California gunman 'was filmmaker Peter Rodger's son'

[ClutchClark]

Well maybe its high time the constitution was amended: So that lives are more important than civil rights.

And in this statement, you would find some Americans in agreement with you. Or atleast that certain restrictions be placed on the Rights guaranteed to Americans, specifically, the 2nd Amendment. As there are already limitations on other Constitutionally guaranteed Rights.

There is a reason they are called amendments. They can be amended.

That's exactly what happened to the 18th with the 21st..

And there are more and more parents today who are beginning to question whether the 2nd Amendment is more important than the life of their children; however , in this specific mass killing, it is difficult to see how it could have been avoided through enforceable legislation. As was previously mentioned, the shooter had every legal right to purchase and have possession of those firearms just as millions of other law-abiding Americans do.

[NeverSure]

Well maybe its high time the constitution was amended: So that lives are more important than civil rights.

So you think there aren't some freedoms that are worth dying for?

Sorry my Dad butted in on you at D-Day.

[ClutchClark]

It is the person behind the car/knife/gun that kills.

More news.

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/05/27/Unloved-killer-was-adored-Mum-loved-him-very-much-say-her-Penang-schoolmates/

Yes, but your not winning your argument using the example of the car. There are numerous legal restrictions placed on the use of a motor vehicle on public roadways. For instance, there are motor vehicle codes "traffic laws" that must be followed, there are minimum driving ages, there is a testing procedure prior to a license being granted, motor vehicle operators cannot be under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance. These restrictions are in place to protect the welfare of the public.

Furthermore, the amount of possible victims from knife attacks is typically more limited than those by firearm.

That is why America has restrictions on the availability of fully automatic weapons. It is why the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was enacted (unfortunately was allowed to expire 10 years later). But again, it would not have made a difference in this tragedy.

Edited May 27, 2014 by ClutchClark

[thai4me]

Society can impose laws, restrictions, qualifications etc etc, wrongdoers generally don't follow them.

[ClutchClark]

One thing that is concerning is how corrosive the affluent Hollywood environment is to children. This shooter was raised in a community of immense privilege, yet his parents stated he had been seeing mental health professionals on an almost daily basis since grade school.

There just seem to be so many headlines of wealthy children of the rich & famous having severe emotional problems or entitlement issues . Not just in america either. Surely there are many reasons but Hollywood sure seems to embody so many of them.

Edited May 27, 2014 by ClutchClark

[ClutchClark]

Society can impose laws, restrictions, qualifications etc etc, wrongdoers generally don't follow them.

So you are saying that we should not have any laws, restrictions or qualifications since they are sometimes ignored?

Well, everybody is entitled to their opinion.

[Chicog]

Well maybe its high time the constitution was amended: So that lives are more important than civil rights.

In the words of the famous late actor Charlton Heston, "You can have my guns when you pry them from my cold, dead hands."

You really have been brainwashed. They weren't his words.

Yes, I know he said them but they weren't his words.

Mind you, he was an actor so I supposed he was used to reading other people's lines.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Chicog

[ClutchClark]

Well maybe its high time the constitution was amended: So that lives are more important than civil rights.

So you think there aren't some freedoms that are worth dying for?

Sorry my Dad butted in on you at D-Day.

I wonder if all the child victims of gun violence and their parents might hold a different view?

They might be wondering what happened to their childs Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Especially when comparisons are made between these innocent victims slain in classrooms and homes and adult soldiers who knew full well what they were getting involved in and were slain on the battlefield.

Edited May 27, 2014 by ClutchClark

[thai4me]

Society can impose laws, restrictions, qualifications etc etc, wrongdoers generally don't follow them.

So you are saying that we should not have any laws, restrictions or qualifications since they are sometimes ignored?

Well, everybody is entitled to their opinion.

Not suggesting so but merely stating an observation on how the world works. The good and bad coexist. Just like drunk driving which kills more people than death by a gun or knife.

Every country prohibits it, but yet everyday there are people killed by drunkards. Should we then discuss if automobiles be banned?

Just another way the world evolves.

[Ulysses G.]

In the words of the famous late actor Charlton Heston, "You can have my guns when you pry them from my cold, dead hands."

You really have been brainwashed. They weren't his words.

Yes, I know he said them but they weren't his words.

It looks like he is not the one who is brainwashed. Charles Heston said them. It does not really matter who said them first.

[Chicog]

It looks like he is not the one who is brainwashed. Charles Heston said them. It does not really matter who said them first.

You may pay no heed to plagiarism, however I do.

[Ulysses G.]

I'm pretty sure that repeating a slogan on a million bumper stickers, out loud, is not considered "plagiarism."

[Chicog]

I'm pretty sure that repeating a slogan on a million bumper stickers, out loud, is not considered "plagiarism."

No, but passing someone's words off as your own definitely is.

[Ulysses G.]

Which he didn't do.

[Chicog]

Which he didn't do.

"It is a variation of a slogan mentioned in a 1976 report from the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency: "I Will Give Up My Gun When They Peel My Cold Dead Fingers From Around It." The original version did not originate with the NRA, but with another gun rights group, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, based in Bellevue, Washington".

So just to clarify: They are not Charlton Heston's words.

What on earth are you arguing about?

[Ulysses G.]

No one said that he made the slogan up - including him - so no one is "brain washed" and there has been no "plagiarism."

Edited May 27, 2014 by Ulysses G.

[Chicog]

No one said that he made the slogan up - including him - so no one is "brain washed" and there has been no "plagiarism."

So when you're quoting Shakespeare, you say 'In the words of the late, famous actor Laurence Olivier, "To be or not to be"', do you?

[Ulysses G.]

So now you are accusing NeverSure of "plagiarism"? Charles Heston never even insinuated that he wrote those words, so no one was "brain-washed" into believing that he did.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Ulysses G.

[Chicog]

Five posts because you don't like the fact that I pointed out they are not the words of Charlton Heston.

You need to get out more.

[SunsetT]

I dont hate the US, only the gun control..............or rather lack of it.

Have you ever tried to buy a gun in the US?

Obviously not.

Which one of the 20,000 gun control laws would have prevented these murders by STABBING and Gun fire deaths?

3 stabbed to death, 4 shot to death, including the instigator.

Yet the anti-gun yahoos are already dancing in the blood of the dead in an attempt to push their misguided anti-gun laws on the books.

Why no calls for stricter knife laws?

There's a movie I saw once about a Country where only the military and police were allowed to have guns. It was really educational. It was called "Schindler's List". I think you could still get it on Netflix.

Im blessed to have been born and raised in the UK where Im fortunate enough to have lived the 61 years of my life without the thought of owning a gun ever entering my head! Still In Britain today, only the military are allowed to have guns plus a small (mostly) strictly controlled number of police officers. And its real life in Britain! Not a semi-delusional fictional Hollywood-movie created gun-fest world where most US citizens sadly seem to dwell. Aldous Huxley once said that everyone is trying to be their favourite character in fiction. Nothing personal, but in the US this seems to mean that men are culturally pressurised to cultivate a movie hero's arrogance and ego, and must own a gun or 2 or 3 or 4. When will y'all wake up and see that Hollywood has been just as effective on 'you guys' as the nazi propaganda was on the Germans.

Sorry to burst your bubble of bliss concerning the safety of the UK with their stringent gun control.....

The following is from a paper presented in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (Attached) properly foot noted and this is an analysis of most data available through 2008::

To gun control advocates, England, the cradle

of our liberties, was a nation made so peaceful by strict gun

control that its police did not even need to carry guns. The

United States, it was argued, could attain such a desirable

situation by radically reducing gun ownership, preferably by

banning and confiscating handguns.

The results discussed earlier contradict those expectations. On

the one hand, despite constant and substantially increasing gun

ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions

in criminal violence in the 1990s. On the other hand, the

same time period in the United Kingdom saw a constant and

dramatic increase in violent crime to which England’s response

was ever‐more drastic gun control including, eventually, banning

and confiscating all handguns and many types of long guns.22

Nevertheless, criminal violence rampantly increased so that by

2000 England surpassed the United States to become one of the

developed world’s most violence‐ridden nations.

You have not burst my bubble as I did not make any claims about levels of violent crime in the UK or the USA, which is the subject of your quote. I stated fact about who can legally 'bear arms' in the UK, and simply and truthfully gave you my life experience. Im fortunate to have lived half my life in a small English city and half in a large English town. I feel very safe in the town where I live half the year when not in Thailand. If I'd lived in a large UK city, where the violent crime increase alluded to in your quote was focused, my experience and opinion might have been different. Also note that your quote is about 'violent crime' and not 'homicide' levels. Murder is the topic here, not all violent crime. I agree with one of your authors later conclusions that any statistical national comparisons are very difficult and therefore maybe worthless because levels of gun crime depend on a complex mix of social, economic, and CULTURAL influences. And this brings me to the 3rd point that I was trying to make. My opinion is that the US has a gun worshipping culture. It was understandably born of their relatively recent violent gun toting emergence as a nation and history, but since then it has been unconsciously nurtured and fed by a national love and obsession with movies and gun-toting movie heroes who have been and maybe still are the main role models in the US. It is now obviously also nurtured not so unconsciously by the thriving US gun manufacturing and sales industry. Sometimes I flick thru the movie channels on a hotel TV and its usually a very short time before the guns come out, if they r not out already, and the blood starts to flow. Nearly every movie situation involves guns and is resolved by a hero with a gun. As I said, I believe Hollywood has a lot to answer for.

[SunsetT]

Thinking is obviously not your strong suit.

............Nor yours, if all you can respond with is an insult.

This theory on the origin of the 2nd Amendment is not mine, it was put forward in a serious TV debate after a previous shooter massacre.

Dont worry I once lived in the US for a year, and have since had absolutely no desire to return.

Strangely enough, I was living for most of that time in an apartment with 3 US room mates in Isla Vista where this killing took place, while studying on exchange at UC Santa Barbara. Thank God it wasnt a lot worse, as when I was there, Isla Vista was a 1.5 sq mile student ghetto next to the UCSB campus where 21000 students lived.

[NomadJoe]

So, UG, you think it's acceptable to refer to him as 'gay as a goose?" Or you think that having Asperger's Syndrome makes him gay, or just act gay?

You might want to chose your words carefully if you decide to respond.

Yeah, and his logic is flawed as well. Chicks LOVE gay guys.

[Johpa]

So you think there aren't some freedoms that are worth dying for?

Sorry my Dad butted in on you at D-Day.

The irony here is that many of those who worry about legal incursions upon their interpretation of 2nd Amendment rights have no qualms about legal incursions into infringements upon 4th Amendment rights; e.g. no-knock policies. Again, I doubt the brouhaha is really about gun rights but about convincing segments of the voting public in the US to vote against their own best economic interests by using guns as a psychological hook. And for the most part, wars are not fought for freedoms but for access to and control of resources. Anyone who thinks troop are fighting for democracy are delusional and therefore perhaps should not be allowed to carry a firearm. But I would not want the decision as to whether someone is, or is not, "mentally fit" to carry a firearm to rely upon the opinion of myself nor even a "certified" mental healthcare worker.

[Diablo Bob]

Have you ever tried to buy a gun in the US?

Obviously not.

Which one of the 20,000 gun control laws would have prevented these murders by STABBING and Gun fire deaths?

3 stabbed to death, 4 shot to death, including the instigator.

Yet the anti-gun yahoos are already dancing in the blood of the dead in an attempt to push their misguided anti-gun laws on the books.

Why no calls for stricter knife laws?

There's a movie I saw once about a Country where only the military and police were allowed to have guns. It was really educational. It was called "Schindler's List". I think you could still get it on Netflix.

Im blessed to have been born and raised in the UK where Im fortunate enough to have lived the 61 years of my life without the thought of owning a gun ever entering my head! Still In Britain today, only the military are allowed to have guns plus a small (mostly) strictly controlled number of police officers. And its real life in Britain! Not a semi-delusional fictional Hollywood-movie created gun-fest world where most US citizens sadly seem to dwell. Aldous Huxley once said that everyone is trying to be their favourite character in fiction. Nothing personal, but in the US this seems to mean that men are culturally pressurised to cultivate a movie hero's arrogance and ego, and must own a gun or 2 or 3 or 4. When will y'all wake up and see that Hollywood has been just as effective on 'you guys' as the nazi propaganda was on the Germans.

Sorry to burst your bubble of bliss concerning the safety of the UK with their stringent gun control.....

The following is from a paper presented in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (Attached) properly foot noted and this is an analysis of most data available through 2008::

To gun control advocates, England, the cradle

of our liberties, was a nation made so peaceful by strict gun

control that its police did not even need to carry guns. The

United States, it was argued, could attain such a desirable

situation by radically reducing gun ownership, preferably by

banning and confiscating handguns.

The results discussed earlier contradict those expectations. On

the one hand, despite constant and substantially increasing gun

ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions

in criminal violence in the 1990s. On the other hand, the

same time period in the United Kingdom saw a constant and

dramatic increase in violent crime to which England’s response

was ever‐more drastic gun control including, eventually, banning

and confiscating all handguns and many types of long guns.22

Nevertheless, criminal violence rampantly increased so that by

2000 England surpassed the United States to become one of the

developed world’s most violence‐ridden nations.

You have not burst my bubble as I did not make any claims about levels of violent crime in the UK or the USA, which is the subject of your quote. I stated fact about who can legally 'bear arms' in the UK, and simply and truthfully gave you my life experience. Im fortunate to have lived half my life in a small English city and half in a large English town. I feel very safe in the town where I live half the year when not in Thailand. If I'd lived in a large UK city, where the violent crime increase alluded to in your quote was focused, my experience and opinion might have been different. Also note that your quote is about 'violent crime' and not 'homicide' levels. Murder is the topic here, not all violent crime. I agree with one of your authors later conclusions that any statistical national comparisons are very difficult and therefore maybe worthless because levels of gun crime depend on a complex mix of social, economic, and CULTURAL influences. And this brings me to the 3rd point that I was trying to make. My opinion is that the US has a gun worshipping culture. It was understandably born of their relatively recent violent gun toting emergence as a nation and history, but since then it has been unconsciously nurtured and fed by a national love and obsession with movies and gun-toting movie heroes who have been and maybe still are the main role models in the US. It is now obviously also nurtured not so unconsciously by the thriving US gun manufacturing and sales industry. Sometimes I flick thru the movie channels on a hotel TV and its usually a very short time before the guns come out, if they r not out already, and the blood starts to flow. Nearly every movie situation involves guns and is resolved by a hero with a gun. As I said, I believe Hollywood has a lot to answer for.

The quote is from a paper chalenging the mantra of the gun control advodates of More Guns means More Death and Less Guns means Less Death. It analyzes all the statistical data available at that time used in murder, violent crime and suicide.

You stated (Had to remove) "I dont hate the US, only the gun control..............or rather lack of it." This paper used England as one of many glaring examples of the failure of gun control to change human behavior.

Table 2: Murder Rates of European Nations that Ban

Handguns as Compared to Their Neighbors that Allow Handguns

(rates are per 100,000 persons)

Nation Handgun Policy Murder Rate Year

A. Belarus banned 10.40 late 1990s

[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]

Poland allowed 1.98 2003

Russia banned 20.54 2002

B. Luxembourg banned 9.01 2002

[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]

Belgium allowed 1.70 late 1990s

France allowed 1.65 2003

Germany allowed 0.93 2003

C. Russia banned 20.54 2002

[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]

Finland allowed 1.98 2004

Norway allowed 0.81 2001

Notes: This table covers all the European nations for which the information

given is available. As in Table 1, the homicide rate data comes

from an annually published report, CANADIAN CENTRE FOR JUSTICE

STATISTICS, HOMICIDE IN CANADA, JURISTAT.

This study points out that in the USA on average, almost 90% of all convicted murderers had an average arrest record of more than 5 felonies prior to being convicted of murder. By law they couldn't purchase a weapon legally (Gun control) but were able to obtain them through illegal means.

Gun control doesn't control the segment of the population that is the problem!

Edited May 27, 2014 by Diablo Bob

[ClutchClark]

A large segment of American gun owners have been manipulated into thinking that responsible gun legislation equates to the removal of all firearms from society and so they fight any and all attempts at legislation.

However, there are more and more gun owners who are sickened by the bloodshed of our young people as a result of this gun culture and who are attempting to restrict the availability of firearms...not remove all guns from society as some gunowners fear.

It is unfortunate that Americans have allowed special interest groups, i.e. the NRA (aka The Gun Manufacturers) frame the argument to suit their agenda.

If gunowners can be kept in fear, and there is a tremendous motivation of fear in many gunowners, that any restriction will snowball into the removal of all firearms, then they will fight any small attempt at reasonable solutions.

They see it as an "all or nothing" situation.

Its time responsible gun owners create solutions instead of just stonewalling the greater societies efforts to protect its innocent citizens.

[Riccardo S Patterson]

All I have to say is this kid was a spoiled brat who couldn't get laid and its not the gun its the person pulling the trigger, pressing the gas pedal, and stabbing the shit out of everyone. Also if you hate the US gun laws DONT COME HERE.

Sent from my Z750C using Tapatalk

[Chicog]

All I have to say is this kid was a spoiled brat who couldn't get laid and its not the gun its the person pulling the trigger, pressing the gas pedal, and stabbing the shit out of everyone. Also if you hate the US gun laws DONT COME HERE.

Sent from my Z750C using Tapatalk

But I have to go for work. I'll just have to hope some deranged, lovelorn youngster isn't allowed to buy any guns and ammo where I'm going.

[chuckd]

A large segment of American gun owners have been manipulated into thinking that responsible gun legislation equates to the removal of all firearms from society and so they fight any and all attempts at legislation.

However, there are more and more gun owners who are sickened by the bloodshed of our young people as a result of this gun culture and who are attempting to restrict the availability of firearms...not remove all guns from society as some gunowners fear.

It is unfortunate that Americans have allowed special interest groups, i.e. the NRA (aka The Gun Manufacturers) frame the argument to suit their agenda.

If gunowners can be kept in fear, and there is a tremendous motivation of fear in many gunowners, that any restriction will snowball into the removal of all firearms, then they will fight any small attempt at reasonable solutions.

They see it as an "all or nothing" situation.

Its time responsible gun owners create solutions instead of just stonewalling the greater societies efforts to protect its innocent citizens.

Can you cite some specific instances where attempts by the "greater society" to protect its citizenry have been stonewalled by "responsible gun owners"?

Exactly what has the current administration done to advance the cause of gun control? Have they passed any legislation into law or are they actively enforcing currnent laws on the books?

Precisely what do you think should be done to curb the homicide by gun rate in the US?

Thank you for any response you might offer.

Edited May 28, 2014 by chuckd

[chuckd]

All I have to say is this kid was a spoiled brat who couldn't get laid and its not the gun its the person pulling the trigger, pressing the gas pedal, and stabbing the shit out of everyone. Also if you hate the US gun laws DONT COME HERE.

Sent from my Z750C using Tapatalk

But I have to go for work. I'll just have to hope some deranged, lovelorn youngster isn't allowed to buy any guns and ammo where I'm going.

If your appearance is that of a young good looking blonde you might have cause to worry.

If you resemble your avatar, I honestly feel you will be safe from harm.

[Ulysses G.]

All I have to say is this kid was a spoiled brat who couldn't get laid and its not the gun its the person pulling the trigger, pressing the gas pedal, and stabbing the shit out of everyone. Also if you hate the US gun laws DONT COME HERE.

Sent from my Z750C using Tapatalk

But I have to go for work. I'll just have to hope some deranged, lovelorn youngster isn't allowed to buy any guns and ammo where I'm going.

I would be a lot more concerned about members of criminal gangs who often buy them on the black market.