventful life, while owning a rifle, and without that rifle being used for any harm.

When someone comes along and says : "This thing you have is bad, and will cause harm"
Naturally they turn around and say : "WTH are you on about? Nothing has happened, nothing is happening, and nothing will happen. Get lost crazy person."

First hand experience is really hard to defeat.

The ar15 is the most popular rifle in the U.S.. There is a multitude of owners that have first hand experience, hence a multitude of people that consider them mundane items, and don't blame the gun for the actions of other people.

-scheherazade

RedEye9 wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 15:51:

Timmeh wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 11:09:
I joined the NRA on Friday.

I refuse to lie down and just be taken over by the leftist army of anti American neo communists.

They are the true terrorists walking amongst us.

Bummer cupcake.
The Chubb Group is no longer underwriting the NRA's Murder Insurance and you're gonna miss out on all the other benefits that continue to get dropped.
If you hadn't notice, Everyone else is leaving the NRA in droves. If you're the last one out please turn off the lights.

NRA isn't even popular with gun owners. They consider it ineffective, having managed to get a repeal of essentially zero gun laws - at best struggling to maintain the status quo.

People are flocking to organizations like the USCCA and NSSF.

It's funny how gun owners consider the NRA to be underfunded, underpowered and useless ... and non gun owners think it's an all-powerful super lobby that gets anything it wants.

-scheherazade

*sigh

beautiful
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/17/nra-membership-muslim-florida-shooting/
“the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is … a good Muslim with a gun”

The best article I've seen called for every single American Muslim to join the NRA. There are about an equal number of them as NRA members.

What would happen if the NRA was ~50% Muslim? How would Congress act if it was at least half about fighting for the right to keep our Muslim population armed, in case the government ever came knocking for them?

Timmeh wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 11:09:
I joined the NRA on Friday.

I refuse to lie down and just be taken over by the leftist army of anti American neo communists.

They are the true terrorists walking amongst us.

Bummer cupcake.
The Chubb Group is no longer underwriting the NRA's Murder Insurance and you're gonna miss out on all the other benefits that continue to get dropped.
If you hadn't notice, Everyone else is leaving the NRA in droves. If you're the last one out please turn off the lights.

Also, since people in this thread are mentioning Epic a lot, I'm pretty certain Epic had nothing to do with this. It was a Facebook booth, with Facebook showing off Oculus using Bullet Train.

Prez wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 14:55:

1) The list of the deceased includes a large proportion of white people. It's pretty hard to claim race had anything to do with this.

Yeah, was trying to emphasize the "right wing" part more than the supremacist part.

4) The article you link to even states that the proposed school funding cuts came up 2 days before the shooting. As dubious as this sounds clearly the evidence you cite has no bearing on any of the school shootings up until this point. Admittedly going forward this could certainly make things worse however.

Wasn't going for cause and effect, just pushing back against "Dems and idiot lefties." There's one side that wants to use government to improve people's lives and safety, and the other side which wants to reduce it to the point where it can be "drowned in the bathtub."

Scheherazade wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 10:35:

Prevention is blaming the innocent for what they might do in the future. It's a dangerous philosophy. Especially when it runs amok unchecked.

I prefer a world where people are left to their own devices, and are responsible for their own actions, and no one has to worry about answering for other people's actions ... or actions that other people imagine could happen but have not.

This comment is basically a rejection of all of modern societal progress. With this attitude, you're basically rejecting regulation of anything, ever.

The reality is this :
It's practically certain that a gun will never be used to harm you.
Of all the practically certain ways that you will not die, gun are towards the top of the list.

People tend to think in aggregate, not in probabilities. With a big enough population, you can make anything sound deadly. Eg. ~450 people die each year falling out of bed (a hair more than are killed by all form of rifle).

If natural death was eliminated, the average human lifespan today, in the U.S., would be just shy us 9'000 years. That includes all forms of unnatural death. If it were only by firearm, you would be looking at a way longer lifespan. (http://polstats.com/#!/life)

Personally, I'm not worried.

-scheherazade

1. It's not certain that a gun will not harm you. We have 30,000 gun deaths a year in the USA. That's 10 times greater than other Western nations in aggregate. And that doesn't count survivors. Nor does it count the chilling effect on behavior such a high number can have. Etc. Over a lifetime that chance of being killed by a gun is around 1/300.

2. There's no point in trying to reign in drunk driving then, which causes about the same number of deaths as guns, because by your logic "It's practically certain that a drunk driver will never harm you." This applies to all sorts of things: food labeling, drug restrictions, operator licenses, or anything that's dangerous where regulation and restriction can reduce that risk.

3. The question isn't "Will I ever be killed by a gun? Chances are no, so who cares?" That's psychopathic. The question should be "Is 30,000 deaths per year a reasonable price to pay for free and open access to firearms?" The NRA certainly thinks so. Do you?

jdreyer wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 14:38:

RaTzo90 wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 07:09:
Deeply sick of people blaming everything except for the shooter and the coward cops who hid outside while kids were being slaughtered.

Democrats and idiot Lefty Progressives dancing on the graves of children make me SICK.

1. The shooter was a right wing white supremacist.

2. The Republicans and NRA have been dancing on their graves. Parkland survivors call them out. Companies are disassociating from the NRA in droves.

3. Republicans cut spending on mental health treatment.

4. Republicans cut spending on school safety.

But you just keep on blaming the liberals, k?

Wasn't the white supremacist thing completely discredited as the result of people trolling the media?

Edit - yup, it was. Though he did own a MAGA hat.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 14:38:

RaTzo90 wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 07:09:
Deeply sick of people blaming everything except for the shooter and the coward cops who hid outside while kids were being slaughtered.

Democrats and idiot Lefty Progressives dancing on the graves of children make me SICK.

1. The shooter was a right wing white supremacist.

2. The Republicans and NRA have been dancing on their graves. Parkland survivors call them out. Companies are disassociating from the NRA in droves.

3. Republicans cut spending on mental health treatment.

4. Republicans cut spending on school safety.

But you just keep on blaming the liberals, k?

1) The list of the deceased includes a large proportion of white people. It's pretty hard to claim race had anything to do with this.

2) I think we can agree that the NRA holds way too much political sway over many in our legislature.

3) Yeah this is the big one. As much as I admire him Ron Reagan began the process by defunding mental health initiatives and it has continued with every administration since that I can tell.

4) The article you link to even states that the proposed school funding cuts came up 2 days before the shooting. As dubious as this sounds clearly the evidence you cite has no bearing on any of the school shootings up until this point. Admittedly going forward this could certainly make things worse however.

RaTzo90 wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 07:09:
Deeply sick of people blaming everything except for the shooter and the coward cops who hid outside while kids were being slaughtered.

Democrats and idiot Lefty Progressives dancing on the graves of children make me SICK.

1. The shooter was a right wing white supremacist.

2. The Republicans and NRA have been dancing on their graves. Parkland survivors call them out. Companies are disassociating from the NRA in droves.

3. Republicans cut spending on mental health treatment.

4. Republicans cut spending on school safety.

But you just keep on blaming the liberals, k?

Prez wrote on Feb 26, 2018, 12:02:
I added the edit i made after you had already quoted me just to make sure you read it.

EDIT: I sometimes forget that sarcasm and satire are often easy to miss in chat forums. I don't feel personally attacked.

Yeah, that's on me.