Guns - Killing Innocent people and gun laws !

Abe F. March wrote:

This subject has been around often and there seems to be no consensus about dealing with it. Our perspectives on gun ownership have much to do with our upbringing and the conditions that existed at that time. I always owned guns until I moved to my current residence and then my attitude changed. Our environment has much to do with how we feel on a range of issues.

I don't think there is any law that will solve problems of violence nor is there a law that will eliminate fear. We do what we feel is necessary to control our fears, if the fear persists.

Courage is required in the face of fear. In the absence of fear, courage is not needed.

Work on the fear factor. As Roosevelt once said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself."

This quote from A Myth in Action is part of the chapter "Anzio: The Lesson of Futility."

The 15th Regiment started up the road toward Cisterna during the early morning hours of January 30. Murph and his men are prepared for the coming attack. They begin to move forward, "Fear is moving up with us," writes Murphy, "It always does…." He says he is, "well acquainted with fear," and goes on to explain how "it strikes first in the stomach, coming like a disemboweling hand that is thrust into the carcass of a chicken. I feel now as though icy fingers have reached into my mid-parts and twisted the intestines into knots."[x] Years later he would speak often about fear, that it was anatural instinct we should not be ashamed of. "I was scared before every battle.” Harold Simpson would later report him as saying, “That old instinct of self-preservation is a pretty basic thing, but while the action was going on some part of my mind shut off and my training and discipline took over and I would do what I had to do."[xi]

You can read the more of that chapter on the "Excerpt from A Myth" page of my website.

It is one thing to face a known fear. It is another to carry a sense of dread around inside, especially if you don't know its source. That is when you need to find an external enemy to attack.

No threat of punishment, no amount of artillery on hand, no laws will protect one against that kind of fear.

Victor, we are apparently cross-posting. Give me a little time to read your response.

Ann

Victor D. Lopez wrote:

Ann,

Whatever the root cause of crime and violence, nurture, nature or a combination of the two (my vote is for the latter), the main concern for a society should be the protection of its law abiding citizens rather than teh protection of career criminals.

The policy of excuse-making that underlie our current system clearly do not work. Letting someone know that committing five crimes will be punished exactly the same as committing one clearly provides no incentive to refrain from committing crimes. If crime pays (which it does, at least in the short term) why not engage in it?

One answer is ethics. But that too has been diluted in the post 1960's world where there is no foundation for ethical conduct. Religious and secular theories of formalism have been thrown out wholesale thanks to the efforts of the intellectual elites and the quasi intellectual elites (e.g., Hollywood and the popular media). Anyone who adheres to traditional notions of right and wrong based on Deontology is dismissed as a fanatic, a member of the "Christian right," a Tea Party troglodyte or simply a Republican. (I'm just a Neo Platonist myself, but few even know what that means these days, so just lump me with the rest of the diluted antediluvian relics--any category will do as they all mean "NON RIGHT THINKING PERSON IN NEED OF RE-EDUCATION.)

There are no standards, no right and wrong, and Teleology or ethical relativism is the ONLY philosophy that ENLIGHTENED people are allowed to have. Property is theft, decried the French Anarchist Proudhon. Chavez, Castro, Lenin, Mao, and all other Marxists past and present would agree with the sentiment, while stealing all personal property, lining their own pockets and doling out the fruit's of their individual versions of the Workers' Paradise,"to each in accordance with her party affiliation . . ." I mean need, of course, yes, that's it, need. Is it any surprise that we don't feel obliged to respect any laws we find inconvenient when law itself is an arbitrary or capricious act of government that we feel free to filter through our own (self-serving) philosophy? Stealing is not necessarily wrong--it depends on our motivation for the act. If we steal a loaf of bread to give to a starving child, it is a heroic act for which we can gladly and proudly be arrested. If we steal because our selfish neighbor has more money than we do and we have more hungry mouths to feed, it is not theft but the "liberation" of our rightful share of the communal pie. If a sitting president does not like the immigration laws duly enacted by Congress, he is not only justified but required as an act of conscience to instruct the immigration authorities that they are NOT to enforce the law. And is anyone yelling "impeachable offense?" of course not. The oath of office that requires upholding the Constitution of the U.S. against all enemies foreign and domestic does not have a footnote that reads "The constitution as interpreted by you as guided by your conscience which supersedes Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court."

I know this will ruffle feathers. I know that people of good conscience with minds greater than mine (including my wife, my best friend, and many, many more people whom I greatly admire) will disagree. I know I may be rambling. But it is all related--all part of the same, predictable harvest that we reap when we sow seeds of ethical relativism and refuse to pass judgment on anyone or anything for fear of giving offense or for fear of not fully understanding circumstances that motivated people to take actions that on their face may seem inappropriate (e.g., murder, rape, incest, theft, aggravated assault, etc.).

Here is one politically incorrect thought. At the heart of most criminal actions, when we peel back the layers upon layers of the onion and cast away through our tears one by one the obscuring excuses, the rationalizations, the personal stories and the downright lies, we will most often find actions motivated by one or more of the seven deadly sins or, if you prefer, the seven deadly human frailties.

From my earlier post:

Quote :

As a result, we run back and forth between polarities, and have trouble finding a balanced center from which to operate.

We live today in a post-modern world, and whether we like it or not, most things are relative, in one sense or another. We cannot rely on either/or answers. We must look for both/and solutions.

What is right in one situation might not be right in another. Old hard and fast rules cannot be counted on to apply to every situation.

That is not to say that we do not need laws and consequences for disobeying those laws. I am not suggesting anarchy, or anything close to it. Civil disobedience, perhaps. It has certainly been an effective way of bringing about needed change in the past.

You said:

Quote :

..it is all related--all part of the same, predictable harvest that we reap when we sow seeds of ethical relativism and refuse to pass judgment on anyone or anything for fear of giving offense or for fear of not fully understanding circumstances that motivated people to take actions that on their face may seem inappropriate...

Recognizing that there is such a thing as ethical relativism does not necessarily mean the same thing as refusal to pass judgement, especially concerning any "fear of giving offense" or of "not understanding [motivating circumstances]."

The world changes. Our paradigms shift. The laws we make cannot keep up with that. I do not advocate overlooking the law - just a recognition of those facts. We need to be aware that laws can, and often must, be changed to keep up with changing times, and that individual circumstances might sometimes temper the severity of punishment.

Ann

[quote="alj"]

Victor D. Lopez wrote:

Ann,


We live today in a post-modern world, and whether we like it or not, most things are relative, in one sense or another. We cannot rely on either/or answers. We must look for both/and solutions.

What is right in one situation might not be right in another. Old hard and fast rules cannot be counted on to apply to every situation.

Ann

Ethical relativism is indeed the current paradigm. But that is a far cry from saying that it is the correct model that we ought to follow. I agree with you that we need greater balance, and I do not advocate black and white solutions as any thinking person knows that there are an awful lot of grey areas to most any serious ethical question. My problem is that we have more or less thrown out all the rules for the wrong reason and are closer to nihilism than we have even been in our history.

Moreover, what we take for granted as the post modern paradigm is far from embraced throughout the world. Deontology and ethical absolutism are not dead, nor are they limited in their scope to regions of the world where conservative religions predominate. The fact of the matter is that relativistic philosophies are and have always been a distinctly British and American phenomenon not embraced by the vast majority of the world (the same is true of the common law system, by the way, that largely reflects the relativistic ethos that gave it birth).

As with any discussion of ethics, for good or ill we are free to believe what we like as no one has the correct answer in this world at least. We do need balance, as you suggest. The choice should not be between cutting off the hand of a mother who steals a loaf of bread to feed a starving child as in the time of Hammurabi nor in wringing our hands in deciding what to do with a mass murderer who kills 10 people with a gun. (Blaming lax gun control laws and sentencing him to 10 concurrent life sentences which means he'll be out and about potentially in 15 years is not ethical, just or rational under any paradigm.)

Everyone is profound in this discussion.

Guns do not kill people of their own accord. People kill people. All the philosoply put together will not prevent that. This killing is a social problem that no one wants to address. The ills of our society world wide have to be addressed and remedied. A tall order, indeed.

Love,

Betty

As you say, Victor, there are a lot of grey areas in this discussion.

As Betty said, solution to the social problems represented in it is a tall order.

Ann

We need a more ordered and structured society. Chaos does not turn out stellar people.
We don't need to be abusive, , but from day one children can learn every action brings a reaction.
Not a threat, a reasonable consequence.
If they did something good, a reward.

People are too busy to have children, the grandparents too selfish to help with the kids, the churches molest the kids,

Someone who kills multiple people should be confined for life.

The world is a mess--what an astute observation!

These people who go out and murder a lot of people because of their visions of grand effect are not poverty stricken kids who grow up wishing they were powerful. For the most part they are middle class people who believe that they have been slighted by the rest of society and deserve it all just because they live.

Today I went to get chicken feed and bird feed and the supplies for the sanctuary. Next door to the feed dealer is a fenced in area of dlapidated vehicles by the hundreds and a few run down trailers and some shack houses. Laundry hung by the houses on a make shift line. A small path led from the back door through Caesar weed and nettles that were as tall as the shacks. It led to the little line for clothes. There was no other clear space for the children that wore those clothes to play.

I remember this as my childhood. Not one adult felt the need to clear a spot of weeds. I know how these children grow. It is confined to a dirty space that no one who knocks on the door is allowed to see. I felt sorry that I could do nothing.

But it is not these kids who are going around shooting people. It is the people who have had most of the advantages ..

Self pity is what I call that.

Love,

Betty

Betty

I wonder how many of these shooters were on mind altering medications?

Just a thought.

Prozac, Ritalin, Paxil, Zoloft--none of these were around years ago.

I did some quick research and most mass shooters were on depression medications.

This could account for the increase in such incidents.

We have had guns forever, these pills are new.

This thread has turned into a great discussion. I agree with both Victor and Ann. They appear to be in agreement using different forms of expression.
I think most agree that our environment plays a major role in human conduct. Kids imitate their parents and other adults. Setting an example doesn't appear to carry the same importance as it once did. "Monkey see, Monkey do" was a saying when I was a kid. Kids look for heros to emulate and those heros are not always the best examples to follow.
So where behavior start? I think it starts in the home. If Dad has a gun, I should have one also. If Dad drinks, I will also drink. If Mom gets upset and swears, then I can also swear and so it goes.

We older folk remember how policeman were respected. We called them Sir. We obeyed laws. We respected our elders. We called them Aunt, Uncle, Mister and Misses - not John, Mary & Harry. At work, the boss was Mister, not Harry. Disrespect is a combination of little things. They may not appear significant, but they are. Many a young many learned respect of authority when he was drafted into the military. Those who served, respected authority. We have learned that the "authority" is not always right, however we can't live our lives on the exceptions. As adults we should have learned to distinguish between right and wrong. What is right and what is wrong? That's another discussion based on societies views.

For some odd reason, I don't think they are agreeing at all. I would like to know for certain the reason for the random shootings as it would be nice to eliminate them.

We went through a phase of plane hijackings and managed to get them stopped.

Random shootings appear to have no motive. Murderers usually have a motive, so if someone wants to kill you of course they
will find a way gun or none.

The problem with a gun is it can kill at such a distance and with no warning.

Every time this happens the anti-gun people yell and the pro gun people assert their right to own a gun--meantime we have a bunch of dead people--not funny.

It must be the Accountant in me.I like right or wrong. Whatever is wrong fix it:)

8/26/2012

Alice..

I read an article over twenty years ago titled : " Suicide By Cop," which means people who kill people then are confronted by the cops want to be shot by them , first they won't put their gun down and they know the cops will shoot you if you don't drop it, they don't have the guts to shoot themselves so they want someone else to do it for them....It's called a coward !

Joe.......

I can't speak for Victor. I would say we were looking at the situation from different perspectives. Personally I enjoyed the exchange. He is most certainly a gentleman, and I admire his ability to present his position in a rational, logical way.

One of the incidents that had Joe concerned was the shooting at the Empire State Building. As it turned out, it was the police who were doing most of the shooting, and the cause of so many bystanders being wounded.

I don't think the problem is about guns so much, but I do think it is about control, and the rage that can build up inside an individual who feels powerless.

People who believe that they have a voice, and that what they need to say is being heard and validated are not nearly as likely to resort to violence. A society that ignores the needs of a significant number of its members, and does not recognize their right to be heard is going to have to deal with these individuals one way or another.

Our society as a whole is currently struggling with this problem because the people who make our laws are not listening to our words and needs, and are intent on allowing a powerful few to decide what kind of world we are going to live in.

We are all connected and we all influence each other. Many of us are carrying around a great deal of repressed rage. That unexpressed anger and hostility seep out, and enter our relationships whether we are aware of it or not. Some of the most desperate ones are acting out those unacknowledged feelings for us.

That doesn't mean we should condone their actions, or allow them to harm themselves and others. But to solve the problem we must get to the root.

As Hamlet warned his mother, we must not

Quote :

Lay...that flattering unction to [our souls],
That not [their] trespass, but [our] madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.

In other words, we are putting a band-aid on a dangerously infected wound when we focus on getting rid of the weapons and punishing the perps. That does not mean we should not do those things, but if that is all we do, the "rank corruption" will continue to "mine within," and the infection will grow worse. We have to get to the core of the problem, and that means finding a way to ensure that everyone has a voice, and a bit of control over their own lives.

That doesn't answer your question, Alice, but it might give us a place to start.

Just Annie - using her little voice.

Cross-posting again.

Joe has a legitimate point, but are they cowards or desperate people who see no other options?

Ann

Ann,

You are, as always, gracious, kind and generous. And I admire your ability to eloquently (and far more succintly than I) state your point of view as well. For myself, I know that I know nothing, and my wife will likely tell you that I overestimate what I know. We do see the problem from different perspectives; by that I simply mean that we recognize a problem exists but have a fundamental difference of opinion as to the major contributing causes for that problem. Though I suspect we may agree much more than might be apparent from our recent posts.

My best friend is a left of center liberal democrat who was once a delegate to the People's Party when we were in college. I am a slightly right of center Republican and neither of our opinions have much changed or affected our deep friendship since High School when we were both at Brooklyn Tech. He is one of the finest human beings that has ever walked the planet. We have spend countless hours in serious debate on politics since we first met. On every single hot-button issue that anyone can name, from welfare reform, to the appropriate scope and role of government, to the death penalty, to abortion and beyond we ALWAYS, every single time, have come to a compromise that both of us can live with, if we were able to draft legislation that could become law. Every time. No kidding.

Aside from our mutual respect, what allows us to reach compromise is, first, that we are willing to recognize that compromise is not a dirty word but an essential part of any good, effective, rational government, and second, that we are willing and able to view the world from the others' point of view safe in the knowledge that that point of view is as valid as our own and as honestly held for all the best reasons. We do not demonize each others' positions, not just out of love and respect, but because we know with absolute certainty that they are held in good faith and trust implicitly in each others' integrity. If he were to run for President, I would vote for him--liberal positions be damned, because he is a good, honorable, decent, rational, intelligent human being who puts the interests of society above his self interest. That, for me, trumps ideology or sillier things like party affiliation.

We need more discussions of this type, though we have moved far afield of the original post and the original question. There is merit from the left, the right and the center of the political spectrum, and from every school of ethics (well, maybe not so much in ethical nihilism which leaves us with the law of the jungle, but certainly to Teleology and Deontology all their variations). If our elected leaders spent less time demonizing their opponents' positions, campaigning for their next election, and generally trying to "win at all cost" and more time engaging in civil debate as we and our colleagues do here, they might actually make a tangible difference towards the betterment of our society and at least be a part of the solution rather than a major part of the problem for its failings. I suspect that is something about which all of us can agree.

Thanks Victor for taking the time to express your views. Your analysis makes sense.

Thanks, Abe. I appreciate and agree with your post yesterday as well. It stands up well to careful re-reading.

Alice, you referred to hijackings as an example. And you’re right; there is always a motive/reason for these actions.
If you recall, hijackings began in the Middle East. The reason, as explained to me by a Palestinian, was simply for attention. No one was listening to them and they had to do something dramatic for attention. When I challenged him for using such drastic action, he said, “Didn’t the blacks in the US resort to violence to get their rights? It worked and today they have more equality. Doing nothing got us nowhere. Now we have the World’s attention.”

Whether an action is deemed appropriate, right or just, there is a reason/motivation for the act. We may not feel it is justified, but the person or people involved obviously do. I believe we should spend more effort to resolve the cause than focusing on punishment.

8/27/2012

I believe I'm more of a expert on guns and death, I'm going to tell you all something I have never talked about before, matter of fact it's in my first book. In 1986 my brother and his wife moved to Memphis, Tenn. The had a restaurant, In June that year he and his wife split because she found out he was running around with their waitress, he moved out with the young lady, he was 32 , she 20 ! Anyway he and his wife both had hand guns because they owned a business and they were robbed once. Long story short one day he showed up at the dorm where the young lady was going to school, drunk and with the hand gun this was at night. Someone called the police , the funny thing is one of the cops knew him and I couldn't understand why he didn't call my sister-in-law. A cop went down the hall of the dorm saw him come out of the room with the gun, told him to put it down and he wouldn't, he was shot to death by the cop ! I was on vacation in Cape Cod when this happened,I was distraught and didn't know what to do, I couldn't drive to Tenn. His son was 7 1/2 at the time, what's strange is it was 30 years that year my father died and my nephew was the same age I was 7 1/2 when my father died. When they did the autopsy they found out my brother had tumors on his kidney and a tumor on his brain, I found out through my mother that a few years before he was at a party in Bklyn and got into a fight with another guy and the guy hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat...It took me a year to get over his death, it still haunts me...........

Joe.......

Joe,

I wonder if the tumors in his brain affected his thinking abilities. Very sad.

When we lived in England, where guns are not allowed, I noticed they had much better doors for their houses. You didn't need to worry about home invasions.

When a robber is faced with brick walls and a four lock deadbolt door, he/she moves on.

As far as Ann and Victor are concerned, I enjoyed their opinions and the manner in which they stated them. It is refreshing to see civil discussions.

I don't know about`deterrents--so many of these shooters shoot themselves--it is too bad they don't begin the shooting with themselves, think of the trouble and lives that would be saved.

That is a tragic story, Joe. It has to be difficult still. I lost my younger brother to an illness that could have been prevented. He would have turned eight a few months later. Siblings are special, and losing them, in whatever way, is not an easy thing.


I remember a couple of personal incidents involving guns. I may have written about them here at one time or another. One involved a student, and happened a few years before I retired. I had been teaching at the night school for two or three years, so it was during the late '90's.

I really liked this kid. He was, like many of the night schoolers, a drop-out who had decided he wanted an education after all. He wasn't very talkative, but during class, he was always very intent on the lesson, focusing on the presentation and listening carefully. He was also a natural writer and storyteller. For one of his essays, he was instructed to write about an event that changed his life. He wrote that he had been a gang member - a leader, actually (not a surprise; he was extremely intelligent). He wrote about the night that members of a rival gang drove by his house and shot out the windows. Luckily, no one was hurt, but his little sister was extremely upset by it, and he realized she had good reason. She could have died that night. So he left the gang and dropped back into school. The night school was perfect for him. He was able to keep his day job. After working for eight hours, he would come to the school and attend classes for another eight. He had even gotten permission to attend the early quarter in addition to the three regular classes - an honor of sorts that had to be earned.

Then, one Friday night, some of his former gang members told him he needed to come to a meeting with a rival gang. There were racial issues involved. My student was Mexican-American, as were the other members of the gang. The rival gang was all Anglo. So, at ten pm that Friday, he left the campus after his last class and headed across the street to a gas station where the meeting was held. What happened there got pieced together later. It seems that the leader of the Anglo gang was upset because my student was dating his former girlfriend. He had called the meeting to warn my student to stop seeing her - or else. My student respectfully said no. The Anglo gang leader shrugged and turned around as though to leave, but then turned back with a pistol in his hand and emptied two shots into my student's chest. He then opened the door of his truck, changed the clip in his gun, walked over to where my student lay, and shot him five more times. My student lived for a week.

I turned the paper he had written over to the night school administrators, who gave it to his family, and they turned it over to the prosecutors of his case. I was not called in to testify at the trial itself, but during the sentencing phase ( he had been tried as an adult and found guilty), the Anglo student's attorneys tried to paint my student as a "bad kid" in order to lessen the sentence. The prosecutor asked me to come in. The defense attorneys knew of the essay, and had kept it out of the trial. When I got on the stand to give a character description, they hounded me, and tried to catch me off guard. The prosecution was not able to get in a question that would allow me to bring up the essay, and every time I opened my mouth to say anything that was not basically a yes or no response, they objected vehemently. All in all, the prosecutors said I had done a good job, regardless, and thanked me for agreeing to testify. The young man was sentenced to 20 years, but with an opportunity for parole. I believe he served seven.

The other incident involved my first cousin, whom I was as close to as I was my brothers. He was a couple of months older than the younger brother I lost. After high school, he joined the police force. He was a good cop and proud of the work he did. One night he was on duty with several other officers and their captain when two brothers broke in to the jailhouse, armed, and demanding the release of their third brother, who had just been arrested by my cousin and the others for an armed robbery in progress. They started shooting; the officers fired back. The captain moved toward the intruders, was struck, and died instantly. My cousin was appalled. He was certain, from the way things happened, that it was he who had fired the shot that killed his captain and friend. Everyone from the city manager down tried to talk him out of it, at first, until they found precedents that would allow them to try the brothers regardless of who actually fired the shot. The brothers were tried and convicted, and since they were all habitual criminals, were denied parole.

This is a complicated issue with no easy answers or solutions. That is why we all need to come together and work together to figure out what we might be able to do. All sides need to be heard and listened to as valuable contributors.

It's kind of like that old blind-man-and-the-elephant thing that I've brought up before. None of those men had a valid concept of elephant even though their individual perspectives were accurate. If we are going to figure out the whole elephant, we need to fit our pieces together rather than argue over who is right or wrong.

This forum is a good place to do just that.

Annie again

Very sad, Ann and thanks for sharing:)

What Alice said.

One final question--why are these shooters always men?
Just curious as usual.