Philosophy Discussion Forums

No guns...no mass murder...simples. People may argue that more people are killed by utensils than guns, to that I reply, arm the American army with utensils.

All of these outbreaks are absolutely horrible, but this particular one has been completely heart-breaking. 20 children and 6 teachers. It is just unthinkably awful and sad.

Anyway, my view of the Gun Lobby is that they are a threat to civilization and they are fundamentally delusional. The fact that gun advocates are now agitating for every school teacher to be armed with military-style weapons is simply mind-boggling. A civil society is a society where one does not have to be armed in order to defend oneself against other citizens. The fact that weapons advocates cannot see this, only indicates the depth of irrationality to which they have fallen. They a threat to society and civilized culture.

I agree..either society has the power, or the individual, only one will work as a whole, the other on a wim, something that stands as ultimate power, to corrupt the individual, and bring any society to book. Either they tear the pages out and go on, or they actually read the writing, now in blood, on their hands and on the wall.

Maia wrote:People with guns kill people far easier than if they didn't have them.

Often this is true - but in the 'age of terrorism' often it is not true. Timothy McVeigh killed a lot more people at the Federal Building in Oklahoma without any guns than he could have with guns. Same goes for other terrorist act all over the world including the blowing up of the World Trade Center where 3000 were killed. Of course this type of terrorism is more complicated than picking up an available gun and going on killing spree.

So I'm going to propose a solution and may start a new post in the Philosophy of Science section of the forum entitled: "Are Smart Guns the answer to Gun Control"?

I'm going to propose a compromise solution to the gun control issue. It will not make everyone happy - but it might work. Australia as i mentioned outlawed all guns and the crime rate went for high they had to rescind the law - But, I've been told they did change something. They required all guns to be stored locked-up which controlled instant access. As you might surmise this will not stop the truly demented and determined mad man - But smart guns might. I heard the concept on a radio talk show years ago when it was probably technologically not feasible - today it is feasible. What I'm proposing is that all guns made {older guns could be retro-fitted} have an electronic control chip/switch that can instantly render them inoperable. It can be done - look at what the smart phone is capable of. It would not be possible to easily override the control mechanism as any attempt to remove or alter it would render the gun inoperable. Could some mad genius bypass the mechanism, maybe but an automatic alert would go out if someone is attempting to tamper - an electronic alarm. This is gun control brought to a new level - most of the gun lobby will not like it. But it does provide a compromise solution between those who believe in the Constitutional right to 'bear arms' and the general welfare and safety of the public. You could still protect yourself from a home invasion or a criminal attempting to do you harm, and/or collect guns - but a crazed man running to a school or movie theater to kill people will trigger an alarm and the gun can be electronically disabled.

UniversalAlien wrote: Australia as i mentioned outlawed all guns and the crime rate went for high they had to rescind the law

If this is saying that after Prime Minister John Howard introduced tough gun control legislation in 1996 'the crime rate went higher and they had to rescind the law' - that is not the case. The laws are much as they are when he introduced them.'

We still do have gun crimes in Australia. But every year in Australia, there are something less than 200 gun deaths. Britain has similar, and Japan a few hundred. USA has many tens of thousands of deaths. So the rate of gun deaths in the USA is orders of magnitude higher than in other developed nations.

UniversalAlien wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

I agree with you. But one reason I bought this issue up at this time is anti-gun, gun control groups will jump on this particular school shooting in Connecticut and use it push their gun control agenda. The fact that this same person who just killed all those people could have done a lot worse without guns is not brought up - so I will bring it up. If this same enraged mad man had no guns available how hard would it have been to obtain two empty one gallon containers fill them with gasoline, burn his house down and then go over to the school, barge in to the class throw the gasoline in and ignite it - what would the carnage have been then? Same could be brought up for the nut who killed all those people in the Colorado movie theater not too long ago. How many more would have died had he used a simple gasoline bomb {Molotov Cocktail} - maybe many more.

Guns don't kill people - People kill people.

U.A., does that method of mass killing you described (mass murder by arson or bombing) occur in nations with strict gun laws with a similar rate of frequency that mass shootings occur in the United States?

Also, the Mexican President has asked the U.S. Government to tighten its gun laws, and the reason being that while Mexico exports illegal cocaine to the United States the United States exports illegal firearms (often military grade) to Mexico. Most of Mexico's cartels get their weapons from the United States.

So, one might find a logical connection between the success of Mexico's hyper-violent drug cartels and the U.S. firearms industry and the United States laxer gun laws. For instance, some of those firearms are bought at gun shows and the U.S. "mules" smuggle them into Mexico.

-- Updated December 16th, 2012, 11:08 pm to add the following --

Computerizing guns would probably significantly help reduce mass shootings. Maybe. Many variables would have to accounted for. Like a perpetrator's plans to stand in or roam a mall parking lot shooting people. If a school had a computer system that automatically made computerized guns inoperable inside the building that would be very helpful.

Of course... the cost of such guns would be expensive I think. Which means I'd have to pay more for a Bushmaster M-4 style rifle.

Here's a review of the Australian gun control experience.

A decade and a half (after being enacted), the results of these policy changes are clear: They worked really, really well.

Although this might also have been because we have relatively few Americans here

Supine wrote:
Computerizing guns would probably significantly help reduce mass shootings. Maybe. Many variables would have to accounted for. Like a perpetrator's plans to stand in or roam a mall parking lot shooting people. If a school had a computer system that automatically made computerized guns inoperable inside the building that would be very helpful.

Of course... the cost of such guns would be expensive I think. Which means I'd have to pay more for a Bushmaster M-4 style rifle.

For a long time now the US has had an almost schizophrenic attitude to guns - many people love them, many people hate them, many are in the middle. The gun lovers avidly point to the Second Amendment and recent court rulings have favored the pro-gun lobby. But if the public is continuously subjected to lunatics bent on killing the government will find a way to nullify the Second Amendment.

I want to reach a compromise. And the 'Smart gun' is the solution. The gun lobby has continued to resist most gun legislation that would restrict type of gun allowed for legitimate citizens for self-defense, hunting, collecting, or, like in the case of the mother of the nut who just killed all those people, they say she had them for target shooting. To say she should have known better when she had a mentally challenged son and should have had the guns safely locked up is a too late sentiment. But if those guns had my computerized 'fail-safe' chip/switch installed she and possibly the authorities would have known the moment the guns were out of the house and the carnage could have been stopped.

I know what I am proposing is 'gun control' but it is intelligent gun control that will not interfere with the 'right to bear arms' but will to a great extent neutralize the danger from deranged individuals.

Yes you will have to pay more for a Bushmaster M-4 style rifle BUT you will still be able to own one - Willing to compromise on gun control and price if it allows you to still own your favorite gun? I think even the NRA might give in on this type of gun control - Better than outlawing guns so only outlaws will have them

I think this whole constitutional right thing has distorted the argument. The US constitution has been changed and amended many times, after circumstances proved it to be unsuited to any particular task. I'm sure the framers didn't have millions of automated weapons in mind when they wrote it. In fact, they were talking about a citizen militia, but how many gun owners in America are members of a citizen militia? Fortunately the UK has no constitution, so silly laws like this can be changed whenever they get out of date.

UniversalAlien wrote: So how can 'we the people' be protected from the lone mad gunman determined to kill? We can not be protected completely, both guns and for that matter life itself is dangerous.

What protects is when there is a social atmosphere in society. I believe the pain of loneliness is associated to this type of anti-human hate crime. Your best bet to be safe is to organize friendship societies, and invite any loner you can find to become a member. Otherwise I think the loners will find a way to commit their cruel acts of hateful vengeance against the human race. Loneliness is rampant in the USA and increasing. About 25 percent of the population there is lonely by the research criterium of having more than 1 person to talk to about anything.

Syamsu wrote: What protects is when there is a social atmosphere in society. I believe the pain of loneliness is associated to this type of anti-human hate crime. Your best bet to be safe is to organize friendship societies, and invite any loner you can find to become a member. Otherwise I think the loners will find a way to commit their cruel acts of hateful vengeance against the human race. Loneliness is rampant in the USA and increasing. About 25 percent of the population there is lonely by the research criterium of having more than 1 person to talk to about anything.

Syamsu,

What is a "friendship society" and why does that sound gay to me?

At the risk of oversimplifying the broad ranges of the American experience and ideals, let let me suggest the archetype American (male) is the cowboy, the gangster, the mountain man, the property owner, the businessman. One man, one dog, one rifle up in the mountains of Colorado braving it on his own is the ideal American image. However far from reality it may be.

I guess what I'm saying is that American society places a high premium on inter-American male competition. There are only two types of American males in the U.S.: winners and losers. One can not exist without the other.

I'm reminded of the some of the (liberal not conservative) responses from U.K.'ers to the recent London and England riots that occurred a couple or few years back. Many young liberal women were speak with moral support of the young men - largely young black males too boot - who (The males) were complaining the government of the United Kingdom was not providing them with jobs or more accurately directly providing them with a higher quality of life they desire. Mind you, many of these males were apparently given free government housing and monetary benefits.

The liberal U.K.'er thinks their view is shared widely among the liberals of the United States - or more especially among it's black liberal peers - but they couldn't be more wrong. Few to no ethnic Black-American women are going to publicly or privately offer verbal moral support to young black males derogatorily regarded as "busters" in the United States. By busters I mean unemployed males not earning money illegally from armed robbery or the likes of the sell of illicit drugs. Buster males are largely held in scorn. Even black ex-convicts can be some of the most severe critiques of males that fail to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps even off of 40 cents an hour. Homicide and attempted homicide are also held as high virtues among the generations of ethnic Black-Americans below Baby-Boomers.

The white American world probably values male-on-male competition even more than Black-Americans. Although, they value homicides and attempted homicides much less as virtues. But the white American world can be severe in its critique of losers.

I don't understand a "friendship society" unless it comes with hazing or prerequisites before initiating. I thought gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican Mafia, and Gangster Disciples were "friendship societies"? The same with college fraternities.

the fundamental problem is the idea that 'guns = freedom'. Until it is realized that guns = death, suffering, the loss of loved ones, murder and suicide - which is the actual fact of the matter - nothing is going to change.

Quotidian wrote:the fundamental problem is the idea that 'guns = freedom'. Until it is realized that guns = death, suffering, the loss of loved ones, murder and suicide - which is the actual fact of the matter - nothing is going to change.

Crazy statements like that is what enforces the pro-gun lobby. As if before the invention of guns there was no " death, suffering, the loss of loved ones, murder and suicide ". Rocks, knives, pointed objects, trained martial artists, strongmen and tall individuals are potential threats. Would you suggest we register all knives? - very effective for murder; Or how about we make sure knives have no points on them just in case? No better still how about plastic knives only just in case. And insist that trained fighters, muscle men and people of height register as a potential threat.

You your philosophy of making the world safe for everyone is the antithesis of life! Life is by its very nature dangerous and to remove all danger is to create a state of living death. Fact is your philosophy is what is the threat. Your philosophy is the threat that makes the NRA strong - Americans are more scared of you than they are of lunatics with guns.

Mario Puzio {writer of "The Godfather"} once wrote a statement: "A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more money than a thousand men with guns".

Now I will make a statement: "A philosophy whose only goal is to make the world safe will cost all the 'rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' to be lost and is more dangerous than any gun."

I have simply stated that the notion that guns=freedom is a dangerous delusion.

It is.

In one year in America:

* Almost 100,000 people are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, accidents, or by police intervention

* Every day, 270 people in America, 47 of them children and teens, are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, accidents and police interventions.


* Every day, 87 people die from gun violence, 33 of whom are murdered.

(Source: Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence)

The fact that this is regarded as 'a philosophical debate' simply illustrates how out of touch we are with reality. The topic is 'gun control and mass murder'. It is not 'whether all violence can be eliminated from the world'.

-- Updated December 18th, 2012, 11:14 am to add the following --

the story in today's news that prompted my comment on 'guns-freedom' was headlined: 'Guns are why we're free … people lose sight of that' ( http://www.smh.com.au/world/guns-are-wh ... z2FMEvowHY )

So the question is: what kind of sense does that make? Why do 'guns make us free'? What is it about 'having guns' that means 'we are free'? I just don't think it makes any sense. Free from what? We are not talking about war, are we? If it is a case of 'guns were used to defeat Nazism', then it makes sense. But in what way does owning guns contribute to a 'free society'? Especially if your children are going to murdered in schools or patients in hospital beds?

I heard on the news today that 32,000 people were killed with guns in America last year, in the UK the figure is about 200. The population of the USA is only about 5 times that of the UK. Do the maths. It is utterly insane.