Totally not targeting anyone in this thread, but why are so many Americans just afraid to say "no guns?" I think that's the scarier reality -- how ingrained this idea has become in our society.
OK fine, I'll be the bad guy: I'm against gun ownership in all forms. I don't care how small your dick is.
Edited By Akash on 1203370141
School Shooting
If all guns in the world could disappear by pressing a button or by having Samantha twitch her cute nose or Jeannie blink her beautiful hazel eyes, that would be wonderful. Then we could strictly control who has guns and the type of guns that are available. But that is not going to happen. Private citizens are not going to allow themselves to feel defenseless when they know many other people, including "bad people," are armed.
Wes' point about the Nazis and Jews is not a bad one, though that may not have been the best example to use. One of the main concerns of the gun owner rights advocates is that the state will have exclusive contol over weapons. I guess that is similar to how people who are strongly anti-socialist fear that the state will have exclusive control over property and wealth. Many conservatives fear that if those two events take place we will be helpless against government tyranny.
Of course, things are a lot different today than when the second amendment was written. They type of weapons available to the private citizen during the time of the Founding Fathers were not really all that different from the weapons available to the state. But private citizens today engaging in armed conflict with the U.S. military is ridiculous. But the idea that private citizens cannot possess firearms still stirs powerful emotions in a large segment of our population.
I support private gun ownership (My wife and I got rid of ours when our first child started to walk. I do not know if we will ever obtain one again.). But I see no reason why private citizens need certain kinds of weapons. I would like to see the market for certain weapons dry up. And I think extensive and broad background checks should be done before any gun is purchased. I know this will inconvenience a lot of gun purchasers who have only good intentions. But in a cost/benefit analysis, I think requiring gun purchasers to go through the process wins almost every time.
Wes' point about the Nazis and Jews is not a bad one, though that may not have been the best example to use. One of the main concerns of the gun owner rights advocates is that the state will have exclusive contol over weapons. I guess that is similar to how people who are strongly anti-socialist fear that the state will have exclusive control over property and wealth. Many conservatives fear that if those two events take place we will be helpless against government tyranny.
Of course, things are a lot different today than when the second amendment was written. They type of weapons available to the private citizen during the time of the Founding Fathers were not really all that different from the weapons available to the state. But private citizens today engaging in armed conflict with the U.S. military is ridiculous. But the idea that private citizens cannot possess firearms still stirs powerful emotions in a large segment of our population.
I support private gun ownership (My wife and I got rid of ours when our first child started to walk. I do not know if we will ever obtain one again.). But I see no reason why private citizens need certain kinds of weapons. I would like to see the market for certain weapons dry up. And I think extensive and broad background checks should be done before any gun is purchased. I know this will inconvenience a lot of gun purchasers who have only good intentions. But in a cost/benefit analysis, I think requiring gun purchasers to go through the process wins almost every time.
The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living. Oliver Wendell Holmes
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MovieWes
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In fact, you know what? I'm outta here. Take care, people.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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MovieWes
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Goddamnit! I'll just shut the fuck up about it. Jesus Christ, I feel like I'm criddic right now.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
Never mind. He was unstable. Took anti-depressants, saw a psychiatrist, had a fuckable live-in girlfriend...and most damning? He was studying criminal law! A self-admitted obsessive compulsive, Johnny Unstable delves too deep into the minds of criminals. calls his girlfriend the night before asking never to forget him (a search for worth in an empty existence) and guns down a classroom full of strangers.
A history of mental illnesss...medication...a history of psychiatric sessions...you know what that means? BLAME THE GUN! Yes, it's time to blame the system that allows him to have a gun! Does this mean that if one has a history such a Stephen's one should be barred from forever having a gun? Maybe, maybe not; however, this man was clearly unfit for gun ownership and it's the system's fault. Not his. The system's.
Shooter's Girfriend Reveals Goodbye Note
By Abbie Boudreau and Scott Zamost, CNN
Posted: 2008-02-18 07:07:30
Filed Under: Nation News
WONDER LAKE, Illinois (Feb. 17) - The girlfriend of the gunman who killed five people and then himself at Northern Illinois University last Thursday told CNN that there was "no indication he was planning something."
"He wasn't erratic. He wasn't delusional. He was Steve; he was normal," Jessica Baty tearfully said in an exclusive interview Sunday.
Baty, 28, dated Steven Kazmierczak off and on for two years and had most recently been living with him.
"He was a worrier," she said. He once told her he had "obsessive-compulsive tendencies" and that his parents committed him as a teen to a group home because he was "unruly" and used to cut himself.
He had been seeing a psychiatrist, Baty said, and was taking an anti-depressant. But Kazmierczak had stopped taking the medication three weeks ago, "because it made him feel like a zombie," she said.
"He wasn't acting erratic," she said. "He was just a little quicker to get annoyed."
She knew he had purchased at least two guns. He told her they were for home protection.
On Valentine's Day, Baty was in class at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where she and Kazmierczak were graduate students studying criminal justice. The students began to talk about a mass shooting taking place at Baty and Kazmierczak's alma mater, NIU in DeKalb.
She didn't think much of it, and her mind drifted to where her boyfriend told her he would be that day -- with his godfather in another town in Illinois.
Police say Kazmierczak burst into an NIU geology class and opened fire with at least a shotgun and two handguns, killing five students while hundreds fled for their lives. Authorities were on the scene within a few minutes but by the time they reached the classroom, Kazmierczak, 27, had shot himself to death.
"The person I knew was not the one who went into Cole Hall and did that," said Baty. "He was anything but a monster. He was probably the ... nicest, [most] caring person ever."
Either the day of the shooting or the day after, Baty received a package in the mail from Kazmierczak. It was a two textbooks with what she described as a "goodbye" note, and a new cell phone.
She has no idea why he sent her a new phone, but read the contents of the note to CNN.
"You've done so much for me," the note said. "You will make an excellent psychologist and social worker someday."
He sent her another package with a gun holster and ammunition in it, Baty said. She said she has no clue why he would have done that.
Baty is haunted by a phonecall Kazmierczak made to her around midnight, the night before the slayings. "He called me at midnight and told me not to forget about him," she said.
Then, Baty said Kazmierczak told her, "Goodbye, Jessica."
Shaking and crying, her family at her side during the interview, Baty said she still loves the man she met in a hallway at NIU when they were both undergraduate students.
Like comments from teachers which have been widely reported, she said Kazmierczak was an achiever who always tried to get ahead in class and seemed committed to criminal justice issues. He planned to go to law school and she hoped to get her Phd.
"He never missed a class," she said. "He was always ahead."
Pictures of their relationship don't betray anything odd. They are scenes of the two of them smiling on Florida beaches, on golf courses and having fun at Disney World.
Police confiscated several items. Among them was a copy of Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Antichrist" which Kazmierczak sent to Baty after the shooting. The police also took Kazmierczak's copy of the "Encyclopedia of Serial Killers."
Teachers and others who knew Kazmierczak have said he was fascinated with prison culture. In 2006, when he was a student at NIU, police said, he worked on a graduate paper that described his interest in "corrections, political violence and peace and social justice."
The paper said Kazmierczak was "co-authoring a manuscript on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons in the United States."
"I didn't think he was crazy," said Baty, sobbing. "I still love him."
CNN's Todd Schwartzchild contributed to this report.
A history of mental illnesss...medication...a history of psychiatric sessions...you know what that means? BLAME THE GUN! Yes, it's time to blame the system that allows him to have a gun! Does this mean that if one has a history such a Stephen's one should be barred from forever having a gun? Maybe, maybe not; however, this man was clearly unfit for gun ownership and it's the system's fault. Not his. The system's.
Shooter's Girfriend Reveals Goodbye Note
By Abbie Boudreau and Scott Zamost, CNN
Posted: 2008-02-18 07:07:30
Filed Under: Nation News
WONDER LAKE, Illinois (Feb. 17) - The girlfriend of the gunman who killed five people and then himself at Northern Illinois University last Thursday told CNN that there was "no indication he was planning something."
"He wasn't erratic. He wasn't delusional. He was Steve; he was normal," Jessica Baty tearfully said in an exclusive interview Sunday.
Baty, 28, dated Steven Kazmierczak off and on for two years and had most recently been living with him.
"He was a worrier," she said. He once told her he had "obsessive-compulsive tendencies" and that his parents committed him as a teen to a group home because he was "unruly" and used to cut himself.
He had been seeing a psychiatrist, Baty said, and was taking an anti-depressant. But Kazmierczak had stopped taking the medication three weeks ago, "because it made him feel like a zombie," she said.
"He wasn't acting erratic," she said. "He was just a little quicker to get annoyed."
She knew he had purchased at least two guns. He told her they were for home protection.
On Valentine's Day, Baty was in class at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where she and Kazmierczak were graduate students studying criminal justice. The students began to talk about a mass shooting taking place at Baty and Kazmierczak's alma mater, NIU in DeKalb.
She didn't think much of it, and her mind drifted to where her boyfriend told her he would be that day -- with his godfather in another town in Illinois.
Police say Kazmierczak burst into an NIU geology class and opened fire with at least a shotgun and two handguns, killing five students while hundreds fled for their lives. Authorities were on the scene within a few minutes but by the time they reached the classroom, Kazmierczak, 27, had shot himself to death.
"The person I knew was not the one who went into Cole Hall and did that," said Baty. "He was anything but a monster. He was probably the ... nicest, [most] caring person ever."
Either the day of the shooting or the day after, Baty received a package in the mail from Kazmierczak. It was a two textbooks with what she described as a "goodbye" note, and a new cell phone.
She has no idea why he sent her a new phone, but read the contents of the note to CNN.
"You've done so much for me," the note said. "You will make an excellent psychologist and social worker someday."
He sent her another package with a gun holster and ammunition in it, Baty said. She said she has no clue why he would have done that.
Baty is haunted by a phonecall Kazmierczak made to her around midnight, the night before the slayings. "He called me at midnight and told me not to forget about him," she said.
Then, Baty said Kazmierczak told her, "Goodbye, Jessica."
Shaking and crying, her family at her side during the interview, Baty said she still loves the man she met in a hallway at NIU when they were both undergraduate students.
Like comments from teachers which have been widely reported, she said Kazmierczak was an achiever who always tried to get ahead in class and seemed committed to criminal justice issues. He planned to go to law school and she hoped to get her Phd.
"He never missed a class," she said. "He was always ahead."
Pictures of their relationship don't betray anything odd. They are scenes of the two of them smiling on Florida beaches, on golf courses and having fun at Disney World.
Police confiscated several items. Among them was a copy of Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Antichrist" which Kazmierczak sent to Baty after the shooting. The police also took Kazmierczak's copy of the "Encyclopedia of Serial Killers."
Teachers and others who knew Kazmierczak have said he was fascinated with prison culture. In 2006, when he was a student at NIU, police said, he worked on a graduate paper that described his interest in "corrections, political violence and peace and social justice."
The paper said Kazmierczak was "co-authoring a manuscript on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons in the United States."
"I didn't think he was crazy," said Baty, sobbing. "I still love him."
CNN's Todd Schwartzchild contributed to this report.
"How's the despair?"
Anyway, that would just be insane! How would we be able to protect ourselves from our own government if this were the case? I'll bet the Jews wished they the tools to protect themselves against the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Wes, I'm not in total disagreement with you on your position but this is a grossly, grossly ignorant statement for several reasons. The first? There were many riots staged against the Nazis that ultimately accomplished nothing. The second? Many of them had weapons but went along with the Nazis because they felt they were powerless in the face of such force and opted to hope for the best -- and PLEASE don't counter with WELL, MAYBE THEY SHOULDA FOUGHT BACK!
Seriously, leave the Jews and the Nazis out of your argument.
"How's the despair?"
Damien wrote:Steph, I think WTF? comes closer to conveying it.
Yes dear, that was pretty much my initial reaction, but I'm trying to go a week here without someone flipping out and losing their shit over something I said, so...you know how it goes. The only four letter F word I'll be using for a while is "Film."
Ugh. I'm bored just TYPING it.
MovieWes wrote:A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The wording of the Second Amendment is kind of cryptic in its wording, but here's basically what it means. The government cannot take away the people's right to bear arms as long as a government sanctioned military exists to protect our national security from those who wish to pursue terrorist activities. It doesn't mean that only military personnel should be allowed to own guns.
Steph, I think WTF? comes closer to conveying it.
Sorry, Wes, but how the hell did you did you come up with this one? That is such a tortured interpretation. Not only does it make no sense as a logical reading of the plain language, but "terrorist activities" were hardly a concept at the time the Constitution was written.
Edited By Damien on 1203321958
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
The words "Oh. Good. Lord" don't even begin to convey it...MovieWes wrote:The wording of the Second Amendment is kind of cryptic in its wording, but here's basically what it means. The government cannot take away the people's right to bear arms as long as a government sanctioned military exists to protect our national security from those who wish to pursue terrorist activities.
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MovieWes
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A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The wording of the Second Amendment is kind of cryptic in its wording, but here's basically what it means. The government cannot take away the people's right to bear arms as long as a government sanctioned military exists to protect our national security from those who wish to pursue terrorist activities. It doesn't mean that only military personnel should be allowed to own guns.
Anyway, that would just be insane! How would we be able to protect ourselves from our own government if this were the case? I'll bet the Jews wished they the tools to protect themselves against the Nazis during the Holocaust.
And in response to OscarGuy, most of the people who go on shooting sprees have planned it out very carefully. The Columbine kids had planned the entire shooting out for months before they shot up their school. They had carefully plotted their course of action out on a map of the school and executed it with precision. The Virginia Tech shooter had also been planning the shooting for months and had begun stockpiling weapons about a month and a half before the killings took place. And of course, we all know that the Beltway sniper attacks weren't done on a random impulse.
I don't know if the most recent shooting was done on a whim or not. I haven't really read the articles about it yet. The Westroads Mall shooting in Omaha, Nebraska was most certainly not pre-meditated. If I try really hard, I can probably come up with a few more that weren't premeditated (I guess that most of the postal killings weren't, but they weren't large-scale shootings like Columbine or Virginia Tech).
And anyway, since most spree killers end up committing suicide rather than allowing themselves to be captured by police, the prison/psychiatric facility alternative is a moot point anyway.
Edited By MovieWes on 1203318035
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
Richard Speck killed his nurse victims by stabbing and strangulation.OscarGuy wrote:Yes, people would move towards killing in other ways, but have you ever heard of a mass killing with a knife?
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Even more sensible. I had no idea there were other anti-capitalists on this board.Sabin wrote:Why does it happen? I think the answer's simple. It happens because it's America, the easiest place in the world to be isolated and socially inept. We live in a country that is as consumerist as it is huge, so you have millions of youths unprepared for social interaction enabled by an omniprescient media, internet and video game horseshit that substitues real friends for iFriends, and parents too willing to let developmental oversights go by.