SHOOTING at the OLYMPICS

[adonys]

exceptions which are confirming the rule

the cases of going postal with white arms are surely fewer and with lesser casualties than the gun-powdered ones.

crimes will still happen no matter what, even with bare hands. but actually having to do your kill from up close requires much more cool blood/insanity than having to kill by just pulling a trigger from a few meters away, and therefore many people which could do it with a gun, won't do it with a knife.

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by adonys

exceptions which are confirming the rule

the cases of going postal with white arms are surely fewer and with lesser casualties than the gun-powdered ones.

crimes will still happen no matter what, even with bare hands. but actually having to do your kill from up close requires much more cool blood/insanity than having to kill by just pulling a trigger from a few meters away, and therefore many people which could do it with a gun, won't do it with a knife.

Doesn't matter what a person "goes postal" with... it is the same mental/ emotional switch which is flicked.

Manson gave using both gun and knife a good go.....

[kammo]

OK now I get it. It's really bad to regulate guns cause they don't kill people. Only people kill people. We need to be freed from these gun laws. Break away from these shakles! I have a right to own mines, flamethrowers, dum dum bullets, plastic explosives, Gunships, tanks, RPG's, B52's with full bomb load, Agent Orange and yes Tactical Nukes (not H-Bombs cause that would be just too silly right?). I'm truely a free man. Only people kill people.

The thing is guns are allready regulated because they are seen as a major threath to public. We just need to regulate them some moore.

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

Bewolf, as you know I come from Italy and I can assure you that the nature of crime there is incredibly varied.

Undoubtly

I can guarantee you that in modern western society nobody is forced to be a criminal, it's ALL about will.

Agreed, nobody is "forced". But, no, it is not about "will". Will is something you develop when you have a perspective to reach something. And I personally only know very, very few people actually managing to get enough will togeteher to change something about their situation or attitude. "Will" requires a lot of intelligence and self awareness. That is not the norm.

Crime is strongly bonded to the good ol' equation "I can't afford something but I want it = I'll steal it".

Only when other methods have failed, the preconditions for these methods never expirienced or never taught. Without wanting to tell you my life story, there was a time when I dropped down to certain levels of society and expirienced first hand how people think and live there. And the one expirience I made that hardly any of the people there are intentional ass****. One guy, who with the age of 20 actually did rob a gas station with a gun and went to jail for it. These days this individual is one of my best and most loyal friends who by now got his exams and a highly paid job as an IT specialist. Some hard work on my part was involved in this.

It's probably driven by class envy or pure greediness. In a way I feel like the minor criminals are driven by "good reasons" but apply the wrong method, whilst the corporate criminals are pure evil greedy monsters with no sense of the future and no respect for their equals. There are many levels as I said, but you CHOOSE to become a dishonest person.

It is not driven by class envy, though that may be part of the justification. It's mostly done out of impressing buddies, desperation and a simple lack of fantasy in regards to what may happen or what the one being assaulted may think. Ppl at that age simply are not aware of the eventual consequences or don't take it serious enough. Now it is easy to say "you should have known better", but we all know how people are even at later ages. Expecting them to actually be aware of what they do and make a concious choice here, THAT is what is utopian. And a very very comfortable way of deflecting all responsebilities. It is like expecting a dog to use a toilet and punishing him with the excuse that he shoudl have known better. (and yes, I DO say here that a lot of people do not function on their brains, but on gut feeling and instict). It simply does not work this way.

As per your point on guns being fuel for the fire, I don't think it's always the case: it's a society that deems acceptable to play video games that promote murder and gore, or films that make murder part of their normal routine that cause an overall "numbing" towards the whole concept of violence. We love our action movies and cheer when stuff gets blown up, but we kinda forget that on a subconscious level we are making them a form of entertainment and we're not as shocked when we deal with them in real life.

You are right, it is not "always" the case. But it certainly is the case in a country that has seen extremly high rates of gun related crimes and murder for decades now.

However, I do agree that our modern culture showing violence and gore in movies on an unprecendet scale has some influence here. That is part of one of the points I made before, a lack of responsebility in society, enjoying such creulties for the fun of it and then wondering that it may actually have an effect on people in the long run. Games and movies have become way, waaay too violent. I've only seen the frist SAW movie. I got so sick of it that I never watched any other part. Yet it is one of the greatest series in the last decade. Go figure.

Back in the day real violence was used as a form of entertainment, nowadays we use fake violence, but it works on the same level: a person with mental issues will absorb and assimilate that to a level where it's hard to distinct between reality and fiction, so even the most atrocious crime (like the one in Aurora) might be somehow justified because of the altered state in which the person lives.

It is not justifyable at all. But it has it's reasons. And cheering the killings while ignoring the underlying patters is what makes those individuals part of the problem, not the solution.

And again it doesn't need a gun to be devastating: the guy could have thrown grenades in that cinema and killed and maimed way more people. The Oklahoma bomber didn't use guns for his terrorist attack either, did he?
The problem is not guns, the problem is the society we live in, and how we numbing ourselves in front of real pain and suffer.

Oh, so you think a bomb is a good justification for people having guns?
I agree, there are lots of ways to kill people. And the more sophisticated killers do not need a gun to begin with. But then again, THOSE people are the ones who actually make a descision. In that category, it does not really matter. Brevik tried to bomb buildings in Oslo as well before he got into his gunning spree on that island.

But those kind of people only compromise a tiny fraction of ppl using a gun.

Let me make something clear. I am not advocating letting those teens with guns, or other criminals, get of lightly. They will have to learn a lesson, just pampering them and telling them that it is societies fault won't do any good here. They need to realize that they are reponsible for what they do and make them aware of the consequences, both for themselves and their potential victims.

However, "cheering" and applauding when a 19 year old kid is taken down is just outright evil and puts the person at the same level as the criminal himself. It is that kind of people that breed that kind of cynical and hard attitude you often find at lower levels of society. If I had expirienced such attitudes when I was at that level, I probably would have had few problems dealing with that person accordingly myself. Not because it would have been the right thing to do, but because human nature does not cope well with being put down that way.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by kammo

OK now I get it. It's really bad to regulate guns cause they don't kill people. Only people kill people. We need to be freed from these gun laws. Break away from these shakles! I have a right to own mines, flamethrowers, dum dum bullets, plastic explosives, Gunships, tanks, RPG's, B52's with full bomb load, Agent Orange and yes Tactical Nukes (not H-Bombs cause that would be just too silly right?). I'm truely a free man. Only people kill people.

The thing is guns are allready regulated because they are seen as a major threath to public. We just need to regulate them some moore.

you're being a bit silly now, don't you think mate?

I am a gun owner and collector and I'm the first one to say we need more adequate controls on gun ownership, banning firearms just because you're scared of what the media feed you, when you probably never even used one, is silly. It's like someone else said here "let's ban all the Muslims from our country because some of them are suicide bombers"... It's not fair and it should not be allowed to happen, because you're limiting someone else's freedom to bear arms, profess a religion, express their opinion if they want to. If you're afraid of gun owners potentially going gung-ho you don't have to worry too much though, you're still gonna be protected by the same police forces that would protect you from criminals and violent people, so good luck to you

Sometimes I wonder if people really do understand that the world out there is a tough one...

[Sternjaeger II]

In other news: today is the 68th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by kammo

Only people kill people.

That's right... and until why people go postal is addressed, the same will continue to happen without regard to what is regulated or banned. Just the tools used will differ - including that which is found in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, or the garden shed

[adonys]

do you not agree that going postal with a gun, or a machinegun will most probably end up with much more victims than going postal with a knife?

same logic should be applied to.. dunno.. drugs? because we know how to not get enslaved by them.. or painkillers.. or poison.. as all of them have their uses too.. and only people miss-using them are responsible for the bad outcomes..

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by adonys

do you not agree that going postal with a gun, or a machinegun will most probably end up with much more victims than going postal with a knife?

Victim count doesn't matter... its the reasons why it happens which need to be addressed. You've seen the results of simple home held items in the news.

[adonys]

well, of course that the main issue needing to be solving is the reason why people go postal.. any why our (western) society ended up where it is right now.. and which would actually would be a better social system.. but all of those are another stories..

we were here discussing about guns..

speaking of which.. "Alin George Moldoveanu of Romania won the 10-meter air rifle gold medal"