What is it about the 2A that drives otherwise normal, rational people to untold levels of hatred?

[shadowrider]

In light of the tragedy in Arizona, there are now hundreds of posts in the guns forum regarding the 2A and 2A supporters that are derogatory at best and full of outright hatred at worst.

I think we can all agree this shooting was senseless and tragic and many people, including a 9 year old girl, had their lives cut short by a rambling lunatic who was in desperate need of help. He didn't come from the right or the left, but from his own world where diatribes about grammar were of the utmost importance.

I fail to see, however, how a condemnation of a right, or increased regulation, or micro-stamping, or outlawing extended magazines or any of a myriad of other feel good proposals would do anything at all to stop the mad lunatic. They will find a way whether gun, knife or bomb to accomplish their twisted goal.

Condemnation of a right, and those who support that right, is only treating the symptom. It isn't going to fix the root problem.

Why the hate?

[onehandle]

1. Why the infamous right-wing graphic in your signature?

I have questions too.

[shadowrider]

6. Those aren't quite pictures of right wing people n/t

[Imperialism Inc.]

8. Which was kind of his point. It is a right wing graphic of left wing leaders

that supposedly took away guns so they could initiate a dictatorship.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

18. Huh??

"It is a right wing graphic of left wing leaders that supposedly took away guns so they could initiate a dictatorship."

You consider those guys to be "left wing"? And I assume you also consider yourself "left wing"?
(Hint, those are totalitarian power-hungry dictators.)

[Imperialism Inc.]

38. Communism is generally considered left correct?

And yes I also consider myself left. Not a communist, nor a socialist, nor pro dictator but left. The whole point of that graphic is supposed to be "don't let the left take away your guns or you'll get leftist dictators." At any rate I don't really care if he has it I was just trying to explain the question posed. I too was wondering why a graphic I've only ever seen from right-wingers was in his sig.

[YllwFvr]

9. why dodge the subject?

[Super Bobo]

15. Nu-bee here

Hello folks. Hope everyone is well.

My thoughts -
- folks from rural parts of the country have strong ties to the shooting sports
- these same folks also have familial ties - my grandfather handed down an old 22 - its a strong tie to a great man
- firearms are a critical element in healthy wildlife management - funds for conservation comes from hunters
- mature gun ownership, in my view, was assumed in the 2nd Amendment
- it is a deterrent to violent crime - bad guys will have guns no matter what the law says - good guys follow the law - you can end up with problems like Mexico has today - gun ownership is illegal, so the good guys are completely unarmed
- I haven't seen success in outlawing gun ownership in our country - explain how well things have gone in Chicago or DC

Of course you know that Rep Giffords was a 2nd Amendment supporter, correct?

[Fumesucker]

2. I don't know, it seems pretty clear the 2A has driven a great many teabaggers around the bend..

Of course, a lot of them were at least halfway there to start with.

[Taverner]

3. Honestly, to prevent future killing the solution is to beef up mental health care

Right now its a little worse than nothing at all

[Name removed]

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[madinmaryland]

5. Un-recced.

[patrice]

7. Answer: Anonymity and its attendant Role Playing nt

[Name removed]

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[jeepnstein]

10. It's some people's world view.

They see themselves as members of a collective and their rights are subordinate to the needs of society in general. They're willing to disarm as long as things are going their way. For them, the law is used to dictate behavior. They simply cannot fathom a world where people can be free to live in a civil manner without someone telling them how to do it. They generally also believe they are always right.

Some folks see society made up of individuals who are free to act as they will so far as long as they do no harm to others. They generally see other individuals as trustworthy on their own without the need for involvement from the state. For them, the law sets boundaries of acceptable behavior.

Some of these people wind up Republicans, some Democrats.

Me? I see the good in people until they prove otherwise. I really don't lose any sleep over what kind of gun my neighbor owns or carries. Or who he or she is sleeping with. Or what books they read. I guess that makes me an ignorant hillbilly or something.

[renate]

12. Why the hate?

I think because six people were killed with a gun.

Because 20 people were shot in a matter of seconds by a single lunatic who couldn't possibly have done a tenth as much damage had he been armed with a knife or any other hand-to-hand weapon.

But that's just a guess. :shrug:

[shadowrider]

17. You're proving my point

You're upset at the method used to kill. I'm not happy about that either. The point of the OP is that something should have been done much earlier with this individual that would have rendered him incapable of LEGALLY purchasing a weapon.

Attack the root cause, not the method.

[renate]

28. maybe I wasn't clear enough, but no, I'm not upset at the method

I'm upset that he was able to kill or injure 20 people in a matter of seconds. He could have done the same damage in the same amount of time with a bomb; I'm therefore anti-bomb. (I suspect you are too; I don't want to imply otherwise.)

If it were possible to keep guns 100% safe and 100% out of the hands of the mentally ill or violent, I wouldn't have a problem with them. I do not, again, have a problem with guns qua guns. I have a problem with the fact that it is so damn easy for people with bad intentions to get guns and to do this kind of thing.

I really don't want to be rude or confrontational; I'm just explaining--since you asked--why people can be opposed to guns.

[shadowrider]

41. And I appreciate the civil discourse

You and I actually agree because I feel the same way. At the same time, millions and millions of law-abiding gun owners shouldn't be punished with feel good, do nothing laws, when they've done nothing wrong.

I respect your opinion and feelings, please respect mine.

I believe we can mutually, and on good terms, agree to disagree.

[tularetom]

13. I support the 2nd Amendment too but

Simply asserting you rights is not going to solve any problems.

There's something wrong here and while it may go far beyond Mr Loughner's right to own a firearm, the fact that an obvious loon like him is able to waltz in and buy one with basically no questions asked doesn't help the situation.

You aren't a victim here, so man up and stop acting like one.

[shadowrider]

14. I never said I was a victim and you hit the nail on the head

This guy needed a true mental health accessment that should have occurred LONG before he bought his weapon. In light of that accessment, he would have been prohibited from purchasing it.

The root cause is, how are people like this to be identified early enough and dealt with so incidents like this don't happen?

Like I said, we need to address the root problem rather than institute knee-jerk reactions that do nothing.

[one-eyed fat man]

25. I question that assertion.

"...the fact that an obvious loon like him is able to waltz in and buy one with basically no questions asked doesn't help the situation."

He certainly looks like an "obvious loon" now that 500 FBI agents are sifting through everything from his bronzed baby shoes to the present day.

What responsibility did all those classmates, teachers and acquaintances coming out of the woodwork saying they "knew" he was crazy to "tell somebody?" Has anyone heard a peep from his family?

Who were they supposed to tell and what were they supposed to tell "them"?

Privacy laws prohibited the Army from revealing that the shooter had failed a drug screening. Every potential recruit is made aware well in advance that they will undergo a drug screening at the MEPS. So who do they tell? Again, what do they tell them? This loser is dumber than a box of rocks?

All these "what if's" don't change a thing. You may as well speculate what if the condom hadn't broken? Nothing he did in the past had anyone who knew him concerned enough to take concrete steps to DO something. And they would have had to DO something for there to be a record of his disqualification for NICS to check.

What is obvious is that his lunacy only became "obvious" in the crystal clarity of hindsight.

[tularetom]

26. Everything you say is true and yet...

If we're going to absolve this guy of any political motive the only remaining explanation is that he is nuts. And much as I support the right of any citizen to own firearms, I'm troubled that one as troubled as this could easily get his hands on a 9mm pistol and sufficient ammunition to cause all this turmoil.

What is the answer? I don't know. It's certainly too much to expect a $10 an hour clerk in a sporting goods store to diagnose mental illness. As you imply it's almost impossible to craft legislation to define the type of behavior that would disqualify anyone from purchasing a gun.

For me, it's like the famous quotation about art (I don't know anything about art but I know what I like). I'm no psychiatrist but I know when I encounter a nut. One accosted me yesterday in the parking lot of Home Depot (I think he was looking for work) and followed me out to my truck getting louder and louder and more and more abusive as he went. I only understood snippets of what he said (like when he claimed Michael Jackson was his cousin) but when he tried to get into my truck as I tried to drive away I had to talk some shit to him and scare him off. There is no way in hell that guy should ever be allowed anywhere near a firearm, for his own sake as well as those around him.

Again I'm not disagreeing with you but what's the solution? Draconian gun laws wouldn't solve the problem. Better mental health policies would but that isn't a very sexy way to spend tax dollars.

[one-eyed fat man]

31. Going back to Home Depot

Fifty years ago people like the one that accosted you were institutionalized by their families. Insane asylums fell out of fashion, those not deemed a big risk of harming others were turned loose and are the bulk of the chronic homeless on our streets.

Are they better off there than warehoused in some state hospital, I don't know. Was society better off? You tell me? What about those who are fine as long as they stay on their medication? There are a lot of conditions that were completely untreatable half a century ago that are almost routine now.

You're as old as I am. All it would have taken for our parents was to go the local public health office before we were 21 and they could have us involuntarily committed for life on a doctor's statement and a judge's signature.

The guy at Home Depot you ran into was annoying, maybe even unnerving, but was he criminally insane? Again, who do you tell to make sure the guy you saw is in the NICS database? What responsibility do you bear if you pick up the paper next week to find the police discovered him with a machete amid a dozen headless torsos?

"...it's almost impossible to craft legislation to define the type of behavior that would disqualify anyone from purchasing a gun.

That has not stopped at least one Congresswoman from demanding that the VA and military healthcare systems place all combat veterans in the database on the presumption they have mental problems.

The East German secret police had one informant for every seven citizens, even they missed a few. Border guards were screened for reliability and "devotion to the Revolution."

[shadowrider]

29. I'm not disagreeing

What I'm saying is that somehow, some way, someone should have seen or known this guy was certifiable. Further, what is to be done? As you correctly point out, there was nothing concrete someone could point to. Is conjecture from family and friends enough to get him committed? IMO, no, but he should have, at the least, undergone a psych eval to determine that.

But that raises the question, how do we seperate the potential harm someone can do from someone who is harmless yet acts in a strange way? As I mentioned in a post further down, I don't know if that's an answerable question.

I don't know what the answer is and I doubt anyone does but attacking the method by which he carried out his crime, as many on this board are doing, does nothing to address the root cause.

[one-eyed fat man]

35. See post 31 n/t

[Pancho Sanza]

37. If you were to visit me, I could show you at least 3 men who live within half a mile

of us that are in my semi-educated opinion, crazier than shithouse rats. It wouldn't surprise me one micron if any of them were to go postal and do a Tucson or even a variety of Oklahoma City. They've only caused misdemeanor-level mischief -as far as we KNOW- but like someone else said it's a case of "I don't know much about it but I know when I'm worried."

So what can be done? Nothing. Unless and until they crack and go ballistic not a damn thing. This is both a good and a bad thing...I'm very much opposed to pre-emptive punishment and also opposed to let nutcases run free and the awful thing is that there really is no middle-ground solution that doesn't adversely affect someone.

[one-eyed fat man]

39. That's the rub

One of the flaws of a free society is that even if we are willing to accept outrages like the secret Bush Obama "No fly lists" and TSA goons groping us at every turn that there will still be people who abuse those very same freedoms to do evil.

So what are our options? Do we do like the East Germans did?

The MfS monitored political behavior among GDR citizens, and is known to have used torture and intimidation to mute dissent. During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, MfS offices were overrun by enraged citizens, but not before the MfS destroyed a number of documents (approximately 5%). When the remaining files were published for review, many people learned that their friends, colleagues, spouses, and relatives had regularly filed reports with the MfS. These wounds on society have not yet entirely healed.

The despite that fact that there was one informant per every seven citizens and Border Guards being screened for reliabiity shoot-to-kill orders were issued to a specially trained unit of Stasi agents ordered to infiltrate border guards and halt defections by regular soldiers.

At least 37 border guards are known to have been shot dead while trying to flee across the frontier. The order, dated October 1, 1973, was only discovered by a researcher in a regional archive of Stasi documents in the city of Magdeburg in 2007. Forty-six years after the Berlin Wall was erected.

“This document is a form of licence to kill. We haven’t seen anything like that before,” said Hubertus Knabe, director of the Stasi prison museum in the Berlin district of Hohenschönhausen.

Read more:

It wasn't worth living that way in 1954, I am disinclined to accept it as worth it now. Because that is the minimum it would have taken to have "State Security" to have been aware of the nut.

[Pancho Sanza]

40. It seems to me that historical era and the events of it may be lost in the gap between

those who are too old (or departed) to remember, and those too young to care. Maybe that's how history always works.
:shrug:

[Uben]

16. Quite simply.......it's rage.

We have all experienced rage at some point and to some degree. Rage fuels irrational thought, and untreated, becomes dangerous. The secret is to be able to identify rage for what it is and get help. It is easily remedied in most cases.

My recent experience-

A couple of weeks ago, I found out a 20 yr old had gotten my 17 yr old daughter pregnant. To say I was furious would be an understatement. I could not eat or sleep.....it consumed me! To top things off, the kid has a smart mouth on him which only fueled my rage. I was in a constant state of tension. I had thoughts no sane person should have. I wanted to hurt this kid, and honestly, I wanted him eliminated. So not rational!

I called my physician for a consultation. I spilled the beans on the whole thing to her.....my thoughts, feelings, and pain. She prescribed me some sleeping pills and some tranquilizers. They changed my thought pattern almost immediately. I am now calm and serene without having that "drugged" feeling.

After this episode, the first for me, I now understand how rage can manifest to action. Lack of treatment for this kind of rage can only result in bad things. Getting help is the key to maintaining mental health.

If any of you are experiencing rage for any reason, please seek assistance. Another good reason for universal healthcare!

[shadowrider]

19. From experience, I know exactly how you felt/feel n/t

[Uben]

21. I'm sorry you had to go thru it, too

Tisn't fun. Imagine someone having that kind of rage, untreated, for an extended period of time. Especially if they are isolated and let it build. Scary as hell! And, you and I know it is happening at this very moment somewhere, in someone. I feel certain that several of these individuals are the ones we see on the evening news. The guy who flew the plane into the office building in Texas, the idiots that barracade themselves in a house surrounded by a SWAT team, the idiots that pull off mass murders, and people who kill their family members before committing suicide.

I wonder how many of these incidents could be avoided if we had universal healthcare?

[Name removed]

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[Uben]

22. You may be right, but.....

....honestly, I can't see how rage to this degree can ever be beneficial. Once it affects one's physical and mental health, it needs immediate attention, despite it's direction. I have experienced political rage. By that I mean to a point to where it affected me physically....increased heart rate, thoughts of revenge, cursing....well, you know. These are temporary reactions that pass in minutes or maybe hours. I figure we all have these feelings time to time in today's political climate, but in others, it may very well last for extended periods of time. I don't know, and that's a scary thing. It certainly doesn't help to have Limbaughs and Becks and Coulters to reinforce the behavior. This is what they need to understand. They do have a certain amount of culpability by constantly stirring the pot.

[shadowrider]

23. And friends of mine on the right

say the same about Olbermann, Maddow and Schultz. Be that as it may, the core root cause is mental illness and that needs to be addressed somehow. The question is, how? How do we seperate the lunatic like the Arizona shooter from the lone recluse who lives down the street who only comes out at night and acts strangely (although he's harmless). How do we, once a system is in effect, stop a neighbor from turning in their next door neighbor for psychiatric analysis when the only problem is they're having a spat?

How do we determine who is, and who is not a threat and how do we deal with it? That question, I think, is unanswerable.

[Uben]

24. My wife is a retired mental health counselor

...and you are quite right, it is unanswerable.

[Katya Mullethov]

34. You are right about Beck and that lot

But you cant just give up the fight , if they bring a knife , you bring a gun . You are gonna have to get in their face ....and punish your enemies.

[sadbear]

27. I agree

Anything we can do to make it easier for those lunatics to kill.

[damntexdem]

30. It has nothing to do with the 2nd Amenement.

It has everything to do with the gun lobby's idiotic interpretations of the 2nd Amendment, and with the ways in which they have distorted gun laws in the U.S. And in Arizona, the changes made in reaction to the gun lobby materially contributed to the tragedy's occurrence.

[Katya Mullethov]

33. Hi

I'm the gun lobby .

[Katya Mullethov]

32. It isnt the second ammendment or guns in particular

They hate me . Which is just fine .

[Name removed]

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