When there's a tragedy there's also "those people"

[MarsProbe]

I always thought the "death of 1/death of a million" was unattributed, or at least it has been attributed to more than one person so many times now...

But anyway, while I can see why people do feel terrible about events like this (I know people who are teachers in primary schools who can relate to what it would be like to see the lives of their pupils snuffed out more than I ever could) I can also see why people can actually be largely unaffected by it, myself included. I just don't find it possible feel any kind of loss over somebody who I have never met, probably never will have met and really don't know anything about.

There was a "massacre" here in the UK in a place called Dunblane (some may have heard of it) many years ago now, which is relatively close to where I stay. When that happened, I remember coming home from school that day myself and being told that "something terrible" had happened. I immediately started trying to think of what could have happened to some of my close family or friends that was so awful. When I was told that there had been a shooting at a school somewhere else in the country I couldn't think that well, that was bad, but it's certainly not something I can really get broken up over.

Of course, these days, it seems that it's "cooler" to be seen to care a lot these days than not to care at all. That, I think, must explain why we get so many of those "Hit 'Like' if...." messages on Facebook that are accompanied by some tender scene (like a soldier cradling his newborn child) or some terrible image of suffering or hardship (poor man with no arms pushing a wheelbarrow and plowing a field, despite everything). "Look at me liking this image on FB, everybody! See how sensitive and kind I am!", they seem to scream.

All true stories, those last 2.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

So you don't care that people feel that way as long as they don't say it aloud? That's a bit arbitrary. I'm glad that people like that exist if only because they annoy you.

Hey, the first post was by one of Those people, Nice!

OP: I'd say that if something like this happens, You aren't morally obliged to be upset or tearful or anything really, but that doesn't give you the right to take the piss out of them. Children died man, just because people die all the time and it doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean you're allowed to be a raging twat about it, there's this thing called taste, and those kinds of posts are unneccesary and lacking in it. Why do you need to make a comment if you're only gonna be a douche about the misfortune and death of other people? Stuff like this is really a "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" situation.

 

[Legion]

[quote/]Oh my god 28 people that i had no relation to died!

I mean it's not as if millions die everyday.

Those poor, helpless people! Oh the humanity!

*sob*

[/quote]

The thing with this one is that it's not so much being "edgy" as it is pointing out that context is needed.

Like how 9/11 (approx 3000 deaths) has been mourned in the US for around 11 years, when hundreds of thousands of innocents have been killed in the so-called "War on Terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan since then.

If those 28 children had been Iraqi, then how many people do you know who'd care? It certainly wouldn't have had the same press coverage, and we almost certainly would not have all of these threads discussing it.

That is of course not a justification to act like a prick and put people down, but it does get somewhat irksome when people act like the world is falling apart when there are many, many more innocent children being slaughtered in places such as the Middle East on a regular basis.

To me it often comes across as hypocritical and crocodile tears, rather than genuine empathy/sympathy.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

I care about pretty much every tragedy that happens, and if there was something I could do to stop it, I genuinely would. But I can't. So I won't. And no, I won't post on Facebook 'RIP those angels who died in Connecticut'. It wouldn't help anybody, and I don't care if people think I care or not. I care about all the pointless wars in the Middle East and the barbarism in Africa, and I care more than anything about the fact that despite the shootings, America still has legal civilian firearms. That enrages me.

As if people need firearms to commit mass murder.

You know firearms have been used for self defense.

People don't need firearms to commit mass murder, but it certainly helps. You can run away from a knife. You can't outrun a bullet.

Do you know what else has been used for self defence? A warship. What is a warship for? It's for sinking other warships. We don't sell civilian warships because, aside from the sheer logistical nightmare of it, nobody needs warships.

Who actually wants a warship that can afford one? This is such a stupid comparison.

So, if nobody has guns, nobody needs guns. There is no justification for possessing them. At all.

Hunting, sport (target shooting is actually in the Olympics), recreation, self defense against people who do not have guns etc.

And if you think gun bans will just eliminate all guns from existence in the U.S. you're living in denial. It didn't work for booze and weed, it's not working for ivory, it won't work for guns. Not to mention that if you do put in a gun ban you have to contend with all the people who own guns now.

Did you know, Father Time, that in the United Kingdom, guns are not legal? And did you also know, that in the United Kingdom, people still dare to go outside. And did you know that they don't get ambushed and stabbed because they don't have a gun?

You really want to claim that nobody gets mugged in the U.K.?

1 - People who want to protect themselves from other warships.

Those don't exist. Criminals don't even want warships.

2 - Hunting, sport, recreation = unnecessary. Self defence against people who don't have guns = Shooting people. So your argument is that Americans should be allowed to possess guns so that they can shoot people. And what constitutes self defence? OH NO, THIS MAN IS SHOUTING AT ME! I FEEL THREATENED! -bang-.

Self defence against someone who is attacking you with a knife, or a blunt objects or just someone stronger than you.

For every legitimate protective shot, there's five people dead after a fight goes sour.

Prove it.

People should not have that kind of control over each other. You're all so quick to cry 'playing god' on life support and abortion debates,

Would you kindly stick to things I've actually said? I'm not a Strawman Republican.

3- You're apparently not the most oiled pistol in the drawer, so let me clarify. The apparent belief in the United States is that the second you pass a law banning guns, a wave of criminals will just descend upon civilisation, and people will be too scared to leave their homes.

No that's wrong. As someone who's actually from the U.S. I know that.

London is the only place where police officers carry weapons. It's also got the highest gun crime rate in the country. People in Stoke-on-Trent don't carry guns. One guy bragged at me about his 9mm but I don't think he's quite telling the truth. Knife crime happens a lot here. Occasionally a teenager gets stabbed or an old person beaten to death - but there are no mass murders. You'll never hear about the Middleport Massacre or the Stoke Shootout.

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

The other argument is that "People who want guns will be able to get them."

Will they? If I wanted to get a gun right now, I wouldn't even know where to start.

Have you tried looking? I wouldn't know where to get weed, but my friends do. Well Ok maybe I'd get them form my friends but I wouldn't know where to get heroin. Doesn't prove anything.

People seem convinced that the moment you commit a crime, a man in a hood shows up at your house and gives you the keys to the Black Market, some kind of ethereal dimension accessible only by hardened criminals.

So do you just not understand these arguments or do you have a straw man fetish?

Nobody's arguing that regular citizens will never access the black market, only that criminals will have a better chance of knowing where it is and are more likely to use it.

I feel I should pull up a piece of information that you might find interesting. A few years ago in britain, they did a survey on perviously convicted organised crime members, and anonymous gang members nowadays, asking them about guns. The average criminal, in britain, can easily get their hands on a gun. they can have them shipped from europe and america no problem. However, most of them don't/ Because they acknowledge that, as the police do not have guns, it would be A) unfair and B) they Recognise ordinary people would just start dobbing them in to the police. What you have in america is weapons esculation. The cops have guns. The gangs get guns. The cops wear bullet proof vests. The gangs get armour piercing weaponry and so and so forth. And because there is a distinct lack of gun regulation in america, the esculation continues. And then because people ae running scared of their own shadow because they believe anyone, anywhere could have a gun, THEY buy a gun as protection from a possible attack. And then they get trigger happy. And when they feel vaguely threatened, they shoot someone in self defence. And then you end up with trigger happy untrained civilians running around with guns who have become this way because the media reports on these instances in such a fear mongering way that everyone becomes scared of this happening to them, and it creates a vicous cycle. True, some people's lives are genuinely saved by the fact they had a wepon with them whilst being mugged or attacked, but this is a very small figue when you take into account the sheer number of people with weapons. Not all of them are civilians either. Whilst Lax gun laws may be justifiable in the pursuit of self defence, it seems you americans like to forget that The laws remain lax for the criminals too. And with the economy the way it is, how easy would it be for a man who buys a gun for protection to become a man who uses that gun to hold up a liquor store? Think about it. Ask yourself, who hard would it be for you, specifically you, to leave your house, buy a gun, and rob some shopkeeper blind. Not very hard. Provided you live close enough to a walmart. America is a country fixated by it's right to bear arms, so to some extent I agree, You could not simply take america cold turkey from it's weapons laws. It would be chaos. But stricter regulations are absoulutly neccessary, and I think the figures for gun crime in the USA speak for themselves.

 

[Zenn3k]

I just get pissed off at everyone who's first reaction is to "pray".

If god exists (and I don't believe that he does), why do you think your praying AFTER a big tragic event happens is gonna do SHIT when "he" let it happen in the first place...????

Prayer is about as useful as sending letters to Santa. We have real issues to deal with, your magic sky man doesn't help REAL SHIT get done.

 

[Kakistos153]

Allowing people an unchallenged sense of moral superiority is what has allowed the church to dictate policy and social standards for generations. Someone saying "oh how aweful" has the equivalent efficacy of "i'll pray for you". If noone ever challenges that with something like "that doesn't mean anything" or "you're a tool who's only interest is demonstrating 'moral superiority' by exploiting a relatively horrible thing" it just allows the idea that those who say they are morally superior to hold that role.

Perhaps that person will go on to do wonderful things and really effect a change in the lives of the families affected by the horrible incident. But that kind of right action can only be encouraged by someone showing them that their sense of moral superiority is entirely theoretical and utterly useless without some kind of moral action to back it up. Like i said recently on my wall "If anyone's sympathy makes you feel better about your murdered child you are a bad person. Just saying.". Sympathy isn't important, action is. Starting campaigns to educate people on how to deal with emergency situations, lobbying the state government for better gun control or mental health care or whatever you believe is the best way to remedy the situation. Taking a stand for what you believe in and working to make change for it. Belief isn't a virtue. At least it isn't any more. Not with the democratisation of information and activism. Shit or get off the pot.

I feel this echoes the sentiments of the kinds of cynics you're describing in the OP. I'm more interested in intellectual masturbation than in these issues really.

*Gets off the pot*

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Im gonna weigh in carefully after reading all this stuff.

Suffice to say NOTHING gets my goat more than people who attempt to be edgy and dark by pretending to hate everything and everyone. It doesnt make you cool and it just makes me a little sad for you. Honestly im SURE you have better personality traits/stereotypes to use other than "Aloof stone cold badass" which to be honest fails to impress everyone.

However. Im not going to assume that ALL people who claim not to care are doing this. On the flip side i DO care. I honestly care. I feel sad about this. I want to alleviate the suffering of others. There are degrees of caring. I know if it was ever in my power to change such a thing id do it. I care enough to want to do that. I will ALWAYS care far more about things i have the ability to change, ive decided to take a career path to help the largest amount of people possible for someone with my alrightish grades. But i do legitimately care about every tragedy. I wont claim it changed my life. Or made me cry. But it hurts to here that something terrible can happen in society. Because i like to view society as a safe place for everyone to hear that someone so utterly destroyed that safety for children makes me sad. I didnt want that to happen.

People who say that ALL people who care are faking YOU ARE WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. YOURE WRONG. YOURE WRONG [/scrubs reference]. You dont know me. You cant guess what i do or why. Im going to assume you say you dont care because you think you dont, ill only assume fake internet misanthropy if you say so or i see it. So dont pretend you know me. Get the fuck off with that presumptuous bullshit. I wont stand people pretending to know me or my motivations. Deal wiiiiith iiiiiit.

In a similar vien to my first paragraph ill say dont claim absurd amounts of caring when its untrue. Not only do you give fake/real internet misanthropes more ammunition but it makes genuine empathy less valuable. Be honest. This tragedy made me sad. Id stop it if i could. It wasnt the worst thing ive ever heard of or will hear of. And if i had to stop ONE tragedy ever this wouldnt be it. But it was fucking awful. So lets respect that without going apeshit about it. As a side note: Remember the name of ONE victim, and FORGET THE KILLER. The media need to give the killer NO attention. He is a footnote. This is what is encouraging people to kill like this. Attention and glory for miles and miles.

To the crowd who "Dont care". Ask yourselves, do you REALLY not care? At all? If you could, with MINIMAL effort, stop the tragedy would you? Yes? Then you obviously care. To a tiny degree. To REALLY not care in the slightest is to admit that you would make no effort to stop it, after all if you dont care that it happened why would you make any effort to change that? This is why it disgusts people so. I think what you really mean is "Although i care in principle this didnt evoke any personal feelings in me" which to be honest is fair enough. Being bombarded with statistics will eventually stop making you feel an emotional response. So be honest about that as well.

To both sides, PLEASE stop making it seem like youre "Proud" of your feelings. You dont get any points for being good or bad (I'm an atheist, you may disagree) so dont waste effort trying to show off. Instead act if you can, and if you cannot, remember to stay vigilant for the time that you can act.

 

[Thyunda]

-snip-

" Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 1996 Dunblane massacre, it is one of the worst criminal acts involving firearms in British history."

There we are. Three massacres in England using a gun. Three. Since 1987.


"Not counting drive-bys, gang ambushes, and ­domestic homicides (and countless cases in which gunfire at parks, bars, and shopping malls pierced flesh but did not take lives), there were more than 125 fatal mass shootings in the United States during the years between the Columbine killings and the massacre at the Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado. Here, drawn from online archives and a list maintained by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a random inventory of horror."
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/07/appalling-frequency-of-the-shooting-spree.html


And according to that source, since Columbine there have been 126 (Including the most recent shooting) in America.

So. Outlawed guns results in three shooting sprees in a period of twenty five years. In the space of thirteen years, legal guns manage a hundred and twenty six.
This is causation, not merely correlation. You cannot make an argument against hard evidence, so rather than wasting your time accusing me of using straw man arguments, try arguing against the point in question. I, along with many others, have hard evidence that guns are NOT good for society, and yet you struggle vainly to prove that there is any good reason to have guns.

You only need a gun if you live in bear country, or near Mexico. And even then, only the border guard need guns. Civilians are not soldiers and they are not the police. They should not be tasked with their own defence.

EDIT: Just had this posted on my Facebook feed - http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/man-shot-at-st-pete-pizza-joint-had-been-complaining-about-slow-service/1266589

Another responsible use of firearms.

 

[Thyunda]

-snip-

" Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 1996 Dunblane massacre, it is one of the worst criminal acts involving firearms in British history."

There we are. Three massacres in England using a gun. Three. Since 1987.\

That wasn't an exhaustive list.

So. Outlawed guns results in three shooting sprees in a period of twenty five years. In the space of thirteen years, legal guns manage a hundred and twenty six.

Let me know when you've got a per capita statistic.

This is causation, not merely correlation. You cannot make an argument against hard evidence, so rather than wasting your time accusing me of using straw man arguments, try arguing against the point in question.

Nope still correlation. In fact you've had shootings with those gun laws. And you were doing straw men when you said I was one of those conservatives who complain about being god plus all the other ones I mentioned.

You only need a gun if you live in bear country, or near Mexico. And even then, only the border guard need guns. Civilians are not soldiers and they are not the police. They should not be tasked with their own defence.

Police aren't perfect, soldiers never play the role of police in the U.S. and our border with Mexico is FAR from perfect.

And then you have stuff like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

Hold on. Your justification for allowing civilians guns is that the police abuse their privilege? You're bloody backwards, you are. The group tasked with protecting the populace have a reputation for abusing their weaponry...so you give people UNTRAINED and UNTESTED firearms and expect them to do a better job?

"Number of Murders, United States, 2009: 15,241

Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146

Number of Murders, Britain, 2008*: 648
(Since Britain?s population is 1/5 that of US, this is equivalent to 3,240 US murders)

Number of Murders by[pdf] firearms, Britain, 2008* 39
(equivalent to 195 US murders)

*The Home office reported murder statistics in the UK for the 12 months to March 2009, but these are 12-month figures).

For more on murder by firearms in Britain, see the BBC.

The international comparisons show conclusively that fewer gun owners per capita produce not only fewer murders by firearm, but fewer murders per capita over all. In the case of Britain, firearms murders are 48 times fewer than in the US.

Do hunters really need semi-automatic Glock hand guns? Is that how they roll in deer season? The US public doesn?t think so."

http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/over-9000-murders-by-gun-in-us-39-in-uk.html

 

[Thyunda]

The point was that the police didn't help them.

And anyway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

There are many things that can effect the crime rate besides gun control. You haven't proven the difference is caused by gun control.

Um. I just gave you evidence of causation.

Country with guns = High gun crime rate.
Country without legal guns = Low gun crime rate.

What other differences between our countries exist? America has free speech, I guess, England doesn't. But the enforcement of that law is so mild it's barely a difference at all, unless you're trying to tell me that everytime someone quotes 'freedom of speech' in the US, they get shot.
What else do you have that we don't? We're both capitalist countries, we're both predominantly white, we both have varied immigrant populations, we share the same media, we share a national religion...England and America are VERY similar. Gun control is the ONLY factor relevant to gun crime.

 

[deathzero021]

im one of those people. though i tend to just stay away from topics like that. i dont post in those topics because i dont want to sound like a jerk.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Hey, can we stop assuming we know the motivation behind the actions of every faceless fuck we meet on the internet now? Don't you hate it when people put words in your mouth? Guess what, they probably do too! Geez, talk about empathy here.

Maybe they do want to seem cool and edgy? Maybe they tried to care and honestly couldn't? If you're not going to be considerate about things yourself, don't go begging for it in other threads.

 

[Vault101]

Yes, you are over-reacting.

People are dicks. Get used to it.

such great adivce..thanks for that

 

[Thyunda]

The point was that the police didn't help them.

And anyway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

There are many things that can effect the crime rate besides gun control. You haven't proven the difference is caused by gun control.

Um. I just gave you evidence of causation.

Country with guns = High gun crime rate.
Country without legal guns = Low gun crime rate.

What other differences between our countries exist? America has free speech, I guess, England doesn't. But the enforcement of that law is so mild it's barely a difference at all, unless you're trying to tell me that everytime someone quotes 'freedom of speech' in the US, they get shot.
What else do you have that we don't? We're both capitalist countries, we're both predominantly white, we both have varied immigrant populations, we share the same media, we share a national religion...England and America are VERY similar. Gun control is the ONLY factor relevant to gun crime.

Russia and Mexico have a low gun rate higher crime. In America, states with low guns, and higher restrictions, have a higher crime rate than those who are lax. What's your point?

Mexico's a special case. Can we put Mexico aside for the minute? I just want to discuss countries whose laws are fully enforced and in effect. Mexico's kind of...well...not very well governed.

Countries not as well equipped to deal with this kind of thing WILL have unsuccessful attempts at curbing gun violence, but they at least TRY. That's the important thing. Why on Earth would you suggest that gun control won't dent the homocide rates at all? That's all I'm trying to say here. I haven't once suggested that illegalising guns will cure gun crime 100%.
My point is that you can't DARE to call a mass-shooting a 'tragedy' when you armed the shooter. If this was out of your hands, it's a fuckin tragedy. Right now? It's just sad. It's sad that it doesn't matter how many people die, people like you, and people like Father Time, will STILL justify the ownership of guns as though it's rational. When the shooting sprees come in that were using illegal weapons in the US, I'll pay more attention to your argument, but every school shooting in the United States of America has been perpetrated with the use of a legally bought firearm, and every goddamn time, people respond with "Well he clearly wasn't right in the head" as though THAT excuses the fact he just picked up his mother's guns and shot up a school unimpeded.