(06-14-2016, 09:21 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: I admit I'm in the dark if there are other, successful cases, but are we that far removed from the Trayvon Martin murder case that we should be encouraging people to shoot threats they determine with no previous training or practice?Agreed. The use of this stuff as a platform for a political agenda is why this happens. America leads in gun related crimes because we have the most guns of any other country on the planet, it stems from our heritage, America and bearing arms is about defending against the coming of a tyrannical government. We fought it off before and the 'need' for guns comes out of that. If the US had the most slingshots, I would bet we would be at the top of slingshot related crimes too, the number per capita and size comparing countries makes things very hard to compare.
I don't know. This whole thing is depressing, and I agree that it shouldn't be used as a platform for politics or agenda. The mass, pointless loss of life drives me a little insane and probably irrational. I don't think the answer is arming everyone though, there's way too many people who'd jump at the chance to play hero and potentially hurt someone else.
Being reactive to hostility means there are always, always going to be casualties. I just wish it was harder for people to go about producing them.
I think the reason we see so much of this, especially in recent times, is because it works. People begin to argue about gun laws, the rights of guns, the rights of people, and before you know it an already divided and sad group is even more so. The goal of terrorism, whether it's of a lone wolf variety or far more organized is to use fear and low cost, asymmetric tactics to harm your adversary and force change that you want via fear.Â
I think we have a ways to go when it comes to our gun control and drug laws, since personally I think punishments and the severity of them are almost completely backwards. The US however will always be a target for this because certain freedoms offer terrible people room to do terrible things, and the US exists at the forefront of almost all media around the world. Movies, TV, music is seen all over, and American culture touches far more people than other cultures tend to touch us. I think the moment we sacrifice freedoms in the face of fear or safety however we've lost even more of what makes us 'us'.
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