Every day, 20 US Children Hospitalized w/Gun Injury (6% Die)

[iNow]

"We don't yet know why this individual did what he did, and it's fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds," Obama said. "But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses who want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months."

 

He added, "Somehow, this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this."

Watch:

 

 

 

"We, collectively, are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction."

Edited October 2, 2015 by iNow

[MigL]

So I brought this up previously in this same thread, and now B. Obama seems to agree with me.

What is it about Americans among the other advanced countries on Earth, that compels them to commit "these kinds of mass shootings every few months" ?

[overtone]

 

 

What is it about Americans among the other advanced countries on Earth, that compels them to commit "these kinds of mass shootings every few months" ?

It's partly a numbers effect - there are a lot of Americans, and the per capita shooting rate is not as far removed from the other comparable countries. It's still high, but not as freakish - other people and places have this problem.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(Europe)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(school_massacres)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers#School_massacres Notice here the table, the count by geographical area - America has 108, Europe 95. SE Asia&Oceania 124.

 

There is wealth, in particular enough to make firearms and - this matters - ammunition fairly cheap and available in quantity. . So in Malaysia guys that flip out and go on murderous rampages - often enough that the language has a specific term for it: "amok" - traditionally used machetes and the like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok

 

So before looking for specific American causes, one should get an idea of how many of these killings are unique to America.

[MigL]

Actually the city of Montreal here in Canada, has had 3 separate mass shootings at three different schools in the past 25 yrs,

I don't know if that's a record for any one city

 

You Americans don't wanna be compared to French-Canadians, do you ?

( nobody does )

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

Actually the city of Montreal here in Canada, has had 3 separate mass shootings at three different schools in the past 25 yrs,

I don't know if that's a record for any one city

 

You Americans don't wanna be compared to French-Canadians, do you ?

( nobody does )

 

 

I am French Canadian and you are a blatant racist.

 

For shame.

[MigL]

I'm Canadian also and you have no sense of humor.

 

For shame.

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

Racist jokes are told by racists. Only other racists laugh at them.

[John Cuthber]

Last time I checked, French Canadians were not a race (for whatever meaning "race" has).

So, perhaps we could get back to the topic of people who like guns pretending that their hobby has nothing to do with the deaths of yet another bunch of kids.

[waitforufo]

 

"We don't yet know why this individual did what he did, and it's fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds," Obama said. "But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses who want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months."

He added, "Somehow, this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this."
Watch:

"We, collectively, are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction."

Hey, you're back. Still waiting for your answer to my question below.

 

Before we can start such a journey we have to decide where our current starting place is. Unless someone posts before I complete, this will be post 659, and this discussion has still not reached a consensus on where we are starting from. We are still quibbling about the meaning of words used in our founding documents, the constitution, and the second amendment of the bill of rights. Furthermore, some like you, continue to suggest that 5 to 4 Supreme court rulings should have little bearing on the debate. Until this is resolved little progress can be made to your goal for more regulation to reduce child deaths by firearms.

 

Perhaps you should publicly state were you think we stand with regard to our guaranteed constitutional rights based on our founding documents, the second amendment, impacting supreme court rulings, and the debate we have had to this point. Perhaps that would move things along.

 

While you are formulating your reply to the above, perhaps you can also answer this. Why is it that liberals always suggest the mental illness is the cause of mass shootings. Why can't it just be deliberate conscious decisions instead of a "sickness of the mind." It seems to me that Chris Mercer was just a loser who wanted to be famous during his final act. Someone unwilling to improve his own life, so he decides to take it out on those striving to improve theirs. Maybe we should be focused on why our culture produces such losers with such frequency instead of working to deny good, honest, hard working people their rights. Perhaps we should focus on his motive. His goal was to kill Christians. Dylann Roof was killing Christians too. What do Christians have that drive losers like Chris Mercer and Dylann Roof to murder them?

 

Finally, this topic is about Children being shot. I have yet to here that any of the victims in Oregon were children. How is Oregon shooting pertinent to this topic?

Edited October 2, 2015 by waitforufo

[John Cuthber]

 

Why can't it just be deliberate conscious decisions instead of a "sickness of the mind." It seems to me that Chris Mercer was just a loser who wanted to be famous during his final act. Someone unwilling to improve his own life, so he decides to take it out on those striving to improve theirs.

 

 

Finally, this topic is about Children being shot. I have yet to here that any of the victims in Oregon were children.

 

And you don't see that as insane?

Weird!

 

The shooting was at a college so it's likely that many of the victims will have been college kids.

Are you somehow going to say that it matters?

[iNow]

Still waiting for your answer to my question below. <snip> While you are formulating your reply to the above...

Perhaps you missed those answers(even though you did acknowledge them previously). No worries. It's a long thread. Here they are again for simplicity:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=884732

 

I also agreed with the items posted by Arete here: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=884811

 

Some more from earlier in the thread:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=792604

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=878236

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=879325

 

perhaps you can also answer this. Why is it that liberals always suggest the mental illness is the cause of mass shootings.

Good point. I really wish those leftie liberal tree-huggers like Ann Coulter and the folks over at Fox News and the NRA and Republican presidential candidate / Louisana governor Bobby Jindal would PLEASE stop doing that.

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2013-12-18.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/21/the-nra-wants-an-active-mental-illness-database-thirty-eight-states-have-that-now/

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/19/foxs-solution-to-gun-violence-lock-up-more-peop/195980

http://www.forwardprogressives.com/bobby-jindal-blasts-president-obama-blames-gun-violence-lack-religion/

http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2013/09/18/31983/fnc-foxandfriends-20130918-mentalhealth

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/27/foxs-ablow-dimisses-role-of-guns-in-columbia-ma/197773

 

 

Finally, this topic is about Children being shot. I have yet to here that any of the victims in Oregon were children. How is Oregon shooting pertinent to this topic?

Thanks for your concern about my thread. It's a good question, too. The answer is simple, though. We're talking more broadly about unnecessary gun violence and death, a conversation we initiated upon noting how large the impact of that violence is on innocent children. The subjects are directly related, but I do appreciate you making sure we remain focused.

[waitforufo]

Perhaps you missed those answers(even though you did acknowledge them previously). No worries. It's a long thread. Here they are again for simplicity:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=884732

 

I also agreed with the items posted by Arete here: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=884811

 

Some more from earlier in the thread:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=792604

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=878236

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=879325

 

That is not what I was asking and you know that. We have been at this for a long time now. There have been pages and pages about what the constitutional rights of US citizens are with respect to firearms. So humor me. Give me a straight forward answer. Here is my question again.

 

Perhaps you should publicly state were you think we stand with regard to our guaranteed constitutional rights based on our founding documents, the second amendment, impacting supreme court rulings, and the debate we have had to this point. Perhaps that would move things along.

 

You want more gun control. Your hero in the white house, the cowardly professor, does too. You will be limited by the guaranteed rights of the people. So please answer my question. Include what you have learned from the debate so far.

[iNow]

Perhaps you should publicly state were you think we stand with regard to our guaranteed constitutional rights based on our founding documents, the second amendment, impacting supreme court rulings, and the debate we have had to this point

My stance, and the stance of SCOTUS itself until about 3 decades ago, is that regulations are allowed within the current constitutional framework.

[waitforufo]

My stance, and the stance of SCOTUS itself until about 3 decades ago, is that regulations are allowed within the current constitutional framework.

So should we simply ignore all SCOTUS decisions in the past three decades or just the ones you don't like? Thank you for admitting that you are on the losing side of the argument. Thank you for admitting that your goal is to diminish the rights of the people. Today it is gun rights. Do you think that will be enough to achieve utopia? What's next?

 

Perhaps you should consider these shootings as alarm bells declaring that there is something seriously wrong with our current societal direction. You have mentioned the increasing frequency of these shootings. Why were they less in the past when firearms in the US have always been prolific? Perhaps some are pushing the wrong cultural agenda and these shootings are the result. I know, it would be easier to simply remove the alarm bells then to admit we have taken a wrong turn.

Edited October 2, 2015 by waitforufo

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

[John Cuthber]

So should we simply ignore all SCOTUS decisions in the past three decades or just the ones you don't like? Thank you for admitting that you are on the losing side of the argument. Thank you for admitting that your goal is to diminish the rights of the people. Today it is gun rights. Do you think that will be enough to achieve utopia? What's next?

 

Perhaps you should consider these shootings as alarm bells declaring that there is something seriously wrong with our current societal direction. You have mentioned the increasing frequency of these shootings. Why were they less in the past when firearms in the US have always been prolific? Perhaps some are pushing the wrong cultural agenda and these shootings are the result. I know, it would be easier to simply remove the alarm bells then to admit we have taken a wrong turn.

Nice bit of rhetoric about "Thank you for admitting that your goal is to diminish the rights of the people. ", pity it is nonsense.

 

All law is always simultaneously a restriction of rights, and a guarantee of them.

The law which proscribes murder offers me the legal right not to be murdered.

The right to own guns has, according to the post above, resulted in the forfeiture of the right to something like 12,000 lives a year.

 

And all this because of an amendment to an old law, which by its existence shows that it's a subject that even wise men make mistakes about.

[MigL]

I don't see the point of your post, LIPearl.

Waitforufo was specifically talking about the increase in mass shootings, not the homicide rate ( which seems fairly constant from your post ).

Also what is the definition you are using for 'terorism'.

We have had several cases of 'home grown terrorism'.

And it could be argued that a large number of those homicides are terrorist acts.

The zero level of your graph ( for terrorist killings ) seems like an attempt to confuse the issue by manipulating statistics,

 

Or are you confused ?

( does that offend you thereby making me a racist ? )

[iNow]

I don't see the point of your post, LIPearl.

Waitforufo was specifically talking about the increase in mass shootings, not the homicide rate ( which seems fairly constant from your post ).

Also what is the definition you are using for 'terorism'.

We have had several cases of 'home grown terrorism'.

And it could be argued that a large number of those homicides are terrorist acts.

The zero level of your graph ( for terrorist killings ) seems like an attempt to confuse the issue by manipulating statistics,

 

Or are you confused ?

( does that offend you thereby making me a racist ? )

You might recognize the context of what he posted after watching the video of Obama I posted. He expressly discussed this comparison, so I technically introduced this as a discussion topic.

 

The idea? Compare number of US citizens killed by terrorists versus the number of people killed by domestic gun violence, then consider that in terms of what we spend to protect ourselves against each... how we've retooled our entire NSA, military, CIA, FBI and others... how many trillions of dollars we've spent... how we all have to take our shoes off now at the airport after one guy tried to hide a bomb in his shoe... how we mandate seatbelts in cars because of the obvious benefit... compare that against what we've done with gun laws in the face of these senseless tragedies.

 

Again, his comment was likely related to that. Check out the video. It's pretty good. The one I posted from Obama back on June 20 in post #83 when this happened then is quite good, too.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=872610

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

I don't see the point of your post, LIPearl.

Waitforufo was specifically talking about the increase in mass shootings, not the homicide rate ( which seems fairly constant from your post ).

Also what is the definition you are using for 'terorism'.

We have had several cases of 'home grown terrorism'.

And it could be argued that a large number of those homicides are terrorist acts.

The zero level of your graph ( for terrorist killings ) seems like an attempt to confuse the issue by manipulating statistics,

 

Or are you confused ?

( does that offend you thereby making me a racist ? )

 

In Obama' speech yesterday he challenged people compare these stats. I did that, without comment.

 

Didn't seem to stop you from putting words in my mouth and adding another heap of obfuscating nonsense, though.

[MigL]

EditMy apologies, iNow ( and LIPearl ).

I watched the video last nite at work, and had forgotten about it when I saw LIPearl's post this afternoon.

 

Edit: You posted before I did LIPearl.

Always pleasant as usual, I see.

You're a shoo-in to win Miss Congeniality.

( there goes the generalization that all Canadians are good-natured )

Edited October 2, 2015 by MigL

[waitforufo]

Just before Obama's challenge to compare death from gun violence to death by terrorism he praises countries with responsible gun laws. You can hear it just after time marker 5:40. "Friends of ours, allies of ours, Great Britain, Australia." How did those countries control guns? They confiscated them.

 

I encourage all Democratic party candidates to make gun control the central talking point of there political agenda. It should be at the top of the Democratic Party political platform. According to the President it should be a political winner.

[iNow]

Or we could learn from Switzerland, or Canada, and/or take just the parts that make the most sense from Great Britain and Australia and Japan and others.

 

We know where you stand on this. It's clear you're not an ally of those who want to reduce gun death and violence on both adults and children. That is fine. You are welcome to your opinion. Thank you for sharing it.

 

In the meantime, the rest of us are going to try finding ways to make things better than they are today and to do so in a way that offers appropriate deference and respect to our rights.

[dimreepr]

Just before Obama's challenge to compare death from gun violence to death by terrorism he praises countries with responsible gun laws. You can hear it just after time marker 5:40. "Friends of ours, allies of ours, Great Britain, Australia." How did those countries control guns? They confiscated them.

 

 

Guns are still freely available here, in old blighty, I have many friends with guns be it hand guns, rifles and shotguns, but we just prefer nutjobs and criminals to have a VERY limited access.

Edited October 3, 2015 by dimreepr

[overtone]

 

 

My stance, and the stance of SCOTUS itself until about 3 decades ago, is that regulations are allowed within the current constitutional framework.

So should we simply ignore all SCOTUS decisions in the past three decades or just the ones you don't like?

It is eventually going to be the stance of most reasonable people in the US that 2nd Amendment rights, like all other Constitutional rights, are subject to regulation in the interest of the common good.

In other words, if you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, maybe you can't carry a loaded semiautomatic handgun in there either. If you can't print pamphlets telling lies about your neighbor's sex life and leave them where they are likely to be found, maybe you can't leave firearms lying around either. If your right to freedom from warrantless search and seizure is overcome by visible likelihood of criminal activity, maybe visible carelessness in weapons handling has some similar effect on on your right to keep and bear arms. That kind of thing.

The Constitution is not going to protect you from the legislation of reasonable people - and the unreasonable on the other side are going to have their ear throughout.

If you don't cooperate with these reasonable people, you are going to find yourself subject to regulations written by others - including large fractions of the population who don't know much about guns and don't understand the issues important to you.

[John Cuthber]

Just a thought