Elementary school shooting gun control pissing contest

[Razgovory]

What do you want to bet the mom was a Gold Bug?

Yeah, pile it on!

Hey, at least the real monster of our time, Susan Rice was stopped.

[Neil]

And then there is this gem:
"And so I sometimes when people say, 'Why did God let it happen?' you know, God wasn't armed. He didn't go to the school."

Right.
If only someone had enrolled God in the elementary school and given Him a conceal carry license.  With a crack shot like that on the job, no worries.

I interpreted that as 'This isn't the fault of my god, it's the fault of the shooter'.  I mean, I know the Huckster is a Republican, and you do like to see everything they do in the worst possible light (and sometimes that's even justified), but that seems to me to be a pretty ho-hum statement of 'the bad guys are responsible for the bad things they do'.

[The Minsky Moment]

What a stupid way to make that point.

[dps]

I have a small safe on the nightstand with a four button combo lock on it. I can get the gun out in about two seconds, but nobody else can get it at all. It's not hard to be reasonably responsible about it and make them inaccessible to the kiddies.

I am familiar with that type of safe

I'm thinking about getting a gun, and if I do, I was planning on getting exactly that type of safe for it.

[garbon]

And then there is this gem:
"And so I sometimes when people say, 'Why did God let it happen?' you know, God wasn't armed. He didn't go to the school."

Right.
If only someone had enrolled God in the elementary school and given Him a conceal carry license.  With a crack shot like that on the job, no worries.

I interpreted that as 'This isn't the fault of my god, it's the fault of the shooter'.  I mean, I know the Huckster is a Republican, and you do like to see everything they do in the worst possible light (and sometimes that's even justified), but that seems to me to be a pretty ho-hum statement of 'the bad guys are responsible for the bad things they do'.

I think it is still fair though. I would say that this type of incident is exactly one that could shake one's belief in God. Deflecting it to being the fault of the shooter is kind of weak.

[Fate]

Why aren't the girls pulling their weight in the mass murder department anyway? I think the thing about boys being more likely to be outliers is correct. Also, damn. Maybe we're looking at the wrong things here.

Not all types of mental illness show an equal gender split. Autism spectrum disorders, antisocial personality disorder, etc. all have a strong male predominance. Depression, anxiety, and borderline/histrionic personality disorders have a female predominance.  Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia show an even split.

[Neil]

And then there is this gem:
"And so I sometimes when people say, 'Why did God let it happen?' you know, God wasn't armed. He didn't go to the school."

Right.
If only someone had enrolled God in the elementary school and given Him a conceal carry license.  With a crack shot like that on the job, no worries.

I interpreted that as 'This isn't the fault of my god, it's the fault of the shooter'.  I mean, I know the Huckster is a Republican, and you do like to see everything they do in the worst possible light (and sometimes that's even justified), but that seems to me to be a pretty ho-hum statement of 'the bad guys are responsible for the bad things they do'.

I think it is still fair though. I would say that this type of incident is exactly one that could shake one's belief in God. Deflecting it to being the fault of the shooter is kind of weak.

Not really.  Free will and all that shit.

If that sort of thing shakes a person's belief in their god, that's between them and their conscience.  I just don't see how that absolves the shooter of responsibility.

[Neil]

What a stupid way to make that point.

Do you really think that Huckabee is that big a threat to run for President?  It seems to me that he's something of a spent force, and the crazy Christian aspect of the party is going to go for people who are far less sane than the Huckster.

[garbon]

Not really.  Free will and all that shit.

If that sort of thing shakes a person's belief in their god, that's between them and their conscience.  I just don't see how that absolves the shooter of responsibility.

Sure but then you get to the "evilness" of god and why is god something I should believe in or even respect if it is going to allow such evil things to occur.

I don't think it absolves the shooter of responsibility either.

[Neil]

Not really.  Free will and all that shit.

If that sort of thing shakes a person's belief in their god, that's between them and their conscience.  I just don't see how that absolves the shooter of responsibility.

Sure but then you get to the "evilness" of god and why is god something I should believe in or even respect if it is going to allow such evil things to occur.

I don't think it absolves the shooter of responsibility either.

You can certainly blame it on the 'evilness' of god if you like, but I think the orthodox Christian view is that evil acts are caused by the gift of free will coupled with the fall.

[derspiess]

What do you want to bet the mom was a Gold Bug?

Yeah, pile it on!

Hey, at least the real monster of our time, Susan Rice was stopped.

[garbon]

Not really.  Free will and all that shit.

If that sort of thing shakes a person's belief in their god, that's between them and their conscience.  I just don't see how that absolves the shooter of responsibility.

Sure but then you get to the "evilness" of god and why is god something I should believe in or even respect if it is going to allow such evil things to occur.

I don't think it absolves the shooter of responsibility either.

You can certainly blame it on the 'evilness' of god if you like, but I think the orthodox Christian view is that evil acts are caused by the gift of free will coupled with the fall.

Well obviously I'm inserting my own thoughts - but I remember as a child thinking this god business sounds like crap. He and his son love us but then allow all these terrible things to happen to innocent people - children who haven't even had a chance to make their own choices.  That's not any kind of love I want a part of.

[Neil]

Well obviously I'm inserting my own thoughts - but I remember as a child thinking this god business sounds like crap. He and his son love us but then allow all these terrible things to happen to innocent people - children who haven't even had a chance to make their own choices.  That's not any kind of love I want a part of.

And there's nothing wrong with that.  Still, I could definitely see how Christians could believe the way they could.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think Germany has a good law though, that under the age of 25 you have to get a psychiatric evaluation to get a gun. Incidentally, it seems a lot of the worst gun users are under the age of 25.

Our last 17 year-old school shooter just took his father's gun out of the nightstand and went on to kill 15 people.

That's the problem right there - if people are owning guns for personal safety reasons, they are generally going to be accessible to everyone who lives with them.

Until and unless they have biometric trigger locks.

It's easy to own a gun for home safety when it's just a trip to the sporting goods store. My point with a move towards owner-licensing models ala Sweden that I may have made either in this thread or the other ones about all this, is it will make it harder for people who don't really care to properly own a gun own a gun. It probably would not have stopped this, as the mother of Adam Lanza appears to have been a "prepper" so was going to have guns even if there was red tape. But it would mean many fewer new gun owners, and over time and generations that would "break" the gun culture, I think.

I do not like gun culture. I think only the worthy should own guns.

[Scipio]

What a stupid way to make that point.

The problem of evil is a stupid debate.  If you're at all educated, you're wholly familiar with all the various approaches to it, and you either believe in God or you don't.  Explicating the problem of evil to a bunch of Baptists/Evangelicals/other subrational Christians is like trying to scoop urine out of a public pool with a slotted spoon.  These are people who despite their belief in the unerrant Bible reject the Apocrypha without understanding why, and think that when people die they become angels.  Their understanding of Christian dogma is so poor it's a wonder they know murder is wrong, because they sure don't know why it's wrong, anymore than they know why gossiping is wrong, or stealing is wrong.