Everybody's throwing their two cents around on the Aurora, Co. killing. Have you noticed?
Here's a partial causation list:
NRA
Violent games (like the Christians and the lions never were at it not to mention WW 1 & 2 ?)
No more funding for care and feeding of the dyed red-haired lunatic fringe element of society.
Our compromised agri-businesses loaded with toxicity.
Big Pharma (have you noticed nearly everyone is medicated these days, h'm?)
Parental lack of discipline
Too much parental discipline
A.D.D.
Lack of porn.
Too much porn.
Liberalism
Conservatism.
And the winner is: blame the victims. Seriously. As in what were the audience doing sitting in a theatre watching a violent film. Can you believe the sick thinking process behind that? Something along the lines of: what was that girl doing walking down the street at midnight - she deserved to be raped.
That audience in Aurora, Colorado, deserved the violence for watching a violent film. Classic and appalling victim-blaming.
My one question is this:
Apart from killing people, what other uses does a powerful assault rifle like an AR-15 have and why would any run of the mill lunatic gain access to it?
Ah sure he got the gun in a penny lucky bag! Well, it is as ridiculous as all the other suggestions.
ReplyDeleteThese terrible things are happening all over the world. Of course, the US gun laws are absurdly bizarre. But the fact is, young men kill people. They may call themselves by some religious appellation or some political cause or just be crazy. It's a terrible part of humanity. And we have no idea of how to stop it.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that someone with a disturbed mind should not be able to lay his hands on assault weapons. Nor should any other person for that matter. What reason would anyone have to own one? Whatever happened to common sense?
ReplyDeleteAnd how is it even possible an assault weapon that can fire off 100 rounds in a few seconds can be bought legally in the US. No questions asked. Doesn't make sense to me. So so sad.
ReplyDeleteA gun has no practical use - other than to kill. To understand why America is so obsessed with weaponry requires comprehension of the US national psyche. It's probably the most insecure nation on earth. Two hundred years ago, most Americans were scratching a living from the dirt. Suddenly, they were a superpower in control of the world - or, so it seemed. They were well-off, good jobs, a bright future. In the nineties, gun control was more than a possibility. Clinton successfully banned the sale of automatic weapons. Bush jnr killed it. Fifteen years later, gun control dare not even be discussed in America. Nearly sixty percent of Americans today want gun laws relaxed, not tightened. Why? Because Americans are scared of the future. They don't trust their police forces to protect them - understandably - and they don't trust their government. They sense a return to the bad old days of the 1930's, when it was every man for himself. And a man on his own needs a weapon. Hopefully, one that's better than that owned by the bad guy coming to get him. It's why Americans want AK-47's. Not to slaughter deer. It's because, deep down, they're frightened to death of each other.
ReplyDeleteYes, of course the victims were asking for it. Fancy sitting in a cinema without bulletproof vests, full body armour and bodyguards. Were they mad?
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, it's easy to trot out all sorts of fancy explanations, but in the end it's the same old story, someone with a badly damaged brain that nobody spotted early enough.
GM:
ReplyDeleteExactly!
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Anne:
ReplyDeleteAnd I love how people blame violent games when the horrors of the slaughtering of innocents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, doesn't seem to penetrate their psyches at all.
Dissonance.
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Irene:
ReplyDeleteYes. How can we produce these weapons and sell them to ordinary citizens not to mention mentally disturbed ones?
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Carol:
ReplyDeleteThe world is getting crazier and crazier and the US president isn't even addressing the root problem.
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RJA:
ReplyDeleteYes, you've nailed it. They are all terrified of each other and of the bogeyman "the terrorist". The terrorists are home grown in Aurora Colorado et al.
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If a sane answer could be found for your question, we will have a very different world to live in than the one that we do. Particularly in the USA, it is so easy to procure any kind of weapon that it is indeed asking for big trouble. School children have used weapons to shoot other school children what more proof do we need that the gun lobbies need to be dismantled and some sanity brought into lives.
ReplyDeleteNick:
ReplyDeleteAnd assault weapons capable of killing hundreds in one round being for sale in the local Mallwart.
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Ramana:
ReplyDeleteAnd 10,000 "accidentally" killed every year. Oh pardon me, "collateral damage" or should I say "friendly fire".
Not so friendly when it is you, the victim or a loved one.
We are all batshyte crazy to get to this stage.
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Michael Moore says the violence is because Americans are good at killing and have had quite a lot of success with it.
ReplyDeleteOther nationalities have not been so fortunate with their killing sprees and have given it up. Perhaps our recent failures in Iraq and Afghanistan can disabuse us of the notion that killing is a good way to solve problems. But even after Vietnam we didn't learn. Are we slow learners, then?
Hattie:
ReplyDeleteStarting with the aboriginals (and I should mention the aboriginals were completely 'exterminated' in Newfoundland)and the power of the musket and rifle all the way through to unmanned drones.
No wonder religion is shoved down people's throats as a sop to everyone's distress at the waste of life on any battlefield including the homegrown.
If you've been killed in this life, there is always the next.
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My long comment just went south! shucks! Google is a pain in the....
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote in my own post on this I don't believe there's any one doorstep upon which blame can be laid. A combination of factors contributed, and the absence of even one of them might have spared people this most recent tragedy.
1. Lax gun control laws which nobody in power has the guts to tighten.
2. Culture of violence - whatever one can say about violence always being part of life, it has undoubtedly been more apt to land right in our laps recently via TV movies, games etc. and has become more and more nasty and detailed.
This cannot be denied.
3. General acceptance of government's murderous activities using drones overseas - as long as brown people are killed it's okay, it seems...leading to de-sensitisation of the general populace.
4. Unbalanced mind brought about by either drugs, mental disorder or....another possibility we've not heard much about -possibility of experimentation by a neuroscience doctoral student, possibly a dissillusioned one.
T:
ReplyDeleteThanks for trying again, my dear!
I do believe in karma coming home to roost and when the moral and ethical compass has evaporated anything goes when it comes to blood-lust.
It is sickening how no one wants to restrict access completely to these lethal machines.
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We just haven't evolved and I fear we will never evolve! I try to imagine one person killing another and my stomach turns over whether it is a bomb from a plane or a knife in a kitchen. We are worse than other animals who don't usually go out of their way to kill without reason. I do think the Americans would do well to have health insurance - surely some of these sick killers have, at one time or another, sought help only to find there is no help. It is sad and sickening and I thank what ever powers that be it is not as common in Canada.
ReplyDeletetake care,
Betty
Betty:
ReplyDeleteI so agree with you, we are primitive in our behaviours towards each other.
Part of the problem is too much population and too little resources such as adequate healthcare and food. And unbridled greed of course which puts a price tag on everything.
I don't know what the solution is. All I know is it doesn't involve lethal killing machines. Of any kind.
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