CNN.com: (Opinion) Why We Don't Give a [darn] About Mass Shootings

[Popeman38]

Nuance on wedge issues is dead, that is why nothing gets done. 

 

I'm a man.  If I am running for office and state, "My personal opinion is that abortion is wrong, but abortion law has been settled by SCOTUS and I will do nothing that will encroach on settled law if elected" I will be skewered by both sides immediately.  Pro-lifers will seize on "...abortion law has been settled by SCOTUS and I will do nothing to that will encroach on settled law if elected" and run ads to rally the right.  Pro-choicers will seize on "My personal opinion is that abortion is wrong..." and run ads to rally the left.  Flip to guns, and the same thing happens.  "My personal opinion is that individuals have a right to own guns, but recognize the need to enact stricter gun laws to prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook" and both sides pounce. Right: "...recognize the need to enact stricter gun laws to prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook" he's gonna take our guns.  Left:  "My personal opinion is that individuals have a right to own gun..." he wants to keep the status quo.

 

Politicians are not allowed to have nuance anymore.  Any qualifier, and they are done.  The days of Reagan (he would be labeled a liberal) and Kennedy (he would be labeled a conservative) are long gone.  What we are left with are 10 second sound bites spun by millions and millions of dollars.  One slip on certain subjects, and a politician is done.

 

What we are left with is Donald Trump as President.

[Llevron]

7 minutes ago, Popeman38 said:

Politicians are not allowed to have nuance anymore.  Any qualifier, and they are done.  The days of Reagan (he would be labeled a liberal) and Kennedy (he would be labeled a conservative) are long gone.  What we are left with are 10 second sound bites spun by millions and millions of dollars.  One slip on certain subjects, and a politician is done.

 

What we are left with is Donald Trump as President.

 

All true. They did this to themselves though. Or their predecessors I guess is more accurate. Point is, they can change the political discourse themselves. They choose instead to be petty children about it. That and money. 

[Mr. Sinister]

I know what/where the final tipping point might be. People are growing increasingly incapable of taking themselves outside of their own bubble, not having to acknowledge the reality of something until its literally shoved right in front of them (god help you if you fit this description), and even then, some will attempt to deny it

 

Sure, domestic violence is bad, but the act has always been a very intimate one. Thus, even for the ones who fight against it, but have never seen it, the initial shock of seeing it on video for the first time even for them would be a lot, hence the outrage at various recorded instances of domestic/male-female violence. 

 

At this point, in regards to mass shootings, we have to start thinking at this point about what he haven't seen, which is sad. Not gonna go down the list, but we've seen pretty much everyone individually targeted.

 

Now you have to ask yourself, what matters most to people (even the stupid, morally bankrupt ones)? Family. Amusement parks, picnics, a Chuck E Cheese. A beach. Multiple families shot up at once. And video of it.

 

Video of children screaming for their parents with tears running down their faces as bullets rip through them. Parents trying to save their children and failing, as they all get shot up. Video of the shooter, methodically just mowing down everyone, maybe laughing.

 

It's time to force people to see the true reality of this. Not just a looped shot of the scene with squad cars and ambulances. Maybe they'll stop thinking of it as something akin to the debt ceiling debate, or conservatives vs dems

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

45 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

The topic's answer is simple. 

 

Every time there's a mass shooting, there are calls for Congress to do something. And Congress does nothing. So this is now the expected response, nothing will be done.

 

What's missing is: if people care about this issue, then elect people to Congress that will do something. 

 

Like I said in the Gun Control thread, there will never be appropriate gun control laws/regulations/etc. until the lobbyists and big corporations can quit buying politicians and influencing and "buying" laws/regulations that do little to nothing about major issues while protecting their best interests.   That along with the current set-up of how the government is made up in the form of a two party system (Republicans and Democrats). 

 

Sure, there are independents/libertarians running/campaigning for spots, but the current system is designed for them to fail and not be able to grow into a major party with a legit chance to take the presidency or be the majority in the Senate or Congress.  Which is what the Dems/Repubs parties want, division and no other legit shots to ruin what they have set-up.  The last thing they want is another party whose values/views/sides might encompass the best of both major parties.  

 

In the current set-up they are able to pick what topics/issues they want to back and force voters to choose a side.  Then they get to play the back and forth game of "who has the power".  Which is really just basically flip flopping every 8 years for the most part (going back to Eisenhower) with few exceptions like Carter getting 4 years and Regan and Bush getting 12 years total.  

 

And major issues like gun control become a pissing war between the two parties and a compromise instead of what really needs to be done in trying to prevent or severely decrease these tragic events from happening.  I'm a gun owner and I am fine for stricter background checks, requiring a permit to purchase/own all firearms, requiring all guns to be registered, require a waiting period before one can purchase, tracking what is purchased including ammo, reducing magazine capacity, banning the sale of silencers and bump stocks. 

 

Also prohibiting the sale of semi-automatic rifles to the general/average gun owner and requiring a special permit and possibly extra classes with a psych eval to be able to purchase one.  And prohibiting the sale of firearms at gun shows, collector shows, etc. along with individual sales.  Make individual sales have to take place at a local gun shop with say a $20 fee to transfer the registration to the new owner.  Gun shop owners get to keep the transfer fee and what ever price is decided between the two individuals is just that, with a witness signing off on the transaction (which would be the gun shop employee).  

 

But none of this is going to happen in my lifetime or probably my great grand kids lifetimes.  

[LadySkinsFan]

I happen to agree with everything you you outlined for gun laws. 

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

13 hours ago, zoony said:

 

All of these shooters want to wreak havoc and get their name  in lights

 

Jon Stewart had the best solution - replace "shot" with "**** his pants"

 

"Another mass ****ting incident in California today, gunman Tom Brodie **** his pants 8 times before police shot him.

[No Excuses]

The problem's answer doesn't have to be "zero mass shootings". We will always have some form of gun violence, since gun ownership is a constitutional right and guns will be in circulation for sale.

 

But can you bring down the frequency of these incidents? I believe the answer is yes. There is some evidence to suggest that certain types of policy solutions are effective in reducing gun violence. 

 

This is a subject that really ought to be investigated through public funded research. Not all the solutions are gun-control related. We've seen gunshot deaths decrease in parts of the country, because for instance, we instituted some medical reforms and techniques that have saved lives. 

 

But we can't even determine this when unbiased research on this issue is all but prohibited.

[twa]

research is not prohibited at all, you are free to study it all ya wish and publish the results.

a certain govt agency is prohibited from asserting conclusions though

[Springfield]

3 minutes ago, twa said:

research is not prohibited at all, you are free to study it all ya wish and publish the results.

a certain govt agency is prohibited from asserting conclusions though

 

Ok, I’ve studied it.  Bullets that are shot out of guns kill people.  Fact.

[twa]

1 hour ago, Springfield said:

 

Ok, I’ve studied it.  Bullets that are shot out of guns kill people.  Fact.

 

Some bullets.

 

Water kills people....Fact

[Springfield]

7 minutes ago, twa said:

 

Some bullets.

 

Water kills people....Fact

 

Ban water.

 

PS:  I wonder how much Russian propaganda has made this problem worse.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

52 minutes ago, twa said:

Some bullets.

 

Water kills people....Fact

Maybe a dumb argument tax would be a good start.

[Bang]

1 minute ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Maybe a dumb argument tax would be a good start.

Well, there you go,, growing the government is always the answer with you libs.

 

I truly do hate the false comparisons of a tool which sole purpose is to kill, and other tools that could be used to kill.
I immediately believe the person making the comparison is mentally stunted.

 

~Bang

[twa]

I shoot bullets all the time w/o killing anything but my wallet

[Springfield]

7 minutes ago, twa said:

I shoot bullets all the time w/o killing anything but my wallet

Your aim sucks

 

(sorry, you left yourself open to that one)

[TheGreatBuzz]

14 hours ago, abdcskins said:

We don't give a darn about mass shootings because they will never stop and nothing is being done to prevent them. Politicans don't care. I agree with Springfield, the only way to prevent them is to get rid of guns. Since that clearly isn't possible in this country, then we need to at the very least curtail what types of guns are available. I think starting by not allowing citizens to own assault rifles would be a good start. Compromise. Do people even compromise anymore? One of the main reasons I despise politics. 

 

I love when people say this.  What exactly is an assault weapon?  Please don't let that be the "scary looking weapon" argument again......

 

6 hours ago, LadySkinsFan said:

The topic's answer is simple. 

 

Every time there's a mass shooting, there are calls for Congress to do something. And Congress does nothing. So this is now the expected response, nothing will be done.

 

What's missing is: if people care about this issue, then elect people to Congress that will do something. 

I wonder how many calls Congress still gets about it?  How many of you here routinely call your congressman/women?  I would bet the majority don't.  That is at least partly why they don't listen to us.  Because after a few days, they stop hearing from us.  We should all be nagging the **** out of our representatives.

 

6 hours ago, Destino said:

I'm entirely too cynical when it comes to politics sometimes, and this might be one of those times, but part of me suspects the major parties value wedge issues like this more than attempting to resolve them.  Trying to actually change things is risky politically.  I get suspicious when I don't see detailed solutions being proposed and a movement towards consensus.  Look at health care for instance.  Republicans campaigned on Obamacare being the devil itself, but when it came time to fix this great evil... nothing.  The divisiveness of the issue was politically valuable, clearly.  They all made use of it.  When time came to actually do something about it, they couldn't agree on anything.  There is risk in tying their names to actual policy. 

 

I am quite cynical also.  But I agree that politicians like having a couple core issues and that is all they have to talk about.  Pro-gun=Right, Pro-choice=left.  They get us so stuck on those few issues they know we will vote D or R based on them.  Then we will excuse any other bull**** they do because we care so much about our core issue.

6 hours ago, Popeman38 said:

Nuance on wedge issues is dead, that is why nothing gets done. 

 

Qouted for several reasons.  One, that is pretty much my exact position on abortion.  Glad to know I can never run for office.

 

I saw pretty much the same thing a few days ago in another thread.  Except I used the word compromise.  Whatever you do, opponents will twist into being the most horrible thing ever by cherry-picking your words/actions. 

 

At the end of the day, I put a lot of our problems on the media and how they twist things to divide us.  I would love to see some form of a "Truth in Reporting" law for the media.  It is probably as likely and possible as ending mass shootings though.  But I just want to media to report what ACTUALLY happened and show both sides.  Not twist things to meet their agenda.

[LadySkinsFan]

But...Fox News Network! It will go away!

[zoony]

On 11/16/2017 at 9:02 AM, Llevron said:

Silencing the media is probably the dumbest solution to this I have ever read. You dont think you will see cell phone videos on Social Media claiming that 'The government doesn't want you to know this happened!!' 

 

Why because you say it is?  Okay.  Nothing to see here then

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/mass-shootings-body-counts-media/

 

 

The phenomenon goes back to the early age of television. In July of 1966, the rape and mass murder of eight women in Chicago commanded widespread news coverage. That August came the clock tower shooting in Austin, where 16 were killed, including a pregnant woman, and 31 others were injured. A young man who’d been riveted by news reports about that shooting walked into a beauty school in Arizona three months later and opened fire. Once in custody, he referenced both mass murder cases and described his ambition: “I wanted to kill about 40 people so I could make a name for myself. I wanted people to know who I was.”

News media “run the risk of essentially creating a national ranking,” says one expert, “which might lead subsequent perpetrators to kill even more people so that they can be ‘number one’ and go down in history.”

This problem is prevalent in another dataset I built in 2015 to research the “Columbine effect”—scores of cases in which mass shooters and would-be attackers have been influenced in various ways by the 1999 high school massacre. More than a dozen cases since then involved perpetrators specifically with ambitions to surpass Columbine’s body count.