27 dead in Connecticut school shooting: reports

[Bouncy Castle]

Speak for yerself pet. [ polishes handcuffs ]

[Quatermass]

Speak for yerself pet. [ polishes handcuffs ]

I'm not your pet. And I'm rabid.

[Bouncy Castle]

Nah, you're a pussycat!

[Quatermass]

Nah, you're a pussycat!

You mean like Horse from Footrot Flats?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footrot_Flats#Main_characters

[RSoak]

My mother's favorite saying is: The enemy of good is perfect.

This is unfortunately ignored by Americans. The people who govern this nation (and most) are doing one thing constantly - trying to get re-elected. Well, when you run a very prosperous nation, you run out of things to promise. So you make promises of perfection, or at least striving for perfection, which people then come to expect.

This is, of course, ludicrous. You cannot save every life. People will die, and some very tragically. This is life. Trying to legislate perfection is an effort in futility. People will talk endlessly about the attempt that must be made to save every posible life. The problem is, we don't really mean it.

The number of drinking & driving fatalities in the US alone is over 10,000 per year. Ten thousand! Nearly everyone would argue that those are needless deaths. We legislate like crazy and impose tougher laws on this crime. However if we are truly serious about saving every life, why waste time with punishing in the aftermath? I can think of two laws that would cut that number drastically by ending the causes.

The first one is to outlaw alcohol. No drinking means no drinking & driving. The number of alcohol related deaths should be cut by well over 50% at least. At 5,000 lives per year saved how can we not take that step? The problem here is that this was tried somewhat recently and it failed miserably. People still made, obtained and drank alcohol.

So better still is the other half of our problem - driving. If we simply outlawed driving, the number of drinking and driving deaths would approach zero. On top of that would be the other 30,000+ deaths that would be prevented from non-alcohol related accidents. And unlike drinking, it's readily apparent when someone is driving.

As we can see, the problem is really that those aren't needless deaths. Those deaths enable us to have a great amount of freedom. Those deaths provide for the massive pulse that drives a thriving economy and makes the nation prosper. What this demonstrates is that we are willing to tolerate a certain number of innocent human deaths for the comfort and functionality of the nation as a whole. This is a fact.

So when we see a tragedy like this in Newton, I understand the frustration with some insanely stupid mom loading her house with guns in the presence of an unstable young man. I get the desire to lash out at something for the senseless deaths. However I also understand that, as an outsider, the lifespan of that emotion should last no more than a few minutes.

We live in an imperfect world and no silly little thing like humankind is ever going to change that.

[Jack Remillard]

My mother's favorite saying is: The enemy of good is perfect.

This is unfortunately ignored by Americans. The people who govern this nation (and most) are doing one thing constantly - trying to get re-elected. Well, when you run a very prosperous nation, you run out of things to promise. So you make promises of perfection, or at least striving for perfection, which people then come to expect.

This is, of course, ludicrous. You cannot save every life. People will die, and some very tragically. This is life. Trying to legislate perfection is an effort in futility. People will talk endlessly about the attempt that must be made to save every posible life. The problem is, we don't really mean it.

The number of drinking & driving fatalities in the US alone is over 10,000 per year. Ten thousand! Nearly everyone would argue that those are needless deaths. We legislate like crazy and impose tougher laws on this crime. However if we are truly serious about saving every life, why waste time with punishing in the aftermath? I can think of two laws that would cut that number drastically by ending the causes.

The first one is to outlaw alcohol. No drinking means no drinking & driving. The number of alcohol related deaths should be cut by well over 50% at least. At 5,000 lives per year saved how can we not take that step? The problem here is that this was tried somewhat recently and it failed miserably. People still made, obtained and drank alcohol.

So better still is the other half of our problem - driving. If we simply outlawed driving, the number of drinking and driving deaths would approach zero. On top of that would be the other 30,000+ deaths that would be prevented from non-alcohol related accidents. And unlike drinking, it's readily apparent when someone is driving.

As we can see, the problem is really that those aren't needless deaths. Those deaths enable us to have a great amount of freedom. Those deaths provide for the massive pulse that drives a thriving economy and makes the nation prosper. What this demonstrates is that we are willing to tolerate a certain number of innocent human deaths for the comfort and functionality of the nation as a whole. This is a fact.

You have sort of got a point there. It's inevitable that if you let fallible human beings drive motor vehicles, some of them will screw up and kill people in the process. We do make a trade off as a society between these inevitable deaths and the benefits to our society.

But when we look at those fatality figures, we know that not every single one of them needed to die in order for us to have our thriving economy etc, so governments do their best to ensure that the number of deaths is as low as possible by preventative measures in addition to punishment.

Driving tests, restrictions on young drivers, vehicle roadworthiness inspections, traffic police patrols etc etc.

So when we see a tragedy like this in Newton, I understand the frustration with some insanely stupid mom loading her house with guns in the presence of an unstable young man. I get the desire to lash out at something for the senseless deaths. However I also understand that, as an outsider, the lifespan of that emotion should last no more than a few minutes.

We live in an imperfect world and no silly little thing like humankind is ever going to change that.

Perfection is impossible, right, but that doesn't mean that it isn't possible to reduce the number of people who die. Each life saved is a good thing, and the US has an extremely high firearms death rate in comparison with countries like the UK and Australia. Extremely. More can be done.

Admittedly, America is a special case due to the sheer number of guns already in circulation and the stubbornness many people appear to have about this issue, but I'm sure making it harder to buy a gun legally (and high capacity magazines etc) would have an effect.

Whether it will prove possible politically is another matter, but change seems more likely now than it has in the past.

[chillicamper]

Wow......that got a bit.........heated back there . Haven't had a chance to catch up with most threads for a few days. Slightly confused how a tragedy affecting so many families turned in to a Yank bashing exercise

I am British and proud to be. As such the outside observer will probably think I am a level headed quietly spoken typical brit. However, I drive a hippie van which would never have existed if it weren't for Hitler wanting a 'people's car' (the Beetle). Am I now dropping in your estimation? I like to think I'm a bit of a hippie - peace n love and all that. But show me a picture of a squirrel and I will go in to a murderous rage and want to kill them all - they damage the trees you see - so now that makes me a psycotic animal hating right wing loving hippie does it???? No. The point of this ramble is to prove that none of us is perfect. We all have our strange quirks, habits and beliefs, some of which even conflict with our own beliefs But you can't make huge leaps or connections between defined points in a persons life, then say that you understand them. Everyone is individual and you cannot generalise what a person is like just from a description on a piece of paper or on the internet..........so how the hell can someone generalise what a whole nation is like from what's in the paper or on the internet. Go live with the culture for a decade or two. Then you may have the right to offer an opinion......but it will be still that just an opinion. Everyone sees a different truth.

OKaaaayyyyyyyyyyy......ahem........rant over.

So, to summarise. America is big and has lots of guns floating around due to historical reasons. Most people in America are nice. Most people are leaning towards some kind of action re guns/restriction of ammunition etc.............So I'm guessing that this will be where the money steps in and stops the politicians doing what most of the people who elected them want them to do.

That's not a dig at American politicians or the American system. The UK also has a bunch of corrupt money worshipping politicians who make decisions based on what's best for them, not the county's citizens.

As you were everyone.

[Quatermass]

As we were? Yeah, right.

RSoak has conveniently left out a key element in his argument: a gun is a tool with a singular purpose to wound or kill a living being. A car's primary purpose is the transportation of people, animals, and goods. I suppose that if potentially deadly heavy machinery (which technically a car is) was deadly, you could ban all heavy machinery, and thus bring just about every aspect of our civilization to a stand still.

Yes, I'm using reductio ad absurdum, but frankly, I'm merely building on what RSoak has started. And I get really pissed off when pro-gun lobbyists, regardless of nationality, equate owning guns with personal freedom. You talk a lot about freedoms, but never, and I mean NEVER, about responsibilities. Not about true responsibility. Great, you have a gun. What for? Personal protection? Hunting? Or just so you are exercising your rights without responsibility?

[Bickaxe]

I don't buy the part about America being founded on violence and stuff and as such everyone needs a firearm (or 20).

Amazingly, not all Brits have a sword or anti aircraft artillery due to our history. Its just an excuse.

[Conforumist]

Perhaps this is what was was actually meant, when they wrote about the right to "bare arms"?





It's still very dangerous, what with melanoma on the rise and all; but at least it does not hurt anyone else.

[Bouncy Castle]

Oh, I'm pretty sure it can cause sprainted wrists.

[Jack Remillard]

Don't you mean the right to bear arms?

[chillicamper]

Oh, I'm pretty sure it can cause sprainted wrists.

I once saw a T shirt that said "support the T shirt industry - defend the right to bare arms".

[Catch-up]

So because we can't make it perfect we're not supposed to try to make it better? I'm not buying that. We have a whole lot of room between where we're at now and perfect. That's the same argument that was trotted out with the smoking bans. Why are we protecting people from inhaling someone else's second hand smoke, a known carcinogen, when they might just get hit by a drunk driver? Why bother locking your doors or avoiding bad neighborhoods, when you could just get struck by lightening tomorrow? One has nothing to do with the other.

And, Bickaxe, we get it. Americans are all crazy, every last one of us and any insight or feedback on the gun culture from someone who's lived here their entire lives is just some BS excuse in your opinion. You've made up your mind no matter what someone else has to add and that's solidly your problem.

Oh, and just so I don't disappoint you Q - AMERICA, EFF-YEAH!!!

[Quatermass]

Oh, and just so I don't disappoint you Q - AMERICA, EFF-YEAH!!!

Don't worry, Catch-up. I know that there are sane Americans out there. Just as, God (hah!) willing, there's some sane Aussies out there. I only know a few personally, myself.

Of course, I'm not one of them.

Wibble.