Thread: US school shootings Shocking

Maybe Lanza was an agent of Santa Claus and coal just doesn't send the right message anymore.

Originally Posted by debrajane

So on another "Tangent"





I just saw this on TV.

Golden Eagle snatches kid in Canada:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE0Q...e_gdata_player
(59 seconds) posted today and over a million views already. 1,045,385 views

Sorry people

Yesterday chanel 9, 6-o-clock news reported that an eagle snatched a bady. Today 6-oclock news reported that it was fake:

Design college says eagle-snatching-kid video a hoax | 9news.com


A Montreal design college admitted Wednesday that three of its students faked a YouTube video that purported to show an eagle snatching up a baby playing in a Montreal park.

The video, titled "Golden Eagles Snatches Kid" and posted Tuesday by MrNuclearCat, shows a bird swooping down, snagging the child off the playground, then dropping him a few seconds later.

It has received over 2.7 million views in two days.

"Both the eagle and the kid were created in 3D animation and integrated in to the film afterwards," according to a statement from Centre NAD, which was headlined: "Centre Nad Reassures Montrealers: No Danger of Being Snatched by a Royal Eagle."

A statement from Centre NAD said the video was created by Normand Archambault, Loïc Mireault and Félix Marquis-Poulin, students at Centre NAD, in the production simulation workshop class of the Bachelors degree in 3D Animation and Digital Design.

"The production simulation workshop class, offered in fifth semester, aims to produce creative projects according to industry production and quality standards while developing team work skills," the statement said.

"Hoaxes produced in this class have already garnered attention, amongst others a video of a penguin having escaped the Montreal Biodôme."

Although the video crew much attention, the skeptics were out early.

As one commenter said on the YouTube site: "This is fake and you can tell by listening to the voices in the videos. Nobody talks like that."

Likewise, opennewscast wrote,

"I've been working with digital images professionally for 15 years, and I'm convinced this is fake. The swoop down at 0:10 looks just like cheap CGI to me."

The New Statesman's Alex Hern dug deeply into the story (by online standards, at least) and noted that the eagle's right wing, oddly, becomes transparent in one frame.

The New Statesman also noted the observation on Twitter from the Isle of Mull Eagle Watch team that claims the bird is not, in fact, a golden eagle, but a "juv eastern imperial eagle not known to frequent Montreal parks!"

(Copyright © 2012 USA TODAY)

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Maybe Lanza was an agent of Santa Claus and coal just doesn't send the right message anymore.

We'll be joining them after tomorrow, so no need to fret so much over it

Just saw this and realised how hilariously badly US politics has fucked up somewhere.

Ha ha, that picture came out small. It has a bunch of gun stats on it. I got it from the Libertarian Party's page on Facebook. These are the stats in the picture:

- 99.9% of all guns in America are not used in violent crime at all.
- 99.8% of all guns are not used in crime at all.
- Guns are used 4 times as often in self-defense as in crime, and 98% of the time, it is not even fired.
- Only 1% of the time when a gun is being used in defense does the criminal take the gun from the defender.
- After guns were banned in the U.K, the armed robbery rate spiked over 40%. The increase was 44% in Australia after they banned guns.
- Now, 50% of home burglaries in Britain happen when the people are home, as opposed to 30% in the U.S.
- Only 4% of guns used in crimes were obtained legally.

Honestly, the US is one of the last countries that should consider a ban. It'd be foolish to trust your government that much, especially given it's track record.

GavinGill, excellent point. I find it interesting that the people who say the U.S. government is imperialistic, the world's most dangerous terrorist organization, the biggest human rights violators in history, invaders and occupiers, and the biggest threat to world peace are almost always people who say that the civilians of the U.S. should not be allowed to have guns. By their arguments about what kind of government we have, we NEED guns.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

- Now, 50% of home burglaries in Britain happen when the people are home, as opposed to 30% in the U.S.

You can't really infer anything from facts like this on their own... which makes me suspect it's dishonest. More to the point...

- Only 4% of guns used in crimes were obtained legally.

The gun in this mass shooting, and in 75% of others, was obtained legally.

I'm not sure how non-partisan the Facebook page of the Libertarian party is really going to be.

Originally Posted by Xei

You can't really infer anything from facts like this on their own... which makes me suspect it's dishonest. More to the point...

It suggests that burglars in Britain feel a lot safer about robbing houses with people home than burglars in the U.S. I know that gun laws are not the only factor to consider, but the statistical difference is worth noting.

Originally Posted by Xei

The gun in this mass shooting, and in 75% of others, was obtained legally.

That's for mass shootings. If 25% of the guns involved in mass shootings were obtained illegally, the other 75% could have obtained them illegally too. Legal guns are more convenient for people who aren't of the streets. If pot were legalized, I would stop going to the streets to get it. It wouldn't mean I wouldn't be able to get it there. What about all other shootings? Imagine the nightmare that would result from putting rational people who care about going to prison in a situation where they don't have guns but the violent nut case masses still do. That would be very dangerous and very unfair. Banning guns is not going to keep them off the streets.

I still invite somebody who is pro-ban to answer a question I have had for a long time. Why would a war on guns be more successful than the war on drugs? I would love to read somebody's answer to that.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

It suggests that burglars in Britain feel a lot safer about robbing houses with people home than burglars in the U.S. I know that gun laws are not the only factor to consider, but the statistical difference is worth noting.

It doesn't at all though. Those statistics don't even tell you how many thefts there were. There could have only been 5 thefts of occupied homes and 5 of unoccupied homes in the UK, but 3,000 and 10,000 respectively over the same period in the US. That doesn't remotely tell you that burglars are more afraid of US homeowners. So like I say, the statistic on its own means nothing and is therefore likely to be intentionally misleading. Lies and damned lies, and all that.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

That's for mass shootings. If 25% of the guns involved in mass shootings were obtained illegally, the other 75% could have obtained them illegally too.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. It's just that, if you thought that statistic about the proportion of legal gun crime was making an important point, presumably the statistic in the specific context of mass killings is just as important.

I agree with Xei in that I believe those statistics oversimplified whatever the actual findings were to support to the propaganda.

But I also believe that gun control is not a step in the right direction. Then again, neither is an armed police officer in every school. The NRA's reaction to this is absolutely appalling and terrifying. I am a pro-gun liberal, so I'm unlikely to side with the NRA on many issues. One argument I will make that many conservatives will agree with is that the 2nd amendment does not exist to protect hunters. It exists because when the bill of rights was ratified invasion by the UK remained a real possibility, and the asset that won the revolutionaries the war was an armed populace. In fact, the Japanese government was advised against invading the United States with the quote, "Were you to invade the United States, there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

Guns a good asset to a population, whether to protect them from their own government or an invading army. These shootings did not happen because of guns, and the NRAs response is disgusting. But so are most conservative reactions to problems.

There are three reasons to address which I believe, in conjunction, created this problem. The first is our general attitude of sweeping problems under the rug. We dope ourselves up, stuff more people in jail and prison than any other country (by far) and bomb the fuck out of any nation we feel slightly threatened by. This is the same backwards attitude that leads the NRA to make the suggestion they did. It's this habit of blind suppression which has created terrorism, both domestic and foreign.

The next issue is the media, which turns the lonely and pathetic into super stars the moment they decide to murder children. Like Morgan Freeman said, what would normally be remembered as a suicidal sad person can be remembered as a monster.

The final cause I believe is addiction to violence. I don't know how much responsibility rests upon the military industrial complex and how much rests upon the population, but it's up to the population to curb this issue and stop consuming violent material. This is an argument I don't really feel like making right now because I fucking love violence. But I think it's more at faults than guns. I mean, bombs are illegal but dude at Aurora still rigged his house full of them. Let's work on the real sickness here.

Originally Posted by Xei

It doesn't at all though. Those statistics don't even tell you how many thefts there were. There could have only been 5 thefts of occupied homes and 5 of unoccupied homes in the UK, but 3,000 and 10,000 respectively over the same period in the US. That doesn't remotely tell you that burglars are more afraid of US homeowners. So like I say, the statistic on its own means nothing and is therefore likely to be intentionally misleading. Lies and damned lies, and all that.

I did assume that a significant number of burglaries occurred in both countries. We are talking about the United States and Britain, not two small neighborhoods. The statistical difference is significant, and it clearly suggests that burglars in Britain have less reason not to invade an occupied home than Burglars in the U.S. The only question is what the difference in deterrence is. Knowing how scared people are of being shot, I would say that fear of being shot is at least part of the difference and possibly the entire difference.

Originally Posted by Xei

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. It's just that, if you thought that statistic about the proportion of legal gun crime was making an important point, presumably the statistic in the specific context of mass killings is just as important.

I still think the proportion statistic you are referring to is important, but I don't think the 75% of mass shootings statistic is important. By the way, do you have a link for it? My stat shows that criminals in general don't give a shit about what the law is, and all yours shows is that mass shooters use the convenience of legality more than others, if it is even a real statistic. The major issue being debated at this point is how hard it would be for mass shooters to get guns if they were legal. My stat strongly suggests that it wouldn't be difficult. Yours suggests nothing more than a decrease in convenience.

Conclusion: Getting guns on the streets is easy for street people and possible yet slightly inconvenient for non-street people.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I did assume that a significant number of burglaries occurred in both countries. We are talking about the United States and Britain, not two small neighborhoods. The statistical difference is significant, and it clearly suggests that burglars in Britain have less reason not to invade an occupied home than Burglars in the U.S.

Simply false, as I explained. Without knowledge of the per capita burglary rates, there is literally zero statistical basis for this assertion. I only chose extreme numbers to highlight the flawed reasoning; it's an analogy which will still goes through for only moderately differing burglary rates. It's not contingent on one of the rates being very low.

I still think the proportion statistic you are referring to is important, but I don't think the 75% of mass shootings statistic is important. By the way, do you have a link for it?

Link's in the original post, with the data. How about yours?

Originally Posted by Xei

Simply false, as I explained. Without knowledge of the per capita burglary rates, there is literally zero statistical basis for this assertion. I only chose extreme numbers to highlight the flawed reasoning; it's an analogy which will still goes through for only moderately differing burglary rates. It's not contingent on one of the rates being very low.

Why do you have to know the per capita burglary rates? I gave you the percentages, and those are what are relevant. 30% of the burglaries in the U.S. happen when the residents are home. 50% of the burglaries in Britain happen when the residents are home. That is a very significant and relevant difference concerning two enormous samples. What is the problem?

I got my data from the Libertarian Party's Facebook page, and they got it from Bastiat.com.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

What is the problem?

Isn't the analogy pretty lucid? If the US per capita rate is higher, then it may actually end up with a higher rate of burglaries of occupied homes than the UK, from which it makes no sense to conclude that US burglars are more afraid of homeowners...

Originally Posted by Xei

Isn't the analogy pretty lucid? If the US per capita rate is higher, then it may actually end up with a higher rate of burglaries of occupied homes than the UK, from which it makes no sense to conclude that US burglars are more afraid of homeowners...

The difference in home invasions per capita would be the result of a multitude of factors. There are so many things involved in whether a person becomes a burglar. However, once a person is a burglar, the difference between invading when people are home and when they are not home results from a much narrower set of factors. The level of fear of the occupants would be the leading factor.

Alternatively, you could argue that US burglars are less afraid of burgling occupied homes than they are in the UK, and even less afraid of burgling unoccupied homes. There is just not enough data to draw a conclusion from.

You'd have to outlaw guns in a single culture and see what the effect was.

I don't think there are many good reasons for civilians to own military weapons. I also don't think it's politically feasible to ban them in the USA, even though they probably should be. But there are reforms far better than putting armed guards in front of schools: that people should have training from a licensed organisation before they are allowed to own guns; that guns must be owned in the name of an organisation and not in the name of an individual; that guns be labelled with the organisation of their owner them; and so on. That would promote responsibility.

If somebody went on a rampage, it would come out that they were a member of the Home Invasion Prevention Association or the Hunter's Society or whatever. If somebody let their kids play with a gun and they got shot, people would know that the buyer had the training to know better. The gun societies would be pressured into increasing security, and then the ammunition would be locked away at the shooting range, or they would turn away members who might be unstable, or whatever their circumstances permit. People wouldn't be able to distance themselves from the perpetrator the same way.

Oerravaexinh

These are brilliant ideas

I don't think there are many good reasons for civilians to own military weapons. I also don't think it's politically feasible to ban them in the USA, even though they probably should be.

But

there are reforms far better than putting armed guards in front of schools:

1). that people should have training from a licensed organisation before they are allowed to own guns;

2). that guns must be owned in the name of an organisation and not in the name of an individual;

3). that guns be labelled with the organisation of their owner them; and so on. That would promote responsibility.*

If somebody went on a rampage, it would come out that they were a member of the Home Invasion Prevention Association or the Hunter's Society or whatever.

a). If somebody let their kids play with a gun and they got shot, people would know that the buyer had the training to know better.

b). The gun societies would be pressured into increasing security, and then the ammunition would be locked away at the shooting range,

c). or they would turn away members who might be unstable, or whatever their circumstances permit.

d). People wouldn't be able to distance themselves from the perpetrator the same way.

I am on a Samsung Galaxy S 2 and was unable to reply to you great post in this thread:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f16/us-sch...ml#post1974010

Post #119.

I can only open new threads and post to Dream Journal. Also I can only post once in any new thread I make so I probably ansere you if you reply to this thread.

[b] Please don't reply to this tread anyone[b]. Staff know about my isolation problem and are working on it (I think).

I am having image posting issues. You can click the picture to enlarge it.

obama guns.jpg

Oerravaexinh,

Great "gun control" ideas.Oerravaexinh

These are*brilliant ideas*

Oerravaexinh wrote this:

I don't think there are many good reasons for civilians to own military weapons. I also don't think it's politically feasible to ban them in the USA, even though they probably should be.*

But*

there are reforms far better than putting armed guards in front of schools:*

1). that people should have training from a licensed organisation before they are allowed to own guns;*

2). that guns must be owned in the name of an organisation and not in the name of an individual;

3). that guns be labelled with the organisation of their owner them; and so on. That would promote responsibility.*

[b] A).[/b) - If somebody went on a rampage, it would come out that they were a member of the Home Invasion Prevention Association or the Hunter's Society or whatever.*

B). - If somebody let their kids play with a gun and they got shot, people would know that the buyer had the training to know better.

C). - The gun societies would be pressured into increasing security, and then the ammunition would be locked away at the shooting range,

D). - or they would turn away members who might be unstable, or whatever their circumstances permit.*

[b] E). - People wouldn't be able to distance themselves from the perpetrator the same way.

I am on a Samsung Galaxy S 2 and was unable to reply to your great post, in this thread, but my problem was solved (when Staff member Melanie suggested I use my phones "Mobile View")

So, now that I can, I'm copying it here.

Edit:

oops .. Thank you Kind Moderator for putting that thread of mine here for me. sorry for this (almost) double post.

But please them both up cos Oerravaexinh's ideas or very worth quoting and quoting. Some one should submit them to Senaters or people of influence in the US Government or make and submit a petition with lots of signatures, endorsing Oerravaexinh's Great suggestions.

No thug out there would take those laws seriously.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

No thug out there would take those laws seriously.

That's not what the proposal was for. It's not a panacea. It was meant to reduce accidents and promote responsibility while disrupting ordinary gun owners as little as possible, and also reducing the demand for an impractical ban on guns. If you want to reduce ordinary criminal violence with firearms, look somewhere else. I think you're conflating the proposal with ordinary gun registration laws, which are made with a very different intent.

It would be a major disruption, it would trample on the Second Amendment, and it would do nothing to stop the wrong people from having guns. We can't just play around with the Second Amendment as if it is a mere suggestion.