Virginia Tech Shootings - Gun Debate

[Jintor]

By participating in this debate, you are putting yourself on an equal footing with me. You can't have it both ways. Act like an adult and be treated as one or be childish and have your opinions dismissed.

I'm doing my best. Notice I haven't flipped out and insulted you like an insane 1337-5p34king idiot yet.

/EDIT Can I post an opinion poll on this matter, using your reasonings for why a gun is not dangerous? I'd like to hear other people's views on this as well.

 

[repiV]

I'm doing my best. Notice I haven't flipped out and insulted you like an insane 1337-5p34king idiot yet.

I appreciate that you are. I'm simply pointing out that you can't have a right to be childish if you want to participate in this debate on an equal footing.

/EDIT Can I post an opinion poll on this matter, using your reasonings for why a gun is not dangerous? I'd like to hear other people's views on this as well.

I'm not the boss of you. The majority opinion doesn't equal the correct opinion though.

 

[Jintor]

I'm not the boss of you. The majority opinion doesn't equal the correct opinion though.

I know, i just want to see other people's opinions. And given that I haven't really researched gun culture and am working on assorted junk pulled pretty much from logic and other threads on this site, I'm working at a disadvantage anyway. I apologise for the crappy earlier arguements, by the way. I looked at them again and they were shit.





(Guns are still dangerous though!)

 

[repiV]

I know, i just want to see other people's opinions. And given that I haven't really researched gun culture and am working on assorted junk pulled pretty much from logic and other threads on this site, I'm working at a disadvantage anyway. I apologise for the crappy earlier arguements, by the way. I looked at them again and they were shit.

(Guns are still dangerous though!)

It's cool. That you admit fallibility is admirable in itself.

 

[Gray Fox]

A nuclear missile is completely harmless until the atomic reaction is set off. It cannot be detonated by force, impact or anything in fact except causing the correct chain reaction.
A tiger doesn't require external input to become dangerous, as we have also covered beforehand. Think, damnit.

So the same reason that you use to justify gun ownership apply to nukes. Hence we should also make nukes legal for the public to posses, I mean with such bad guys as Kim Yung Ill having them, I simply do not feel safe without having a nuke in my basement.

 

[Jintor]

It's amazing how hard it was getting not to see a flaming personal attack on me in every one of your posts.

Btw, I pretty much agree with Sulkdodds's post.

 

[repiV]

So the same reason that you use to justify gun ownership apply to nukes. Hence we should also make nukes legal for the public to posses, I mean with such bad guys as Kim Yung Ill having them, I simply do not feel safe without having a nuke in my basement.

My argument for justifying gun ownership has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that guns are inherently safe. I am simply pointing out the fallacy and hysteria inherent in calling guns dangerous.
It's based on several factors - firstly, that you shouldn't need a reason to justify private ownership of anything. Everything is legal unless excellent reasons are given for it to be illegal.
Secondly, that legislation is an ineffective way of solving problems and, as can be shown in the rapid deterioration of the UK since Blair took office and made laws for everything imaginable, should be used sparingly.
Thirdly, it is generally accepted in the Western world that freedom is the primary ideal to which we should aspire. Gun control advocates, and "liberals" in general, say they want freedom, but they lie. What they really want are some selective freedoms that suit them and a side-order of entitlements to go with them.
On the basis that noone has the right to force their opinion upon others where there is any real contention, guns should remain legal. A truly free society acknowledges that personal opinion is fallible and minimises the impact of one's opinion over another - by having as few laws as possible.

 

[repiV]

It's amazing how hard it was getting not to see a flaming personal attack on me in every one of your posts.

Btw, I pretty much agree with Sulkdodds's post.

Don't piss me off, continue writing sensible replies and it won't happen. :thumbs:

 

[Gray Fox]

My argument for justifying gun ownership has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that guns are inherently safe. I am simply pointing out the fallacy and hysteria inherent in calling guns dangerous.
It's based on several factors - firstly, that you shouldn't need a reason to justify private ownership of anything. Everything is legal unless excellent reasons are given for it to be illegal.
Secondly, that legislation is an ineffective way of solving problems and, as can be shown in the rapid deterioration of the UK since Blair took office and made laws for everything imaginable, should be used sparingly.
Thirdly, it is generally accepted in the Western world that freedom is the primary ideal to which we should aspire. Gun control advocates, and "liberals" in general, say they want freedom, but they lie. What they really want are some selective freedoms that suit them and a side-order of entitlements to go with them.
On the basis that noone has the right to force their opinion upon others where there is any real contention, guns should remain legal. A truly free society acknowledges that personal opinion is fallible and minimises the impact of one's opinion over another - by having as few laws as possible.

But the reason you just gave could also be applied to making nukes legal. Why are you against that.

 

[repiV]

But the reason you just gave could also be applied to making nukes legal. Why are you against that.

I don't recall ever saying I'm against nukes being legal, but there we go.
Either way, there are excellent reasons for keeping them illegal. They serve absolutely no useful purpose at all. None, nada. They have no recreational use, provide no self-defence benefits, and even their practical value in warfare is questionable.
The only reason for an individual to have nuclear weaponry is to commit an unprecedented large-scale act of terrorism or mass murder.

 

[CptStern]

My argument for justifying gun ownership has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that guns are inherently safe. I am simply pointing out the fallacy and hysteria inherent in calling guns dangerous.

it's all about context ..the bubonic plague is completely harmless if no one is around to contract it ..same goes for radiation, guns, tigers and whatever idiotic analogy people want to put out there ..however in the right context every single one of those things is dangerous ..put a three year old into a room with a gun and we'll see just how non-dangerous a gun can be

It's based on several factors - firstly, that you shouldn't need a reason to justify private ownership of anything.

I'd like to order a case of VX nerve gas please oh and throw in a bag of anthrax, I have employee invitations to send out

Everything is legal unless excellent reasons are given for it to be illegal.

so what's the determining factor? why are guns ok but I cant have a shark in my swimming pool

Secondly, that legislation is an ineffective way of solving problems and, as can be shown in the rapid deterioration of the UK since Blair took office and made laws for everything imaginable, should be used sparingly.

yes laws are ineffective when it comes to solving problems ..why not just throw out the judicial system all together along with the government? why not just hand out weapons to every man women and child and send them out into the night to fend for themselves?

Thirdly, it is generally accepted in the Western world that freedom is the primary ideal to which we should aspire.

explain to me how owning a gun is being free ..every single gun advocate repeatedly stress that guns are "tools" not instruments for fullfilling goals ..how can owning a tool provide freedom? freedom from the state? that's preposterous and completely unrealistic

Gun control advocates, and "liberals" in general, say they want freedom, but they lie. What they really want are some selective freedoms that suit them and a side-order of entitlements to go with them.

so conservatives are for complete openess when it comes to personal freedoms ..you're completely delusional repiv

On the basis that noone has the right to force their opinion upon others where there is any real contention, guns should remain legal.

then all law fails at that point because they are almost exclusively determined by public opinion

A truly free society acknowledges that personal opinion is fallible and minimises the impact of one's opinion over another - by having as few laws as possible.

at some point the state must intervene in order to protect citizens from temselves ...would you allow a Jovah's witness to refuse a blood transfusion for their dying children ..the problem as I see it repiv is that you deal in absolutes with little to no practicality involved what so ever ..I chaulk it up to not having enough life experience because you are fairly intelligent ..just prone to talking in absolutes/inatainable ideology

funny if I didnt know better I'd almost swear you're advocating (albeit indirectly) Anarchism ..you're like Solaris only right wing and you know what they say if you go too far to the one side you end up on the other

 

[repiV]

it's all about context ..the bubonic plague is completely harmless if no one is around to contract it ..same goes for radiation, guns, tigers and whatever idiotic analogy people want to put out there ..however in the right context every single one of those things is dangerous ..put a three year old into a room with a gun and we'll see just how non-dangerous a gun can be

Not really, the bubonic plague, radiation and tigers do not need human operation to become dangerous.
A three year old with a gun is dangerous - the gun itself is not. Which is an argument against irresponsible handling of guns, not guns themselves.
Likewise, my motorcycle is a lethal weapon in the hands of many millions of people. Certainly, it's far more difficult to operate safely than a gun is. That's why you have to be over 21 years of age and pass a notoriously difficult examination in order to ride it. I earned the right to ride my bike, as people should earn the right to bear arms.
But that right should still exist.

I'd like to order a case of VX nerve gas please oh and throw in a bag of anthrax, I have employee invitations to send out

Chemical weapons have no use for the individual either - valid or otherwise. They can kill people indiscriminately, that's it. That's all they can do. Noone can rationally object to their illegality, but with guns it's a different story.

so what's the determining factor? why are guns ok but I cant have a shark in my swimming pool

Guns are predictable and completely safe when handled responsibly. They have many practical uses including discriminate self-defence and sport. Sharks are inherently dangerous, and do not discriminate between killing innocent people and killing intruders.

yes laws are ineffective when it comes to solving problems ..why not just throw out the judicial system all together along with the government? why not just hand out weapons to every man women and child and send them out into the night to fend for themselves?

Why must the government bear the main responsibility for solving people's problems? Big government has created a society of citizens dependent on its interference, its guiding hand and handouts. It's quite sad really.
Let people solve their own problems. Treat them like adults.

explain to me how owning a gun is being free ..every single gun advocate repeatedly stress that guns are "tools" not instruments for fullfilling goals ..how can owning a tool provide freedom? freedom from the state? that's preposterous and completely unrealistic

It's not that owning a tool provides freedom, it's that freedom involves having the right to own a tool if you so wish. Denial of that right is a denial of freedom. It's a denial of freedom just like depriving you of your PC because you might use it for nefarious purposes would be.

so conservatives are for complete openess when it comes to personal freedoms ..you're completely delusional repiv

I didn't say anything about conservatives. I've repeatedly pointed out that I am not a conservative, and I consider them just as misguided and wrong as liberals.
They do tend to advocate smaller rather than bigger government, however, which is a good thing.

then all law fails at that point because they are almost exclusively determined by public opinion

Which is why we should not use law to determine right and wrong where there is any controversy over what is right and what is wrong. Without law to decide, people can make their own choices about morality. That's freedom.

at some point the state must intervene in order to protect citizens from temselves ...would you allow a Jovah's witness to refuse a blood transfusion for their dying children ..the problem as I see it repiv is that you deal in absolutes with little to no practicality involved what so ever ..I chaulk it up to not having enough life experience because you are fairly intelligent ..just prone to talking in absolutes/inatainable ideology

Your example is not really a textbook example of the state intervening to protect citizens from themselves, a viewpoint that I find quite dubious. People can make their own mistakes in life. With freedom comes responsibility.
Why is there no practicality in small government? Nothing I have advocated is impractical or unworkable. It just goes against the modern trend of ever larger government involvement in our lives.

funny if I didnt know better I'd almost swear you're advocating (albeit indirectly) Anarchism ..you're like Solaris only right wing and you know what they say if you go too far to the one side you end up on the other

Libertarianism is quite different from anarchism. I'm also nothing like Solaris - he is naive, advocates things he knows are illogical and is completely hypocritical. I am a realist, and my opinions are based on the acknowledgement that we do not live in a perfect world.

 

[Sulkdodds]

This happened because of gun control, not the lack of it. If weapons were allowed on campus, people would have been able to fight back. Gun free zones are just an open invitation to commit mass murder.

I have to say I disagree entirely - at least speaking in general terms; I would not support a total ban in America because it just wouldn't work.

First off, there's something slightly wrong with a society in which everyone is obligated to carry a gun every minute of the day. The logical extension of what you're saying is that if everybody had a gun things like this wouldn't happen.

But gun crime would happen and it would happen a lot; there's something to be said for deterrence but there are so many factors that undermine that. I doubt someone like Cho cares that others might shoot back, and I think many normally sensible people would presume they would be able to win in a gunfight - most murderers, burglars, thieves, criminals of any kind, usually believe they can and will get away with their crimes. Deterrence is shit.

Think of all the incidents you would get with people returning fire and only causing more damage. Think of two drunken men, shouting at each other, ready to launch into a full-blooded brawl - but both armed with glocks. Think of the road-rage incidents, the pre-meditated murders, the firing back at police...

...I don't want you to imagine I walk around every day scared that some irrational mad criminal bugger will try and kill me. I don't plan on buying a stab-proof hoody. But if everyone had a pistol, do you honestly think that would do more good than harm? There are so many situations in which a person, knowing he has a killing weapon, will be inclined to use it - even if they know the other person can fire back.

It's not a question of how many people die, it's whether the right people are killed. If you break into someone's home, threaten their life or otherwise pose a threat to anybody, you lose your right to continue living for the duration you are endangering the people around you.

Point conceded. It's an assumption essential to our society that if you attempt to curtail the rights of others you forfeit your own. That said, I have to insist that generally speaking no deaths is better than some deaths - even if one of those deaths is a criminal.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Since we don't live in Happy Jolly Kum-bay-ah Fairytale Land, your discussion point is farcical and irrelevant.

At which point in your life was your innocence raped and taken from you?

 

[repiV]

I have to say I disagree entirely - at least speaking in general terms; I would not support a total ban in America because it just wouldn't work.

First off, there's something slightly wrong with a society in which everyone is obligated to carry a gun every minute of the day. The logical extension of what you're saying is that if everybody had a gun things like this wouldn't happen.

Noone is obligated to carry a gun every minute of the day - it just makes sense to do so. And people should have the right to keep themselves protected if they so choose.

But gun crime would happen and it would happen a lot; there's something to be said for deterrence but there are so many factors that undermine that. I doubt someone like Cho cares that others might shoot back, and I think many normally sensible people would presume they would be able to win in a gunfight - most murderers, burglars, thieves, criminals of any kind, usually believe they can and will get away with their crimes. Deterrence is shit.

Not true - mandatory gun ownership for 25 years has made a town in Georgia murder-free for 25 years. The article also cites an instance in which a gun ban in the USA caused crime to skyrocket.

Evidently, the most effective way to prevent crime is to arm everybody.

Think of all the incidents you would get with people returning fire and only causing more damage. Think of two drunken men, shouting at each other, ready to launch into a full-blooded brawl - but both armed with glocks. Think of the road-rage incidents, the pre-meditated murders, the firing back at police...

...I don't want you to imagine I walk around every day scared that some irrational mad criminal bugger will try and kill me. I don't plan on buying a stab-proof hoody. But if everyone had a pistol, do you honestly think that would do more good than harm? There are so many situations in which a person, knowing he has a killing weapon, will be inclined to use it - even if they know the other person can fire back.

Yes - see above. The evidence is strikingly clear.

Perhaps, but as I said before, guns are still going to be harder to get even for criminals - and there are ways of allowing gun sport without allowing the weapons to be used for murder.

The legal firearms were not used for murder anyway.

Seems you're correct about the gun crime rise, but:

Again, I don't believe the fact that most of the weapons were illegal tells us much, for reasons I've already outlined.

Point conceded. It's an assumption essential to our society that if you attempt to curtail the rights of others you forfeit your own. That said, I have to insist that generally speaking no deaths is better than some deaths - even if one of those deaths is a criminal.

 

[repiV]

At which point in your life was your innocence raped and taken from you?

What kind of inane question is that?
Innocence is a synonym for ignorance - you can make ignorant judgements if you want to, I'll stick to being informed.

 

[Solaris]

I think it would be worthwhile to point out that correlation does not indicate cause.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Are guns really the problem?

 

[kathaksung]

Virginia School Shooting: Another Government Black-Op?

Early details suggest Columbine-style set-up to justify mass gun control, VA Tech has "blood on their hands," banned concealed carry, disarming victims

Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, April 16, 2007

Early details about the horrific school shooting at Virginia Tech strongly indicate that these events represent a Columbine-style black-op that will be exploited in the coming days to push for mass gun control and further turning our schools into prisons.
Eyewitness Matt Kazee told the Alex Jones Show that it was a full two to three hours after the shootings began that loudspeakers installed around the campus were used to warn students to stay indoors and that a shooter was on the loose.
Quite how the killer was afforded so much time before any action was taken to stop him is baffling, especially considering the fact that the campus, according to Kazee, was crawling with police before the event happened due to numerous bomb threats that had been phoned in last week.
The shootings came three days after a bomb threat Friday forced the cancellation of classes in three buildings, WDBJ in Roanoke reported. Also, the 100,000-square-foot Torgersen Hall was evacuated April 2 after police received a written bomb threat, The Roanoke Times reported.
CNN quoted a student who was outraged at the delay in identifying and stopping the killer.

"What happened today this was ridiculous. And I don't know what happened or what was going through this guy's mind," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "But I'm pretty outraged and I'll say on the record I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it — no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes — they just mention that they're investigating a shooting two hours later at 9:22."

He added: "That's pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they're sending out that e-mail, 22 more people got killed."

The details that are beginning to emerge fill the criteria that this could very well be another government black-op that will be used as justification for more gun control and turning our schools into prisons, festooned with armed guards, surveillance cameras and biometric scanning to gain entry.

Ironic therefore it is that Virginia is a concealed carry state and yet Virginia Tech campus recently enforced a policy prohibiting "unauthorized possession, storage or control" of firearms on campus. According to gun rights activists such as Aaron Zelman of Jews For The Preservation of Firearms, VA Tech has "blood on its hands" for disarming the victims who could potentially have defended themselves against the killer.
Initial reports suggested there were two shooters, but the story quickly changed to just one shooter who later killed himself (as happens in almost all these cases) or was shot by police.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/160407blackop.htm

 

[Sulkdodds]

Virginia School Shooting: Another Government Black-Op?

No. No it's not. That's stupid.

Has Big Government even said anything about gun control? Has Big Government said anything in response to this? Do you hear them pushing to turn universities into prisons? I don't!

We've already seen this! It's crap! This is why you get banned and why your posts get edited! You don't participate in debate! You just lean into threads, dribble over them and run away again! You probably won't even read or respond to this reply! It's pointless to even give you a proper argument as to why that article is complete bullshit because you won't listen! Just fuck off!

 

[Sulkdodds]

Noone is obligated to carry a gun every minute of the day - it just makes sense to do so. And people should have the right to keep themselves protected if they so choose.

Isn't there a sense in which they making that choice under duress? If arming everyone is so damn sensible, then you should either make it law or at least encourage it - both of which are pushing the sense that as a good and sensible citizen you should be armed. If you're not, well...you may get killed.

Not true - mandatory gun ownership for 25 years has made a town in Georgia murder-free for 25 years. The article also cites an instance in which a gun ban in the USA caused crime to skyrocket. Evidently, the most effective way to prevent crime is to arm everybody.

That's very interesting, but I'm not sure it's enough evidence to suddenly sway my opinion. They're both isolated incidents, and as Solaris pointed out, not necessarily indicative of much...though I agree they are quite compelling.

You could level such criticism at my use of general gun crime statistics from the US and UK - apples and oranges, you might say, as each place has simply too many variables that you're taking no steps to eliminate (although perhaps the study which through them up actually did take some such steps; I'm no statistician). However, I'd say it's a somewhat unfair comparison; I'm talking about statistics collected from across each country, very wide, and a fairly big difference, a significant one at least. Meanwhile, the US has a highly parochial political culture - it's all a lot more spread out, a lot more locally diverse, than the UK is.

I don't think the evidence is 'strikingly clear' at all, especially not considering Kirov's stats posted earlier.

The legal firearms were not used for murder anyway.

In the statistics I cited, 25% of US firearm homicide involved legal firearms. So yes, they were.

 

[kathaksung]

No. No it's not. That's stupid.

Has Big Government even said anything about gun control? Has Big Government said anything in response to this? Do you hear them pushing to turn universities into prisons? I don't!

We've already seen this! It's crap! This is why you get banned and why your posts get edited! You don't participate in debate! You just lean into threads, dribble over them and run away again! You probably won't even read or respond to this reply! It's pointless to even give you a proper argument as to why that article is complete bullshit because you won't listen! Just fuck off!

Don't you realize you are talking about yourself? (see underlined words.)

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

Here is more for you: something hard to see from mainstream media. If you still remember the stand down order in 911 attack.

Feds Ordered VA Police To Stand Down
Local authorities were told to take no action to pursue killer

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, April 20, 2007


Police and EMT workers at Virginia Tech tell us that campus police were given a federal order to stand down and not pursue killer Cho Seung-Hui as Monday's bloodshed unfolded.

Though wishing to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, we have received calls from police and EMT's who tell us that a stand down order was in place, and this is also confirmed by eyewitness Matt Kazee, who is a student at VA Tech.

Kazee talked to local EMT's and police who told him the same thing, that the order was to wait until federal back up arrived before any action was taken. This explains the complete non-response of the police in the two hour gap between Cho's first two murders and the wider rampage that would follow later that morning.

The policy of federal control over the University was put in place following a previous shooting in August 2006 in which a police officer and a hospital security guard were killed.

In addition, a former long-term University police officer, George French, told the Alex Jones Show that it is routine to seal off a campus on which a suspected gunman is loose.

?Setting up a series of roadblocks, controlling access to very large pieces of property, is very much routine on any university campus in Canada and in the United States,? said French.

?After a double homicide, when you?re looking for a dangerous fellow with a firearm, I find it unfathomable that a series of roadblocks weren?t set up?to prevent the felon from escaping.?

French could find no logical conclusion other than deliberate inaction on the part of officials. ?We have another coordinated, allowed event?the parallels are so common in each case; you can write the script in advance.?

<http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=71573&sid=46a585298128996c43550b3544fce1a3>

 

[Sulkdodds]

Don't you realize you are talking about yourself? (see underlined words.)

Oh, but of course you're right. You participate ever so much in this forum, responding fully, clearly and comprehensively to any criticisms levelled against you. For my part, I certainly don't actively engage in debate, nor do I respond to my detractors.

Wait, sorry, that should be the other way round. But you have at least decided to stick around on this occasion, so I'll stop here.

The article you have just posted is more compelling. However:
- the gap between the two shooting incidents is attributed to an error of judgement. Police thought that the first one was a domestic incident only, and in fact had a completely different suspect (not Cho); they did not surround the campus but instead began searching the areas around it, because they beleived the perp had fled the scene. I find nothing implausible about this explanation ('But it's the police who said it!' does not strike me as an adequate grievance in the absence of any other real evidence suggesting a 'black op').
- Student shooting + university = problems. How difficult would it be to conceal or hide a weapon? How difficult would it be for a shooter to disappear and blend among the other students? Even if the police had known or believed that this was the beginning of a shooting spree - though they had no reason to - they would not have had a very hard time locating the perpetrator among several thousand other students.
- Even if there is something fishy, and no decent explanation for a stand-down order, you still do not have much evidence to support your conspiracy theory. It's quite a stretch from 'someone told the police not to intervene' to 'this was a government black operation designed to blah blah blah'. There just is not enough evidence to make that logical leap.
- Prison Planet could easily be lying, or their witness unreliable (even if said witness truly believes it themselves, they may be mistaken).

In conclusion: very, very sketchy. Sure as hell wouldn't stand up in a court of law.

Now, let's look at the original article...

Early details about the horrific school shooting at Virginia Tech strongly indicate that these events represent a Columbine-style black-op that will be exploited in the coming days to push for mass gun control and further turning our schools into prisons.

So far, it has been exploited only by gun-control activists and lobbies, not by the government or any government agency. In fact, I don't believe the government has tried to use this incident to make any political point about gun control at all. In fact, the White House has done quite the opposite: "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," a press secretary said.

"The coming days" have come and gone and we have not seen a huge political push for gun control; we have merely seen the bitter debate and argument over blame, causes and response that characterises the aftermath of any disaster or tragedy. This very article is part of that phenomenon. We call this 'democracy'.

National response has naturally been characterised by political culture. For example, most British responses inevitably criticise US gun policy because the right to be armed is not entrenched here and strikes many people as absurd. Like what we think changes American behaviour anyway.

Eyewitness Matt Kazee told the Alex Jones Show that it was a full two to three hours after the shootings began that loudspeakers installed around the campus were used to warn students to stay indoors and that a shooter was on the loose.
Quite how the killer was afforded so much time before any action was taken to stop him is baffling, especially considering the fact that the campus, according to Kazee, was crawling with police before the event happened due to numerous bomb threats that had been phoned in last week.

Ah, 'a full two to three' hours says a single eyewitness. How reliable, how compelling the evidence. Why? Sources seem to agree that the police believed the first shooting to be an 'ordinary' domestic homicide, and more than one article I've read claims the police believed the perpetrator had fled - they initially had a completely different suspect. There may have been no reason to link the bomb threads with the first shooting.

If all other explanations fails, there is always incompetence - ubiquitous among government agencies when disaster strikes. I would cite Katrina, where sheer stupidity and short-sightedness cost many many lives, but doubtless you will tell me that was a government black op too.

"What happened today this was ridiculous. And I don't know what happened or what was going through this guy's mind," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "But I'm pretty outraged and I'll say on the record I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it ? no mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceling classes ? they just mention that they're investigating a shooting two hours later at 9:22."

He added: "That's pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they're sending out that e-mail, 22 more people got killed."

The details that are beginning to emerge fill the criteria that this could very well be another government black-op that will be used as justification for more gun control and turning our schools into prisons, festooned with armed guards, surveillance cameras and biometric scanning to gain entry.

I have not heard a single American news outlet, American politician or even American citizens advocate "turning schools into prisons." If this attack was intended to galvanise public opinion, it's not doing very well, and if it was intended to precede the unveiling of a massive clampdown programme, it looks like somebody lost the speech notes, because no such clamp-down has been announced, proposed or hinted at.

If the government wanted to use this as an excuse to tighten security, they would probably actually TIGHTEN SECURITY. Instead, they've just delivered a standard 'man what a tragedy we are all sorry' response that is expected in these situations.

The university used e-mail because it was deemed the quickest way to spread news; in the entire university at least someone was going to be using the internet. Police were actually called to the first shooting at 7.15am.

Charles Steger, president of the university, said they had "locked down" where they believed the first shooting had occurred. "We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur." He said he had "concluded the incident in Ambler Johnston was domestic in nature, in fact we had some reason to think the shooter had left the campus, in fact may have been leaving the state."

Initial reports suggested there were two shooters...

...because there were two seperate incidents, perhaps?

The evidence for any kind of government 'black op' or conspiracy is slim in the extreme, far too slim to make an argument, and the government has not made any anti-gun-rights message or attempted in any way to clamp down on schools (unlike in the UK, where the Dunblane Massacre was very quickly followed by the banning of private ownership of handguns).

Summed up, your argument:

- the university response was slow
- the police response was slow
- someone says the police were told to stand down
- the university and police are all liars
- the government will obviously try to ban guns and prisonify schools

The first two are not sufficient, the next two are unsupported and the third one has been completely undermined. It's a fantastical, baseless and frankly ridiculous leap to conclude that there has been foul play afoot.

I'm sorry, but your case sucks.

EDIT: SUCKS!

I bet you won't post in this thread again, which would rather prove me right, but if you do, I'll happily eat a hat (made of chocolate). I would like to reassure you that not everybody who disagrees with you is a government agent; sometimes people just have their own opinions. Crazy, I know.

Please come back soon, Mr. Sung!

 

[repiV]

Isn't there a sense in which they making that choice under duress? If arming everyone is so damn sensible, then you should either make it law or at least encourage it - both of which are pushing the sense that as a good and sensible citizen you should be armed. If you're not, well...you may get killed.

They would still have the right not to carry a gun, unlike here where you are forced not to.

That's very interesting, but I'm not sure it's enough evidence to suddenly sway my opinion. They're both isolated incidents, and as Solaris pointed out, not necessarily indicative of much...though I agree they are quite compelling.

You could level such criticism at my use of general gun crime statistics from the US and UK - apples and oranges, you might say, as each place has simply too many variables that you're taking no steps to eliminate (although perhaps the study which through them up actually did take some such steps; I'm no statistician). However, I'd say it's a somewhat unfair comparison; I'm talking about statistics collected from across each country, very wide, and a fairly big difference, a significant one at least. Meanwhile, the US has a highly parochial political culture - it's all a lot more spread out, a lot more locally diverse, than the UK is.

I don't think the evidence is 'strikingly clear' at all, especially not considering Kirov's stats posted earlier.

Of course it's an isolated incident - I don't know of any other place on earth where private citizens are required by law to be armed.
However, to my knowledge there is not a single piece of evidence that supports the theory that increased gun control reduces crime, and there is plenty to suggest that the opposite is true.

In the statistics I cited, 25% of US firearm homicide involved legal firearms. So yes, they were.

I was referring specifically to legal handguns in the UK prior to the ban.

 

[Geogaddi]

Sulkdodds, I'm sorry, but Kathaksung presents a compelling argument here. I'm going to have to side with him on this one.

 

[Sulkdodds]

DO NOT WANT

 

[CptStern]

I don't know of any other place on earth where private citizens are required by law to be armed.

sure you do, you linked to it and even used it to argue your case:

In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw ? responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. ? unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun.

oh and the whole issue around the safety of the city is a little slanted in favour of gun advocacy:

Criminologist and gun-control critic Gary Kleck attributes a drop of 89% in the residential burglary rate to the law (Kleck, 1991), and Kennesaw is often cited by advocates of gun ownership as evidence that gun ownership deters crime (see, for instance, this 2004 sheet of talking points from the Gun Owners Foundation). Other criminologists dispute the 89% figure, using the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting data, and find instead a small, statistically insignificant increase in burglaries after the law was passed (McDowall, Wiersema and Loftin, 1989; McDowall, Lizotte and Wiersema, 1991).

the fact that the criminalologist behind the stats is a gun-control critic calls into question the accuracy of the findings ..also the fact the city passed the mandatory gun ownership in answer to a neighbouring city's ban ..in any event that's not really a good analogy as the law was enacted when Kennesaw's population hovered around the 5000 mark ..honestly do you think such a law would be as successful in say New york? or Detroit or washington dc?

However, to my knowledge there is not a single piece of evidence that supports the theory that increased gun control reduces crime, and there is plenty to suggest that the opposite is true.

there is evidence in your own backyard that there is some effect ..however unlike you I wont attribute a decrease in crime solely on gun control as there are sure to be a ton of mitigating factors ..this is what I mean about think in absolutes repiV .. btw previous statements made that there was increase in crime is misleading and inaccurate:

The increase in violent crime recorded by police, in contrast to estimates provided from the BCS, appears to be largely due to increased recording by police forces. Taking into account recording changes, the real trend in violence against the person in 2001/02 is estimated to have been a reduction of around five percent.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb702.pdf


here's a graph of crime levels in the UK following ban on guns:

http://www.guninformation.org/bcscrime9703.jpg



in another often misleading example of gun control leading to escalating crime rates is washington dc. Gun advocates point to escalating crime rate but they only take into a account one specific time frame when crime did indeed rise but fell in sebsequent samplings ..in fact there has been a decrease in murder (47 per year) by firearm so it seems a ban on guns prevent homicide by firearm ..see how when taken into context it actually sounds simple:

The number of suicides and homicides was calculated for each month during the study period, and differences between the mean monthly totals before and after the law went into effect were estimated.

RESULTS. In Washington, D.C., the adoption of the gun-licensing law coincided with an abrupt decline in homicides by firearms (a reduction of 3.3 per month, or 25 percent) and suicides by firearms (reduction, 0.6 per month, or 23 percent). No similar reductions were observed in the number of homicides or suicides committed by other means, nor were there similar reductions in the adjacent metropolitan areas in Maryland and Virginia. There were also no increases in homicides or suicides by other methods, as would be expected if equally lethal means were substituted for handguns. CONCLUSIONS. Restrictive licensing of handguns was associated with a prompt decline in homicides and suicides by firearms in the District of Columbia. No such decline was observed for homicides or suicides in which guns were not used, and no decline was seen in adjacent metropolitan areas where restrictive licensing did not apply. Our data suggest that restrictions on access to guns in the District of Columbia prevented an average of 47 deaths each year after the law was implemented.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/325/23/1615

that's not too say that the overall crime rate hasnt escalated or decreased it just says exactly what it says: a ban on firearms reduces gun related homicide ..this is what most people talk about when they discuss gun control




oh and having a gun in your home increases the risk of violence in the home ..by a factor of 2.7 and an increase of the risk of suicide by a factor of 4.8 (who knew jumping off a building was much harder than pulling a trigger?)

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/329/15/1084

 

[kathaksung]

.


So far, it has been exploited only by gun-control activists and lobbies, not by the government or any government agency. In fact, I don't believe the government has tried to use this incident to make any political point about gun control at all. In fact, the White House has done !

Because this plot is planned for distract not at the purpose to gun-control.


480. The real killer behind Virginia Tech. massacre (1) (4/23/07)

I think the Virginia Tech. massacre was done by THE j000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000sssssssseees ssssACK~

(To be continued.)

 

[Sulkdodds]

Don't worry. Before your post was edited, I got it all noted down. So (continue) at your leisure.

Your post basically boiled down to three things, though:


1). First there was very detailed news - then it disappeared! Evidence of a plot?

No. There was not "very detailed news." There was wrong news. Police got the wrong suspect or journalists reported the wrong thing. The article you cite only says "authorities were investigating whether this or that might have been the case..." This is the standard flurry of unsure journalistic activity that follows major incidents like this; there's really nothing to suggest anything suspicious.


2). The massacre must have been perpetrated to distract the public from something else!

An assumption based on absolutely no evidence, pulled out of your arse. You don't even know what they're trying to distract the public from. But it must be something, right?


3) Babble.

What?




Perhaps your post is (to be continued), but as it stands I can't really argue against it because you haven't put anything forward.

Try and present a clear argument, please. What you wrote was just so much unsupported horseshit.

PS: Are you completely abandoning your previous claims (that the whole thing was a black op designed to rally support for gun control) because I entirely refuted them?

 

[repiV]

Here's an excellent article on the subject:

Banning guns is not the obvious answer that it seems

...
In Norway gun ownership also quite common with a third of homes having one. And what is the rate of homicide there? Fewer than one per 100,000, far lower than in Britain. The rate in England and Wales is 1.5 and and in Scotland it is 2.2.

People will think that Swizerland and Norway are different sorts of countries with different cultures. But that is the whole point. The culture of a country ? the way people live and think ? vitally affects the extent at which people kill each other. The question of whether or not people are allowed to own guns is far less significant.

This can be shown by another little-known fact: Americans kill each other at such a high rate that even if you excluded the deaths caused there by the use of guns, their homicide rate would still higher than ours. In other words, even if there were not a single gun in America, there would still be more murders and manslaughters than in Britain. Bringing in gun control in America would not stop it being a country where a lot of people get killed.
...

 

[CptStern]

Here's an excellent article on the subject:

Banning guns is not the obvious answer that it seems

the crime rate for non firearm related murders puts the US just under barbados for position # 16 ..in firearm related homicide it's a completely different picture ..they place #8 ..in terms of percentages killed by firearms they're slightly higher at #7 ..the next closest is Zimbabwe at #6 ..which incidentily has a much lower overall crime rate than the US ...ironically enough the UK has a higher overall crime rate than the US but a much much lower firearm related homicide rate ..why do you think that is?

in other words your stats are slanted to suit a pov .because I can just as easily argue that since the crime rate is lower in the US compared to other countries with similiar gun related murder rates then it stands to reason that more gun control can lead to a significant drop in the number of gun related homicides as I've already proven in this post (47 less deaths annually in washington dc, a gun free zone)


http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_non_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_fir_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita


oh and we've already discussed the switzerland issue, your article is purposefully misleading ..specifically that they are required to have a gun if they've served military service ..all males serve military duty ..also those stats fail to take into account that while 1/3 of the homes have a military grade gun they have NO bullets in said gun ...they need special permission to retrieve their ammo. The high gun r

 

[repiV]

the crime rate for non firearm related murders puts them just under barbados for position # 16 ..in firearm related homicide it's a completely different picture ..they place #8 ..in terms of percentages killed by firearms they're slightly higher at #7 ..the next closest is Zimbabwe at #6 ..lawless Zimbabwe which incidentily has a much lower overall crime rate than the US

So? Position #16 is still extremely high. Also, the statistics reveal that there are almost twice as many non-firearm related homicides as firearm-related ones in the US - massively more than total homicides in the UK. Clearly, guns cannot possibly be the prevailing factor causing violent crime in the US. So WHAT exactly is your point? How do you think an exercise in gun control - which will be futile and counter-productive at best - could ever possibly hope to stop the US being one of the most violent countries in the world?
Seems to me that you shape your view of the world and actions that should be taken on your ideology, rather than the reality.

...ironically enough the UK has a higher overall crime rate than the US but a much much lower firearm related homicide rate ..why do you think that is?


http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_non_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_fir_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita

Yes it does, but it also has a far lower homicide rate than the US - guns or no guns - as the article itself states. Your question is intentionally misleading.
However, in answer to your question, I think the reason this country has such a high crime rate all comes down to socialism and the misguided attitudes that accompany it. Socialism creates welfare dependency and the cycle of poverty. Socialism takes away individual responsibility and the pride, status, empowerment and satisfaction that goes with it, replacing it with dependence, envy, and a feeling of powerlessness. Socialism increases inequality by making people powerless, and shifts the perceived blame for people's dire situations onto the successful. Socialism instills a culture of reverse snobbery that is very prevalent in the UK - looking down upon the intelligent and the successful, the way to be cool is to be ignorant and destructive. Socialism is responsible for our culture of having limitless rights but no responsibilities. Socialism takes away personal responsibility and accountability. Socialism is responsible for a terrible state school system which not only fail to educate children, but fail to discipline them or bring them up properly - an added responsibility they have now taken away somewhat from parents.
Socialism destroys the essence of a free and just society. In the UK, we see the result today.

we've already discussed the switzerland issue, your article is purposefully misleading ..specifically that they are required to have a gun if they've served military service ..all males serve military duty ..also those stats fail to take into account that while 1/3 of the homes have a military grade gun they have NO bullets in said gun ...they need special permission to retrieve their ammo

So, what about Norway and other countries then?

The suggestion that any particular object causes the problem is always misleading. It's people, and culture. We have the safest roads in the world in the UK (although, due to speed cameras and inane, false speed kills road "safety" policy, we're rapidly losing that position), despite having some of the busiest and most congested and the money to afford very powerful vehicles. The culture backing them too - in the rest of Europe, for example, balanced motorcycles designed for the road are the "weapon of choice", whereas over here superbikes and sportsbikes designed for the track are by far the most popular.
Why do we have the safest roads? Because we have an excellent road safety culture and a history of pioneering safe driving, and comparatively excellent driver training.

Why does America have such a high murder rate? Because their culture is violent, selfish and many more factors besides. But guns do not make America a more violent society. The attitudes towards guns, perhaps, but not guns.

 

[Gray Fox]

So you're seriously going to go ahead and blame high crime on socialism, while at the same time using a socialist country with one of the most famous welfare system as an example of a low crime state.

 

[repiV]

So you're seriously going to go ahead and blame high crime on socialism, while at the same time using a socialist country with one of the most famous welfare system as an example of a low crime state.

My, doesn't your argument have substance...
For a start, Norway doesn't even come close to the UK in being saturated with political correctness, rights without responsibilities, the breakdown of the family and all the other associated shit that comes with socialist thinking in the UK.

 

[CptStern]

So? Position #16 is still extremely high. Also, the statistics reveal that there are almost twice as many non-firearm related homicides as firearm-related ones in the US - massively more than total homicides in the UK. Clearly, guns cannot possibly be the prevailing factor causing violent crime in the US. So WHAT exactly is your point?

ya well you're wrong ..there is twice as many gun related deaths than all other non firearm homicides combimed in the US:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

How do you think an exercise in gun control - which will be futile and counter-productive at best

wrong, I've proven it has decreased gun related crime both in the US (washington dc) and in the UK

could ever possibly hope to stop the US being one of the most violent countries in the world?

47 less gun related homicides in gun free washington alone more than proves it works ..47 less deaths a year is nothing to sneeze about ..in fact it's almost the total for my city in an entire year ..more so considering those killed by firearms in toronto is on average about 30/yr ...a city with 4.5 million people ..there is no american city that even comes close to that low a figure with a comparable population size

Seems to me that you shape your view of the world and actions that should be taken on your ideology, rather than the reality.

it's the other way around ..I have real world figures to support my statements ..you have pro-gun advocates slanting information to support their "facts"

Yes it does, but it also has a far lower homicide rate than the US - guns or no guns - as the article itself states. Your question is intentionally misleading.
However, in answer to your question, I think the reason this country has such a high crime rate all comes down to socialism and the misguided attitudes that accompany it. Socialism creates welfare dependency and the cycle of poverty. Socialism takes away individual responsibility and the pride, status, empowerment and satisfaction that goes with it, replacing it with dependence, envy, and a feeling of powerlessness. Socialism increases inequality by making people powerless, and shifts the perceived blame for people's dire situations onto the successful. Socialism instills a culture of reverse snobbery that is very prevalent in the UK - looking down upon the intelligent and the successful, the way to be cool is to be ignorant and destructive. Socialism is responsible for our culture of having limitless rights but no responsibilities. Socialism takes away personal responsibility and accountability. Socialism is responsible for a terrible state school system which not only fail to educate children, but fail to discipline them or bring them up properly - an added responsibility they have now taken away somewhat from parents.
Socialism destroys the essence of a free and just society. In the UK, we see the result today.

:upstare: yes it's all socialisms fault that there's a high crime rate ..unemployment, poverty, lack of education has nothing to do with it ..in fact it's the mother figure as goverment: nurturing/willing to give a hand that is at the root of the problem of high crime ..we need a patriarcal government that is tough on crime and throws people in jail for whatever crime no matter the severity ..yet this doesnt seem to work in the US ..in fact the war on drugs has done absoltely nothing except breed new generations of criminals with experience within the system ..ya I can sae how being tough on crime solves every social ill ...again there is zero practicality in most of the things you say ..it's as if you lift it from some converative handbook without a shred of real world practical realities to temper the facts into a cohesive yet fair pov ..it's all regurgitation of partisan talking points nothing more ...I'm surprised you havenet used that oft used but completely made up statistic that says 2.5 million americans defend themselves with handguns every year (it's poppycocks btw dreamed up by gun advocates)

So, what about Norway and other countries then?

what about them? their firearm homicide rate is nowhere near as high as the US

The suggestion that any particular object causes the problem is always misleading. It's people, and culture. We have the safest roads in the world in the UK (although, due to speed cameras and inane, false speed kills road "safety" policy, we're rapidly losing that position), despite having some of the busiest and most congested and the money to afford very powerful vehicles. The culture backing them too - in the rest of Europe, for example, balanced motorcycles designed for the road are the "weapon of choice", whereas over here superbikes and sportsbikes designed for the track are by far the most popular.
Why do we have the safest roads? Because we have an excellent road safety culture and a history of pioneering safe driving, and comparatively excellent driver training.

Why does America have such a high murder rate? Because their culture is violent, selfish and many more factors besides. But guns do not make America a more violent society. The attitudes towards guns, perhaps, but not guns.

no it's the guns primarily or easy access/wide availibility of guns to be precise ..all you have to look at is the number of guns to other weapons incidents and it's 2 to 1 ..obviously taking guns away would severely limit that number ..there is no disputing this, the stats are quite clear

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

 

[Sulkdodds]

You describe America's 'selfish' culture as being to blame for gun crime, but it's not even vaguely socialist...?

 

[Gray Fox]

Stern & Sulk don't bother. He's to stupid to grasp even the most basic of arguments let alone construct one of his own that doesn't contradict itself more then the bible.
This, like every other debate he participates in this will end up a War of Attrition until you don't even know where to begin let alone have the strength and sanity necessary to make sense of what he's arguing.

 

[repiV]

ya well you're wrong ..there is twice as many gun related deaths than all other non firearm homicides combimed in the US:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

So now you use a completely different set of figures?
The very statistics you posted earlier show a 5.5 per 100,000 rate of non-firearm related murders and significantly less for firearm-related.

wrong, I've proven it has decreased gun related crime both in the US (washington dc) and in the UK

You haven't proven shit. In fact, looking at the figures, there has been no significant drop in violent crime following the DC gun ban in 1977 whatsoever. Furthermore, DC remains one of the most dangerous areas of the US and has the highest gun death rate in the entire country, as detailed further down.

DC crime statistics

Washington D.C., has the strictest gun control laws on the books. They banned all handguns more than 25 years ago to 'curb gun violence'. Law abiding citizens are not allowed to carry handguns. Washington D.C. has one of the highest levels of gun crimes committed against it's law abiding citizens. In fact, their gun crime problem has been labeled by their own police as a "crime emergency". There are 46.4 murders for every 100,000 people in Washington D.C. but across the way in Arlington Virginia is another world.
You see, in Arlington, the citizens are allowed to own, carry, and flaunt their handguns. And despite being only minutes away from D.C., the murder rate there is 2.1 for every 100,000 people.

Clicky

47 less gun related homicides in gun free washington alone more than proves it works ..47 less deaths a year is nothing to sneeze about ..in fact it's almost the total for my city in an entire year ..more so considering those killed by firearms in toronto is on average about 30/yr ...a city with 4.5 million people ..there is no american city that even comes close to that low a figure with a comparable population size

Bullshit. In fact, DC has - by FAR - the highest gun death rate in the entire country. Firearms related deaths by state

It also has by an even greater margin the highest level of violent crime in the country - nearly double the next highest state!

it's the other way around ..I have real world figures to support my statements ..you have pro-gun advocates slanting information to support their "facts"

Evidently, the opposite is true.

:upstare: yes it's all socialisms fault that there's a high crime rate ..unemployment, poverty, lack of education has nothing to do with it ..in fact it's the mother figure as goverment: nurturing/willing to give a hand that is at the root of the problem of high crime ..we need a patriarcal government that is tough on crime and throws people in jail for whatever crime no matter the severity ..yet this doesnt seem to work in the US ..in fact the war on drugs has done absoltely nothing except breed new generations of criminals with experience within the system ..ya I can sae how being tough on crime solves every social ill ...again there is zero practicality in most of the things you say ..it's as if you lift it from some converative handbook without a shred of real world practical realities to temper the facts into a cohesive yet fair pov ..it's all regurgitation of partisan talking points nothing more ...I'm surprised you havenet used that oft used but completely made up statistic that says 2.5 million americans defend themselves with handguns every year (it's poppycocks btw dreamed up by gun advocates)

We don't need a patriarchal government or a matriarchal government. We need a government that gets the **** out of the way and lets people live their lives without interference and solve their own problems. For someone who tells me about "thinking in absolutes" all the time, you sure do like to paint me as a middle America conservative.
By the way, just to poke holes in your little tirade, socialist policies increase unemployment, encourage the cycle of poverty and reduce class mobility, and lower the quality of education. All of these things have also happened as a direct result of Blair's reign.
The relationship between unemployment, the free market and the welfare state is one of the most fundamental aspects of modern economics and I find it hard to believe you don't understand it - are you seriously suggesting that socialism does not cause rising unemployment?

what about them? their firearm homicide rate is nowhere near as high as the US

Correct. Yet they have massive levels of gun ownership. It's not the guns that cause the problem, it's the culture.

no it's the guns primarily or easy access/wide availibility of guns to be precise ..all you have to look at is the number of guns to other weapons incidents and it's 2 to 1 ..obviously taking guns away would severely limit that number ..there is no disputing this, the stats are quite clear

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

The stats from your other link show exactly the opposite trend.

 

[repiV]

You describe America's 'selfish' culture as being to blame for gun crime, but it's not even vaguely socialist...?

America has problems of a whole other kind, and a lot of baggage left over from segregation etc. When I say socialism is causing the social breakdown of this country, I am talking about the attitudes that accompany the economics as much as or perhaps more so than the economics themselves.
Besides which, that's not entirely accurate. Socialism is actually a pretty strong movement in America. In some cases - parts of California and the northeast for example, are far, far more liberal in attitude than anywhere in the UK.
The US is a nation of extremes, and socialism is one of those.

 

[repiV]

Stern & Sulk don't bother. He's to stupid to grasp even the most basic of arguments let alone construct one of his own that doesn't contradict itself more then the bible.
This, like every other debate he participates will end up a War of Attrition until you don't even know where to begin let alone have the strength and sanity necessary to make sense of what he's arguing.

You're an idiot. At least add something to the discussion or stfu.