Once you shoot a public figure execution-style at a public event, it's pretty much game over. Also, sort of by implication, you are crazy and do not value human life....so shooting everyone you can before you are taken down really makes pretty good sense. I highly doubt it was a stable and rational guy.


Why wouldn't we be? Why are you so anti-gun?

Offense taken. Sorry I'm so stupid that I have a device which propels lead at high speeds. What an idiot I am.



"This doesn't happen except in several areas of my tiny country."

oh i love guns, from a purely mechanical/technological perspective, yet another wonder of technology.

However, lets assume we value human life*, a device which can potentially kill 6-30 people in a single sitting is a bad thing...isnt it? And an entire country where millions of people can own one of these devices, also bad... no?

*(whereas individuals like Palin and others, who like to show off their big guns and marksman skills, which we call "rednecks", generally dont value animal life....)

If you ever have kids, or do so already, i really hope you keep your nice little weapon securely locked away at all times. Accidents happen.

Anyway, where were we...

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1. Remains to be seen.

2.Something called The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

3.No, not as long as Texas exists. Thank God for Texas.

It's ignorant to assume that the removal of firearms would stop this. Chicago tried this, and we all know what happened as a result.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/28/chicago-gun-ban-axed-afte_n_627773.html

http://mail.gunowners.org/fs0404.htm

The weapons aren't the problem... it's the user with weapon in hand. I've never heard of a gun being charged with murder. If there weren't firearms, humans would still devise a way to kill one another, it would just be a matter of time. Hell, we kill one another anyway, even when a firearm isn't available.

I'm curious, how do you figure that "Palin and others" don't value animal life?

Didn't read too many post after this. You people are making my eyes bleed. I just wanted to point out that the media actually proclaimed Gore our next president first. When Rove pointed out that the models were wrong various outlets retracted and then reversed their call when it could be more accurately predicted that Bush won.

Anyway, Fox explained why they made the call they did and when I announced she was still alive it was after I saw it reported there.

The suspect named Jared Lee Loughner

The stuff they found on him...

Wierd...

Wow, I just assumed someone would have posted his name by now. Tibby derailed this so bad we're not even talking about the breaking news anymore.

I hereby declare the shooter a neo-nazi veteran w/ PTSD. He definitely wins my award for weirdest YouTube video of the week.

Tea Party Patriots post on Facebook regarding the matter:



It certainly is true that now we will undoubtedly face even tougher access to our elected officials.

This forum sucks. It's argumentative and judgmental. What a ****fest this thead is.

Yes, but one could argue to it's easier to outrun other means of killing someone than a speeding hunk of metal.

The ideal way to kill multiple people would be with a 18" blow gun with poison darts. At night you have enough range to kill quite a few people and then retire before they really start to catch on. A nice one will be essentially silent, and a properly designed dart will inject the poison and fall out. The dart is more likely to be attributed to a bug bite, at least for a while.

The weapon itself is simple enough to be easily fashioned from ordinary materials. The only difficulty would be in acquiring the poison, but even that would be a trivial obstacle for a dedicated individual.

Hmm, well maybe they should ban guns there, then.



Dammit, get back on track and stop talking about cars.

True... but how fast can you run? lol

The problem is that he comes from a country where the prevailing culture is to bow down to their government overlords and beg for entitlements. In America, we still have some people who don't realize that we need to allow government to control every aspect of our lives to protect us, and that's why some people insist that it shouldn't only be the government that has guns.

I mean, if only the government has the guns, they can never be used for evil, right?

Just a few points of information,

Guns are not banned in the UK, with a firearms certificate you are able to own certain shotguns, pistols (very few) and rifles. But you have to have a legitimate purpose in most cases to own such a weapon, farmers being prime examples.

The type of guns allowed do however have strict limits, I don't think any fully automatic weapons are allowed and only a few semi-automatic. The restrictions are based around what a person would feasibly need to carry out their work.

The UK firearms laws work, we have the 2nd lowest deaths caused by firearms in the world at the last count (per 100k homicides), the US sits at 9th highest in the world. Also out of countries that are not just small islands/single city states, we are about 5th in the world for urbanisation, above the US by a fair margin, so our population is more clustered in towns and cities where gun crime is more often found.

Now, I'm not saying the US should adopt similar gun laws to the UK, that’s for you to decide, but to suggest that our firearms laws don't work is complete rubbish. The UK and US share similar non-gun homicide rates (per 100k population), but the US likes to triple their overall homicide rate through gun related deaths, if you're happy to keep it that way because of some 200+ year old bill of rights, written for a totally different time, then you go for it, just don’t be so shocked when some nut job turns up at a public place and decides to mow down 10+ people because they had a few screws lose upstairs.

You do realise you are talking about the country that founded modern day democracy, banned the slave trade (through public pressure and non-violent protest) a good 50 years before your enlightened constitution decided to add it's 15th Amendment. You don't need to own a gun to achieve civil rights and freedoms, nor should you have to feel the need to have the right to fight your government, you elect them, you have the power to de-elect them...or do you not trust your constitution that gives you this right?

Sorry to rant, but the bait was there and I took it (also great distraction from thesis writting)

Nevermind. See above.

Governments only diminish freedom; over time, any government becomes totalitarian. The British government is further along in this process now than the American government. The only way to fix this problem is to dismantle the existing government and instate a new one. Which we did, and Britain has done. Those in power understand this cycle, so to hold their power, they control the tools we need to remove them from power. There are other reasons why the populace at large should be armed, reasons that a small country like the United Kingdom doesn't face, but the primary reason why we must be armed is so that our government does not have a monopoly on force. People should not fear their government; the government should fear it's people.

As for your stats, perhaps you should look at Switzerland.

Just sayin'...

By the sounds of the recent reports the doctor who operated on the congresswomen expects her to make a recovery, although the report also mentions the bullet passed through her brain...how you make a recovery from that I'd be curious to know.

------------

Steven has the right idea, this thread should be kept clear of the gun/freedom/government disscussion, it needs a seperate thread if anyone really wants to make.

I looked at Switzerland for 18 months thanks JM :), a third of their homicides from guns woopie, awesome statistic there. High gun ownership because the Swiss army is based around a militia model, males of a certain age are required by law to keep and maintain an army given gun after undergoing basic training and re-training every so many years.

Both quotes are from Jefferson who was an avid fan of changing governments by force, he was also against women in politics or being intellectual. He was also one of the main proponents of the forced relocation of Native Americans or if they rebelled, extermination...great role model there. Don't get me wrong, he was a great president, but not all of his ideas were what you would call, grounded in equality.

BTW, thanks to whoever corrected the thread title.

Do we have any background info on the shooter? Criminal record, documented mental issues, etc?

Is anyone else severely depressed that this sort of thing keeps happening?

I don't know why, but this one in particular really dropped the hammer on my day. I'm not weeping about it, but everything seems grayer.

Mentat, you've done a pretty good job solidifying yourself as an ideological douchebag, and I mean that with the most respect because I actually like you and you and I seem to usually respect each others posts and never yell at each other. This guy ended up being a left-wing radical, according to the people that knew him. Your implications that this was THE WORK OF A TEABAGGER were downright retarded. You should know better. Seriously. I really keep thinking that you are smarter than that, but this is at least the fourth or fifth time that you say something so unprovoked and without substance regarding the "tea party" that it boggles my mind. So, now that we know it's a left wing radical, can I do what you said and start implying that whenever the next inevitable shooting happens, "it wouldn't surprise me if some left-wing radical idiot took *x* way too seriously...."? You really need to stop speaking in generalities, because I'm sure that the majority of tea partiers are in fact, NOT murderers. For you to lump in some mentally ill jackass with a humongous group of people who for the most part are law-abiding citizens, well, that's just dumb.

Anyways, yes Phantom-Seraph, it is depressing. Very depressing. I heard about it when I was watching all the NFL games in Vegas today and throughout the day I kept thinking to myself "seriously, what the hell". Unfortunately, from what a lot of people are saying in response to this, Arizona is quickly becoming a very divided and conflicted place, and I fear that this is not the last we'll hear from this area. Kirby hit the nail on the head. If this is what citizens are resorting to in order to somehow make a political statement, it is never a good thing.

I hope this is good news. I'm curious to know what kind of weapon he used and what exactly the damage was, because with the limited information I have I am worried that her surviving could potentially not be a good thing.

By the way, poley, not that this really goes AGAINST your point, but have you compared violent crime rates or attempted murder rates? I think these may be important to take into account, both on their own and in comparison to the total numbers.

Edit: I also worry about this. My first thoughts when my friend sent me the message were "political statement on immigration? drug cartels? gun law statement? personal attack? health care?" and when there are that many things in one place that I think are potential realistic possibilities for an assassination, we are in bad times. I worry that Arizona will become a battleground of many kinds before this decade is out. Happy New Year.

Going back to the criticism here of using crosshairs in political speech, I find that criticism dumb. It seems to me that the same people that are seriously trying to say that sort of thing incites people to commit crimes such as those seen yesterday would be the same people to argue that video games don't make you shoot up a high school or have sex with an alien.



Well, I'm sure you're aware that many on the left in our country have been hoping to pin one of these acts on a "teabagger" for some time now. There was the Times Square Bomber that was said to probably be someone who was upset by healthcare, the dude that flew a plane into a building in Texas, and now this guy. Eventually they'll get one, there are enough crazy people in the world to put at least one in every category.



I haven't seen anything that says he's a neo-nazi. Well, besides Mort but that's not saying much.



I just found this on Fox News. Interesting.

I would normally "youtube tag" a video but this one is too offensive to do so. Feel free to skip the video. It could possibly make you feel as violent as the shooter.

Fred Phelps Thanks God for the Shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

People like him are the real problem in this country.

Well maybe they'll start hiring cops again so I can move...

I see what u did there, well played

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Republican views on environmental issues and the right to hunt animals as we please seems to pop up time and again. (i'm sure the Demo's arent angels either). I only get my info from BBC and a few american sites (not fox obviously), gotta go with what u know i guess.

And the thread title seems a little off, ive not seen a single reference to neonazi ideology with the suspected gunman.

as for this: http://www.clevelandleader.com/files/222068904.png
Wow, whoever came up with this format either didnt understand the underpinnings of what this visual could insinuate, or they didnt care

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oh.my.gawd.

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France is a very good example of what you're talking about except for the fact that they do it w/o guns. The people take to the streets (something that we haven't done here in mass for quite some time except for maybe in a few cities) & are capable of shutting down the entire ****ing country w/o firing a shot. If I'm not mistaken, the quote that you were trying to make, the one referring to the government fearing the people & not the other way around, is usually attributed to Thomas Jefferson & he made it after spending time in France. Granted, the people don't always get what they want (as is the case w/ the retirement age protests), but they constantly remind their government that they can pull a Marie Antoinette any ****ing time that they want. Americans are complacent for the most part (& rightly so given our quality of life) & only the fringe elements (tea-baggers & apparently neo-nazi's) are worried enough about anything to bare arms for revolutionary purposes. What Americans aren't used to hearing is about the millions of citizens w/in their borders that overall like their government. They may be unhappy w/ certain aspects of it but overall they'd rather it stay in power than to have the right-wing make us all Amish.

Fixed.


One thing I'd like to know is why the hell Americans seem so violent. No offense, but Switzerland actually has a mandate where everyone must be trained in the military once they hit 18, and most people in the country own a defensive firearm. Yet, it also has the lowest murder rate in the entire world and is consistently rated one of the safest places to live. America on the other hand, is consistently rated as one of the most unsafe places to live (and depending on which state it's even worse). Seriously, I think you need to look at WHY this is happening in USA but not the EU.

Wow. I am completely nauseated and appalled. Though he was the same one who said that God sent the terrorists on 9/11 because of gays also, so sadly not too surprising.

I'm not finding in those articles where it says the shooter was a neo-nazi though?

That's exactly why I brought it up. If the guns in America are why it's so violent, then why is Switzerland so nice? The point is, it's not the guns that are the cause, so taking them away can't fix the underlying problem.

The real reason Switzerland is so nice is that they have a very homogeneous and classically conservative society... so I guess if we want to be like them, we should just get rid of everyone who is different.

I never made any such implication. I did state that Palin's choice of words (e.g: "aim" & "reload") & images (in the case of bulls-eyes) could be confusing to the mentally-ill (tea-bagger's, as far as I know, aren't immune to mental illness). I even went on to entertain the possibility of the shooter being a radical leftist (e.g: a Greenpeace activist). I won't deny the fact that I think that radicals (many of which I suspect are mentally-ill) would be the most likely to shoot a Congresswoman. I also won't deny that I feel disdain for tea-baggers & their attempt to hijack the political system (I have the same disdain for religious fundamentalists that do the same) but I never implied that one of them was responsible (at most I implied that it was a mere possibility, amongst others).

H O L Y S H* T!

I think fred phelps is worse than charles manson and adolph hitler combined. Alot of good people are dying and this sonofa***** is still alive.

Our ancestors wiped out an entire civilization, we kidnapped & enslaved foreign peoples, we fought a bloody revolution, a bloody civil war, 2 world wars, we've developed weapons that can kill thousands of people in a moment & even used them & we continue to go to war w/ various countries to this day. All of that in just a few hundred years (there's much more). We've been a violent people since the start, raping, pillaging & robbing people of their resources & it's not going to stop anytime soon (now we just do it under the guise of corporations). We've discovered that focusing on defense isn't as profitable as focusing on offense. I hope you've all built de-salination plants because once we've driven your oil in to atmosphere, we're coming for your water.

It's engrained in our culture that this land was given to us by God himself & that we can do very little wrong (if any). The framers were prophets & their words are holy. They took up arms & said that you could too (never-mind the whole militia thing) & if you question that you're a traitor. We're too busy working at Walmart (may God bless Sam Walton's soul) & watching television (American Idol &/or Fox News) to bother w/ heresy. The average American can't even point to Switzerland on a world map (don't let American Massassians, who are above average intelligence in their country, tell you otherwise). How can you expect us to consider their political viewpoint. We may not be able to find Switzerland, but we know it's in Europe & we know what that's full of (communists/socialists). We don't know what that means but we know who Castro & Hitler are (the guys w/ the funny mustaches).