In the aftermath of the Connecticut school shootings, the “solution” always goes back to the simplistic notion that banning guns will somehow prevent tragedies like this from happening…
This notion ignores the fact that someone who wants to commit violent acts will find a means of accessing a firearm. As was done in this case…
The mass murderer in this case, Mr. Lanza, was denied the ability to purchase a rifle from a Danbury, CT. gun shop- earlier that week, according to NBC News. So he simply went to “Plan B” and stole his mother’s guns.
But what if assault weapons were banned?
The more apoplectic readers will undoubtedly cry out, “What if they were?”
The Clinton assault weapons ban from the 90’s didn’t retroactively confiscate existing
weapons in private hands, so they were still around and available for the savvy consumer.
Look at Chicago. It has some of the toughest gun laws in the country and its gun violence rivals Baghdad!
What no one in the media wants to talk about, is that in places where there is concealed carry, violent crime has dropped.
As Bill Bennett, President Bush the First’s Education Secretary opined on “Meet the Press” last Sunday – and with which I wholeheartedly agree – the arming of certain school employees might prevent or minimize atrocities in the future.
In probably the one time I’ve ever agreed with David Axelrod, he suggested that violent movies and video games contribute to the culture of violence. As he so eloquently put it, ”Shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game?”
Numerous studies have shown that violent video games and movies when played or watched
by the young and impressionable teach and normalize aberrant behavior.
The military has run tests on recruits that were raised playing “Call of Duty” like games. and found that the transition to using real weapons with the accuracy they performed in the game greatly reduced the learning curve to using live fire.
Which may explain how murderers like James Holmes and Mr. Lanza were able to hand out such “impressive” kill ratios during their horrendous sprees.
Another factor that mass killers like Holmes, Lanza, and the Columbine killers had in common is being under the influence of SSRI’s like Paxil and Prozac. The “$27” word used to describe one of their side effects is Akathisia – where the drugs drive people- particularly the 25 and under crowd – towards suicide and violence towards others.
Why you would give someone who’s depressed something that makes them violent and suicidal is beyond me.
MUST BE THE MILLIONS DRUG COMPANIES MAKE PEDDLING SUCH POISONS
Go to ssristories.com and see for yourself the havoc these drugs wreak. Then go to lawyersandsettlements.com if you want to see how much the pharmaceutical companies pay out each year defending the lawsuits against the deleterious effects of their drugs.
America’s a vicious, warlike nation and there’s no “putting that genie” back in the bottle.
We’ve got more guns than people in this country and an assault weapons ban would probably work out about as well as the Drug War has. And as for video games- they make more money than Hollywood does now. So don’t think they are going anywhere.
And bad pharmaceuticals, anyone who watches the evening newscasts with their wall-to-wall drug ads knows drug companies probably don’t need to worry too much about being exposed by
“journalists.”
You know what? Most of these “problems” are Constitutionally protected anyhow. The same people who say that the 2nd Amendment protecting gun ownership is outdated and not what the Founding Fathers intended, think that hardcore pornography is under the realm of their intent in regards to 1st Amendment.
I personally think that if the Founders were to be resurrected, they would be shocked at the morally bankrupt, militaristic, police state we’ve become… with only one guiding principle- GREED.
We are a culture of violence that refuses to address the root cause of the issue, choosing to attack the tool used rather than to look any deeper. We don’t have patience for studying a situation, people want to arm-chair quarter back the issue and shout out low information solutions that are not solutions at all!
The last generations of kids have grown up on, and continue to be spell bound by:
1. Manhunt: Players advance by stalking and killing victims, all for the delight of a “director” who urges you to make the killings bloodier, more cunning, and ever more horrific.
2. Resident Evil 5: Using guns, swords, or a chainsaw, you shoot, hack, and slash oncoming enemies, producing copious amounts of blood. And the game’s racial undertones are hard to ignore, as the white hero (accompanied by a light-skinned African American) has to kill mostly black victims infected by the zombie-causing virus.
3. Dead Rising: Based on the 1978 Dawn of the Dead zombie splatter flick, this game combines gory imagery — like shotgun blasts, chainsaw dismemberment, and hand-to-hand combat — with images of nude women on various objects.
4. Resident Evil 4: Players must stab, shoot, and bomb their way through hundreds of realistic-looking humans and monsters. Cursing and sexual dialogue round out the mix.
5. Grand Theft Auto IV and San Andreas: Players can kill other humans, including police officers, or drive into pedestrians on sidewalks and in parks. Extra points given for killing hookers and cops.
6. God of War II: Players can do everything from ripping the eye out of a Cyclops to twisting the head off of Medusa to slicing off enemies’ arms with chains strapped to their wrists.
7. Mortal Kombat Deception: The goal of this game is kill or be killed, and make it as horrific as you can.
8. MadWorld: With the Wii remote and Nunchuk in your hands, you simulate the motions used to split someone open with a chainsaw, punch opponents with your fists, or pick up and use assorted objects scattered throughout the levels to dismember, bludgeon, and impale your foes.
9. Gears of War: You can use a chainsaw to rip apart enemies or machine guns to spray them down. Characters and world are photorealistic, making bloody battles seem even gorier.
10. Saints Row 2 The protagonist never shows hesitation or remorse, often deliberately choosing the most violent means possible of carrying out missions — declaring such methods “more fun” at least once — and taking pleasure in homicide.
Researchers at the University of Missouri randomly assigned 70 young adults to play either a violent video game (Call of Duty, Hitman, Killzone, or Grand Theft Auto) or a nonviolent video game (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, MVP Baseball 2004, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, or Sonic Plus Mega Collection) for 25 minutes. After playing, the researchers showed participants a series of violent photos (e.g. a man holding a gun in another man’s mouth). Participants were asked to think about their reactions to each image. Meanwhile, researchers were measuring the activity of the participants’ brains using EEG recordings. They were especially interested in a spike of activity that has previously been associated with arousal and “aversive motivation.” In other words, were participants’ brains encoding the threat and suffering, and feeling the instinct to do something about it?
Not surprisingly, participants who played violent video games in the lab showed significantly less brain reactivity to violent images. After all, they had just spent 25 minutes immersed in violent images, and success (not to mention enjoyment) in these games requires not freaking out when you see someone’s limbs ripped off, or brains blown out.
However, the researchers also observed something interesting: among participants who regularly played violent video games in real life, it didn’t matter which kind of game they played before viewing the violent images. They consistently showed little brain reactivity. The real-world game play had already desensitized the players. The only group that showed a strong emotional response to the violent images were people who did not regularly play violent video games, and had not played them in the study.
The study also gave participants an opportunity to punish an opposing player by blasting a painful sound into the opponent’s headphones. People who played violent video games (either in the study, or in the real world) inflicted more pain on their opponents. The less reactive their brains were to violent images, the more pain they inflicted.
Like it or not, its the same issue with porn. The level you start out with doesn’t get the job done long term; it takes an increasing level to achieve the same arousal, in porn or video games. Its classic desensitization.
So, do we want to take the easy way out and control GUNS, which can’t be done and wouldn’t solve the problem anyway, or do we tackle the real issue that doesn’t have the “easy” answer and isn’t nearly so sexy with the control crowd?
If video games effected people, then young adults who played pacman would be hanging out in dark rooms munching power pills and listening to repetitive electronic music…oh shit.
I propose that the new line for determining if you are an old fart is your position on violent video games.
You bring up a good point about big pharma’s role in suicides and violent behavior. Tamiflu brings a few suicide stories to mind, Chantix, scientists have no idea how these drugs they create interact with the human mind and they don’t care. Money drives that freight train of death.
As I said before, other countries have violent video games and pharmaceuticals. What they don’t have is a pervasive gun culture with the NRA. They also don’t have mass shootings on this scale.
@Ted – Yeah, other countries with tought restrictions on private gun ownership don’t have mass shootings; like Norway or Israel……Never let the facts get in the way of you circling this tragedy like like a demonic vulture.
Whatever gets you through the day I suppose…..
I never said those countries NEVER have mass shootings. But they have far, far, far less shootings.
Interesting take on violence in schools can be found here . One statement that stood out to me was this:
“…not a single kid has been killed by school fire in the last 50 years! But you try to prepare for violence — the thing much more likely to kill our kids in schools, the thing hundreds of times more likely to kill our kids in schools — and people think you’re paranoid. They think you’re crazy. …They’re in denial.”
Another significant point made in the article is that with just one police officer assigned to a school, the probability of a mass murder in that school drops to almost zero (the author doesn’t identify the source for this claim).
WHINEY BABY…WHY ALL THE DEBBIE DOWNER MOOD?
DID YOU LOSE BIG AT THE SYNAGOGUES ANNUAL HANUKA DREIDEL
GAME.? HAVE TO GIVE UP SOME SHECKLES TO THE RABBI WHEN THE
DREIDEL WENT COLD ON YOU? MAYBE YOU HAD TO GIVE UP YOUR
HANUKA MONEY TO PAY FOR THE CHOPPED LIVER AND MOGAN DAVID?
Hey winery…you’re among members of the tribe here at kcc…its going To
be okay. Still hurting from that devastating loss (not the election…but the
photo of your $3000 on the pic of you and mitte losing all its value). JOHN BOEHNER GOT YOUR
dander up now that there won’t be a fiscal cliff problem and the President gets
credit for an amazing deal. Hey..sun is shining…you made it thru another
hanuka and soon you’ll be breaking out the matzoh and harosis for
passover!!!!!!!!!!!
Well as a man off the legal books…i hope you’ll join me and the rest of
america in trying to curb the violence in america.
Got to go to a meeting..just wanted to check in and say hello and hope
that you have a great year.
Will be checking bakc with soon.
Shalom!
Don’t get me started on BIG PHARMA. Wait until African Americans get to see a real doctor under Obamacare. Get some REAL drugs. Gonna make the syphilis testing of the 40’s and 50’s look like spin the bottle.
Just the mere mention of an assault weapons ban has blown the market up. One of the biggest online firearms retailers, cheaperthandirt.com was SOLD OUT of every AR under $2500.00 last night.
Even if another ban comes, doubtful, you can still by 9mm semi auto handguns with 21 round clips. So two Glocks gives you 42 rounds, vs a 30 round magazine on the AR or AK platform. Add a nice tactical vest and you can carry up to 20 more clips. All very easy to conceal under a jacket.
If only Ms. Lanza had been a responsible gun owner and had her firearms stored in a safe, that only she had access to, this tragedy might have been avoided. Responsible gun ownership DEMANDS safe and secure storage of your firearms.
Bingo.
+1
It took the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 for the Aussies to wake up an enact stricter gun laws. Semi-automatic rifles and pump action/self-loading shotguns were banned from civilians and a genuine reason was required for all other firearms. Both a firearms license and a buyers permit are necessary to legally purchase a firearm. Furthermore, an acceptable reason must be stated on the permit for buying the weapon, and a minimum 28 day “cooling off” period must be enforced before the issuing of the license. (WikiPedia)
Australia was settled by cons from the Queen’s country. Since the bans in 1997 the incidence of mass murder has gone down dramatically. Before the ban, before the PAM, Australia had many other incidents of mass murder.
What type of behavior does one expect from convicts?
“…as everyone knows, Australia is entirely peopled with criminals”